By Tatevik Sargsyan

40-year-old Marian Pilafyan and her six children live in Yeghegnout, a village in the New Shahumyan district of Artsakh.

She moved to Artsakh from Yerevan in 2002 as part of a government sponsored resettlement plan. Mariam started to work as a technology teacher and a manager at the village school.

“Initially, when I was working as a manager, I’d make 102,000 AMD ($215) per month. Starting this year, I’ll only work as a teacher. At best, I’ll make 50-60,000 AMD. We also receive a monthly allowance for the children of 45,000. Somehow, we make ends meet,” says Mariam.

Mariam and her husband were only children. That’s why they decided to have several children, so as not to be alone.

Mariam was seventeen when she first married. It only lasted nine months. After graduating high school, she worked as a teacher in Aintab when she met her second husband. They moved to Yerevan and had two children – Suzy and Ludwig.

“One day, with no prior warning, my husband left and never returned. It turned out he left for Russia,” says Mariam.

No being able to pay the rent, Mariam and her two children were evicted.

“We had no place to go. Some nights, we slept in an elevator. I decided to hand over the children to an orphanage until I found work. They spent four months there. I couldn’t live without my children, so I took them back. We left for Artsakh as part of a resettlement plan. At first, we went to Ditsamayr village, then to Yeghegnout,” Mariam says.

Over the years, her wayward husband has returned several times, only to leave yet again. She always took him in, hoping that he would stay and be a father to the children. The couple now has six kids. Suzy, the eldest at eighteen, has since married. Two-year-old Anna is the youngest.

To make ends meet, Mariam sews various household items for sale. The family lives in a two-room apartment allocated by the government. The roof leaks and the windows are covered with plastic sheeting.

“There’s no water in the house. We gather brushwood to use as fuel in the winter. Even if we wanted to install glass windows, the frames would crumble,” says Mariam.

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The children take turn going to school. “One week I stay home and take care of the baby and other chores, while Eric goes to school,” says Anri. “The next week, we switch, and I go to school.”

Another reason why the kids miss class is a lack of proper clothes and shoes. Mariam says that the local roads are gravel and the boys’ shoes wear out quickly.

Nevertheless, the children are good students. 16-year-old Ludwig is interested in computers and wants to continue his education at one of the colleges in Yerevan.

“He can stay with his sister. He’ll go to school and work at the same time to pay the tuition.

10-year-old Anri dreams of becoming a bodyguard, while 8-year-old Eric wants to become an optometrist.

Mariam’s only dream is for the family to own their own home. With the birth of little Anna, that dream is closer to becoming a reality.

The government allocates homes to families with six children. “They are already building our house in Yeghegnout,” says Mariam.

The family spent the summer in Yerevan, renting an apartment, but are counting the days to move back to Artsakh for the start of the new school year.