After living apart for 28 years, Nikolay Kovalyov met his former wife Nadezhda again when the two became neighbors on Moldovakan Street in Nor Nork. Instead of living next door to each other in an apartment building, the 70-year old ethnic Russian and his 65-year-old ethnic Ukrainian former partner instead found themselves residing in separate tents pitched opposite each other.

Both Nikolay and Nadezhda are Armenian citizens while their 35-year old son, Yura, is a citizen of Ukraine.

This is already the second winter that Yura and his mother have spent living outside, but he still finds it difficult to explain how they came to find themselves in this predicament. ”We used to have an apartment in the 2nd District of Nork, but then it was confiscated,” he says. “Some people came and told us that we had no right to live there, and so we had to leave.”

Yura says that the apartment in Building #8 on Moldovakan street was sold by his sister who was registered there with her three children. Both he and his mother didn’t receive anything from the sale of the apartment even though his mother was one of the co-owners. “Life is difficult, and our situation is very complicated,” she says. Nadezhda used to work at a Chemical factory and has lived in Yerevan for 35 years.

In addition to her son, Nadezhda has two daughters and five grandchildren, although she says that she doesn’t know where the daughter who sold the apartment is, adding that her daughter knows where her mother and brother live. Nadezhda even attempts to justify why her daughter does not visit. “How she can come to visit?” She says. “She is not well also, and has to look after three kids. Anyway, we haven't the appropriate conditions to accept guests.”

Nadezhda would like to move, but says she is worried about her son. “He hasn’t been able to marry because he doesn't live in an apartment,” she says. Ironically, however, Yura says that he would like to return to Ukraine, but can’t because he doesn’t want to leave his mother alone. Of course, they couldn’t afford the airfare even if they wanted.

Yura does work, though -- in construction, although that hardly solves the problem of being able to afford their daily bread, especially when his father also shares their food. Nikolay has lived on the streets for significantly longer since his release after serving seven years in the Kosh and Artik prisons. Prior to that, he once had an apartment in Yerevan’s South Western district, but his second wife, Sveta, sold it without telling him.

Nikolay says that he had no other choice but to come and build his new “home” in Nor Nork,, and says that he has been living on the streets for five years now. The bottles strewn around his tent testify to how this old man lives. He even says that he would like to end his solitary existence and return to his former wife and son in the tent opposite.

“Who doesn’t want to go back to his family,” concludes Nikolay. “Of course, I have no apartment -- or anything else for that matter.”

Karine Asatryan
Photos by Onnik Krikorian