InternationalThe Armenian Madonna lives on
The inextinguishable power of life
Published: Saturday December 13, 2008 in Earthquake 20 Years On
Left: Marineh Nouroyan and her daughters soon after they were rescued from the rubble of their Gyumri apartment building, which collapsed in the earthquake of Dec. 7, 1988. Right: Marineh Nouroyan and her grandchildren in 2008. Mkhitar Khachatrian, Photolure
Yerevan - Many are well acquainted with Marineh Nouroyan from the photograph in which she is pictured with her three daughters soon after the 1988 earthquake in northern Armenia. This photo, coined the "Madonna" or the "Armenian Madonna," became the witness and symbol of a nation's tragedy and of the unbreakable will of the Armenian people to survive and live after that horrifying disaster.
Even today it seems as if the faces of that Armenian woman and her daughters staring at us from this 20-year-old picture say, "We call upon the living." The expressions on their faces exude a combination of terror, pain, and uncertainty; but above all, they radiate the power of life. Life as it is.
In a photo exhibition organized by the Urban Foundation for Sustainable Development (UFSD) and the U.S. Embassy a day before the 20th anniversary of the earthquake, this famous photograph shared pride of place with another, not-so-famous photograph, depicting Ms. Nuroyan with her grandchildren 20 years later. The exhibition was titled "The Path to Revival." It was held in the foyer of Cinema Moscow.
" I was at home at the time," Mrs. Nouroyan said during the opening ceremony of the exhibition, recounting the dreadful moments of 1988. Her speech was brief but very moving.
"When it shook, I took the children and ran toward the door. We reached the door, but the ground slipped from under out feet and we fell down. Then it shook again and we once again went down. Then some fresh air came in and we started breathing. The rescue group of the Nairit Factory pulled us out of the ruins on the second night," she said.
Mrs. Nouroyan's family lived on the 5th floor of the building at 1/1 Hertzen Street. The building was completely destroyed.
Marineh falls silent. Her emotions peak and through her eyes she reaches the hearts of each and every one in the foyer.
Surviving after having survived
I spoke with Marineh's husband, Saro Mirzakhanian. "It was a disaster. What should I tell you?" he sighs heavily and only then does he realize that I have asked him to talk about himself and his family's present life and not the disaster.
About life: Saro is a carpenter and makes doors and windows. During the past several years, he has been able to care for the needs of his family by working abroad. But the last time he went to work there, it was not good. In his home city of Gyumri, Saro tries to provide for his family by taking occasional orders. He is only 51 years old and knows his craft well. I want to believe that there will be employment for him in the promised reconstruction works.
The family has grown during the past 20 years. Marineh and Saro proudly say, "We have four children: Anna, 28 years old; Christine, 26; Shushanik, 21; and David, 13. Our David was born after the earthquake." As a result of the earthquake, Marineh's health was affected (a medical board evaluated her condition as a second-degree disability), so the birth of the fourth child, David, is indeed heroism on her part.
Marineh with her kind smile and with the pride of an experienced grandmother adds, "I have four grandchildren, two boys and two girls: Samvel and Arman, Suzanna and Marineh." Their three daughters have given their parents the joy of being grandparents.
I ask them how they survive.
"We do it just like the others," Saro says. "I have a craft. If there is an order, I work. Work is intermittent, not stable. Marineh receives second-degree disability benefits and we receive a family allowance,"
Mrs. Nouroyan says, "I live for my children. Life is monotonous. You know, life in Gyumri seems to have stopped. There are no jobs and the menfolk go abroad to work. It is very hard." Speaking of her husband, she adds, "He strives and worries, trying to achieve something. Let's see what happens."
The photographer
Photojournalist Mkhitar Khachatrian, our colleague from the Photolure agency in Armenia, the author of that picture, is also at the exhibition. I ask him to recount how he captured that photo, which became a unique symbol of survival after the 1988 disaster.
"Misha Kalantar and I were at the airport," recounts Mkhitar. "Suddenly one of the journalists of the Russian-language Communist newspaper told me about a woman and her three daughters who had been saved after they had spent a day under the ruins and gave me the address. However, to be honest with you, I did not particularly want to go. There was so much chaos at the time, even the addresses had conditional meanings. Those who had been saved wrote on the ruins, ‘We are in such and such a place, do not keep searching for us...'
"Finally we went and found Marineh, who had found shelter in her mother's home. We knocked on the door and her daughter opened it. I took a picture of her right there, like that. I told them ‘Children hold on tight to your mother,' and I took the picture.
"We named this picture the Madonna. Even that has an interesting story. The picture was printed on the front page of the Russian-language daily Izvestia published in Moscow, and one of the readers, a Russian woman inspired by the photograph, wrote a touching poem entitled ‘The Madonna of the 20th Century.' My Russian colleagues sent me that poem and that is how we named the picture the Madonna," Mkhitar tells us.
Mkhitar falls silent too.
A little bit later, he notes, "Whenever people from our generation talk about the earthquake, their mind stays all day on the earthquake and they can only think about that. Probably there is an explanation for that. Twenty years have passed and many of the young people are aware of it only because they have heard about it, but have not seen it. God forbid that they ever see it. Anyway, the subject changes and life moves on.
