86-year-old Yeena Mikaelyan’s husband, 88-year-old Artyusha Mikaelyan, was killed on September 19, on the way of his escape from the village of Sznek, when the residents were trying to reach the village of Khachmach through the forests. Artyusha Mikaelyan’s body arrived in Armenia 10 days after the occurrence. Relatives identified him by the tattoo on his hand, as the body was almost unrecognizable.
Mrs. Yelena remembers that when the war began, they were all at home and were goinmg to eat. Her son, Ararat, was on duty at the positions of the village of Karmir. “My grandson, Artur, was at the positions of Verin Sznek; we didn’t know what to do. My daughter-in-law couldn’t find her place from anxiety. We had cars in the yard, but there was no man to take us out of the village. Our neighbor came home and said that the enemy was approaching, we had to leave,” she said. When the shelling of the village of Sznek began, Yelena, her husband, and daughter-in-law, Angela, left the house without taking anything with them. “We barely managed to leave the house in slippers and home clothes, and headed towards the forests to secretly reach the village of Khachmach. We didn’t want to leave our house; I kept saying, ‘If they’re going to kill us, let them kill us in my house.’”
We found a walking stick in the forest so that we could at least move forward
Yelena still remembers the approximately 7 km journey she had to walk and loose her husband. “A soldier was helping my husband and me so that we could walk. After a while, my husband said that if I went ahead, he would come, he had to help his 90-year-old sister.” Yelena separates, finds a piece of wood in the forest and goes ahead, somehow catching up with the other villagers.
When they almost reach the village of Khachmach, one of the soldiers from the village reports that the enemy will soon enter the village, there is no time, they need to quickly reach Stepanakert in the available vehicles. “There were already four people in the back of the car, and two in the front. We somehow got settled, my daughter-in-law was standing on one leg. We could no longer enter Khachmach; we went to the village of Karmir. There were shelters there.”
Grandmother Yelena says that she constantly wondered where her husband was and what had happened to them. “We had no information about what had happened to my husband and that soldier who was accompanying him. We had no news from anyone — not from my son, not from my grandson. Only after arriving in Stepanakert, I heard that my grandson had somehow escaped captivity, and my son was alive and well, but there was no news from my husband.”
10 days after September 19, when Yelena’s sons and relatives were searching for Artyusha’s body in hospitals and morgues in Armenia, Yelena’s son received a call and someone said in Russian that Artyusha’s body was being sent to Armenia, and that the soldier had been captured. The forensic examination found that Artyusha Mikaelyan had received a fatal blow to the temple. “Who did my husband do any harm that they killed him and left him in the middle of the forest? We somehow recognized the body because it had been in the morgue for a long time,” says Yelena.
Yelena’s youngest son Ararat recognized his father’s body. When asked how, he answers with a long pause: “I recognized my father by his home clothes.”
The only memento left of Artyusha Mikaelyan is the heart stent device, which was given to relatives after the autopsy.
I sewed my wedding dress myself. I remember our wedding day very well
Yelena and Artyusha were spouces for more than 60 years. During their life together, four children were born to the family. Their eldest son, Grisha, was killed during the First Artsakh War, and their youngest son, Ararat, participated in all wars, was seriously wounded during the 44-Day War near the village of Sznek, and on September 19, 2023, he remained under siege, then reached Stepanakert with the help of Russian peacekeepers.
Yelena misses her life in the village, which, despite the wars and losses, was peaceful. She says that a month before the 44-Day War, she celebrated her 60th wedding anniversary. “The children surprised us; took us to Stepanakert and organized an event. Our daughters-in-law said that we had come to celebrate our “diamond wedding”. Who would have thought that in a month there would be a war and we would leave our homes,” says Yelena.
Her memories with her husband are warm, but she remembers their wedding day better, when she was 21 years old and her husband was 24. Yelena is a seamstress by profession and took on the role of designer of the wedding dress herself. “I sewed such a dress that I could wear on other occasions as well.” With smooth movements of her hands, grandmother Yelena shows in the air the folds of the dress, the belt, the flowers of the dress and the veil. Her husband, Artyusha, worked as a teacher in the village of Karmir for many years, then in Sznek. She says that she has only memories of her husband, even photos were left at home. She only has a few photos of her husband. The last time they photographed grandpa Artyusha was on his birthday, in the yard of their house. “It was as if my heart felt something, but I didn’t understand what,” says Yelena’s daughter-in-law, Alvard.
The Mikayelyan family reunites in Stepanakert. Yelena finds her daughter, Astghik, living there, and meets her son and grandson later. On September 24, the Mikayelyan family leaves Stepanakert by car and settles in Vanadzor. Yelena has not yet adjusted to the new apartment. She says, “I left my home, I came here to live within four walls; how can I adapt?”
Shushanik Papazyan
