“When I left the army, I couldn’t find our house. Nothing remained. Just a big hole about 20 meters deep,” recounts 23 year-old Hovhannes, “They didn’t tell me that the government had taken it over when I was serving so that I wouldn’t worry. I came here and saw it with my own eyes.”

Hovhannes is the only son in the family that has served in the army. His other three brothers were never called up since, as he puts it, “They have no country to serve”. “I told them down at the Ministry of Defense - let those with a country serve. My boys have no country,” says Mariam Gishyan, a mother of five. “Ones country is supposed to protect its citizens and assist them. A person is obligated to serve so that the enemy can’t come in and steal and plunder ones home. If our authorities have already done that, then what country are we talking about?” Mariam has four boys and the one girl, Gayaneh, the eldest child. She also doesn’t want her brothers to serve in the army since she is extremely insulted by the actions of the government. “Why and for whom should they serve, if our government has treated us so callously? We were young and attending school. They came and stole it all away. When I remember that day…it was awful,” says Gayaneh. They came at night and bulldozed our house It all happened on the night of February 15, 2004. Mariam and her children were fast asleep in their home on Lalayants Street, now Northern Avenue, in central Yerevan. They had no inkling that a few minutes hence their cozy little world would come crashing down around them. “That night a tractor drove up and demolished our wall. It drove right through. We had no time to collect our belongings. I barely had time to gather up the sleeping kids and get them out of harm’s way. Later we found out that 15 months before the court had issued a judgment that we were to be evicted and our home demolished,” Mariam recounts. In a matter of minutes, the family found themselves on the street. They spent the next eight days in a hotel and later rented an apartment. “The employees from the Compulsory Enforcement Service stole whatever they could get away with that night. Only a fraction of our belongings wound up in the state warehouse,” Mariam states. Mariam always came out on the losing side in the courts since it had already been decided by the authorities to build the Northern Avenue complex and that she and countless other local residents stood in the way. The powers that be wanted to construct the project at the lowest cost possible in order to wring out the most profit they could. The court rejected Mariam’s claim that the house and land it sat on belonged to her. The family was only granted the status of “occupants”. Later the court decided to evict the Gishyan family. They took my property deed from me and made so many changes to it that I came out not owning the property any more. At the mayor’s office they told me – It’s in our hands. We can write whatever we want. If we want to, we can write up a notice that you were never even born,” Mariam remembers. “They offered me $20,000, but I didn’t take one red cent of their money. I signed no papers. I have no need for their charity. What I need is my house, my belongings,” says the mother of five. “They built that Northern Avenue where our homes once stood. Go and take at look for yourselves. No one lives in those buildings. Take a walk around at night. It’s like you’re strolling through a graveyard,” notes Mariam. My sons will not serve in the army of this government “I had a piece of land measuring 1,135 square meters on the corner of what is now Northern Avenue and Teryan Streets. A 12 story building has been built on the site. Our house had six rooms. I had two kitchens, 2 entrances, and 2 bathrooms,” Mariam tells us, with evident irritation, “We lived well. Now look at us – bums. Why? - Because we had no one to back us. I’m a single mom with a disability; a brain contusion. My children were just kids back then and my eldest boy was in the army. That’s why the government was able to come in and throw us out.” “I feel ashamed in front of the children. I wasn’t able to defend their home and property. I’ve always been alone. We’ve been able to get by on the savings I had stashed away for a rainy day. But it’s dwindling down; there are always bills to pay and expenses,” Mariam says. I could have not gone to the army since I was the only bread-winner in the family. But I went voluntarily to do my bit for the country. When I returned, I had neither a house nor could I get a passport. I had no registration. They refused to give it to me. A year later, they reversed their decision and gave me a passport but erased the address. Underneath, they wrote – ‘The bearer is not officially registered at any address’” says Hovhannes, the eldest son. No registered address means no passport and no work The Lalayants address that appears in Mariam Gishyan’s passport no longer exists. The place where she lived has been renamed Northern Avenue. Her other sons – Garegin, Tigran and Grigor – have no passports. Since