‘The Toilet of the Military Unit Was Covered with Blood’

I’ve decided to tell a few episodes from my life in the army.

The public toilet of the military unit was covered with blood. It was impossible to squat in such a way as not to step on the blood. The toilet room itself was a building with ten holes (not actual toilets), where soldiers would relieve themselves squatting; some would also masturbate in this very position. My body was acting up: I couldn’t get rid of my the contents of my guts for several days; I was constipated. That day I had a bleeding. I went straight to the infirmary and told them that I had stomach problems and that there was blood coming out of my butt. It turned out the entire military unit was bleeding. They gave me a pill for constipation at the infirmary, but it did not help. An intestinal infection had spread across the entire unit. For 20 days, we did not eat in the dining room, because it would later not come out. I called home and asked them to send me some Narine [probiotics]. I drank it throughout the entire service. It helped a little, but I still suffer from stomach aches.

The service went on: overloaded physical labour, training ground, night duty, etc. The officers did not care about the soldiers’ health issues. There was an officer whose nickname was Cobra because he would make a cobra with his hand and hit the soldiers on their foreheads. Another officer would hit soldiers on the forehead with his wrist. I witnessed these blows several times. Arthur lost consciousness after one such blow, which, by the way, was performed by war hero, Colonel Ararat Melkumyan (nickname Chelka [Fringe]). Fringe was especially cruel: he could summon the guys for not having fastened their belts tight enough, order them to lie down and beat them repeatedly on the head with the iron part of the belt. Once he hit me in the legs so hard with his knee that the guys had to take me to the infirmary. For 3 days I just lay there, and then had to walk with a cane for a week.

Arman had hemorrhoids; when doing anything, he would keep his hand on his butt, holding the guts in. Another guy tried to cut his wrist in the bathroom with a razor blade. We managed to get there in time and prevent it. He could not bear the service any longer. By the way, many would attempt to cut their wrists: to be done with the intimidation, the humiliation, or with having to forcibly clean the toilet. One kid broke the window of the infirmary with his head and threw himself out from the second floor. Thank goodness he did not die.

The relatively small, I would even say the insignificant issue of those who served in the border units were lice. Vermins which would constantly multiply in your clothes and which were impossible to get rid of even with an iron. When I ended up in the Martuni hospital with a sore throat, lice were swarming all over the bed. The treatment itself is difficult to describe in words: I lay there for 10 days, receiving 8 injections a day. I would ask them to at least inject me in the other buttock sometimes as the first one was completely sore. The consequences of such a dreadful treatment are unimportant: it is more important to get back on your feet and to service as soon as possible.

We were transported to other military units from Khojaly on paziks (PAZ-3205, a Soviet midibus). Major Raisa had come to take us. Everyone hoped that they would be lucky enough to end up in a quieter unit, and when they saw that the officer who had come was a woman, they immediately cheered up and began making jokes. One of the guys said, ‘so what should we call you – mister major or madam major?’ to which Raisa replied, ‘I’ll take out my period pad and beat you with it, bitch.’ We realized that our hopes had been in vain. Subsequently, Raisa would stand in the middle of the parade ground and command the soldiers to do push-ups, and when they did, she would hit them on different body parts, including the head, with the heel of her shoe. A senior sergeant was thrown into a punishment cell for 5 days by the chief of food supply. They would not open the door. The guy was terrified. He lived in his own urine and dirt. As for the bread, it was pushed inside through the keyhole in the form of dough. He came out morally crushed; he no longer wanted to live.

This is only 1/100 part of my army stories. I should also add that out of all those who I served with, only one guy truly wanted to serve. It was Yazidi Araz, the toilet cleaner, who had come to the army later because it had literally taken him a long time to come down the mountains. He’d say that he was happy because here he had the chance to bathe once a week and eat every day. There was a widespread sentiment that if a war were to begin, the soldiers would be the first to turn around and shoot their own officers. There were guys who would say they wanted war only to be able to drink the officers’ blood. But we could not speak in front of cameras because as our unit commander told us before the elections in which Serzh was elected, ‘If you don’t vote for Serzh, you will have committed a whore’s act against your country, and you know how whores are treated in the army.’

P.S. I know that a lot of guys, including some among my friends, have witnessed such and even much worse stuff during their service.

A.