‘My son trembled and said, God, you took my grandfather, at least don’t take my dad’: Karina Harutyunyan’s story of forced displacement

“During the blockade, we were looking for the light. We fought and resisted to keep Artsakh Armenian,” said Karina Harutyunyan, forcibly displaced from Artsakh, who lost her homeland as a result of Azerbaijan’s attack on September 19.

Speaking with Alpha News, Karina reminisces about the cruel days of the blockade, when people lined up for hours for bread, the shops were empty, there was a rolling blackout and no gas at all, and people baked bread on wood stoves and stocked up for the winter.

However, September 19 became fateful for all Armenians of Artsakh. That day, Karina did not go to work because she was with her son Tigran, 11, who attended school during the second shift and convinced his mother not to go to classes. Shortly after 1 p.m., they heard the first explosion in the Krkzhan quarter of Stepanakert.

“Hearing the second explosion, I realized that there was no need to panic. The walls of our kitchen were quite thick; I took the child and went there. My son was shaking. During the 44-day war, my father-in-law died, and my son did not go to church after that, but at that moment he said, ‘God, you took my grandfather; don’t take my dad this time.’ I started crying. It was clear that the situation was very serious because, after the 44-day war, the borders became closer,” Karina says.

Karina says that the sounds of missiles were so clearly audible that she put a bulletproof vest on the boy, took a hunting rifle and documents with her, and immediately left the house.

“After 2020, all Artsakh residents knew that something could happen at any second. I put a bulletproof vest on my son so that the fragments would not hit him. After that, I never returned home because it was dangerous. We went to my mother-in-law’s house. There were 20 of us, and we all stayed in their basement. The shots and explosions did not stop for a minute until the fire ceased. I also took a hunting rifle with me. I thought that if I couldn’t shoot at the enemy, I would at least kill us, because I knew what could happen to the Armenian woman and her child if they fell into the hands of the Azerbaijanis,” Karina says.

As Karina recalls, that day there was no news from her parents and her brother’s family. Communications were interrupted. On September 20, Karina and other family members were evacuated to the site of Russian peacekeepers for safety reasons.

“The situation was terrible; in our basement it was even better than there. Some people ran away from the villages in their slippers, and at the airport it was cold and windy. People were starving. The peacekeepers offered food in the canteen, but they were not prepared to accommodate so many people. Then my husband called and told me to return to Stepanakert. By the way, I found my mother right at the airport. It was the only thing that made me happy under these bombings,” she says.

Karina and her husband’s relatives left Stepanakert on September 28. Before this, Karina only left the house once, which she regrets.

“It would be better not to go out, and Stepanakert in my memories would remain clean and beautiful. Walking down the street, you could hear people breaking dishes and destroying their property so that the Azerbaijanis wouldn’t get it,” Karina says.

Karina’s family decided to leave Artsakh because the situation escalated. Azerbaijani military and police officers were already walking around Stepanakert, and according to Karina, it was impossible to live with them.

“I was two years old when my parents left Baku. My father says that during Soviet times, the Turks were different, but now they have changed. We have always been enemies, but after seeing the events of 1988, it was clear that it was impossible to live with the Azerbaijanis. A striking example of this was the war of 2020,” she says.

The Artsakh woman is ready to return to her homeland if there is Armenian power there. Currently, her family lives in the administrative district of Arabkir in Yerevan. In Stepanakert, Karina worked at the city hall, but now she has no job. She contacted the Ministry of Environment and began preparing for her admission to employment. But a week before, she received a call and was informed that she could not participate because she has no Armenian citizenship. The only breadwinner in the house is Karina’s husband, who got a job after moving to Yerevan.

In addition to her main job in Stepanakert, Karina also had her own small business. She made plaster statues and wedding figurines. Now she has resumed her work in Yerevan and is awaiting commissions.