“Sometimes Nane boycotts me,” Beglaryan said. “She doesn’t want to talk to me, and then an hour later she calls back. ‘How come Santa Claus can come on New Year’s but not you?’, she asked. Again, it was hard to explain.”
Returning to family and the homeland
On 17 January, Russian peacekeepers helped to escort a group of teenagers back to Nagorno-Karabakh. The teenagers had travelled to Yerevan for the Junior Eurovision contest, only to be separated from their families by the blockade. At a roadblock, Azerbaijani agents boarded their bus and began to shout at them and harass them, causing one child to faint. The Russian peacekeepers eventually removed the Azerbaijanis.
“We prioritise the reunification of parents with minor children and people with disabilities and special needs. So far we have transported over 200 people for this purpose,” Eteri Musayelyan, spokesperson of the Red Cross in Nagorno-Karabakh, told openDemocracy.
The crisis has gained little attention in the international media. Although the US, the EU and international bodies such as the UN have called for Azerbaijan to reopen the Lachin Corridor – the one road that connects Armenia with Nagorno-Karabakh – no real progress has been made.
Beglaryan staged a round-the-clock sit-in outside the UN office in Yerevan for a week, and presented his demands and proposals to UN officials.
But Vardanyan is sceptical. “If there is no action, the appeals have no value,” she said. “Why is it possible to apply sanctions against Russia, but not against Azerbaijan?”
Despite the difficulties and the uncertainty ahead, the couple are determined to remain in Nagorno-Karabakh. At the end of the war in 2020, after the loss of so many young soldiers and existing uncertainties, they decided to have a second child.
“I always say that my children are my legacy. We’re passing our responsibility towards the motherland to future generations”, Vardanyan said. “This is my way of fighting,’’ she added.
“It is our homeland,” said Beglaryan, who finds strength in his responsibility to past generations. He was Nane’s age when he lost his father in the first war with Azerbaijan, after the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991. One thing that hit him particularly hard during the blockade was not being able to visit his father’s grave on the anniversary of his death.
When Nane last asked him why the Azerbaijanis were stopping her from hugging him, he told her not to worry, that they would find a solution so that he could return home soon to hug both his children.
“I try to show my children that I am not lying to them. I am doing my best, together with others,” he said.
He finds strength in the memory of his father. “I am sure that my father, among many others who were killed, was fighting in order to give me and thousands of other children a chance to live, and that he would love to see the next generation happy. I am doing my best for my children and others’ children, for that purpose, too.”
Update, 18 February 2023: We have amended the headline and standfirst of this article to better reflect its subject. We have also edited the text to explain more clearly the current situation of Nagorno-Karabakh and Artsakh Republic.
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