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I have not visited Western Armenia yet, I am afraid to succumb to emotions - says Armen Hakobyan (video)
Armen Hakobyan, who visits the Armenian Genocide Memorial in Yerevan every year, remembers his grandpa Ashot, a Genocide survivor. He lived in Van and fled during the mass killings and deportations of Armenians in the Ottoman Empire, but he lost his four sons on the way. “My grandfather later had daughters. My mother was the eldest of them. I saw my mother’s tears since early childhood,” Armen Hakobyan recalls. Mr Hakobyan’s children live in the United States and invite him to stay with them but he does not want to leave his homeland. Armen Hakobyan regrets to say that he has not been to Western Armenia to this date. “I am afraid that I shall succumb to my emotions, but I shall gather strengthen and go one day,” he said in conclusion.
