Little Vazgen, who is 12 years old, took his big hat down to the eyes to hide his eyes from me. The face that was frozen and the eyes that were staring at one point made him look like an old man. He is the only man in their place, who is hiding in a corner being pressed by poverty and the feeling of being useless. Vigen’s room in the dormitory of Erebuni district of Yerevan seems to be on the same way which leads to mad house too. Everyone went out of the room to invite me in, and after I sat down on a broken armchair, they came in the room again. Haykanush was standing, and her two daughters approached me. It was too cold in the room. The wall looked like a map because of the frozen water leaked down the roof of the fifth floor. As soon as one opens the door, the smell of humidity takes the floor. Vigen settled in a broken armchair, which is his sleeping place too. Haykanush says they have one armchair, which is used for her two daughters to sleep on. “My Vigen and I sleep in this armchair. I put wooden chairs in front of me to have a place for my legs. I put some ropes under my legs in order not to catch cold and live the night. How can I explain it? It is not sleeping; it is torture,” explained Haykanush, but anyway I could not understand how she could make a bed from chairs. Vigen’s look is angry; he has a fight in his eyes. He did not answer my questions and was confused. He was pressing his lips and was very nervous. I asked the kid whether he was waiting for the New Year. He pressed his lip with his teeth and I saw blood on his lips. “No, I am not waiting for the New Year,” he replied. His hands were shaking; I think he was so angry that would kill me with pleasure. Later he flipped out and said, “During every New Year time Santas are coming from the republican and prosperous Armenia parties. They give us presents. I have not had a copybook for studying all the year. I needed only five copybooks. I have always wanted to have it. Every year I used to go down to see if that so-called Santa would at least congratulate me. No, they did not. I have always been standing far; behind everyone. They congratulated everyone and gave presents, and when it was my turn, the presents finished. They could at least approach me and congratulate. This is what the Santas from the republican and prosperous parties look like…” Vigen was so angry that was seeing an enemy in everyone. I told him that he was being very angry. Haykanush was making efforts to smile and said that all her children are a little bit angry and nervous. Seda, 11 years old girl, was sitting there with wet eyes. She says that she has started to cry very often in the recent times because it is very cold and she cannot bear it anymore as she does not have boots. Every day these people quarrel as they are in extreme poverty.
Haykanush Ghukasyan is 39 years old but seems like a 50 years old woman. This family receives 31.500 poverty aids, and pays only 5000 drams for electricity. In the morning and in the evening they turn on the electric heater, and one has to hug that heater to feel the heating. Four years ago this woman felt down near the building and broke her leg down. “They did something wrong. It was cured but my bone is sticky out and I can feel it. I can’t stand long because it hurts. I have to sit to make the pain go away.” She says because of this she cannot find a job. “We live in very bad conditions. I always borrow for bread and later pay for the debts when I receive the aids. Very often we eat only dry bread, and there are times that we don’t have even that bread. We spend all New Year times in the same manner, and sometimes if I can buy some sweets, I buy candies for them to make look like a New Year celebration,” said Haykanush. She did not answer my questions concerning her husband and sked not to ask anything about her private life. The children were looking attentively trying to catch some good word about their father. “We don’t have him,” said Vigen and turned his face from his mother. Vigen hugged his mother’s leg. The room looked like a ground floor with unnecessary items thrown to every corner. The children wear each-other’s clothes and often they go to school by changing with clothes. “My children even fight for a pen; they don’t have copybooks. We live in very bad conditions. My children are angry at me because I cannot buy copybooks for them,” said Haykanush. Little Vigen was biting his lip because of the nervous situation and it seemed he did not want to forgive his mother. He didn’t forgive his mother because he does not have a father. He doesn’t forgive anyone because he does not have a copybook, a heater. He does not forgive his mother because he is the only man in hom, 12 years old child, who cannot do anything to help the others. He does not forgive anyone, that is why when Santas from the Prosperous Armenia or Republican party come he stands far and nobody notices him. “I am 12 years old but I do not remember any New Year. Do you understand me? I don’t need presents; I need people to love me at least a little bit,” flipped out Vigen.
The cold environment of the room brought to silence. In the center of the room there were the frozen questions of Vigen that he had never asked his mother. The only man in home was living with the anger of looking for the man of home but failures all the time because he never found him.