That day Lyoka was wearing a bright yellow hoodie. Its colour illuminated his almond-shaped large eyes. Lyoka's hair, beard and eyelashes were black and thick. He smiled on this soggy and dull, windy and rainy day, so that the only sun in this colourless reality was indeed Lyoka himself in his bright yellow hoodie.

Before the war, everyone knew Valery Ghazaryan as a rapper, who used to sing about his life. After the war, people began to recognize him also by his brand – LyOka's. His hoodies decorated with the symbols of Artsakh – “grandfather-grandmother”, a flag and so on – are bright and colourful.

Lyoka survived three wars and lost two houses. “I was born in the village of Leninavan in Martakert region, where we lived until April 10, 1992, the day of the massacre in Maragha. Then we moved to Nor-Maragha, also in the Martakert region.”

– What is home?

– People… And nothing material. Armenia is my home, you are my home, Armenians are my home.

But now he has nowhere to live…

After moving to Nor Maragha, Lyoka and his family started their new life by building a dugout, digging their garden, harvesting and living their own life. And then Lyoka saw the third war of his life. This third took his second home. “I was in the trenches somewhere near Khtsaberd, when someone called me: get down quickly, Nor Maraga is being surrendered. I was home the same day after dark.”

Lyoka’s family managed to take from their second home only family photo albums and little ones’ school textbooks. “Then I went out, sat in the backyard by the house and started to examine all the things around me, study all the details and take them all with me.”

I say: if you managed to take your memories, then you managed to take everything. He is silent. After a while, he says that he dreams of a home and has a feeling that he will never have one. A house that he will never lose will remain a dream.

I ask about the life of someone who saw death for three times. “A person is born once, dies once, and between birth and death he must live three lives. One for the sake of preserving what his ancestors passed on to him, one for himself and one for the future. If you leave nothing behind, then after death you will be buried in the ground and forgotten.

Our meeting lasted for several hours. The weather was the same. The only sunshine of this grey day still was Lyoka in his bright yellow hoodie.

 

Ani Minasyan

Photo Credit: Ani Minasyan - At the meeting with Valery “Lyօka” Kazaryan. Yerevan, Armenia/March, 2021