The never-ending world
My terrible days, my mournful days,
People are lively, always judging,
Life has turned into hell and
People have turned into cheaters all around.
My aging heart is trembling,
Trembling from the fear of this miserable life,
I want to escape from this world,
I want to live in the depth of the sea
In the depth of the forest
So I won’t see what’s going on in this senseless world,
This good-for-nothing world.
“I want to live in the depth of the sea”. These were the words written by 20-year old Gevorg Tsatinyan, who found himself in the depth of the sea after the mysterious A-320 plane crash during the Yerevan-Sochi flight on May 3. His body hasn’t been found to this day. Gevorg’s mother Mrs. Gohar found Gevorg’s poetry notebook just a couple of days ago. Sanasar, Gevorg’s father who works in Moscow and hadn’t seen his son for two and a half years, had organized a big party that day with his friends to welcome his son at the Sochi airport.
“I have many friends there, I have been working there for many years now. Everyone knew that my son was coming and we wanted to make it special. We were very happy as we made our way to the Adler airport,” says Gevorg’s father, who was waiting for his son with a couple of friends hours before the plane crash.
Due to the late arrival of the plane, Sanasar called the Adler airport on his cell-phone and found out that the plane would arrive in ten minutes. He got the same answer a couple of times. Later, they didn’t reply. At 3:00 a.m., when the airport closed down and many policemen gathered, Sanasar’s “feet got weak” from the panicking. He was trying to get some information from somewhere.
“Hold on, Sano, the plane has experienced the worst thing. Hold on…”
After a long night, when the relatives of the victims were going insane, Sanasar couldn’t take it anymore, rented a motorboat and went in search of his son’s body.
“I would see someone’s arm, someone’s eye, someone else’s clothes, backpack, feet and kept on praying to God to let me at least see a “part” of my son’s dead body,” he says. He probably didn’t thank God later on because all he found was Gevorg’s military registration booklet, which smelled of fuel. Sanasar saw his dead son’s military registration booklet for the first time that day because Gevorg had ended his military service months before. He hadn’t seen his father back then either.
In the army
I serve in the army,
I sometimes sit and think and
Remember the past.
One day I got sad,
Put words about my life on paper,
I wrote about how I am living and
How I am serving for nothing…
They give me only one loaf of
Black, dry bread,
They give us margarine and
Syrup on holidays,
It’s not enough for everyone.
Oh, when will the two years pass?
One day I’m dirty, one day I’m wet,
Hungry since morning,
The letter comes already read and the money gone,
I dream of eating at home.
I have nothing to write and I’ll go eat wheat,
I think for a moment,
I’ll be a timekeeper.
Don’t worry mom and dad,
The months will go by fast.
“He was serving in Balahovit. We used to see him from time to time during his service, but he hadn’t seen his dad. He really missed him; all he thought about was going to see him in Moscow,” says Mrs. Gohar, who is so surprised and shocked after her son’s death that it seems as though she can’t really fit in this world. She found a poem that Gevorg had written dedicated to his father, which he had written while serving in the army.
My dear friend…
I saw a dream last night and an image in a dream.
I forgot that image before waking up.
My dear friend, I saw you in my dream,
I miss you and remember you.
When will you come to see me so we won’t miss each other?
My dear friend, my term is almost over,
There’s not much left, we will see each other soon and be together.
Gevorg was studying at the World Economy department of the Gladzor University and was going to continue his junior year upon returning from the army. Mrs. Gohar remembers how Gevorg was before his death-he had changed. She says that he was bitter, irritated and uncomfortable. She believes that that had to do with the longing to see his dad.
“He was very sad and uncomfortable; something was going on in his inner world. I was thinking that maybe he would go and talk it out with his dad, but now I understand that he simply had a bad feeling about something.”
Gevorg was really sad a couple of days before leaving for Sochi. His mother believes that perhaps he had a bad feeling, especially since he had been expressing negative thoughts about life in general. Mrs. Gohar remembers how Gevorg bid farewell to his relatives in a mysterious way before leaving for Sochi; he even conciliated with whom he had bad relations. Each of Gevorg’s friends from the university bid him farewell that day and took pictures of him with their cell-phones.
“He told me, ‘Mom, they’ll bring you the photos later’. He surprised me, because this wasn’t the first time he was leaving the country. But this time it was more like a parting. He gave me a photograph and said ‘Mom, this photograph of me looks like one for a funeral’. He was supposed to come in August so he would start school in September,” says Mrs. Gohar.
Gevorg showed his mother pictures of his girlfriend, kept on hugging and kissing Mrs. Gohar. Before getting on the plane, he came back and hugged her again.
“He was swaying to and forth as if he didn’t know where he was going. He was tempered. Gevorg was born after the death of my two sons. We blessed him with the name of Saint Gevorg and we bought our house near the Saint Gevorg church so that it would be our guardian,” says Mrs. Gohar as she fights back the tears. She wanted to tell us all she could about Gevorg, but said that that was not half of the story. She took out a piece of paper from the notebook on which Gevorg had drew a picture of a cross, an eye of a woman crying and a big house-something which he has always dreamed of. Mrs. Gohar says that she has always feared for her son Gevorg, has always taken care of him, but she has always had the fear of losing him.
“Everything has crossed my mind. I have been afraid of many things with the fear of losing him, but it never crossed my mind that he would die in a plane crash. When I took Gevorg to the airport, we were waiting there until the plane arrived and let him pass. After a while, the plane arrived and I was surprised to see it. The plane didn’t look that good to me; that was the first time I was seeing a plane with red and blue colors. I felt bad, but I didn’t want to let Gevorg know. Then, as he was submitting his documents and moving forward, I wanted to yell to him to be careful, but I could no longer see him because he went too forward. After all, a mother’s heart always has the right feeling.”
Sanasar says that he was against Gevorg leaving for Sochi because he had advised him to concentrate on his studies and leave after graduation.
“I don’t know, perhaps some inner force motivated him to come to Sochi. There wasn’t even any visa in the passport. He had got on the plane with the help of some of my friends. He had asked them to give stamp his passport. Gevorg had argued while buying the ticket after hearing that there may not be any tickets, but he was happy when he bought it.”
Mrs. Gohar says that before Gevorg left, she warned him not to go to sea alone with the fear of losing him, not to drive a car, but today Sochi has turned into a cemetery for Gevorg’s parents.