The lives of Marietta and Arthur, a couple living in the village of Voskehat, Armavir region, continue to revolve around their two sons. During the 44-day war, they lost both, Vahe and David, together.
The boys’ parents brought the flowers from their sons’ graves home from the Yerablur cemetery so that they would not spoil in dust of renovation works going on in the cemetery. Not far from the house are the boy’s childhood swings, old and rusty, but Marietta says she wants them always in front of her eyes. The mother of the dead brothers shows the broken glass in one of the windows of the house. She says that her sons have broken it. They broke the glass while playing years ago and now it is also a part of the story about their sons’ lives.
“Wherever I go in my life, no matter what I do, I will carry this glass with me,” she says.
The boys were conscripts, serving in Martuni 3. They were among the 73 soldiers who were sent from Martuni to Hadrut during the war, where they found themselves under siege and were killed. The investigation of the criminal case on this incedent continues. According to Arthur, the investigators recently told him that the case will go to court in two months.
During the investigation, the boys’ parents did not feel that the guilty would be punished. Moreover, the only detainee, the regiment commander Gor Ishkhanyan, was released shortly after being detained, and all subsequent courts refused to make a decision to detain him. “We will fight, we will fight until the end,” says Arthur Tevosyan.
The eldest of the boys was Vahe. He wanted to become a clergyman, he was admitted to the Gevorgyan Seminary in Etchmiadzin, but, after studying for a year, he was disappointed and realized that he had had other ideas about the Seminary. After leaving the school, he enlisted in the army together with his younger brother.
The parents say they were relieved that the boys would be serving together because that way they could take care of each other.
On the first day of the War, David was already on the front lines, and Vahe was in Yerevan, in Nubarashen, where he was training as a sniper. “It was already the 27th of the month [September 27 when the War started], Vahe called and said, ‘Mom, I’m leaving too’. Vahe was very lively. He called at night and said, ‘I have not seen David, but I am only a hundred meters away from him.’ Well, he was a sniper, he was behind the front line. He said he had not seen David, but he was here too. They were calling until the ninth of the month [October], we didn’t talk for long, I was scared,” says the boys’ mother.
David was the first to be found.
“I believed they would come home. I did not imagine for a second that death could take them… On December 5, they said I had to go for a DNA test. Everyone was saying that it was just a routine procedure that was being carried out… David’s ceremony [funeral] took place, but I was still hoping that Vahe would come back. I did not doubt for a second. Especially, since Vahe believed in God so much, I believed so much the death would definitely not take him, at least he would be given to me. But, on February 27, they came and said that they had found Vahe’s body too… They gave me my Vahe… And now they are both in the Yerablur cemetery, side by side. Vahe’s body was complete, but Davit’s was partial. There is a relic from Vahe in Davit’s grave. Vahe is with David eternally. He always wanted to be with David, so they stayed together but left us. Only 10 days were left… They should have come home, but now I would have to go to them,” saysthe mother of the dead boys.
Ani Gevorgyan