KARABAKH CHILDREN’S HOME REVEALS STRAINS OF LIFE
By Karine Ohanian in Stepanakert

Institute for War & Peace Reporting
Nov 7 2009
UK

Once an orphanage, the institution has evolved to care for the child
victims of a broken society.

The children’s home in Nagorny Karabakh is a happy place where the
children joke with visitors, but its existence reveals strains in
society 15 years after the tiny territory’s independence war with
Azerbaijan ended.

Karabakh, which declared independence from Azerbaijan unilaterally in
1992, had no orphanages in Soviet times. The war in which it broke free
from Baku, however, left many children unsupported. Its independence
has not been recognised, with the result that it’s dangerously exposed
and unable to repair the damage from the war.

The home was founded under the name Zangak in 2000 by Anna Asatrian,
a teacher from Stepanakert, to care for children orphaned by the
conflict. Its role though has evolved into looking after the children
who fall out of the bottom of the republic’s fractured society.

"I like it here. They feed us well," said Artur, a blond boy of around
six just back from school.

His cheeky pleasure was characteristic of children at the home,
where the staff members treat their charges warmly and are clearly
adored in return.

"We do not call [this place] a children’s home. We don’t like that
name as if it was some kind of orphanage where the children are
treated badly. This is where we go gladly and, honestly. We really
love the children," said Liya Sarkisian, a nurse at the house.

She has worked there since 2008 when it came under the control of the
ministry for social support, which is charged with helping children
left without one or both parents for whatever reason.

"Sadly, we do not have any statistics about the number of children left
without parents in those years. The war was going on, and people had
no time for numbers. The most important question was just to survive
… Only now have we come to projects and programmes of assistance
for orphans, and are slowly collecting all the information," said
Vilen Bakhshian, the ministry spokesman.

The home now houses 39 children under the age of 18 of whom three
are orphans and the others have either been abandoned or have just
one parent. The youngest of them is Olezhka, who is seven months
old. Her mother, who was young and unmarried, abandoned her and left
for Russia. The child was sent to the children’s home. She will be
adopted by one of the school employees when she turns one, which is
the minimum age for adoption in Karabakh.

The oldest child is Narine, who lacks both parents and will turn 18
this year. Nonna Musaelian, the director of the school, said Narine
will be provided with accommodation under a state programme when
she leaves.

Some 12 such school-leavers have already received accommodation under
the programme.

"We don’t just give them flats. The flat is completed,
furnished. Everything that is necessary for a home has been bought,
so the children are not just going into an empty shell but a house
they can live in. We plan that another 12 orphans will receive homes
by the end of the year," Bakhshian said.

Not all the children in the school are orphans, however. Nine-year-old
Alyona Osipian is from a large family and her six brothers and
sisters also live in the children’s home. Their mother is ill and
cannot support them, and their grandmother also cannot manage such
a large family on her own.

Although the school’s staff members are glad that Karabakh now has
the resources to support such children, who might otherwise be lost
to a life on the streets, they still regret the traditions that have
been lost.

Raya Minasian, a pensioner who lives near the children’s home, told
IWPR how she worries for the kids who live there.

"It breaks my heart every day when I see these little children
running past our house to school and back. I never believed that
a day would come in Karabakh when such institutions for children
would be opened. Even in the times of the Soviet Union we were proud
that Karabakh was the only place where children were not sent into
orphanages," she said.

"This cursed war, it changed everything. Children were left without
parents. It became hard to make ends meet. How many concerns were
left on the shoulders of women, whose husbands were killed? Yes,
it’s shameful that children are sent to these homes, but on the other
hand you can’t blame the people who do so. Some of them are dead, some
were not capable. What can we do? And it’s good that the children live
well there … I even offer them sweets, but they don’t take them."

The nurses agreed with her that it was sad how their country had
changed, but said they did their best to make the children feel they
had a real home, and that the children appreciate that.

"In Karabakh tradition it is not acceptable to give orphans to an
orphanage," said Sarkisian, the nurse. "Parent-less children should
be taken in by their close relatives: aunts, uncles, grandmothers and
grandfathers. Now it has become harder to live, not all families are
provided for, and that is why our young children end up here. However,
it is good for them here. If they go to their families for a day or
two, they phone us, they miss us and want to come back."

Karine Ohanian is a member of IWPR’s Cross Caucasus Journalism Network.