{"id":427,"date":"2007-07-05T10:25:14","date_gmt":"2007-07-05T10:25:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/haysanta.am\/?p=427"},"modified":"2018-07-05T10:27:11","modified_gmt":"2018-07-05T10:27:11","slug":"the-loryans","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/haysanta.am\/en\/the-loryans\/","title":{"rendered":"The Loryans"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Gayane Abrahamyan<\/strong><\/p>\n

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Heghine, 10, embraces her mother as if hugs and kisses could replace trouble and pain.<\/p>\n

The mother secretly wipes away her tears and says quietly: \u201cI don\u2019t even enjoy my children\u2019s existence, because of the damned problems. They are the sunshine of my life, but when dinner time comes I realize I would be better to hang myself than know they will stay hungry,\u201d says Emma, 42, a mother of four.<\/p>\n

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Photos of Emma Loryan show a healthy, energetic, pretty woman. Little remains from the woman in the photos.<\/p>\n

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Nor has life been kind to her husband, Hayk \u2013 once known as the best welder in Vanadzor \u2013 now suffering from chronic pneumonia and from the social ills known to so many like him.<\/p>\n

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\u201cHe suffocates at night, his head aches of pain and thoughts and he goes under the blanket and weeps. I say, Hayk, everything will be OK, God will open a door before us and we will get better, we will work and our children will be have plenty to eat. But he is hopeless,\u201d says Emma.<\/p>\n

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Emma says they have seen doctors and have spared no medicines to heal her husband, but his condition prevails because there is no escaping the dampness of their house.<\/p>\n

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District therapist Anahit Vardanyan says: \u201cPeople can\u2019t avoid getting ill in their house. There is always someone ill with either flu or angina every month. All of them have health problems because of the cold and the dampness, plus the malnutrition that can cause quite serious problems.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Their life is as grey as their house that has faded from smoke and humidity, and they recall the earthquake that hit the country 18 years ago.<\/p>\n

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The Spitak earthquake did not destroy the Loryans\u2019 house, but it caused so many cracks that the house appears ready to tumble.<\/p>\n

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\u201cWe don\u2019t come close to these windows. This wall shakes so strongly in the wind that we are afraid to come close. We used to see the outdoors through this crack,\u201d says Heghine in embarrassment, while Hayk simply stares out the window.<\/p>\n

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Emma and Hayk had been providing their family by gathering wood in the forest for several years.<\/p>\n

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\u201cWe never cut trees: we gathered the broken branches, made small bundles and sold them. That would suffice us for at least food. But [the authorities] have prohibited it and we don\u2019t have wood even to heat out own home,\u201d says Emma.<\/p>\n

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Last year a friend of the family took the couple to the forest by his car to gather some wood for winter.<\/p>\n

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Emma, with one arm nearly disabled from when she dislocated it while lifting her infirmed mother in law, nonetheless faced manual labor rather than a winter without firewood.<\/p>\n

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\u201cMy arm broken, my Hayk in fever, we gathered some wood. As we approached our home the police cut off the road in front of us. They blamed us for logging trees and said they were going to draw up a report. Weak as we were, were we able to cut trees? Everybody cuts trees and makes money of it! Why should my children die of cold?\u201d cries Emma.<\/p>\n

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Emma and Hayk were kept at a police department for a whole day. The police also seized the gathered wood and drew up a report to fine them for about $190.<\/p>\n

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\u201cThe chief police officer luckily happened to be a kind man. He said he couldn\u2019t annul the written report, but charged the minimum fine. We sold everything we had at home and paid 30,000 drams (about $ 80). They once came to our place to confiscate the property we had, but were ashamed and said: \u2018what can we take here?!\u2019\u201d says Emma.<\/p>\n

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The family of 6 exists on about $70 a month social subsidy. Emma supplements it by selling berries she picks in the nearby forest, but: \u201cthere is nothing to pick in the wintertime. We rely on God alone.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Despite their own hardship, Emma and Hayk have given shelter to a couple whose home was destroyed by fire.<\/p>\n

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\u201cA poor person understands another poor person,\u201d say Marine and Sanya, the couple taken in by Hayk and Emma.<\/p>\n

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\u201cThey are so kind. Poor Emma, she had left her ill children and spent nights by my side when my husband had an attack. The poor girl, she set up the nights with me. If God helps us and we manage to move to Moscow to my husband\u2019s mother, we will help them then,\u201d says Marine.<\/p>\n

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Emma is constantly concerned with her husband\u2019s health, takes care of him and the children, but she is not well either. A neighbor says that she frequently faints.<\/p>\n

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Emma\u2019s happiness is her children \u2013 Vazgen, 6, Gigush, 8, Hranush, 11 and Heghine, 10. Hranush dreams of becoming a doctor, so that she treats her parents. And Vazgen, born on the same day with (former Prime Minister and Minister of Defense) Vazgen Sarsgyan, says he wants to become a strong soldier like Sargsyan.<\/p>\n

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\u201cIt\u2019s my children\u2019s dinner that I care for, not the pain. Every time I see them off to school I think their classmates will tease them for their used clothes. My heart breaks and I just don\u2019t know where to hide away,\u201d says Emma wiping her tears away again.<\/p>\n

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Heghine stands by the window with a prayer book in her hands.<\/p>\n

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\u201cI pray every night that my mother and father get better, that we go to school and nobody teases us for having others\u2019 bad clothes on, or for having no money for the textbooks. I feel hurt, I cry, but try to hide my tears from my mother not to have her feel the same\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n