Inna's Journey

Inna still remembers the forests of Tchartar. Green and endless, with air so clean it felt like breathing peace itself. Her house sat at the very top of the village in Artsakh (Nagorno-Karabakh), surrounded by nothing but trees and an eerie silence.

Back in Artsakh, Inna worked as an entomologist, teaching farmers how to protect their crops from insects each spring. Her husband farmed the land. Together, they lived by a simple philosophy that became their motto: "We love nature and animals because plants don't betray, and animals don't deceive. Plants and animals are honest, and there's so much to learn from them."

That world vanished in September 2023. After months and months of blockade and starvation, they fled hastily from Artsakh to escape ethnic cleansing, which was imminent. "The journey was incredibly difficult, especially with my little child," Inna recalls about their forced displacement from Nagorno-Karabakh. She doesn't like talking about those hellish moments: the war, the blockade, the evacuation. Who would?

They finally arrived in Armenia, almost without anything. They left everything in Artsakh, but survived. And here's what makes Inna's story different. She didn't just survive. She's rebuilding.

After trying city life and hating every noisy, nature-less moment, they found their way to Parakar, a small town near the capital of Armenia, Yerevan. With the help of the Armenian Fund for Sustainable Development, they began pig farming. Inna jokes that her husband says he now works for her, but that's how family businesses operate.

"We love this work," she says simply.

Their dedication shows. They use natural feed, and customers can't get enough of their meat products. Living on the outskirts of the village suits them perfectly. It keeps the neighbors happy from pig farm odors and gives them space to dream big.

Beyond the pigs, they're raising rabbits in a multi-story house that Inna's husband built himself. The plan? Use rabbit manure to create biohumus for their garden, then sell it to other farmers. Next comes their biggest goal: beekeeping.

"In Artsakh, we had more than 9 dozen beehives," Inna remembers. "We produced pure honey. Now we have nothing but memories, but we kept all our knowledge and commitment to start that work again."

Maybe it sounds like a dream, she admits. But when you've lost everything once and found the strength to start over, dreams don't seem so impossible anymore.

"The most important thing for me and my family now is to live in peace and create," Inna says. "It's difficult to create when you're constantly attacked, and what you've built gets destroyed instantly. But we're goal-oriented and hardworking. Most importantly, this is what we love to do."

Deep down, I know that we lost a lot, but I also know that we have the courage to find our path in this world. Inna and her husband discovered work they both love, doing it together with complete dedication. That's harmony everywhere: in marriage, in work, in life.

From the forests of Tchartar to the farms of Parakar, Inna's story isn't just about displacement. It's about the unbreakable human spirit that refuses to stay broken. It's about love for the land, for family, for the honest work of growing things.

"We don't want to live in the past," Inna reflects. "We want to find a bit more joy in life and build a firmer, more predictable future for ourselves and our children."

It's about finding home again, one pig, one rabbit, one future beehive at a time.

Arev Society provides management support to the AF4SD "Vulnerable Women Empowerment" program.