It’s not all that difficult to find the house, better yet, the hut, belonging to Haroutyun Manoukyan, resident of Saratak. Ask anyone in the Shirak Marz village and they’ll immediately point the way to an empty lot behind the mayor’s office. Residents of Saratak call this family the “Gikor’s”. “You know, it’s based on the famous story by Tumanyan,” explained one village resident. 49 year-old Haroutyun Manoukyan fought in the Artsakh War. In 1993-1995, he participated in the battles to liberate Martakert. He’s been living in this hut for the past twenty years with his four kids. His 23 year-old daughter has mental problems. For the past year, 22 year-old Diana has been living with friends in Gori, Georgia. Haroutyun haltingly says that he sent the girl to work at the farm of a friend and that their load back home would lighten somewhat with her out of the house. 11 year-old Nina is looked after by her maternal grandmother. No wonder she’s adequately fed and dressed properly. While in the village we were told that the family was in pretty dire straits during the 1990’s and that they even bartered away their newly born fourth daughter to a childless couple in a neighboring village for a few bags of flour and potatoes. The Haroutyunyan’s also have one son amongst all those girls. Externally, 19 year-old Narek looks more like a 12 year-old attending the 7th or 8th grade. Most of the guys he hangs out with in the village are of that age group. Last year the draft board turned him down for military service. He stands 1.44 meters tall and weighs a mere 39 kilos. “We always help out. Even before becoming mayor I helped them, “says Saratak Mayor Misha Ghrzoyan, adding, “But things haven’t changed. The kids haven’t received a proper education. One of the girls hardly attends class at all and the other two barely graduated from the 8th grade over at the Artik boarding school. The girl staying with her grandma is the only one attending the local high school. She’s a good student.” The mayor’s wife also told us that years ago they gave the family a wooden cradle but that it was never used for the purpose intended. Haroutyun’s wife, Anna, decided to use it to store cups and dishes. “When we got a new refrigerator I suggested to Misha that we give the old one to Haroutyun and his family, recounts Gohar Ghrzoyan, “We gave it to them but later found out that in the dead of winter they used it as a bed for the little boy. You have probably noticed that they don’t have proper bedding.” One of the four rooms in the Manoukyans’ hut is used as a bedroom and parlor. There is nothing inside except for two metal-spring bed frames, a kitchen table with one chair and one cupboard One of the rooms near the entrance to the hut is used to store dried animal dung for fuel and in the opposite room the wood stove is lit summer and winter for cooking and to boil water. We only saw one window in the house and that was covered with plastic sheeting. It turns out that Haroutyun Manoukyan is related to the former Regional Governor of Shirak, Romik Manoukyan. Despite being cousins, Haroutyun has never profited from the relationship; in fact, it has brought nothing but harm. Haroutyun told us that during the 2008 local elections, Rostom Manoukyan, another cousin who was mayor at the time, took his passport so that he couldn’t vote. When they found out that Haroutyun planned to vote for Misha Ghrzoyan, they beat him. This year, one of the family friends took Haroutyun with him to find work outside of Armenia. Three months later Haroutyun came back with $1,000 in his pocket. He paid off some debts, bought medicine for the wife and the money soon ran out. “How do you expect any money to be left over? The 9,000 pension my disabled daughter gets is our only hope. My boy does seasonal work picking potatoes and such. He’s either paid 1,000 AMD or they give him a 15-20 kilo bag of potatoes. I do whatever work that comes along so that we get by. The wife is always sick from the cold,” Haroutyun said. Haroutyun Manoukyan once petitioned the Ministry of Defense for some new housing but was refused. They told him that the apartment allocation plan was designed for disabled vets only. Saratak residents are convinced that the Manoukyan kids are lagging behind their peers, both mentally and physically, due to the destitute conditions in which they live. A woman resident of Saratak we met stated, “Now if you compare the girl raised by the grandmother with the others you would say that she comes from another family. All those kids eat is bread and potatoes. That’s not nutritious; there are no vitamins in that. How do you expect them to grow up normally on such a diet? They don’t even have enough money to keep one light bulb lit.” Before leaving I asked 19 year-old Narek if he had any dreams about the future. His uncle, present at the conversation, waved his hand and said, “Beat’s me. Does the boy even know what dreams are?” Then the uncle repeated my question to Narek in the local dialect saying, “Narek, the sister here wants to know what you want?” “A house; I want that we have a house,” muttered Narek in response.