Narine Balayan

56 years old, Tailor

«I’m firmly sticking to my roots, it’s the only way to preserve my identity».

For 56-year-old Narine Balayan, sticking to her roots is very important, as she is the bearer of national and family values. While talking with Narine, it was impossible not to feel the desire to go back to her birthplace Gandzak, city of Artsakh, where she was born and raised & lived in the house his father built.

It is my dream to return to the place where I took my first steps. I lived in Gandzak until I was 18 years old, I have memories of every tree there. Although I haven’t seen my birthplace for more than 3 decades, it still remains in my memories and the feeling of longing never stops tormenting me.

When I was still young, when I was just entering the real life, I felt what it was like to lose homeland, to lose a birthplace. Imagine the feelings a person can have when, due to circumstances, he/she is forced to leave the house, which he/she acquired at the price of years of work and deprivation.

During the days of the last Artsakh war, thousands of Armenians felt the hard feelings we experienced 30 years ago. In 1988, when we were forcibly displaced from Gandzak, we moved to Yerevan, where we had to start all over again. I am married, I have two children.

I work as a tailor at “Sewing Hope for Armenia” organization. In Armenian families, it is common for mothers or grandmothers to pass on to their children the skills that they in turn inherited from their grandmothers and mothers. That is how I know how to sew, my mother taught me that skill.

Although a long time has passed, I believe that one day I will open the door of my father’s house left in Gandzak again. Difficulties are like a cloudy sky, and hope is the realization that behind the clouds the Sun is waiting for you.