Edward Maranjyan from Gyumri was drafted into the army two months before the war. During the hot days of the war, he voluntarily expressed a desire to go to Artsakh from the Meghri military unit. They took him to Jrakan (Jabrail), where 20-year-old Edward died from an UAV strike. He was a bronze medalist of the Armenian Youth Weightlifting Championship. The athlete had a worthy character – strong-willed, fearless and purposeful.

“I called him strong because he was very strong and ready to stand by me with everything. When he saw me outside, it did not matter where I was going, he was definitely taking me by car. And he had a very beautiful smile, he loved it when I said your smile is beautiful. There is a big and empty place left in my life after he left,” Shushanik Atoyan Edward’s childhood friend says.

“He was a support for all of us, if it is possible to express in words, he was a mountain. He was calm, had a heavy and mature character. He may not have spoken, but he would have said something, a word that would have had an effect. I knew I could rely on him. And now I’m half done. How can a half-lived person live?” his mother, Haykanush Maranjyan says.

On the battlefield, according to friends, Edward behaved like a strong man. When he heard the voice of the UAV, which was going to take his life, he said, “Aren’t you afraid, boys?” Before reaching the hospital, he fainted twice, and the last time he said, let me sleep peacefully, again. He slept forever…”

Hamlet Gasparyan is Edward’s childhood friend, while talking on the phone, Edward once told him, “I’m so calm, you cannot imagine, the field was bombed, UAV was dropped, help the wounded, I took them out from there to the car, we will not leave them there.”

The mother was not aware that her son was in the hot spot of the war, they said he was in Stepanakert, but she mentioned that she felt something.

“I saw in my dream that there was a wound on his right eyebrow, and he was sitting and eating bread. I said, ‘Edo jan, what happened?’ and I saw that it was a closed coffin I asked two questions. I asked, is this he? They said, yes, then I asked, is his body normal? They answered, yes, and I said, was something on his right side? There was a burn, and the rib injury, which was fatal, was still on the right rib,” the mother, Haykanush Maranjyan says choking on tears.

Edward was the youngest in the family, he has a brother 5 years older than him. The parents say that he stayed until the end, for which they did not spare anything, they never refused his wishes. The mother says that at least in this matter her conscience is a little calm.

They remember that Edward was 8-9 years old when a new sports school was opened near their building․ He decided to go to weightlifting on his own. The mother says he was very modest. He did not allow them to be present at the competitions.

“I would also be very worried on the days of the competitions. I would constantly look out of the balcony to see what had happened to the child. “Suddenly I would see him comming holding the diploma and the cup,” the mother remembers.

Edward’s coach Artak Gevorgyan does not forgive himself, he says with tears in his eyes, on his advice he was admitted to Yerevan Olympic Shift College, for which he went to the army 3 years later.

“If there wasn’t this war, he would have said his word at the European, World and Olympic competitions. The kilos he lifted were international-class kilograms, he just got a back injury, did not have time to go to international competitions and went to the army,” the coach says.

He remembers that Edward always trained under patriotic songs.

“During the war I was talking to him, he said, ‘Comrade Artak, why should I leave the boys alone?’ Thus he voluntarily left Meghri for Artsakh. The most tormenting thing for me is his kind smile, which he would always smile with. Heis in front of my eyes, I cannot forgive myself,” Artak Gevorgyan says.

The self-contained and modest Edward was unusually happy during the farewell party.

“That day he leaned on the shoulders of his friends and father and danced. He was very happy. “Usually, we would always persuade him at the parties to dance, but how he danced that day!” His mother recalls, showing the pictures and videos of that day.

During the war, the family always talked to Edward, even on the very day of the incident, in the morning. But they could not imagine that they were talking to their Edo for the last time.

The mother says that she is very careful in her steps today, when she does something she first thinks, would Edward like this? She says that when she visits the boy’s grave, when she cries loudly, she immediately thinks that Edward would not want her to do that.

“I always say you fought with the iron all your life, why did you not survive there, Edo?” The mother concluded.

Lusine Hakobyan