Lusine Hovhannisyan

We’re in Pambak, a village in Armenia’s Gegharkounik Province. 

- Lida, we’re here in your village. How can we find your house?

- Take the village road, I’m in the road, wearing a grey suit. 

In school, we’ve written plenty of essays about Lake Sevan and the Gegham Mountains, describing them with the adjectives like blue, sky-blue, glassy, beauty of the region… 

But Sevan looked like liquid mercury, dangerous and cold. If you say the mountains are bare, it sounds lovely, but if you say they are naked, that’s the truth. It was dry and cold. 

Pambak was not picturesque either, and the Gegham Mountains weren’t safely embracing the green fields. Existence seemed difficult for all of them: the mountains, the lake, the village and Lida (Lida Dashyan). 

Pambak is a former Azerbaijani village. Residents exchanged their houses with Armenians living in neighboring Azerbaijan and moved in. The Dashyans relocated from Zaglik village in the Dashkesan region of Azerbaijan. 

They asked us to come and listen to their complaint, excitement, tears, anger, sometimes bold, sometimes emotional, sometimes pathetic remarks about things unattained. As always, it was life itself, that remained out of reach. 

“I’ve given two sons as soldiers. Dear government, come and repair the wall collapsing in my house.”

In 1988, 19-year-old Lida Dashyan got off the helicopter in the Gavar airport. She was holding a child’s hand. She was told to go to her friends or relatives, if she had any, otherwise she would be resettled in an Azeri house. 

She went to stay with friends and relatives in Charentsavan. But her parents then bought this house in Pambak. Inside the house, there were only two metal beds left by the former Azerbaijani owners.

The house is in bad shape, but the pillows arranged on the beds are strikingly white.

At nineteen, Lida Dashyan obviously wasn’t a supporter of the Soviet empire’s collapse and the liberation movement.

Dashkesan is naturally well-endowed with fertile fields. Brought up under the beautiful banner of internationalism with the brotherly Azerbaijanis, green-eyed Lida Dashyan happily lived with her engineer father, who belonged to the Communist Party, and mother, who worked in the kindergarten. She fell in love with a classmate and married him against her parents’ will.

Then, when the empire folded its bloody legs and its slogan about brotherhood became tarnished and bent, the bad news about Sumgayit reached Zaglik. Raya Dashyan, Lida’s mother, was warned to get out of Zaglik, as bad things were expected that night. They quickly left their rich village. 

“That day, we were studying Gorbachev's perestroika"

Raya Dashyan says she was taking some courses at the Kirovabad Institute, and on that day perestroika was being discussed in class. That class got stuck in her brain for twenty-nine years. That same day, a colleague said, "Don’t stay at night. Leave. Bad things are expected. Your Armenians set fire to the Sumgayit plant."

Raya, who’s past seventy, says: "I was born in Zaglik and lived an affluent life. My father was a man like Michurin. There were all sorts of apples in our garden. We had a big house, beehives. I did not know what it was like to have a problem. Now I’m like the "Mr. 420" movie hero: my shoes are made in Japan, my hat in Russia, my trousers in England. Whatever I wear, I’ve got from other people. It’s my brother who helps me financially."

[Ivan Michurin (1855-1935)  was one of the founding fathers of scientific agricultural selection-editor]

The daughter, excited, breathing unevenly, interrupts her mother. She wants to talk about her demand again. She thinks her mother is diverting the conversation, and that her memories are already meaningless.

Raya evidently wants to talk about Zaglik, Dashkesan, her youth. She proceeds to the topic of love.

She says, "I didn’t choose my husband. I was married off, but we have lived very well. What is love? The love is gone."

Right then, Raya Dashyan’s husband, who was mostly silent, chimes in. He says that love does not go away. Alexander Dashyan is almost eighty. Love is still there, but the hope to live well is gone.

Alexander Dashyan’s only warm memory of Armenia is about Vladimir Movsisyan. When the family moved to Pambak, knowledgeable and hardworking Alexander Dashyan was appointed chair of the village council. He recalls that Movsisyan came and asked everyone, young and old, if people really thought Alexander was a good person. But he was a modest and hardworking person, and soon they became good friends with Movsisyan. Alexander Dashyan regrets that Movsisyan is now gone.

The house, the main protagonist

Their house has a small balcony with square windows and wooden floors that were painted in red a long time ago. The floor has holes in some places. It’s cold in the house. One of the main walls got a large crack in it, and the ceiling has separated. The house has been listed as a severe accident risk. It’s collapsing, but there’s no money to rebuild.

Lida Dashyan’s two sons served in the army, then moved to Siberia to earn money. The wall is going to collapse one day, and Dashyan Lida is collapsing together with it. She's gone here and there, and remembers the names of all the people she’s ever petitioned for help. And there are many of them - assistants and advisers to ministers, human rights advocates. She’s even got a letter from the president's office, saying that her complaint had been readdressed to the governor and that the provincial governor's office would deal with it.

The governor’s office hasn’t dealt with it. She keeps copies of all the letters. She’s aware of her rights. She has a refugee certificate and a travel passport. She can go to any country, but she doesn’t. 

She wants the wall to be rebuilt, and her two sons to come back, so that all five of them sit down together and share a meal. She wants their simple, modest meal, as she says, to be shared by the five of them -  herself, her husband, her two elder sons and the younger one, who’s only fifteen. 

In the end, Lida Dashyan gets very angry and says, "Soon it will be the youngest’s time to serve in the army. They will tell me, Lida Dashyan, give us your son to protect the border. How about my 15-year-old son living in a decaying house now?" 

This is how Lida Dashyan fights, periodically waving dozens of copies of the decades’-old letters, the contents of which she knows by heart.

And now, wearing a grey suit, which turns out to be someone else’s, because Lida is thin and the jacket shoulders broad, Lida stands in the village road and waits for journalists. 

When she was showing the photos of her sons, there was her picture somewhere in the pile. Blonde, green-eyed, white-faced, with Slavic features, and most importantly, with a peaceful, soft, feminine look. 

It’s just one wall. It’s not a big deal. One wall, even four, isn’t a big deal. But a family of five, four men and a woman, is a big deal. 

Maybe we should help? 

Photos: Saro Baghdasaryan