Knar Babayan

57 homes in the town of Martakert (Artsakh) were damaged due to Azerbaijani shelling in the recent round of fighting along the Line of Contact.

The Grigoryan family home is one of seven listed as heavily damaged. An artillery shell crashed through the roof and exploded, destroying everything inside. Manya Grigoryan says her husband and three sons managed to flee the building a mere ten minutes before the shell hit. That day, Mrs. Grigoryan was the doctor on call at the local hospital.

“When we heard the first blasts, I immediately telephoned my husband and told him to get the boys out somehow without waking them. The firing intensified. I never thought it would get so serious. My husband called the next morning, asking if he should send the boys to school,” Mrs. Grigoryan told Hetq.

Varazdat, Manya’s husband, says that someone started to bang on the door in the middle of the night.

“Startled, I wondered who it could be. If they were the neighbors, they would have called out my name. It was around three in the morning. I entered the yard and saw that the lower portion of the town was in flames. I heard explosions in the distance. I waited until 6 a.m. and then took the animals to the herdsman and returned home. Soon after, they started to shell our neighborhood. In the confusion and smoke, we didn’t notice that one of the shells had hit our house,” said Varazdat.

Manya took the two youngest boys to her mother’s house in a neighboring village. Boris, her 17 year-old, is helping his father and the repairmen repair the roof. Boris begins his military service in two months.

“I’m not afraid of the Turks and will perform my duty with the rest,” Boris said.

Varazdat and Boris are now staying with a neighbor whose husband died in the Artsakh War of the early 1990s.

Artak Beglaryan, a spokesman for the Artsakh prime minister, told Hetq that the government not only will rebuild the damaged houses but also compensate residents for their material losses.

After Martakert, repair work will start in Mataghis. The damage done in Talish is still being evaluated,” Beglaryan said.

The seven-member family of Nourvard Movsisyan, a teacher in Mataghis, is now residing in a Stepanakert hotel. Scores of families evacuated from Mataghis, Talish and Martakert have been sheltered there as well.

Even though living in hotels, the evacuees are quick to offer visitors tea or coffee, as tradition dictates. Most fled with just the clothes they were wearing.

Mrs. Movsisyan points to two photos, framed, on the table. “Two days after the shelling my son in the army sent me these photos, one of my husband and the other, my grandkids. They gave the kids clothes and toys here.”

While the houses shelled in Martakert are being repaired, Mrs. Movsisyan’s 12-year-old granddaughter and her friends have drawn pictures of their homes back in Mataghis and Talish. They now adorn the walls of the hotel where they are now staying.