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Don’t count my effort to live a heroism [October 2, 2006] The 40-year-old Yakov Altounian has no legs. He tries not to complain very much in order not to differ from others. He lost his legs on August 18, 1993. “I was a gunlayer and a coordinator of the Turkish positions,” he explains the details of his biography pertaining to the battles. When taking Fizuli, he was the very man to specify the positions towards which to fire. And the legs? “I was blown up on a mine,” with these words he begins and ends his story about the legs. Now he has a self-made wheeled board replacing his legs 10 cm high from the ground. He is dragged forward rather than moved. He holds 2 boards like a plane in his both hands to push himself forward. “Legs are not the main driving force of the life. What cannot be cured must be endured,” Yakov shrugs his shoulders. The Armenians took Fizuli just the next day he was wounded. He is the only disabled in the village Mets Taghlar of the Hadrut Region. “Nobody spared himself during the war but after that changed their behavior,” says he. Yakov hasn't seen them long in their village and their region. He has read about them in the newspapers. “Now they are bigwigs.” He doesn't look disappointed. He says he wasn't disappointed even the first days of his wounding, simply the feelings were other. “Do you know what is the new feeling? At first you take it easy because you have other concerns – Homeland, People, you learn that there have been many wounded and killed after you. You live with these feelings the first three years. The new life begins afterwards. In peace one begins looking at everything with true eyes. I wasn't married then.” He couldn't imagine that anyone would want to marry him. In the village he was thought of as a hero - not as a freedom-fighter, but a man who didn't think of suicide. “I can't tell that I don't want to live. I'll drive everybody into desperation,” says Yakov. He doesn't hide that he lives through maximum of his forces. Mets Taghlar is the whole world for him. He is unable to go out from there. Moreover, nobody is interested in him beyond the village. “The government gives a pension for physical inability – 41000 Drams. I had been asking to replace my roof for three years. At last Hadrut administration replaced it with my help,” tells Yakov Altounian. The Government has awarded him with a Fighting Cross of the 2-nd degree for “Outstanding bravery and personal courage in defending the native land.” Then an article was published about him in one of the local newspapers. And that was all.
Yakow used to live with dreams rather than with expectations. He dreamt of having his own family. And his love appeared as if from the heaven. In 1999, after finishing school Inna Mirzakhanian married Yakov. “So far nobody in the village can answer the question why the young girl married me after completing the 10 th class,” says he. Inna remembers that when she was in the 8 th class, Yakov was working together with her father in an accounting department of some enterprise. “He was disabled and everybody in the village respected him. He often came to our house and asked me whether I would marry an invalid or not. Such questions pulled together us. And in the 10 th class I fell in love with him,” recollects Inna. Like other houses in the village, they have no toilet and bathroom. The wooden toilet is situated at the end of the personal plot. Yakov wants to “bring” the toilet to the second floor of his house. “In winter I have to come down, enter into the garden and go the toilet. My child watches where I am going. It is very personal and nobody can help it,” says Yakov.
After marriage, Yakov has become more resourceful. He has many books above under the roof and a lot of time to read them, too. What can he do? He doesn't want to disturb his wife each time by sending her for the book. So, with her help he has attached a rope to the roof and climbs up the rope to take a new book when necessary. He says the books are very old, patriotic one. Yakov personally acquaints me with his house and its facilities. His board slides forward and I can see the self-made vodka-distillation apparatus. The board slides forward and I can see the pigsty. The board slides and Yakov could hardly keep himself to not collide with the bicycle of his 5-year-old son Grigor. Then he takes me to the second floor. Going upstairs is a pure hell for him. He can neither walk, nor slide, but doesn't want to ask anyone for help either. The stairs are very high and inconvenient even for his 8-year-old daughter Mariam.
He doesn't even think of making the stairs convenient for a man having difficulties in moving. He shows the invalid carriage in the corridor which he uses in winter and on the second floor only. Then the same painful “steps” down the stairs and we appear on the first floor of the house which used to be a cellar formerly. Their family spends summer here. Yakov suggests drinking mulberry vodka made by him. He says a toast: “I ask the God for peace, not for health. He drinks. His son wants to drink and clink glasses, too. They fill his glass with mineral water and Yakov announces the next toast: “I trust the God, but I'm not going to ask him to repair my stairs, shall I? I shouldn't distract his attention from more important things. Let people not count my efforts to live a heroism and not be surprised on how I live this way. Let them love this country,” he says and drinks without finishing the toast. The child's glass remains in air, and mine, too. Mher Arshakian |
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