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Ten-Year-Old Lian’s Wish: “I want my father’s eyes to open, so he can work and pay the debts”

I am in the village of Karakert, in Armenia’s Armavir Province.

Spotting a man sitting on the sidewalk, I ask directions to the house of Moushegh. He replies, “This is the gate.” The girl sitting next to him looks at me in silence. Entering the gate, that same man approaches. He is Moushegh.

Moushegh Khachatryan lost his sight 18 years ago. But he remembers all the village streets and manages to get around. One eye was damaged with a scissor when he was five. Sight in the other eye progressively got worse over time.

“I used to grow watermelons. My sight was bad back then. Maybe it was from the pesticides. Whatever it was, my eye became inflamed and I lost my sight on October 6, 1998,” Mr. Khachatryan says.

We’re seated in the living room. Moushegh locates the ashtray and asks if we mind if he smokes. The children look at their father. Their mother, away at the neighbor’s house, enters.

“Samvel, you’re at the computer again?” asks Moushegh. The boy gets up and stands next to his father.

The two girls, Mariam and Lian, make us some coffee. “Do you want them to hold the cups in their hands? Don’t we have a table?” Moushegh asks the girls. How did he know we were holding the coffee cups? The girls quickly bring a small table. We tell them don’t to bother, that we’ve just come to talk. Moushegh’s wife, Marineh Sargsyan says the least they can do is offer us a cup of coffee, despite the poor conditions they live in.

Moushegh seems to know everything that is happening in the room; even the smallest of details. The four children have sadness in their eyes. They don’t talk much. Lian takes out the family phot album. She shows us the black and white photos, explaining who the people are.

While Mr. Khachatryan was born in Karakert, his family roots are in Gyumri, Armenia’s second largest town. His wife is from Artsakh, the Hadrout area. She was studying in Yerevan when they met.

“Moushegh was a friend of my girlfriend’s brother. That’s how we met. He took me away,” says Marineh, smiling. Moushegh says nothing.

They’ve been married for thirty years. Two of their eight children died years ago. One drowned in a reservoir; the other in childbirth.

Moushegh, with just the one good eye, participated in the Artsakh War. He fought to defend Hadrout and was in Artsakh until 1993.

“We’ve lived pretty well. Moushegh did some trading, thank god. But when his eyesight went, things got worse. A year later, I fell from an apricot tree and fractured my spine. I was registered with a severe disability. Then, when I gave birth, they took my disability away. They argued if I could have kids my health was alright,” says Marineh.

Moushegh receives a disability pension of 26,000 AMD (US$55) monthly. The family also receives a 48,000 AMD monthly allowance for the children. 

On the weekends, the couple takes pork and cheese to the town of Arindj to sell. Moushegh says that he has to keep busy, despite his disability. 

Moushegh and Marineh say their children are good students and that they want them to get a good education.

The family has received assistance from strangers. New windows have been installed in the house and they’ve purchased a refrigerator, washing machine and computer on credit.

“Well I had to buy a fridge. Where else could I keep food for six children?” says Marineh

“I haven’t seen the faces of four of my children. They say that Samvel resembles my son who died and that Mariam looks like my married daughter,” Moushegh says.

Talking about their dreams in life, 10-year-old Lian glances down and says, “I want my father’s eyes to open, so he can work and pay off our debts.”

Moushegh is lost in thought. His son Armen works in the fields. Armen’s three-month-old daughter, Marineh, is in the guest room. “I’ll put my granddaughter on this pillow. I love her but I don’t want to ask who she looks like. They get upset because I can’t see,” says Moushegh.

His wife says Moushegh has been operated on five times, to no avail. They sold all their belongings, even the kids’ toys, for the surgeries. She says that Moushegh is convinced that doctors in Moscow can restore his sight.

Photos: Narek Aleksanyan

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