Grisha Asryan was displaced from Vank village of Martakert region. He talked in the framework of “Artsakh: Armenian Genocide 2023. Stories of Survivors” documentary project, about the problems that arose after the displacement, shared his memories, the difficulties of the days of the siege.
According to Grisha, the days of the siege were very difficult, no help reached them; there were people who slept hungry for days.
“We were 40-50 people in one car: somehow made road and passed. We came hungry and thirsty, they gave us food on the way, we barely came here, we came here, but we are not given a house. I sleep on the benches. My clothes were dirty, worn out; I wore the same clothes for 1 month and 25 days.”
He has health problems, he cannot buy medicine, he lived alone there as well, he built a house, but, like other Artsakh residents, he had to leave everything he had in his native land and leave.
“There is a fragment near my heart, there was a fragment in the leg as well but it was removed. Now I wake up at night with fear, I have seen 4 wars, yet I did not come to Armenia,” Grisha says.
His birthplace was sometimes called Gandzasar, then it was renamed Vank. It was there that he made people happy with his white horse, received tourists, and rode around the sights.
People often approach Grisha from Gandzasar here too, asking where his horse is. “I asked Tigran Avinyan, I wrote a letter to him asking that I want to take a horse and go to the Victory Park, but there was no answer. Now I want to make people happy here too, so that they will come and ride a horse, and I will live here temporarily.”
“Have you been to Artsakh? Yes, I have. Have you seen Grisha? If you haven’t seen Grisha, you haven’t been to Karabakh,” Grandfather Grisha says, adding: “There are 3 things in Artsakh: grandmother, grandfather and Grisha.”
Details in the video.
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