Liana is 14 and now she is lonely and the complex doesn’t allow her to communicate with other people. She is afraid of people now… Once she woke up and understood that her mother had left her. The little child is surprised and confused so much that when she speaks her hand and body are shaking. She can’t believe that she is an orphan now. “I have a brother too, his name is Armen. We were living at Gnuni street, we were renting an apartment, and my mother was working as a waitress in Goris city. She couldn’t pay the money, and the landlord made us leave. My mother took us to her friend Angela’s place and asked her to keep us for two days. She asked her to keep us and told that she was going to look for a new apartment,” says the little child. When she speaks her voice trembles and slowly comes down because her mother promised to come back in two days but never returned. Seven months have passed since that day. Their mother disappeared and left her children at her friend’s place, who cannot bear the load of keeping the children any more. “I have four little children, I can’t keep two more children. We have been waiting so long and hoped that she would return, but there is no hope any more. Now I see that she has left her children. She asked me to keep her children for two days until she finds an apartment, but almost one year has passed and she doesn’t want to come back and take her children,” says the woman. Liana listened to her and bowed her head down on her knees in a corner of the dormitory room. She doesn’t want to believe that Angela will take them to orphanage one day. I asked the child about her father. “My father? I don’t know, I haven’t seen him, he died before I was born. He died one day before my birthday,” says the girl. She left the school at sixth class because when the school administration asked for documents her mother did not bring anything. The child and her brother were living at the rented apartment alone because her mother visited them rarely, almost once a month. “I was dreaming of getting education and becoming a good person, but now I can’t even dream of that. Now I am only dreaming of my mother come back and not abandon us. I am afraid of being alone. How we will live, where will we be taken? I can’t bear that, I am thinking of that all day long. My brother and I were left alone…” Liana sits in a corner and looks at Angela with sad face and it seems she is asking not to take them to orphanage. Armen is 11 and she only sleeps at Angela’s place because he says that he leaves the place early in the morning and comes back late at night, he looks for his mother. No one knows where he looks for his mother. Armen spends most part of his day in streets. “We don’t know where he goes,” says Liana. She says that Armen can’t get used to the idea of being abandoned. The little guy bums in streets without money and food, he believes that he can return his mother. We asked Liana whether her mother might be in Goris city. “No, she is not there, we have called and asked. Tell us that she will not leave us, tell us we will not become orphans,” said Liana. The complex of loneliness has brought to shock. Angela says, “I will have to give them under the state protection. Let them take the children to special school, poor children… They are going mad due to waiting so long. I will wait till the 30th and will give them to the state.” Liana’s mother, Gohar is 37 and doesn’t have any documents. Liana says that even if they ask the police it will be difficult to find Gohar because she does not have documents.
Angela’s room is at the dormitory of the former tire factory. This room has only 3-4 square meters. The children have got used to the smell of wet clothes hanging from the wall and little heater. Liana was hiding from me behind a wet cloth hanging from the wall. She was hiding in a small corner and crying silently not to let anyone notice her presence, she was hiding. There are two broken armchairs without legs in the room. I tried to understand where the six children could sleep in that smallest place. Definitely Armen and Liana sleep on the floor, where there is no place even to walk. The conditions are very bad and awful. The living conditions were so bad that I did not even manage to ask what the children eat.
