THE SPITAK QUAKE: 25 YEARS OF ADJUSTMENT FOR THE ASATRYAN FAMILY
THE SPITAK QUAKE | 08.11.13 | 16:25
NAZIK ARMENAKYAN
ArmeniaNow
Arsen Asatryan’s family
By GAYANE MKRTCHYAN
ArmeniaNow reporter
The elderly man fights back tears, but his son’s presence is enough
to break the efforts, and he falls apart…
“I pulled him out, the world had collapsed, I was in a fire or
I don’t know in what… but I was glad at the same time. Why was
I glad? Because he was alive, it means he could survive; I had no
idea his spine had been damaged this way,” recalls 77-year-old Samvel
Asatryan. “Somebody pointed in the direction from where Arsen’s voice
was heard and I started digging right there and crept forward until
I caught the glance of his feet, recognized him from his shoes. But,
you know what?
He lay there with his legs turned around and his body twisted… I
pulled him out from under the ruins myself.”
Enlarge Photo Arsen’s father Samvel Asatryan Enlarge Photo Arsen
Asatryan at his studio Enlarge Photo Enlarge Photo
Silence settles heavily… Attempts are made to push Samvel’s grim
recollections back to the memory storage. Arsen, 47, in a wheelchair,
smiles at his father and says: “He is my rescue brigade.”
Surviving the devastating Spitak earthquake 25 years ago, the Asatryan
family continued to live in Spitak. The natural calamity broke the
spine of the family, but still they were alive, could build a new
life on the ruins of the old one and even be happy again.
“There had been many earthquakes, but who knew an earthquake could
cause such destruction? That time everything was different – a mighty
sound was heard, very strong, but muffled, crash and violent tremor, it
went this way, then that way… the sky went dark, because everything
had collapsed and the dust had veiled the sun,” recalls Samvel.
Back then Arsen worked in Spitak’s elevator manufacturing plant. He
says he and his friend were making photocopies of Sumgait pogroms,
and his office was on the second floor.
“I wasn’t supposed to fall, but a woman came in at that time and
started talking to my friend. I left the room to let them communicate
and was in the corridor. As soon as I stepped out of the room the quake
started. They remained unharmed, because that part of the building
resisted the tremor, while the part beyond the door collapsed, me
with it. It was fate, everybody has their fate. It is as if that
woman replaced me,” recalls Arsen. “Before they pulled me out I had
been unconscious for several hours, then woke up from pain.”
Arsen was transferred to Yerevan, then Moscow, to Burdenko Neurosurgery
Institute.
“The USSR health minister came and took a look at Arsen, then
instructed to take him to Burdenko’s cerebrospinal center. I asked
if they would take me with them, but they refused. A few days later
I was told Arsen was asking for me. I decided to go to Moscow, but
how? No money, no valuables, no passport. Still, I went. See, that
was humanity which no longer exists. I went out… a vehicle came
with voluntary rescue teams, and they took me to Yerevan with them
and dropped me at the Confederation of Trade Unions of Armenia. At
the Confederation they asked many questions, did a background check,
gave me 300 rubbles so that I could make it to Moscow,” tells Samvel.
In Moscow they never performed the surgery, because, paramedics said,
Arsen’s condition would get worse – his kidneys had been pressed.
Twenty five years later Samvel still says words of gratitude to those
who stood next to him and tried to alleviate his sufferings as much
as they could.
“Arsen’s fever would not subside because of his kidney damage. There
was a Russian woman, Galya, she was fond of my Arsen very much. She
brought some medicine and told me to give it to him – one spoonful
a day with a piece of sugar. We later learned that she was in charge
of the Kremlin pharmacy and had secretly brought the medicine special
for my Arsen,” recalls the father. “Strangers would come bring food
and show such care, such humane attitude. It’s a pity that people
have changed over the past two and a half decades; they have turned
inert and uncaring. I made it to Moscow with 300 rubles, but there
we were given 14,000 rubles’ donations.”
While the father and the son are trying to turn the sad pages of their
painful past, Arsen’s wife Arusyak is laying a table and shyly tells
their love story. Arsen and Arusyak met a year after the earthquake at
the Institute of Physical Therapy in Yerevan, where Arsen was taking
rehabilitation treatment, learning the skills he was going to need
for the rest of his life, confined to a wheelchair.
“I had just graduated from the institute of physical education and
got the job at the Institute of Physical Therapy as a specialist in
medical gymnastics. Overgrowth in joints occurs in one in a hundred
cases, and Arsen happened to be that one case. In fact he had that
condition right from the beginning [after the injury]. Arsen’s knees
do not bend. We went to see Professor Valentin Dikul; if with the
other patients exercises worked by 80 percent, in his case it was
only 10 percent effect. We even went to the United States, but were
told it was too late,” tells Arusyak, 46.
Physical challenges were not a hindrance to the love that the couple
shared. Arusyak made the most important decision of her life – to
marry Arsen. They have a 20-year- old daughter and a 13-year-old son.
Fragments of their life stand on a shelf with photographs, in one
of which their daughter is in a wedding dress with her American
bridegroom.
“They got married this summer at Spitak church,” Arsen says with
a smile.
His wife says no more, looking at her husband with eyes still shining
with love. She watches his every move, but lets him cope by himself.
Instead, Samvel still has things to say: “We had two children, and
then, it happened so, that Arsen was born. I would often say ‘My Lord,
you wanted us to have Arsen, why did you treat him so cruelly then?
But I am happy my daughter-in-law came to our family and gifted
two wonderful children to us. They say when God shuts one door,
He opens another. She truly loved him, that’s why she came, because
when choosing a spouse they take into account even the slightest of
disadvantages. She still came, regardless of everything, and for that
I am grateful to God,” says Samvel, his eyes turning tearful again.
Next to the living room is Arsen’s studio; he has been painting since
1997, held an exhibition in York, Great Britain, in 2009, and attended
it with his wife.
“Before the earthquake I did not paint. Painting helps me
relax…” says Arsen.
Still life, landscapes, women portraits… Arsen’s unspoken words
are everywhere – his undying love for life, everything that was
interrupted in a split second . . .
http://www.armenianow.com/society/the_spitak_quake/49911/spitak_earthquake_armenia_arsen_asatryan_physical_therapy