Elina Aghabekyan started working at the window workshop. She measures and cuts the glasses, prepares the frames, and then delivers them to the customer. She is engaged in this work to take care of the needs of six minor children. In a conversation with Forrights.am, she says that she cannot find a job that can be combined with childcare.
“I work with my husband in a glass workshop. My husband cuts it, I wash it, collect it, we deliver it,” she says.
33-year-old Elina Aghabekyan is a mother of 6 minor children. There are 12 people in the family: herself, her husband, six children, her husband’s mother, her parents and her aunt. They live in a rented house in the village of Mkhchyan, Ararat region of Armenia. The only income of the family is Elina’s and her husband’s small salariesy, the salary of her mother-in-law, a cleaner, and the support given by the state, which is delayed for months.
“It happens that the two of us get 5, 6, 7, or even 8 thousand drams a day [from $13 to $21]. We go early in the morning; we come back at 1 AM or 2 AM. Tonight, for example, we came at four o’clock [AM], but we did not receive more than eight thousand drams. I don’t get paid: it’s my husband’s job; I go, I help so that no one else is brought in, the money is not shared,” Elina tells Forrights.am and notes that it’s hard work, glass shards often end up in her fingers.
“It’s not a woman’s job, but what should I do? There is no job. You work in the shop from morning to night, they give you 90,000 drams [about $230] a month,” she says.
The salary barely is enough for food, she says; feeding six children three times a day is not an easy task.
“We pay 200,000 drams for rent. Today, I mortgaged the last piece of gold we own so that I could pay the rent for this month. When you called, I was mortgaging the gold at that moment,” she said.
In her free time, Elina is looking for their house in Stepanaert on the Internet. She tells with pain that the enemy turned the building where they lived into a mess: they threw out the property of her house, and she does not know what is happening inside. They spent hard days in Artsakh, but happy moments prevail in their memories. If they have the chance, they will go back, she sais, even on foot.
September 19 was cruel for everyone and for them as well.
“Around 10 o’clock in the morning, I heard a loud sound. I was afraid. The children were at school, my husband has taken up the positions, there was no gas in the car, my little one, a half month old child, iwass in my arms, I was thinking what to do. At 11 o’clock it happened again. I called my husband, he was unavailable. I called my son, he hanged up. I wrote a letter asking him to come home. The children arrive home and the fight begins. I am grateful that my children reached home,” she says and tells how she searched for her soldier husband among the wounded and corpses for days.
“There was no word from my husband: I was calling, he was unavailable. On the morning of the 20th of the month, they said that Levon was injured. I looked for him in hospitals, but couldn’t find him. The next day, his friends came to express their condolences for his being killed. On the 21st of the month, I got up early in the morning and went to the morgue. I asked them to open the refrigerator, but they didn’t open it, saying let a man come for this purpose. I told them that he doesn’t have a father or a brother; I was all he’s got. I entered. There was no light. I looked for my husband with the light of the phone. I couldn’t find him,” she recalls.
Elina risked her life to get any news from her husband: she came under fire from the Azerbaijanis, they shot on her direction.
“On the 24th of the month, I found out the location of the house of one of the servicemen serving with him. I went there, it was outside the city. There were already Azerbaijanis in that area: they were entering the city from that side. I went to the friend’s house. They started shooting at the car. I stopped the car and jumped into the woods. When they say ‘we have passed through the fight, it was exactly like that. They shot the car. I entered the friend’s house and say that his wife was sitting with her children and cryingThey didn’t have have any information from their husband and father. I took them with me and, somehow, we managed to get to the city. Then my brother calls and says, ‘Come, Levon called.’ After staying for several days, he and his two friends were able to get out of the siege of the Turks,” she says.
We will present the fighting path of Elina’s husband, Levon, in our next publications.
Narek Kirakosyan
Narek Kirakosyan
Narek Kirakosyan is a journalist, works on the principle of "a person is an absolute value".