“My son is in Yerevan, every minute he says, ‘I’ll come and take you.’ My husband and I are old. I tell him that we’re handling it, and we’re continuing our daily work,” resident of Verishen Julieta Asatryan told Aravot regarding the current situation. Mrs. Julieta was about to sleep when the sounds of shooting and explosions started. She says she had the impression that the cave’s walls had completely collapsed. “We didn’t expect it.
I just went to bed at 12 o’clock when I heard a thump. I said that they are doing fireworks. Maybe there is joy, there is something. Let me open the window and see if they have already started. Now I got up and told my husband: get up, you are a big man, get up and go to the basement. He said: I want to die. Why do you want to die?
Come on! Well, the end did not come. I said again: I’m afraid, let’s go. Well, when he didn’t come, we stayed standing, those 2 houses that fell down, I was looking through the window like in a movie, the one that is burning like this, there is fire, in two places, I thought it was the hospital.”
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The last time Verishen suffered such an attack was in 1992. “Again, we were doing our job like this, but the fire is all over Goris! How many houses were scattered? But we are adapting to what we are doing.” These days, like in the ‘90s, they continued to perform their daily tasks. However, Mrs. Julieta refuses to move to Yerevan. “I say: I am here, in my land, in my water, in my house. I will be what I will be. What should I do if I go to a one-room house on the third floor? I will not go. Whatever will happen will happen here.”
She is worried about the demonstrations taking place in Yerevan. “In the square where they are standing and talking, I would like to go and tell them: come alone, I will take you, I will honor you in our house, just see how the situation is. Come there. They say: Syunik is gone, come and stay one night, at least don’t break the wings of the people. I am asking you to calm down a bit and see what this situation is becoming. At least cut off the conversation for a bit.”
Ami CHICHAKYAN
