Vera Safaryan. “Being from Hadrut helps… to win”

Vera Safaryan, a native of Hadrut, was declared the winner of the “Miss Europe-2022” contest recently held in Bulgaria, taking the 2nd place. For Vera, who was forced to leave her native Hadrut after the 2020 war, this is the first victory in recent years.

“It was exciting when, after the victory, I looked at the news of Bulgaria and other countries and found the name of Armenia in the headlines. It was very pleasant for me to tell not only about Armenia, but also about Artsakh. Many people in Bulgaria were hearing about Artsakh for the first time,” Vera recalls.

The mandatory condition for participation in the “Mrs. Europe” contest is that the participants must be married and have children. The joy of the victory with Vera was equally shared by her son Alexander. For him, his mother’s victory became a source of motivation to achieve victory in his favorite sport, karate.

“When I returned, my son very excitedly told me that the teacher called him to the blackboard and said: Children, let’s all applaud Alexander, because his mother raised the flag of Armenia in Bulgaria today,” says Vera and gets excited, “my son promised to win in karate so that I can applaud for his victory as well.”

The path to victory was not given easily to the young woman. The daughter of the hero who died in the first Artsakh liberation war was born and raised in Hadrut, then received higher education at the local university with the qualification of Russian language teacher. Having worked for a short time as a teacher in a rural school, Vera decided to join the military service in the Artsakh Defense Army.

The mother opposed her daughter’s decision, saying, “You are too delicate for that job.” The daughter, however, chose the option of being burned in military conditions.

When the war situation worsened, the serving women were forced to move to Armenia. It took Vera a few weeks to isolate herself and find herself, recovering from the injuries and losses from the front line.

Vera liked the work of a model so much that she decided to master this field, passing experience at “Demirkhanyan’s Models School”.

Despite the problems typical of families evacuated from Artsakh, Vera does not complain. She says that being from Artsakh helps to overcome all the problems arising in peaceful conditions and win.

Full text in Armenian