The interview took place in March 2021.
Slavik was born on June 29, 1947 in the village of Karin Tak, Shushi region. He was the fourth child out of eight children in the family. He was only one year old when the family moved to Shushi.
Slavik received his primary education at boarding school No. 1 in Stepanakert, and moved to the village of Karmir Shuka in Martuni region after finishing the eighth grade in order to live and continue his studies there. In 1965, after graduating from secondary school, he was drafted into the Soviet army. After completing his service in 1967, Slavik returned to Stepanakert and entered the medical college. Slavik received a medical degree in 1970 and went to work at the sanitary epidemiological station in Shushi, where he worked until his retirement. He had a one-room apartment in Shushi, which was provided to him by the state in the 1990s. Slavik is single; he does not have any children.
During the third Artsakh war, at the end of October 2020, he was forced to leave his native town Shushi and move to Yerevan. He was transferred and placed in one of the hotels in Vanadzor afterwards. After the brutal end of the war, despite the fact that Shushi had been lost and Slavik had lost everything, he moved to Stepanakert in January 2021. The government accommodated him in the Armenia Hotel in Stepanakert, where he lives to this day.
Slavik has been a beneficiary of Hanganak since October 2016, when the All-Armenian Fund began to finance Hanganak’s Shushi program. Shushi’s program was interrupted after the war. By the decision of the Board of the Armenian Women’s Welfare Association, Stepanakert program has been expanded since January 2021 to include also the elderly displaced from the occupied regions of Artsakh. Therefore, Slavik was immediately included in the list of beneficiaries when he returned to Stepanakert.
His pension is 76,000 AMD, of which 11,500 AMD is the benefit of a single pensioner.
He suffers from high blood pressure, type two diabetes and a vision problem – cataract. He had an operation on his left eye in 2016, and now he is going to have an operation on his right eye. Slavik states that the mentioned diseases are not hereditary and he acquired them all over the years.
He receives Noliprel forte N30, Cardiomagnyl 75 mg N30, Omeprazole 20 mg N30 and Spasmalgon N10 from Hanganak, and the polyclinic provides him with Metformin 1000 mg N30 and Diabeton 60 mg N30.
Slavik often visits the Hanganak office, consults with Doctor Lilya Seyranyan. He considers Hanganak his parental house, especially since he lost everything in Shushi. He visits Hanganak every time he is sad to talk to the team, share and relax to some extent.
Hanganak provided him also with devices to measure blood pressure and glucose level.
He expresses his gratitude to the benefactors of Hanganak and the entire team.