“This is the daily life of a village woman, no matter how much work there is still to do, it looks  at my face.”

The village of Maqravank in the Kotayk region is today considered to be the Hrazdan district, the first home of which belongs to Mrs. Seda. For 73-year-old Seda Danielyan, Maqravanq is her sacred hearth, where she was born, raised, married, raised a family and now lives and continues to work with a large and enlightened dynasty, unaware of tiredness.

I met her in her home picking up the branches of dried trees. When I said hello, she left the job, and approached me with a smile. I thought the smiling woman would be kind and hospitable as well. She kindly invited me to her home, saying: ” no matter how much work there is still to do, it looks  at my face”.

Mrs. Seda has three children: two daughters, one son, 9 grandchildren, 12 great-grandchildren, and live with her son’s family. The boy and the bride are working, she and her husband are pensioners. They don’t complain about life.

Mrs. Seda recounts the past with a reference to the chemistry laboratory in Yerevan before her marriage, but after she got married, her education was interrupted. Her husband has been a supporter of all things, even the housework.

Cherry, pear and apple trees mainly grow in Maqravanq. According to Ms Seda, the trees on her plot have grown old, they need for change. They decided to plant new seedlings with their son. She is not engaged in cattle-raising, asshe and her husband are old, their son and daughter-in-law work, they have no time, they only keep 15 chickens. If there is something missing in the house, they use the shops nearby.

Although the village is gas-fired, the heating of the house is expensive, so they use wood that costs 20,000 AMD per cubic meter. In the autumn, Mrs. Seda collects and sortes the branches of dried trees from her home garden, but that is not enough for the whole winter. According to Mrs. Seda, the heating of the house is very important, in the economy it is the second problem after bread.

There are lots of closed doors in Maqravank, with the exception of a few well-maintained houses, some of which are old and in need of repair. There are only fruit trees and orchards in the fields. Perhaps only the courtyard of Mrs. Seda’s home was decorated with flowers, and had it not been for the dry season this year, the flower garden would have been more lush.