Karabakh war memories: Woman finds her grandson after 22 years

Karabakh war memories: Woman finds her grandson after 22 years –

Lyusya Avanesyan, who lost her two sons, managed to find her grandson 22 years later.

The smiling woman, whom her friends and relatives tenderly call Aunt Lyusya, has suffered lots of losses. She lost her parents at the age of four. Along with three sisters and two brothers, Lyusya was taken from Karabakh’s Hadrut region to a boarding school in Baku.

“I almost don’t remember my Mom. I was very little then. But despite losing our parents, we were very friendly and always helped each other,” Aunt Lyusya says.

After leaving the boarding school, Lyusya studied at a college. At the age of 17, the girl married Aramayis Avanesyan, giving birth to their elder son Boris after a year. Then the younger son Eduard was born. When Lyusya Avanesyan was only 32, terrible disease claimed the life of her husband.

Her children grew up and served in the army. The younger son settled in Yakutia, while the elder one lived with his mother in Baku. When anti-Armenian protests began in Azerbaijan, attempts were made to arrest Boris on cooked-up charges.

Lyusya Avanesyan exchanged her three-room apartment in Baku for a flat in the Armenian town of Vardenis.

Soon both of her sons returned to their mother in Armenia. “My elder son married and my daughter-in-law was an exceptionally good woman.” But Boris got ill and died in 2008.

Lyusya’s younger son Eduard lived in Stepanakert with his wife Natasha. “I didn’t know he was going to fight in Karabakh. He was concealing that from me,” the woman tells.

In 1993 Natsha got pregnant.

Soon Lyusya stopped receiving telegrams from Eduard.

Aunt Lyusya left for Karabkh, passing the road both on foot and by army trucks. She  went round all the villages with the photos of her son and daughter-in-law.

Only there she was told her son Eduard Avanesyan (birth date: 11.12.1959) was an intelligence officer and went missing presumably in November 1993.

Aunt Lyusya hadn’t been in touch with her daughter-in-law since then. In 1996, she went to Ukraine, Natasha’s homeland. She didn’t find her daughter-in-law, since she was on a business trip, but met with her parents and left her address.

Natasha didn’t reply. Many years passed and Aunt Lyusya even tried to look for her daughter-in-law and grandson by TV. In 2013 Natasha suddenly phoned her and said the address had got lost and her mother suddenly found it.

With the help of ICRC, in 2014 Aunt Lyusya was able to visit Moscow, where Natasha and her son Kostya currently live.

Aunt Lyusya’s grandson is now 22. “I was very happy to meet them and also came across other refugees from Baku, who have settled in Moscow. I’ve brought a big photo album,” the woman says.

Kostya wants to come to Armenia very much, but, above all, he wants to visit the place where his parents fought.

News.am