“Everything happened quickly in our life. Falling in love happened quickly, engagement happened quickly… everything ended quickly too.” Anzhelika Sarkisova, who lost her husband Mher Khyusnunts during the gas station explosion in Stepanakert on September 25, cannot hold back her tears while speaking.
The young woman who was forcibly displaced from Artsakh now lives on rent in Yerevan with her young son and mother and notes with pain that it turns out that no matter what happens, life goes on.
“I was studying political science in Stepanakert, I also was engaged in music, at the same time I started working on a website, then I opened an online store, which is still there. Before I got married, I was doing it, after I got married, I started doing it with my husband. I delivered it myself, then my husband started delivering. It was love at first sight for us. I was trying to park my car, he saw, started helping me and giving advice. His smile, his look… I fell in love with his smile. It turned out to be my brother-in-law’s friend. Then we started seeing each other regularly in different places. That’s how it all started,” says Anjelika. According to her, their engagement took place immediately after the 44-Day War.
“During the 44-Day War, I was in Armenia with my relatives. Well, all our men and boys stayed in Artsakh. When the war ended, he came back after me. That’s when he proposed marriage. He came at night and surprised me putting a ring on my finger. It was a fairy tale… two months later we got married in Stepanakert. We got married and started living together. The two of us built the house little by little.”
For years, Mher was involved in demining, scouting areas, but during the siege of Artsakh, he decided to join the military.
“During the siege, he would wake up early in the morning because there was no light, turn on the stoves and go to work. Everything was either expensive or not there, but we knew what we had to endure for. We drank coffee with peas. We thought that a person can endure anything, it won’t be like this forever… Rumors spread that Azerbaijanis will enter everyone’s houses soon and wherever they find military uniforms, it will be bad… People started to take off their clothes and burn them in garbage cans. A terrible panic had begun… At that time, my husband was in the positions. There was no news; the men were surrounded. It was a terrible situation. Then they were taken out with the help of the Russians. When they came, we started giving each other hope. And since then, the search for fuel began,” the woman says.
Remembering the last hours spent with her husband, Anjelika says: “It was the morning of that day: we drank coffee, we started to collect things at home. He was sitting. He looked around with wet eyes and said: we have worked so much for all of this, now we are leaving. I said: don’t worry, wherever we go, we will create our own comfort. I had never seen him so upset. We hugged each other… he said no matter what, just remember: I I have lived fully all these three years… I got a call that there was gasoline at the gas station; he left with my brother-in-law… then we heard that there was an incident.”
Angelika first learned that her husband is in Khojaly hospital in the intensive care unit, but it was not easy to find him. When they found him, he was the only one in the hospital, he was the last to be taken to Yerevan by helicopter.
“Mher’s friend took us out of Artsakh and brought us to Yerevan. I reached Mher at the Hematology Center in Yerevan; I saw him. I was going back to our temporary home when they called me and said Mher is no more,” says the woman.
Angelika’s mother, Marina Sarkisova, says that she was always afraid for her daughter not to have the same fate as hers. “I was displaced from Baku… Then I saw the earthquake in Gyumri… We moved to Artsakh; the First War started and my husband died. I already had my eldest daughter and I was pregnant with Angelika… maybe in 30-50 years Armenians and Azerbaijanis will be able to live side by side, but now I can’t imagine that… After so much tragedy, what kind of neighborly relations can we talk? Perhaps several generations will have to pass for that.”
Ani Gevorgyan