Meet Armenia’s Defenders: Vahe
Tags: Updates, Karabakh War, Artsakh War, Armenia, Crowdfunding

When Azerbaijan launched last year’s devastating war against Artsakh (Nagorno-Karabakh) and Armenia on September 27, Vahe Sayadyan, a 22-year-old math teacher from the village of Tsaghkaberd in Artsakh’s Kashatagh Province, immediately signed up as a volunteer to defend his home.

Like most of the residents of Tsaghkaberd, Vahe’s family moved to Artsakh 30 years ago following the end of the first war. “I’m from Vayots Dzor; our family moved when I was 6 years old. We had a relative [in Tsaghkaberd] who spoke highly of the village and its surrounding nature. It truly was incredible.”

Vahe’s village, and almost all of the Kashatagh Province is now under Azerbaijani control as part of the trilateral agreement signed on November 9 between Armenia, Azerbaijan and Russia, which brought an end to the war and resulted in the displacement of 40,000 people.

“They say it’s shameful for men to cry, but when I found out that our lands were lost, I couldn’t help but cry while lying in the hospital. You don’t cry because you’re injured or because you’re in pain. You cry at the thought that you can’t return to your home — it’s a very painful thought. And it’s not just my pain, it’s the pain of all the people from Hadrut and Kashatagh.”

Vahe fought in Jabrayil until he was injured on October 3. “I was shot in my arm and leg. I was certain that they [the Azeris] would come and take me and anyone else that was still alive as prisoners. I decided I was not going to be a prisoner — I looked around to see where they were, thinking that I would shoot them, then they would shoot me, or they would shoot me first and I would die. I looked down and saw that my left hand had melted, all the skin had melted. There was shrapnel near my heart and in my head. But they’ve all healed, it’s just my leg now that will heal here [at the Homeland Defender’s Rehab Center].”

Like something out of a movie script, it was Vahe’s brother who found him injured on the battlefield and brought him to safety. When Vahe went to fight as a volunteer, his brother arranged to go to Jabrayil with 200 other volunteers, so that he could fight with Vahe.

“We looked for each other for three days before I learned we were at the same position. [After being shot] one of my friends came to get me as I was in serious condition, but he couldn’t do it on his own. So I pushed myself into the dirt and told him to leave and save himself, as someone needed to respond to the attack. He didn’t want to, but I forced him. And then my brother — I don’t know how — I just heard ‘Vahe, Vahe.’ Someone was looking through the bodies of the fallen soldiers, looking for me… It was my brother. He found me and carried me away.”

Photo provided by Homeland Defender’s Rehabilitation Center

From there Vahe began his long road to recovery, first to Togh village in Hadrut, then Stepanakert, then Goris, then Yerevan, undergoing various surgeries and treatments until arriving at Homeland Defender’s for rehabilitation.

“I’ve been here for 4 or 5 days, and I can already feel a difference. There are soldiers here who say all they could do before was lie down, but now they’re walking with just a cane. The experts here are doing everything they can, and I’m trying to do my part too so that I can leave quickly — not because things aren’t great here, I just want everyone to heal quickly so they can be with their families.”

Vahe currently has a long splint in his leg while his bone and muscle tissue regrow and heal. During his spare time at Homeland Defender’s, he likes to spend time with the other soldiers receiving care. “There are five of us in our room and we’ve become a family. We wait for each other before we go to eat so that we can eat together. I don’t have a home anymore, but we can’t let anything break us. Things will turn out for the better. Of course, it’s difficult not to break when we see what’s happening in [the Syunik Province]. You want to leave in the current state you’re in to do something. A friend here is from Syunik, and we both want to leave right now to go to protect the region.”

While it’s unclear whether he will be able to fight again soon, Vahe’s long-term plan is to return to teaching. As for the fate of his family and neighbors from Tsaghkaberd, Vahe says that everyone is returning to wherever they came from 30 years ago.

“It’s OK. We’ll start from scratch. I just wish all the soldiers who didn’t return home could come back to their parents. My grandma would always say ‘Let me bury my mother, but may my mother never bury me.’ There’s no worse pain. I’m not a parent so I don’t know, I guess I’ll understand later. It’s a different kind of pain. ”