Leonid Soghomonyan, a 42 year-old resident of the Berdashen village in the Martuni region of the NKR, still carries around the wounds he received while fighting in the Artsakh war. His doctors have recommended spinal surgery but he’s refused since they will not guarantee that he’ll regain any pelvic function.

He’s received consecutive days of rehabilitative care at the Stepanakert center after being treated at the Stepanakert military hospital.

It was on June 12, 1993, while liberating one of the settlements in Martuni, that he received injuries to his pelvis. He relates that, “We were headed to a checkpoint when the truck hit an anti-tank mine. Eight of us were injured.”

When his comrades wanted to transport the injured to hospital, they took Leonid for dead. He was still unconscious on the ground when the truck carrying the wounded left for the hospital.

The former freedom fighter remembers his friends telling him that, “One of my army buddies, Kamo Aghajanyan, saw that my hands were twitching. They immediately began to fire on the truck so that it would stop. The poor driver probably thought the Azeris had captured the checkpoint and were firing on him. When he realized that Armenians were doing the firing he returned and picked me up also.”

Leonid temporarily regained consciousness in the truck. “At first I thought I had been taken prisoner by the Azeris. I couldn’t hear what language was being spoken; I only saw faces. Not wishing to fall in the enemy’s clutches I opened the door and was about to jump out of the vehicle when one of the guys grabbed my hand and said, ‘are you blind...where are you going?’”

When Leonid opened his eyes he was in the Martuni regional hospital. The chief physician explained to him that his spine had been injured and that he’d have to be transferred to Yerevan. The following day he was taken by helicopter to Yerevan’s Mikaelyan Hospital where he remained till mid-August 1993. He sadly notes that his doctor, Karo Eboyan, was later killed in a plane crash. Leonid also received medical treatment in the cities of Pyatigorsk and Kislovodsk from 1994-1995.

He was considered to possess 3rd level disabilities until the recent complications began. During the past eight years he hadn’t received any treatment. “I went to Yerevan where tests revealed that two vertebrae injured by the mine blast hadn’t fused properly and that they were putting strain on my spine. The doctors told me I would have to have surgery.” Today Leonid, who outwardly appears to be fine, is registered as a 2nd level disabled person.

Leonid resides in Stepanakert while his family is back in the village. He has four children. The eldest is a student in the Armenian Language and Literature Department at the Artsakh State University. “We pay an annual tuition of 150,000 drams,” he says with a look that implies that such an amount is truly a burden since his wife Gayane presently doesn’t work.

Both formerly worked at the village school in Yemishjan, some 5 kilometers from their own village. After graduating from the Faculty of Mechanics and Math at Yerevan State University, Leonid began to teach physics, math and military strategy in the school in 1989. He served as school principal from 1999-2004. His wife also worked in the school teaching Armenian language and literature during those years. Leonid states that, “My medical condition prevented me from walking 5 kilometers every day to the school so I was forced to relocate to Stepanakert where I started to work and take care of my family.”

Today he works at the National Statistics Service as a department head.

Leonid intends to bring his family to Stepanakert as well but confesses that such a move is currently out of the question since they don’t have the means to rent an apartment. The former freedom fighter adds that, “Hopefully I be able to take advantage of the home loans now being offered. Let’s see if I’ll be able to purchase an apartment and move the wife and kids in.”