The day starts at 7:30 a.m. in suburban Yerevan as Sona Hakobyan has to get ready for
school. Their house is small; it is a one-bedroom apartment, which makes her pay careful
attention to her every move so as not to wake the other members of the family. Walking on her
tiptoes, she puts on her tiny red ribbons under a dim light, eats her daily portion of jam and bread
and soon leaves the house with her elder brother, Grigor Hakobyan. The walk to school is always
filled with small talk about plans for the upcoming day: “Should we maybe play freeze tag
today?” The discussion continues until the number 155 appears before her eyes and she finally
disappears through the school doors. This is what Hakobyan’s typical morning looks like: a kid
whose childhood spanned both Soviet and post-Soviet Armenia.
Ofik was Hakobyan’s favorite toy when she was 7 years old, named after her aunt
Ofelya.
Hakobyan was born in 1986 in Yerevan. She spent her early childhood in the final days
of Soviet Armenia, later having to face a new reality and start living in a politically and
economically unstable country. The 1990s were a period when the country faced a severe energy
crisis that is referred to as the “dark years” or the “dark and cold years” – Mut tariner, Mut u
tsurt tariner, according to the EVN report. Following the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991,
Armenia had to go through severe changes while also tackling the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict
and the consequences of the Spitak earthquake in 1988. “It was a frightful period of time. I think
whoever says life back then was nice just romanticizes whatever that was. We were unable to
buy food; you would get very lucky to even get a piece of bread,” says Babken Hakobyan,
Hakobyan’s father.
The currency of Hakobyan’s early childhood was the Soviet ruble. Shown in the bottom-right corner is a 50-luma coin, used in post-Soviet Armenia.
While Babken Hakobyan remembers the 1990s as a period of hardships and uncertainties, it is the complete opposite for his daughter. “I was a kid; all I could think about was getting done
with my homework as soon as possible and going outside,” Hakobyan says. “We did not have
any phones; instead, we played hide-and-seek, freeze tag, seven stones, and so many other things
until they finally turned on the lights.” Power outages were such an everyday thing that
Hakobyan and her friends would often plan their days according to them. Having no electricity
meant it was playtime for the kids and when the lights suddenly turned back on, every child in
the neighborhood would start screaming out of excitement and run back home. “We had to run
home because we knew we had only 2 hours to help Mom make food and heat the house,”
Hakobyan says.
Hakobyan, wearing yellow, stands with her friends from the neighborhood in
Taperakan,Armenia. Her brother, Grigor Hakobyan, is pictured to her left.
A Gloria doll dining room set gifted to Hakobyan by her mother, Satik Karapetyan, when she was 13.
Hakobyan remembers the days when bread or water, one of the most basic necessities,
were hard to access. The only way to get bread was to stand in lines for hours, whereas
showering was limited to carrying water from the yard and then heating it. “Of course, I would
not like to go back to carrying water buckets on my shoulder, but those were joyful times for
me,” Hakobyan says. “My brother and I would always find something to laugh about in the bread
queue and I really miss that part of my childhood.” Despite the hours spent in lines, those were
often the places where people talked and connected. People were united by their hardships and
that is what created a sense of community. “Yard life was more common in Armenia back then.
Raising children felt easier because you did not have to worry about them getting kidnapped;
everyone knew everyone,” says Satik Karapetyan, Hakobyan’s mom.
Angetik and Janik were Hakobyan’s childhood toys. She would place them on the couch
and make up stories about them with her brother, Grigor Hakobyan.
The sense of community is what makes Hakobyan remember her childhood with
nostalgia. “If I could go back in time, I would love to revisit our New Year’s celebrations,”
Hakobyan says. “Everyone came together, mom cooked delicious food I can still smell in my
nose, everyone was happy and it just felt right.” Moreover, despite the strain of gas and
electricity shortages, there were still museums in operation, concerts, sporting events and the
theater, according to Ruzanna V. Gasparyan. For Hakobyan, however, happiness was found in
the nearby attraction park where they went with her mom and siblings on the weekends. “I
remember my brother loved the autodrome very much; we were always chasing other kids there
and bumping into their cars,” Hakobyan says.
Hakobyan, left, rides the autodrome with her siblings at Victory Park in Yerevan,
Armenia, in July 1996.
As the evening approaches, Hakobyan looks into the mirror to make sure her hair bun is
as neat as her instructor always wants it to be. She quickly straightens her dark blue skirt, puts
her dance shoes in her backpack and leaves to walk towards the bus stop. She takes the bus
number 18, gets off, walks for another 15 minutes. She is excited to see her dance friends again,
while her mind is full of thoughts about tomorrow’s homework: “I should probably ask Dad to
help me with maths.” Her thoughts continue rushing through her mind until her eyes finally catch
the big sign “Gloria Dance Studio” and she firmly vanishes behind those metal doors.
Today, almost three decades later, Hakobyan still looks back on those years with longing
and affection. While she remembers the difficulties her family had to face, she still cherishes the
pure sense of freedom and enjoyment she had as a kid. “Of course, the quality of life was not
great back then, but we were still happy,” Hakobyan says. “I sometimes pass the places where I
I used to play as a kid and sincerely wish I could go back, even for a day.”
