“Mom, mom did you bring the candies we wanted?”, asks everybody and runs after her even older handbag.
This is this only lucky day when Laura goes to get the children’s financial support money. The confused face of the 45-year old women, which wanders in remote distance, tells about her and family life. Laura’s husband, 48-year old Volodia Shirinyan, divides his past life into two periods – “normal people” and “refugees”. They were normal people when they used to live with 76-year old Nora Gyurjyan in the village of Mirzik of Khanlar region of Azerbaijan. The war made them step into the next period, where they became refugees.
“I have fought in the Askeran regiment since 1989. My mother temporarily lived in Stepanakert. I married Laura in 1994 and we moved to Martakert”, says Volodia.
The Shirinyans used to live in one of the suburbs of Martakert – special neighborhood built for refugees.
“Many people didn’t make it and left for Russia and many moved here. Who knows? War might restart, there is the border, right there”, says mother Nora.
The spouses count their debts. They can’t survive with the children’s 23000 AMD financial support and 8000 AMD of mother Nora’s pension. “We take stuff from the store on credit and already have a 83000 AMD debt. We bake bread of two sacks of flour monthly. We forget about buying clothes and shoes, we wear what neighbors give us”, says Laura.
No one works in the family. Volodia’s kidneys are sick; Laura had the last three kids by Caesarian cut. After that surgery she worked hard and as a result now has a stomach gap. Mother Nora says that she is the healthiest in the family and is ready to do any hard work for the children. In summer she goes to work in other’s gardens and makes 1000 or 2000 AMD a day.
Three year old Gayane shows us around their house. The child can hardly walk. Her torn apart slippers make it difficult for her to walk. It’s even possible to see the little girl’s white toes through the slippers. The so-called bedroom windows are replaced by paper and polyethylene. The dark room gets even darker because of that. Gayane’s eyes shine in desperate darkness. She says that they all sleep on three broken beds.
10-year old Mery, 9-year old Nune and 8-year old Lusine are coming back from school. Norayr approaches his dad and asks to hug him. The son can hardly raise his hands. The tragedy knocked at the door of this tragic family one more time when Norayr was two years old. He fell down in a bowl full of hot milk and had a scald near his heart. “God helped us to save my child”, says the mother. “And now we have to do the second surgery but how can we do that when we don’t have enough money? They want 50000 AMD to give him a disabled status”.
The greatest problem of the family is winter. A truck of wood costs 50000 drams. It is a dream for this family. Mother Nora says that there is no forest nearby otherwise she would get wood for the kids. Laura says that it’s very difficult to take care of this many children and doesn’t know how to live. They live in Martakert, which is the most suffered region after the war.
In Karabagh the state allots financial support to the families, which have more than three children. The money is deposited in the bank: $1000 are given for the fourth child, $1500 for the 5th and $2000 for the sixth. It is possible to spend that money only after the child is 18 years old. Before that the parents receive only certain percentage of the deposited money. The Shirinyans receive only 10000 AMD as percentage for the three children and ask themselves: “What can be done with this money?”
There are no fancy tables laid in the Shirinyans’ house on New Year’s Eve and the children don’t receive presents. They just turn off the lights and go to bed. Whether it be new or old year nothing changes in their lives.
Recently a charitable organization gave a cow to the Shirinyans but according to the contract they signed they are not allowed to slay or sell the cow over the period of one and a half years. The family couldn’t remember the name of the organization, which gave them the cow.
There are dusty books and note-books on the window sill. Mary says, “These are dad’s books. He speaks both English and Indian”. Volodia opens the books and reads. He shows us the translations done from Indian. He said he had been self-educated when they were “normal people”.
“I’m a skeptical person although my poems say vice versa. But what does life do to us? What shall I believe in? What shall I hope for?”, he says and reads the poem about lost hopes.
Mother Nora confesses that sometimes Volodia gets drunk because of his grief. At that time he picks the pen and writes, “I’m unable to take care of my family, when my blood simmers in my veins I take the pen and write. White sheets of paper are my palms, where my poems are born”.
Nune opens the note-book of poems and reads, “Light is hope and it will guide us out of hell”.