It seems as though nobody is surprised to hear about families that are
living in a social/economic crisis. However, Eteri Pilaur’s family
differs from the rest. This family has been living without electricity
for the past five years. If they want to cook something, they just cook
it on the fire wood in the balcony of their home.
Georgian Armenian Eteri Pilaur moved to Armenia from Tbilisi with her
family in 1956 when she was only three years ago. The family has lived
in a rented home for a couple of years and since 1967, they live in one
of the 5 story buildings located on Moldovian street in the Nor Nork
community. Eteri has worked in a shoe factory with her mother. Today,
she is unemployed. “I was making shoes for the soldiers so that now
they can kick me out of work with those shoes,” says Eteri’s 81 year
old pensioner mother Rosa Adamyan.
Their one bedroom house is pretty small-there is one bed, some chairs,
an old drawer and some shelves. There are many different books and
newspapers spread across the room. Both Eteri and her mother love to
read books. They also like to occupy themselves with horoscopes. Their
family has been living without electricity for the past five years.
According to Eteri, she was the one who turned off their electricity.
“I felt that they were stealing our electricity, so I decided to turn
it off completely,” she says. They are forced to “get along” and sleep
under the candle light. “At night, when it gets dark, we light the
candle, read and write with that light. But we have not lost our mental
abilities because of the electricity,” says Eteri Pilaur proudly. They
also don’t have a telephone in the house. When the telephone bill went
up to 600 dram about 8 years ago, Eteri could not make the payments
anymore. However, there is more awkwardness to this family. Without any
electricity, gasification, the family is forced to cook its meals by
lighting a fire in the balcony of their 4th floor home. “We make the
coffee one day and drink it for two days. What can I say about the
food? How can I prepare it?” says Eteri. “I often go buy the old bread
that needs to be thrown away and we eat that. Or we just eat raw
flour…but raw flour is not that tasty.” They have no money. Eteri
doesn’t work and the family lives on the 10,000 dram pension. However,
her mother has not received her pension for 10 months due to the fact
that she has not received her social security card based on religious
beliefs. As a result, they live not only without electricity, but also,
without any food. As for their neighbors, they not only don’t help them
out, but also, they prefer to have nothing to do with them. Despite the
fact that she lives in a rough situation, that doesn’t stop Eteri from
taking part in the political life. “There has been a day when I went to
a political summit. I paid money for transportation and we starved,’
says Eteri and adds: “I have a 2,900 debt. I told the debtor to wait
for a while. When I get that money, I will pay. I don’t like to tell a
lie, but I don’t know if I will get that money or not.” Although she
participates in the meetings with the opposition, she can not cast her
vote in the elections. The reason for that is that both Eteri and her
mother have not changed their red color passports remaining from the
Soviet Union. They don’t plan on doing that either. Their situation
gets worse when winter comes because they have nothing to warm
themselves with. Eteri tells us that her mother collects wood, old
scraps and they make a fire in their balcony in order to keep warm some
way. “There have been nights when we have not had any water, the water
has gone cold and has turned into ice. When mother got really thirsty,
she used to take those blocks of ice, put them in her mouth, keep them
there for a while and then throw out the ice-that’s how she and I used
to solve that issue,” says Eteri as she recalls the cold days of
winter. However, the worst is to take baths in the winter. “The only
way for us to take baths in the winter is to collect scraps, wood, heat
the water for a while and then take a bath. If we can not heat the
water, we take a bath in cold water. One day, I was bathing my mother
and she cried-not from despair, but rather, from the extremely cold
water,” says Eteri as she gives the details of their extraordinary
life.
Despite their hard lifestyle, Eteri considers herself to be happy. “We
are not in despair. We are ready to face any challenge because we are
an Aryan tribe and the Aryan tribe must fight and overcome the
obstacles. We are not ones to give up,” she says.