It's been over a year since I've been here in my homeland. Consciously and, it seems, forever. Why does it seem? Usually in bad novels they write "the years went by", but I don't want such rhetoric, it is important for me to feel every day as the first and the last, as something akin to the gift of living on my land and being grateful for it. All this time I was looking for a job. I had to see and understand the realities of the Armenian labour market on my own, pardon me, skin. I will say at once - not everything is hopeless, but at the same time not everything is as good as I would like it to be. My inner idealist will never sleep or die - and that is the conflict of interest.

 

I tried to find myself in the local media and a couple of pro-Russian organizations - all to no avail. Soon I finally had to come to terms with the idea that I would not work as a journalist in the Armenian media. Not because they are bad, but because I was disappointed in my profession. It happened exactly a year ago, during the war, during the information boom around Artsakh. That's when it became clear that words are actually devalued, and to be more precise, each word has its own price, absolutely concrete and definite, and depending on the interests of one side or the other, the currency for the fee changes.... I've always known that journalism is for the young and cynical, but I've never equated myself with cynicism. I'm sorry. It's about idealism again.

 

And so I decided to read Manson's "The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck: A Counterintuitive Approach to Living a Good Life" and settled down with my husband in the countryside. Working with the land balanced and gave balance to body and soul, and at times I even wanted to start doing something outside of my routine. But what exactly? It seemed I was everywhere and anywhere. I even managed to publish a book. The dream of all dreams - my first poetry collection with an unrealistically beautiful cover!  Isn't it a fairy tale about dreams coming true? Wasn't it a gift of fate? Outwardly, everything looked more than beautiful and decent. But the inner and outer inconsistency is my everything. And if the gut at that moment coincided with the appearance, I would look like Quasimodo and Benji from Faulkner's "The Sound and the Fury". Inability to communicate with the world, unwillingness to be part of it, constant failed attempts to insert myself into the system of new paradigms, perpetual panic attacks, stress, and consequent anxiety disorders in a post-war country where in fact the war is still going on.... All this forced me to take a long pause. I was crushed by the tank of my own hopes and expectations. Nothing was sticking, everything was going wrong, and I was swimming against the tide. A little more and I would have definitely made an appointment with a therapist. But first I decided to fly to my mother in Moscow... There I realized that from now on I was ready to live only in my homeland.

 

And then once again I was carried away by the wave. Once again I was saved by fate. An old grandmother who would not beat me up for all my misdemeanours! A fortnight ago I spontaneously met a smiling, active and creative man with a great sense of humour named Gevorg. He is known as the director and founder of the Idram payment system, as well as the co-founder of the very cool agency The Crowdfunding Formula. All of this I didn't know before the meeting. But the conversation over a cup of coffee is almost psychotherapy. An outstretched hand in time is almost salvation. And working for the good of one's country is a small but heroic feat of the Armenian Sancho Panza.

 

So now I am working on a project called reArmenia. I am sure that soon everyone will know what we are doing here, because all our work is about uniting, connecting and rallying Armenians in the name of creation and peace, in the name of truth, which is so simple that you won't believe it at once, in the name of honest and hard work, in the name of us and our children. It sounds pathetic, but it's better than doing nothing and slowly turning into a human corpse with no instinct for self-preservation.....

 

Guys, I really want you to subscribe to us on social media and check out the website. Very soon there will appear projects, about which it is impossible not to talk: employment of veterans of the second Karabakh (in international) and Artsakh (in our native language), creation of rehabilitation systems with the use of IT technologies for soldiers, mini technopark in Artsakh village, restoration of the ancient monastery Hakopavank, which our neighbours have already managed to call Albanian and many other things....

 

And lastly, there is nothing more important than peace, there is nothing more precious than human sleep and peace, there is nothing better than to reconcile people with each other and being able to come to an agreement even with those who are on different sides of the barricades. Now is that time - the time of peacemakers. In a post-war country, where hot spots still flare up in some places, there are no personal ambitions, only national ones. There is no personal wealth - there is public wealth. There is no mine - everything is ours. Everything else is cynicism and hypocrisy. But you and I are not like that, I know that for a fact.

 

"Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God" is my favourite bible quote. So be it. Wish us luck. And join us at reArmenia. We need to be together today.