YEREVAN. - Residents of Nork nursing home of Yerevan spend their routine playing chess or draughts, talking with their relatives by Skype, exercising in the gym or reading books. (PHOTO)

There is a playing hall on the first floor of the second main building of the nursing home, where one can see elderly men gathered round tables, playing chess or draught or discussing something. One of the elderly men, 76-year-old Grigor Tatyan, came to the nursing home 1.5 year ago. He likes spending most of his time in the playing hall. Mainly playing chess, Tatyan is considered a good player. “There are good and bad players, this always sparking arguments. Sometimes we get offended on each other, and don’t speak to each other for a long time. In this hall we usually play chess, backgammon and cards,” he says, adding that even competitions are held and the winners are awarded monetary prizes.

The library of the nursing home is located on the same floor of the building. However, there are not many people there. According to the librarian, Aghunik Sargsyan, exactly half of the nursing home residents make use of the library. In her words, the library has about 10,000 books—detective, adventure and historic ones. The residents mainly prefer reading detective literature.

“Over half of the residents read. There also those who read only newspapers. They come and register and I hand them books. But there are also residents, who are not able to come here, so I take the books to them. The literature is both in Russian and Armenian. We have a number of residents, who have read most of the literature, even going over one book for several times. Discussions on books, writers and politics are also held in the library. The resident of the nursing home take an active part in them,” she noted.

The Skype room is on a floor below. It is the most favorite corner of the nursing home residents: Here they can isolate themselves and communicate with their relatives although via the Internet...

Nork nursing home has 230 residents, including 120 women and 110 men.

In 2016, it received 70 people and discharged 30. Another 40 residents died.