none have residence registrations, no one in the family works. It is only Hovhannes that gets the odd job now and then, but he too can’t get a steady work due to inadequate documentation. “It feels that we aren’t full citizens of this country. We can’t vote in the elctions nor can we get an adequate education. Work is out of the question too. We merely survive from day to day,” explains 25 year-old Gayaneh. “Given the mess we are in, we can’t even get our personal lives straightened out,” Hovhannes chimes in. “I write to the officials and when they respond on the letter they simply write ‘Mariam Gishya, Yerevan’, since we have no address. It’s like living in suspended animation. Now, when my other sons go off to the army they’ll have to write back, ‘To Mom, Yerevan’. This is why I won’t let them go,” Mariam says, “The country survives due to its army but it is the people who serve in the army. If there are no people, the there is no army.” This family of six has been living in rented apartments for the past six years. “Now we live in the home of a friend but they are returning from Moscow in a few days and I don’t know where we will go. We moved so many times in the past six years that I’ve lost count,” Mariam says. Every Thursday, Mariam takes up a position in front of the Government Building, protesting what has happened to her family to the prime minister. “The picked up my son Gokor, just 18 year-old, at the bakery and dragged him away to the Sovetashen prison. They held him there for ten days. We never entered the place. They visited me and warned me that I better stop protesting or else they’d fabricate a bunch of charges against my son and he’d never see the light of day again from inside a prison cell,” she stated. They eventually let Grigor go and Mariam continues to participate in the protests. A Turkish benefactor comes to the family’s aid “One day, while we were protesting as usual at the Government Building, an editor from a Turkish newspaper approached and started to interview me. An article appeared in the Turkish paper about our plight. One of the paper’s Turkish readers commiserated with us and the hardships we faced and decided to assist us financially. He said, ‘I had nothing to do with 1915. What your family is going through is just as bad as 1915.” says Mariam.  For the next two years that Turk paid our rent. But I ask you, why should my own government see fit to rob us blind and leave us to be pitied by a Turk, of all people? Is this normal? What has become of our national honor?” This Turkish benefactor no longer supports Mariam’s family. Instead, he has invited them to resettle in Turkey and promises to take care of all their needs. “Yerevan Mayor Gagik Beglaryan had promised to help us but now he’s reneged. I told him to write a letter to that effect, that the city will not compensate us in a fair manner. I told him that we’d move to Turkey if that was the case. They are expecting us in Turkey. They advise me to apply for political assylum and that they’d take care of us once we arrive. I went to the embassy but they rejected our application since the children have no passports. They are ready to send us money from Turkey so that we can leave this country,” says Mariam. I’ll apply for asylum in Turkey out of spite She understands that if the family applies to Turkey for political asylum, Ankara can play up the fact for political motives. “That’s just what they want – to show the world that Armenia is making the lives of its citizens miserable and that they are running to the Turkish embassy requesting asylum. What will follow is that the Armenians around the world will spit on the face of this government. They’ll say ‘we’ve been struggling to get the Genocide recognized while you have been baeting your own citizens down and forcing them to flee to Turkey.’ I really don’t want to go but there ar no options left. I was born and raised here and so were my children. My son has served in the army. We want to stay here but how can we when our government refuses to protect our interests?” Mariam laments. The 50 year-old mother is full of spite towards those government bureaucrats who, either directly or by their complicity, forced her and her family out on the street that fateful night in 2004. “If I went to Turkey, I would to all in my power to take revenge against this president and proime minister. I’d to what I could to see that they too slept out on the street, in the snow and rain, just like my kids had to endure. The president, prime minister and mayor comprise some unholy government trinity. The people count for nothing in their eyes. The people are the pillars of the nation but our leaders would rather beat the people down. No people, no nation.” We when had concluded our conversation, Mariam added, “Even if they gave me nothing in Turkey I’d still go; just to take revenge. This government has wounded me deeply and it will never heal. It will continue to fester. Every night when I go to bed, I remember how they bulldozed our house around us, and I can’t sleep.”