Four families live in the Nerkin Charbakh kindergarten. The villagers know those families and say that they are homeless people. They show the kindergarten and say “Go see whether or not one can live like animals. It turns out that he can. Man is more clever than an animal.”
The kindergarten is located near the “Surp Khach” (Holy Cross) church built recently. The church will be open in the summer and the owners are going to get rid of the homeless people in the area because that area is located near the church. There is a half-constructed building on the right side of the church and it reminds you of an ancient public restroom. That is the kindergarten. Five year old Serozhik opened the door after the first knock. He walks carefully because he is afraid to fall in one of the slabs on the floor. There is a 1-2 meter depth in the slabs. The kid took us to see his mother Marine; then he took a cup of coffee on the heater and drank it all by himself. I ask him:
“You are still a little boy. Why are you drinking surtch (coffee in Armenian)?”
“It’s not surtch, it’s coffee. I drink it when I get hungry and it satisfies my hunger,” he says.
Marine’s mom used to work as a collective farmer during the Soviet Union. Back then, collective farmers were given a place to stay in the kindergarten building. Marine and her family live there to this day.
Marine and Nver are husband and wife and they are both 29 years of age. Nver washes cars for a living. If he is offered to wipe the snow, he agrees to wipe snow off people’s roofs for 200 drams. The whole house is full of dried cow dung.
“Our neighbors have cows. We clean the cow dung, bring it to our house in the summer and wait for it to dry so we can get warm in the winter. We help them out by cleaning the dung and get warm during the winter,” says Nver.
Nver says that they have been warned that they will be “kicked out” as soon as the church opens up and that that building belongs to the church. Although some guy named Khachik Vartanyan has promised to provide them with a place to stay, however, the residents don’t believe in that.
“We don’t know who Khachik Vartanyan is; he is probably the sponsor for the church. But he was the one that told us,” says Nver.
Serozhik’s sister Anahit is in the 2nd grade. She says:
“I don’t do well in school; I have a 2 (D) in math.” Anahit is cold but doesn’t wear warm clothes. Her parents say:
“They’re not cold. They’re used to it. They’ve been through worse than this.”
It is extremely dark in the house, but they don’t turn on electricity because:
“The bill was too much this month-2000 drams. They will come and turn it off and if we turn it on, then we will be left without money.”
Honorable Grandma Azniv milking the cows
Another resident of the kindergarten building is 78-year old Grandma Azniv (her name means honest) from Gyumri. She says:
“Anyone from Gyumri is honest and has pride. It’s in our blood.”
Grandma Azniv lives alone and she suffers from loneliness. She brought a cat into the home and named it Nanul. She lives with Nanul and takes care of the cat. Azniv has suffered a heart attack two times.
“The loneliness is killing me. The other day at the store, someone told me that our neighbor’s son had died. It hurt me so much that I started crying right there in the store; it was embarrassing. Someone might have asked me if I was related to the boy or something. I am very sensitive and I get heartfelt when I hear things like that.”
Grandma Azniv also worked as a collective farmer and they also provided her with a place to stay at the kindergarten building. She says that although she was young at the time, they trusted her with milking the cows. She reminisces:
“They took me to see the cows. I got scared at first sight, thinking how I was going to treat these huge animals so that they wouldn’t run over me. I took the risk and that’s how I learned how to milk.”
Azniv has been named the honorable woman that milks the cows.
“I have two certificates. I used to hang them on the walls, but the walls are humid and I don’t hang them up so as not to ruin them. They are in a folder. I can show them if you don’t believe me.”
Grandma Azniv came to Yerevan with her husband Yasha 34 years ago. They came so that they could help raise their son here. Their son was a dancer in the State Ensemble. Years ago, the boy and the dance ensemble members went to Dilijan to celebrate. The next day, Grandma Azniv found out that her son is dead. They told her that it was an accident; the boy had fell in a canyon and died. Grandma Azniv doesn’t believe that.
The walls of Grandma Azniv’s house have been separated from one another after the earthquake. The wind blows in between the cracks. There is cow dung spread out near the bed. The fire in the heater slowly goes out, but she can’t bend down to turn it on. She says:
“They took out my appendix. I had problems with my back. My neighbor Nver used to call an ambulance, but I couldn’t stand being in the hospital. The third time an ambulance truck came, the doctor told me that he was taking me to the hospital whether I liked it or not because I was in a really bad condition.” They did an operation for free.
“They did everything for free, honestly. The doctors there were very generous. I have stomach problems again, but I will never go back to the hospital. Why do I need to? I am old as it is. If my Yasha was alive, I wouldn’t be living here. I wouldn’t be like this. Do you know what kind of husband my husband was? I am an old woman, my child, you might come here tomorrow and see me dead. You should see how Shahen and his family are living. You won’t even risk entering the home.”
They broke his chest in jail
We took Grandma Azniv’s advice and went to check out Shahen’s home. Shahen lives in the kindergarten building but everyone in Nerkin Charbakh knows him and his family. Shahen is pale and there are bruises on his face. Shahen lives with his wife and four children in a home that looks like a prison cell. His wife Armenuhi tells the story: the family was barely making ends meet before their 3rd child was born. Shahen stole a chicken from somebody’s house and was sentenced to 7 years in prison. After staying in jail for four years in Artik, he was released but he is not able to enjoy his long-awaited freedom because he needs to be treated. Some prisoners started a fight and beat Shahen so badly that they broke his chest. He barely made it out of jail. His lungs make breathing hard and he suffocates when he coughs. Shahen doesn’t allow his wife to talk about his life in prison with others. Two of his 4 children have problems with speaking and one barely speaks at all. American benefactors have sent a specialist to work with the kids. Lilit, the smallest child, is six years old and can barely speak. Armenuhi says that she used to speak.
“One night, Shahen and my brother-in-law were arguing. They started to shout. Lilit was asleep; when they started to yell, she woke up shocked. She was so shocked that she lost her ability to speak.”
Nerkin Charbakh is in the Shengavit community and the kindergartens belong to the quarter-municipality. We wanted to find out what the future holds for the kindergarten we visited, so we asked the secretary of the head of the Shengavit community Arbak Abrahamyan. He didn’t answer any of our questions due to the fact that we had written an article in one of our previous editions talking about the amounts of money that the community’s budget has provided for him.
P.S. Press Secretary of the Ararat Patriarchal Wing Eliza Manukyan told us that that is not a kindergarten, but a club which has been given to the church with the decision made by the community’s alderman council members.