67-year-old Nadya Poghosyan, forcibly displaced from Artsakh, will be accompanied by cruel memories for a long time. The woman from Artsakh remembers every episode from the morning of September 19 with great pain. However, she tells Forrights.am that the most painful thing was the way of emigration.
“We traveled for three days. Some were born on the way, some died: whatever we didn’t see on that road!” Nadya Poghosyan tells Forrights.am that she cannot forget the sounds of children crying from hunger.
“There were children in all the cars and they were crying from hunger. We gathered some dry branches, put two stones, lit a fire, kneaded dough on plastic bags, baked bread. A woman approached and said, ‘take this 20,000 drams [about $50], give me two loaves of bread: the children do not keep quiet, they are crying’. I said: do not speak about money, aren’t you ashamed? I took two pieces, gave them to her, said take them, let your children eat. I gave the rest to my grandchildren, I said that we, the elders, will survive somehow without eating. You should have seen how the children were crying in the bus: ‘I’m hungry, I’m hungry!’ “After we passed the Hakari bridge [entering Armenia], we relaxed,” she recalls.
Mrs. Nadya is from Shosh village. She has four sons and 12 grandchildren. On September 19, when the enemy attacked the besieged Artsakh, at that moment she was near a spring not far from the village.
“I went to get water that day. We have a spring in the village called Lal. They started bombing from above. I dropped my containers and said, ‘Hey, my kids are alone at home.’ I came and saw that my daughter-in-law is not at home, I went to my other son’s house. My elder daughter-in-law was not at home either. I went to the countryside under the gunfire, found my children and my daughter-in-law in the basement of the school. At that moment, my little son came and said, ‘Hurry up, we are leaving, the enemy has already entered the village’,” says Mrs. Nadya and describes how the armed enemies were crowding Shosh, inflicting physical injuries on villagers.
“They had already entered the village from Mkhitarashen’s side. I could see how they were coming forward shooting. I told the Russians: help us to get out. They replied that they didn’t give an order to help us. They were shooting at peaceful residents, four people were injured, all four were young boys. One was wounded in the hand, one in the leg, and one in the back. One on a bicycle, the other on a truck, some loaded into a tractor and reached Stepanakert,” says Nadya Poghosyan.
For a week, she took refuge with her daughters-in-law and grandchildren in the basement of one of the restaurants operating in Stepanakert, until her sons reached them from the front line. She says that she did not hear from them for a week because they were under siege.
“My three sons were on the front line, two have been in captivity. The Russians saved them. The other one barely crawled out,” she says.
Mrs. Nadyan lives with her sons and grandsons in Agarak village, Aragatsotn region of Armenia. Every day she thinks about returning to Shosh. Her husband’s grave is located there, which she does not have the opportunity to visit, and one day after our interview is his birthday.
A large family also has social problems. Mrs. Nadya, her sons and grandsons are not included in the support programs of the RA government. The reason is that they had real estate in RA, but they sold it 30 years ago. However, according to Nadya Poghosyan, it was in her husband’s name, they did not change the name for three decades, and now the database shows that they own property whereas they do not have any property.
Narek Kirakosyan
Narek Kirakosyan
Narek Kirakosyan is a journalist, works on the principle of "a person is an absolute value".