Zarine Babayan prepares jingalov hats at her food outlet in Yerevan. (Photo: Siranush Sargsyan)

When Zarine Babayan appeared in a television interview, she wore a T-shirt divided in two: one half dark, the other covered in flowers. Since her son Robert was killed in the September 2023 fuel depot explosion near Stepanakert, Artsakh, Babayan had worn mostly black. It had become her uniform of mourning, a way of carrying her son through forced displacement and into an uncertain life in Yerevan. She had intended to wear black for the interview, too. But a friend objected.

“Imagine that the dark side of the shirt is Robert, whom you lost,” the friend told her. “But the floral side is your other son, Slavik. Do not forget that he is your son, too.”

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