Epress.am News from Armenia
The apartment of Lilia M. is sealed. Through the keyhole one can see a chair by the window, on the balcony converted into a room, which the 59-year-old woman from Azerbaijan used to climb onto the windowsill and jump from the 9th floor of a residential building in Erebuni administrative district of Yerevan. Initially, she got caught on a clothesline neighbors on the 8th floor had installed. However, the ropes gave way and the woman fell on a metal frame over a garden adjacent to the building.
The commotion drew the attention of first-floor resident Marine: “When I approached, she was still breathing; her fingers were moving. She was trying to say something but didn’t manage [in time].” Doctors confirmed that the blow of the metal frame crushed nearly every bone in the woman’s body and there was no chance of survival.
Police have determined that Lilia M. committed suicide at around 9:15 am on Mar. 14. A refugee from Azerbaijan, Lilia lived with her mother till the latter passed away a year ago. Since then she had lived alone and neighbors say they barely communicated with her. They also say that she worked as a cleaner in one of the bookmakers in the area, moonlighting as a manicurist at home.
Finding a chair near the window in the deceased woman’s kitchen, police, who broke into the locked apartment, arrived at the conclusion that Lilia had jumped from the window.
Lilia’s next-door neighbor Narine said the last time she saw Lilia was the day before the incident. “As for the day of the incident, well the day had just begun — I only heard the door open and close, and also the sound of the key. As usual, every day at 7 am she took out the garbage. Then I went to work, and my daughter called me and told me the news.”
“When Lilia’s mother died, us neighbors helped her get rid of junk in the house. The mother wasn’t brought home after the morgue — she was immediately taken to the cemetery and buried. The modest burial was due to Lilia being alone. They say she had influential relatives, but she didn’t like having contact with anyone. We’ve never seen any relative or friend come visit her or ask about her. She has children, one boy and one girl, who don’t have any contact with their mother. They say both live in Russia, but they don’t help their mother at all. When Lilia told her son about his grandmother’s death, he refused to come, saying he doesn’t have money [for airfare],” she said.
Lilia lived under very difficult conditions: she didn’t heat her nearly empty apartment all winter. Neighbors say she had neither hot water nor gas and her TV and refrigerator were broken. “When she first moved into our building, she looked good. She was tall, well-groomed, but lately she had changed drastically. They say she hadn’t showered in three months,” the neighbor Narine said.
Many of the neighbors who spoke to Epress.am said despite being unsociable, Lilia never inconvenienced them or caused them any discomfort. “She came home quietly and shut the door. She didn’t like to come out and be caught in conversation with neighors,” several neighbors said.
Who will plan Lilia’s burial ceremony, they wonder. As for who will get her one-room apartment, the complete contents of which is a single bed and a table on which was found a few medications, a 5,000 dram banknote and some coins is unknown. No suicide note was found.