Earlier in the morning when the clouds shrouding the village of Tatev, which is in the southern Armenian ‘world of Syunik’, start to withdraw, the village in the bosom of late autumn begins to wake up. Red, yellow and brown are everywhere. Some tree branches are already covered with snow, but next to them ripe apples shine bright as if trying to prolong autumn in the Syunik mountains for several more days.

Detached from and unaware of the rest of the world, people in Tatev live with their own cares and problems, making sure they are on time with the autumn sowing campaign, that they have stored up enough forage for cattle, watching the weather… and answers to everything end with a question.

“They live somehow, trying to make both ends meet. What should they do? That’s their lot. But the good thing is that in the last few years they don’t leave the village,” says the village head, showing the way to the Khachatryan’s hut.

As the gate squeaked, the door opened and a pregnant woman came out with a man in a military uniform following her. The smile spread over his face as if we had been old friends, and he invited us inside: “Come in! Come in!”, though it was the first time we met. Poverty and cold inside, faded walls with huge holes, a balcony with broken glasses, beds and a table with meager food, pickles and a half empty bottle of vodka… “Sit down! Sit down!” said the home master gladly. Had we started to drink with him, he would never ask who we were and why did we arrive. So I had to ask him: “Don’t you want to know who we are?” Replied the home owner: “Its of no importance”.

Armen Avetisyan, a soldier known for his feat in the village of Achajur, has been defending the border near to the village of Vazashen, since 1988 when the Karabakh War started. He took part in the fights in Lachin corridor, on the Karabakh front.

This edition of ArmeniaNow marks the fifth anniversary of the founding of the HyeSanta charity campaign.

In 2003, we first challenged our readers to extend much-needed help to unfortunate families like many here whom ArmeniaNow journalists encounter in the course of our routine reporting. Your immediate response justified our belief that this online journal could serve as a bridge to compassionate readers who may never set foot in Armenia, but whose hearts are always here.

Beyond the immediate gesture of offering relief, we also wanted to establish a tradition in Armenia that had not been a feature of the media community here. Through HyeSanta we wanted to teach advocacy journalism in Armenia – to demonstrate that the powerful tool of information can be an instrument for the good of social welfare.

Additionally, ArmeniaNow wanted to demonstrate to our sponsors that their charity to us reached beyond our self-serving needs and that our aim was to turn “donations” into “investments”. We exist due to the generosity of the Armenian General Benevolent Union who, since 2003, has funded ArmeniaNow as part of its multi-faceted program of philanthropy in Armenia. For the past two years, the Armenian Assembly of America has also supported us. Though HyeSanta was independently created by ArmeniaNow, we hope these respected institutions who have helped ArmeniaNow will also feel satisfaction in that their belief in us is repaid in help to others through this charity effort.

The only advantage of the basement-like two-room shelter of the Ghulyan family in Martakert is that theirs is not an ordinary basement but one with two stories, where they manage to “even feel the warmth of the sun”.

They rent the place. Their home, where they used to live from generation to generation, was set afire by Azeris in 1991. As a result Garnik Ghulyan, 47 along with his five children, wife and wife’s mother appeared in the street.

After changing places for several years, they were finally offered the shelter they now live in, where, as Garnik’s wife Hasmik says, they “haven’t seen anything good.”

Winter comes early to Amasia region of the Shirak province. The residents of the Aregnadem village take the stoves out of storage and into their homes.

The large family of Ghukasyans, though, has no need to get to the storage room; they will have to bring their stove standing in the corridor-kitchen to the bedroom-living room.

They use the stove in summer time to cook, and to cook and heat in the wintertime. The two-room house is blackened with smoke from burned manure – the only available fuel.

It is already three days that four-year-old Tehmine has been asking her mom for candy, but her mother can’t afford to fulfill her little one’s elementary wishes. Stifling her emotions from the child’s waiting looks in tears, the mother, 38-year-old Larisa, continues to rock the cradle with her 9-month-old Amalik, speaking about her past under the accompaniment of the rusty metal cradle’s extraordinary creak.

“We found this cradle inside one ruined house… it’s a half-ruined thing, but it is good to lull the child. I have to rope up the baby tight from several places to prevent it from falling, but my attention is wholly drawn to the cradle while the baby is there asleep,” Larisa says.

“The district militia officer of ours, God bless him, he brought us here saying ‘Do something if you can.’ So did I. There was a huge pile of garbage here, a pesthole for cholera. So all of us together with my children, we worked and brought the place to an order. We bought this little shelter and brought it here,” says Anush Manukyan, a resident of the Shengavit community in Yerevan, who lives with her three children – a son and two daughters, and her daughters’ three children.

“I used to collect empty bottles, sell liquid bleach. I somehow managed to buy this [temporary house] and gathered my children under one roof,” Anush recalls.

This 48-year-old woman, who shoulders the burden of her family bought the shelter eight years ago. The family cleaned the piece of land by hand, taking away garbage and stones. Modest as it is, it is an improvement over their previous “residence” – in a cemetery in Karmir Blur (near Yerevan).

The mother who lost three sons continues to struggle for her husband’s life.

Lying on a bed in the corner of a small room, with catheters attached to his body, an old man still braves his condition and according to an old custom tries to greet his guests by reciting from his favorite poems – but the excruciating pain has rendered him unable even to speak…

The family of 80-year-old Liparit and 75-year-old Nora is one of the many in Shushi who have shared the difficult fate of the town and their generation who had to flee from ethnic persecutions.

In the rays of a sunset the village huddling on top of a hill looks like a gilded crown. Autumn in the village of Geghard in Armenia’s Kotayk province is at its height. The warm autumn sun caresses the village’s fruitful orchards. The giant mountains of the Geghama mountain range seem to be dancing kochari at the rear of Geghard.

It is a perfect village. Until you look for Senik Karapetyan’s house

The locals say it is in the upper parts of the village. Before we reach Senik’s house the village becomes totally shrouded in darkness. A villager shows a light gleaming in the dark: “That’s Senik’s house.”

Two years ago the Asatryans – a family of four – moved to Metsamor from the village of Lernagog. Yeghsik Hakobyan, 30 and her three children aged 13, 12 and 9, rented an apartment in a building where the stench of the damaged sewage is a visit card.

“My husband passed away in 1998. My youngest was born just twenty days before the accident – an accident with my husband in the car,” Yeghsik begins to tell the hard story of her family.

Arkadi, the youngest, is in second grade. He is thin, shortish and pale. The boy lags behind his peers in physical growth because of malnutrition.