Artsakh, occupied by Azerbaijan, has been under complete blockade for 273 days.

Being deprived of light, water and gas, people are already deprived of bread and hope, but they are still able to struggle and show the world that they are firmly attached to their land.

Marianna Babajanyan, who lives in Stepanakert, told Iravaban.net how her family endures and struggles.

“I am from Chartar but I lived in Zoravan, yet the Turks occupied our village. I got married; they occupied my husband’s village as well. Now we live in Stepanakert and rent a house. We, like everyone else, still struggle and endure. We hope that everything will be fine, I spend the days in prayer,” he says.

There is also a little girl in Marianna’s young family, who has already started to speak and present her modest demands to her parents.

“The most difficult thing is that my child wants some things and I say there is none. She has just started speaking and she already wants some things, when I say that we have not, I get terribly upset that in the 21st century I cannot provide for my child’s needs. We find pampers somehow. My child eats only dairy products and for 2 months no dairy products entered our house,” the young mother says.

She states that the salvation will be for people to sympathize and help each other and emphasizes that she is afraid of the fact that people can become evil. “But no one will be blamed; no one could live in these conditions.”

Marianna runs a blog on Instagram and TikTok. She presents to people her formula for survival in the conditions of the siege.

“The social platform is a way of working for me. Here I cut myself off from this reality, but I also do everything to let them know more about us. I want to let everyone know about us as much as possible so that they do not forget us,” Marianna says.

She is a make-up artist by profession, but in Artsakh, which has been under siege for 273 days, there are very few opportunities to apply makeup, or rather, none at all.

“I haven’t had a job for a long time, and there are no places for people to go to beautify themselves. But money does not matter here either. People make exchanges. Toilet paper is exchanged with sugar, washing powder with dishwashing liquid. That’s how people help each other,” Marianna says.

Our interlocutor says that the food she saved is already running out.

“There is one kilogram of sugar left, I have some buckwheat, I have some rice. We will not last long either. Everyone’s house has run out of everything,” she says.

Our interlocutor says that she managed to find an alternative way of making coffee, which she treats her relatives with. She makes coffee from chickpeas, she says that it is very tasty.

 “I saw on the Internet how coffee was made in the 90s. I also started cooking. We drink it because there is nothing else, what should we do? Of course, I would like it to be enough to share with them all,” she says.

Queues still existing in Artsakh, despite the fact that bread is already received with a coupon, because there is a shortage of flour, enough bread is not baked, people stand in queues for hours. Staying in line for bread for 2 hours, Marianna witnessed how they refused to give bread to the soldier because he did not have a coupon.

“They didn’t help him; I gave him one of my two loaves of bread. There are 4 of us living at home. Me, my mother, my husband and my baby. My father came to Armenia and can no longer return. My father suffers a lot because he is away from his family. I am very attached to my papa, I never thought that I would be away from him for such a long time,” she says.

Marianna states that she cannot leave Artsakh even when the roads are opened.

“People who have nothing to keep here can leave, I can’t go, and it seems to me that no one will do that. If we die, let us all die, if we live, let us all live. But we are broken, what is this state that we are living in, there is nothing? We can’t take care of our children, I can’t imagine what will happen in the winter, and I cannot even imagine that we will last until then. We have not given up hope yet, it will be fine, and a door will open. All that remains is that people do not become evil,” she says.

She states that people should convert, be kind and help each other.

Hasmik Sargsyan