The officers claimed that not even journalists could participate in the meeting because they had received an order to not let anyone in. Only the journalists for “HyeLur” were able to take part. While the president Robert Kocharyan and mayor Yervand Zakharyan were having a discussion about some issues, a man was running from one entrance to the other dragging some torn bag. The police officers were not letting him get inside. He begged the officers to let him inside because this was his last opportunity to see the president and the mayor.
“Please, dear girl, tell them to let me in. I am freezing cold,” said the old man. When I explained to him that citizens were not allowed to be present at official meetings, he got depressed and said:
“Who are you? Can’t you help me get inside? I just want to fall down on my knees in front of the president and mayor and beg them to send me to a shelter. If they don’t let me go in now, I can’t come anymore. I don’t know if I will stand the cold. There is so much snow today. I will not survive out on the streets.”
I invited the homeless old man to newspaper edition. He asked for some hot tea and said that he was very cold. He says:
“All I want is for them to send me to a shelter. I have no place to go, I’m homeless, out on the streets. I sleep at stations and the police escorted me out. Now I don’t know where to go.”
His name is Stepan Harutyunyan and he is 76 years old. He says that although he is old, however, he doesn’t “eat off of other people”. If they send him to a shelter, he will work, do agricultural work and will help the shelter with the money that he receives. Stepan Harutyunyan is single and doesn’t have a family. Well, he had two sons but he lost them. Stepan used to live in Gyumri and in 1960, he moved to Kazakhstan with his wife and two sons.
“I just got up and decided that we have to move. We were earning a living. Years later, when the Sumgait events began, the Muslims started to pressure the Christians. One day in Kazakhstan, while I was at work, some Muslims had come to the house and wanted to get rid of my 2 sons. My wife didn’t let them, so they killed her. I came home and saw that my wife was dead and they had taken my two boys.”
Stepan doesn’t know anything about his two sons to this day. He says that they have either escaped or the Muslims have killed them too. An Uzbek helped S. Harutyunyan return to his Homeland. An earthquake took place in Gyumri on December 7, 1988 and Stepan arrived in Gyumri on the 8th. He was living in his brother’s home and working for a salvation office. His brother’s wife kicked Stepan out after a while. Stepan went to Karabagh to take part in the war, but was sent back because he was too old. He was keeping somebody’s sheep for a couple of days in Karabagh so that he can get some money to take to Gyumri. They gave him 10,000 drams. He was able to buy shoes for himself after walking in slippers the whole time. He arrived in Gyumri and was sent to a shelter. Stepan was kicked out of the shelter 15 days ago.
“I went to the municipality in Gyumri. Mayor Vartan Ghukasyan’s vice told me that there were 160 elderly people at the shelter and they didn’t have room for me. He told me that they were remodeling the building and I can’t stay there. Now I have come to Yerevan to beg the municipality to send me to a shelter; I will work and help the shelter,” he says.
Stepan came to Yerevan from Gyumri with an electric train. He has been sleeping in train wagons for the past 15 days. Stepan says that police officers forbid him to spend nights at the stations and now he doesn’t know where to go. “Imagine the situation I am in. I am so poor that I asked for bread from some people yesterday. I can’t live like this,” says Stepan. As Grandpa Stepan left the editorial office, he looked at himself in the mirror for a moment and said to himself: “Oh my God, what have I become? What happened to me?” He left without recognizing himself in the mirror.