MORE THAN LIFE

19-year-old Gagik Abrahamyan had a thousand dreams … He was a future director, a professional football player. He was the goalkeeper of “Pyunik” football club. He kept the gates of the homeland … at the cost of his life …

“Gagik was our firstborn, the house was filled with joy and happiness when he was born,” says his mother, Rita, with a bright smile.

Little Gagik was lively and playful, his energy was inexhaustible, a piece of real fire. He loved to read. When he was six years old, on June 1, the mother presented her son with Parsadanyan’s “Knowledge Database”. He read so carelessly, so absorbedly that when asked a question on a topic, he would open it and show it on a specific page.

– I raised both my sons with patriotic books, the national song-music was always played at home. Every year on April 24, my sons and I used to visit Yerablur, then Tsitsernakaberd, on the way I told about the heroes, I wanted my children to grow up in a patriotic and patriotic spirit.

Gagik excelled at school, one of the teachers recalls, in the third grade, during an open class on the galaxy. Gagik asked, “If you move to another galaxy, what will you take with you?” “Country” …

♦♦♦

At the age of 12-13, Gagik joined Pyunik as a goalkeeper. My brother and I often turned the house into a football field, the neighbors already knew that the adults were not at home.

After graduating from school, he entered the Directing Department of Yerevan State College No. 1. He loved the profession, and the dominant theme in filmmaking was war. The lecturer once inquired why this topic is especially at the core of the films, he said: my freedom fighter-military grandfather is a participant in the Artsakh liberation war, he told many cases and episodes from that period, I want to make good films with deep layers. “I will present films like never before in Armenian film series.”

The talented young man intended to enter the Yerevan State Institute of Theater and Cinema, Department of Directing after the army, in order to master all the professional nuances more perfectly. He strived for perfection in every field. He was going to continue the sport, he dreamed of having his own football club.

Director, football player … Both professions were in the first place for him.

In addition to training and studying, he also worked as a cook in one of the restaurants in Yerevan, making sushi.

Gagik was full of energy, a bright smile on his face, humor was an inexhaustible, walking joy, everyone loved him.

♦♦♦

The time for service has come. The soldier filling in the data of the recruits in the regional military commissariat was delighted. “These tall, stocky, one by one educated, one by one developed boys, this flow seems to be selective.”

Gagik replied, “These guys are the guys who have to live, they want to live …”

After serving in a training military unit for six months, the same military unit in Ijevan where his grandfather had been a platoon commander years ago was drawn.

– One day I asked, my son, are they very strict there? He laughed, dear mom, I first served with you, what is the point of strictness … He was in position during the events in Tavush in July. He served well, was recognized as the best sergeant, – his mother does not hide his pride. – He was an artilleryman, commander of the D-30 cannon. He wanted his grandfather to paint the wheels of the cannon. I said you love your cannon more than me. One day I kept calling, but he did not answer, I could not find a place to worry, it turned out that he had planted a tree in Ijevan military unit and did not have time to call. Ijevan is my birthplace, and there are no words to describe how happy we were to serve there, but he aspired to serve in Artsakh.

“Your homeland also starts from Ijevan, it is a border area,” I tried to persuade with a thousand and one arguments, but he did what he said, he wrote an application to move to Artsakh. Frankly, my heart felt that he would go, recognizing his nature, his temperament. When he called from Artsakh, I said angrily, “You did what you said at the end, so that you can come. I will beat you well.”

He laughed out loud, it happened, mom dear, I will come, you will kill me …

The mother and son sometimes talked on the phone, but the conversation was so short that the son, in order to calm the mother’s heart, said that everything was fine with them, there were no shots, that they were sitting idle all day. The mother, hiding her excitement, heartbreaking worries and anxieties, gathered herself and spoke and joked in a happy tone like her son.

– Loloz dear, you will keep your head down …

– Yes, dear mom ..

– Gagik was talking louder than usual, laughing out loud, he was saying, guys, I’m talking to my mother. Maybe he wanted to inspire and give hope to his friends with his smile … I don’t know … One of the officers says that Gagik was the pain of the boys, he encouraged and inspired everyone … Many people from Artsakh posted various videos and photos on the Internet, I was surprised, that my son did not paint anything before the war Wherever he went, he was painting every moment. He only sent one picture, a weapon in each hand, as if he were a war movie hero, I likened him to Rambo and said that. It turned out that his friends also call him that.

“During the fight, our Henry wrote” Rambo “in Gagik’s helmet, and when we addressed Gagik that way, he smiled sweetly,” says his comrade-in-arms, Karen Santoyan. , was so devoted, compassionate, reaching, kind. And how he was fighting … We were shooting from our artillery, he was running, he was helping the guys next to him, he was aiming. We removed a few degrees of the enemy, we did not even have time to rejoice … At the last moment I was not with him, on October 16 I was wounded, I was taken to hospital. When Gagik found out that I was injured, he was angry that I had come out of the ditch … Sometimes he called, “Get well soon, come on, we need a sniper.” I was in the hospital when I found out … The only consolation is that the part that the boys kept at the cost of their lives remained impregnable …

On the night of October 27-28, the enemy ATS hit the trench of the command staff. Gagik and his friends rushed to the rescue, the wounded commander was taken to a trench, but noticing the movement of the enemy, he targeted the area for the second time.

The six soldiers in the trench, Gagik Abrahamyan, Aren Mehrabyan, Henry Arutyunov, Aram Simonyan, Karen Petikyan, Edward Dovlatbekyan, the wounded commander, are killed.

Before that, Gagik had told some of the boys who rushed to his aid, “We are here a lot, go and go to the next ditch,” and the four boys, thanks to Gagik, survived. The light did not go out in the four hearths …

♦♦♦

Everything in Gagikents’s hearth reminds him of him: his military uniform, medals, photos, diplomas, homemade cross … With his first salary he bought a tuff model of “Gandzasar” monastery complex. Before leaving for the army, he brought avocado seeds, sowed them carefully, grew them, and before leaving, he ordered, “Mom, dear, you will take a good look, you saw it again …

Every now and then we look at Gagik’s photo album, which his mother composed with such care and warmth. How full, what a full life this 19-year-old boy lived. On the first page of the album is the signature of the mother, Rita. “Knowledge gives weight to man, and deeds give shine. Try to keep that shine, honey! May God illuminate your path so that you can create the right path in your life. ”

Our hero guys shone with their actions. they loved the homeland as much as life and more than life ..

Their unlived springs compel and command us, the most ordinary peasants, to the supreme leader of the country, to be patriotic on a piece of land left in the heart … and to love the homeland with the sincere devotion of the boys …

By ALIS ALAVERDYAN

Photos by AREG VARDANYAN and from the family archive