– 5-year-old Anano asks her mother plaintively and pulls her by the hem. “I am hungry too! Mommy, do we have any bread?” – echoes her younger brother Shotiko (3-year-old). “Wait a little, honey, maybe the neighbor will bring us something,” – mother Gvantsa (29 years old) replies affectionately and strokes her kids’ hair. “The fridge is empty, I can’t calm them. I’ll have to ask the neighbors again,” the young woman explains us sadly, as if justifying herself. I turned away to hide my tears and confusion.
“Lord, I will endure any torment, just not to see my children starving!” – the poor young woman cries bitterly. “We used somehow to make ends meet, but now we cannot find any work, and the transport does not work … Sometimes the day goes by so that the children have only tea without sugar and bread!”

“Well, I used to get under fire when shells exploded next to me; my baby daughter died, and my big and healthy son died too … I never thought that I would live so long, that I would have to fix my glasses with a scotch tape … I never thought that I would hardly hear my own daughter. But I can’t complain, I’m 97! It’s quite a lot! Dear, age is just numbers! I have a scout’s heart. And a human gets used to everything.”
She went through terrible things in her life: war, bloody mess; she survived her husband’s beating; her two children died…
The terrible story of her life has almost been written, but, dear friends, God gives us a chance to write our own ending.

“In my dreams my mother always smiles, but in reality she cries and cries,” says 12-year-old boy Yura sadly.
Little Anna immediately joins our conversation:
– We really, really love our mom! Let me teach you how she teaches us to warm our fingers. Do you know how?!
– Why do I need it? – I ask the girl.
– You are so funny! You are already an adult, but you don’t know why! If it gets cold, they can break. Or don’t you need your fingers?
“Misfortune literally haunts me,” poor mother Araksi cries bitterly. – My husband kidnapped me, then betrayed and abandoned me; my parents turned their backs on me… And a year ago my father died, he used to be our only support and protection … We are alone in this world and absolutely no one needs us!”

“I miss him very much … I want to hug him and to play with him so much. He is cold there. And mommy and I are cold here …”
Little Tea misses her father. A healthy man, he suddenly died. He left his girls alone – his wife Lia and his 6-year-old daughter Tea. They are absolutely alone. And they have nothing…
“That’s how she talks about her dad all day long. Sits by his photograph, tells him how we are getting on. She was very attached to him. She loved him very much. She loved him even more than me. Father’s daughter! It’s very hard for me too. Can you imagine how it feels to lose a perfectly healthy man in a week? My world has turned upside down, the earth has disappeared beneath my feet. I don’t know what to do, how to live… I try to restrain myself, not to be too emotional. I know that he looks at us from heaven and helps us.”

When I asked them: “Can you remember anything good?” – the girls just looked at each other and shrugged. They haven’t got a single bright memory in their life, though they are quite adults: Anna is 17 and Barbara is 16. They do not remember their mother, they can hardly remember their father, they only remember their grandmother. Old and sick … She died in their arms. The only dear person.
This is not a New Year’s story, it will not make our hearts feel warm, and we cannot change the past of these sisters, but maybe we will be able to change their future … Who knows, maybe miracles happen on Christmas Eve?
The tragedy began when Anna’s and Barbara’s sister was born… Yes, you heard right. Their mother strangled the baby while feeding. “Probably by accident,” says Anna. “Maybe not,” adds Barbara. In 2006, their mother was sent to prison for 9 years. The girls have not seen her since.

Even at Christmas they will be hungry and cold. When delicious smell of roasted piglet and fresh pastries comes from their neighbors, they will just take some bread, close their eyes and imagine how delicious it is … They are used to it, they always do like that.
One can endure hunger and cold… But what then? Who will these children be when they grow up? What will they become if they don’t have any childhood?