Lena Habetnagyan was born in a family of workers, in Leninakan on April 15, 1930.

She has lost her parents in an early age. Being the eldest, Lena had two sisters and three brothers. Upon their parents’ death, Lena began to take care of her brothers and sisters. It was very difficult for Lena to attend school and take care for brothers and sisters at the same time. So the fourth grade was the last one for Lena.

In Harutyunyan’s large family from Karnut village a daughter Sofik Harutyunyan was born on August 31 of 1948: in the severe post-war years of Stalinism, in the same year when a well-known English novelist and journalist George Orwell wrote his “1984” novel where he mocks Stalinism and presents the process of oppression of an individual under totalitarism. Who could have thought that 1988, so close to 1984 would change Sofik’s life so drastically.

Sofik had two sisters and one brother.

A lot of people lost their houses, the others lost their relatives and there are some who survived and keep struggling with the earthquake of 1988. A woman who was affected by the earthquake too is 66 years old Katya Pijoyan from Gyumri. She attended Gyumri school # 9 up to the VIII grade. Then she worked at Gyumri’s Stock factory for two years as a trainee, and only in 1970 she became a worker. During her employment years she got married and had 3 children.