67-year-old Irada Aliyeva never married, despite years of pressure to find a man and settle down. Instead, she carved out an independent life for herself, full of music, friends and travel. For many people in Azerbaijan, her life—and the life of other single, female pensioners—is incomplete and they mourn her lost opportunities to have a family to care for her in old age.

But while tradition holds that the elderly in Azerbaijan are never alone, and can count on their children to care for them as they age, the truth is more complicated, especially for women. 

In patriarchal societies, women face unequal opportunities across nearly every facet of life, from education to work to income, which has a direct impact on the quality of their lives as they age. "In Azerbaijan, the social life of older women is limited to participation in familial events like weddings and funerals,” notes psychologist Aydan Gurbanova.* “For all these and similar reasons, older women do not think about social activity, even if they live alone and have no physical limitations. Of course, the financial insufficiency of the elderly is one of the issues that expands this problem."

Psychologist Aydan Gurbanova sheds light on the societal expectations placed on elderly women. The traditional image of a grandmother devoted to family life stifles their potential for social engagement. 

I decided to look behind the curtains of this evolving landscape for stories like Irada Aliyeva, a life interwoven with loneliness, and those of countless others who navigate the shadows of solitude against the backdrop of a society in transformation. These narratives paint a complex portrait of the paradoxical interplay between cultural pride, changing behaviors, and the silent struggles faced by those often left to bear the weight of their years alone.

"Life seems like a dream to me. How did everything go wrong?” 

75-year-old Elmira Balayeva has known loneliness since she was a child: her father passed away when she was young and her mother was rarely home. Even after she married, Elmira continued to live alone because her husband drove trucks on long trips. The birth of her son Samir interrupted her loneliness, but not for long. Her husband died, leaving her a widow. Samir married and had a child—but he was arrested and her daughter-in-law and grandchild left her alone, again. 

And so, Elmira finds herself living alone in the same house where she spent her lonely childhood, although time passes more slowly now.

Luckily money is not an issue—Elmira earns enough from her rental property to live comfortably. But the solitude, and the feeling she is judged for being alone, are tough burdens to bear.

"People often ask me about my son, my daughter-in-law, my grandson, they wonder why my grandson doesn't visit, doesn't contact me. I'm tired of being asked all these questions again and again…To get away from it all, sometimes I don't leave the house for days, but for a while, I feel so trapped between the four walls that I want to go out again…However, I also don't want the neighbors to know that I go out due to loneliness. I am covering up my loneliness with these dresses for sale. Sometimes I take my prayer book with me and read it. I believe in God, sometimes I go to the mosque, and when I pray, I feel comforted."

"On special days, I go to see my son in prison. On those days I am very excited and happy, and extremely sad. Sometimes they allow me to stay with him until the evening. As the hours pass, I grow anxious. It is so difficult to leave, to leave him there."

"Life seems like a dream to me. How did everything go wrong? I don't sleep at night thinking about where I went wrong. It was as if I saw the beautiful days in a dream or they just existed in pictures. Why do I feel like those days aren't mine? I am looking for my happy moments in the photo albums, the ‘me’ of those days. Its absence is very alive; I feel it every moment in my whole being."

"Sometimes I wish I had a daughter. Even if a girl gets married, she always stays in touch with her mother. She never forgets her, never leaves her alone. I would take care of her kids as well."

“I can only be happy, because I am not incomplete. I feel whole.”

67-year-old Irada Aliyeva has never married; she has lived alone in the house her father left her in Sumgayit for the past 40 years. Her decision to stay single has been hard for people to understand; Irada says even today she is sometimes asked why she doesn’t marry.

"I have had chances to get married, but I have not met a person who coincides with my views on life. Men feared my choice to live alone from a young age, my love of life, and my thoughts on living." 

"I was always pressured about it; my mother asked me to get married until the day she died. She said ‘it will be difficult for you in such a society without a man by your side.’ It's true that it was difficult: people said all kinds of things to me, men disturbed me, and women constantly pushed me away from them. But I don't feel regret. If I had succumbed to all these pressures, I wouldn't have respected myself. I value myself a lot."

"I cannot feel genuine kindness from people, everyone behaves as if I am a stranger. As if I have no right to live, laugh, walk or exist. Only those who have a family have the right to all this. I value the happiness that everyone has. I have been to different countries. I love to travel, read books, go to the theater and even dance. Sometimes I played music at home, and when the neighbors passed by my door, they heard the sound of music and knocked on the door, wondering what was happening and why the sound of music was coming."

"Some of the neighbors hide the good news that happened in their lives from me, they think that I will be jealous if I find out that their children are getting married, they are going to have grandchildren or they are buying a new house. They see me as incomplete and unhappy…However, I can only be happy, because I am not incomplete. I feel whole. A person cannot have everything in life. I expect people to respect my happiness, not my sadness."

"The pension I receive is not enough for what I want to do, so I have to sit at home most of the month. When I talk to my friends who live in foreign countries, they say that they travel around the world and travel to different countries. At the same time, they enjoy special privileges in places such as public transport. Here, we spend our old ages between four walls."

"If there were no cats, I can't even imagine living.”

Elmira Aghadiyeva, 57, lives in a very old, damp house in Baku’s historic Old City with dozens of cats. She is too young to receive a pension, even though she does not have any income to support herself.  Instead, she depends lives the support of neighbors and small donations to survive and care for her cats.

"I don't buy anything for myself, not food or clothes. I don't even cook. My neighbors prepare something for me during the day and either bring it or ask me to come and pick it up. There are days when I am so busy with my kittens that I don't even have time to go and get the food prepared for me. Tourists passing through these streets make donations when they see that I take care of cats. Azerbaijanis also support me; they hear from somewhere that I take care of cats and they either donate or bring cat food. I buy food for cats from the market, and the sellers in the market know that I buy for cats, so sometimes they give me a discount."

"If there were no cats, I can't even imagine living, I have nothing and no one in life except for them and what they add to my soul. Cats have a lot of wisdom, I talk to them, I sleep with them, I walk with them, and they don't leave my side when I'm sick. They are my partner in all my troubles…I have no other problems, what else do I have to worry about? I want them to always be well, to have food, no wounds and no diseases. But sometimes I don't even know what to give them. I feel helpless when they are sick. Sometimes I ask my neighbors to lend me money to take cats to the doctor or buy medicine. Some look at me like I'm crazy, others who laugh at me for devoting my life to them, and still others who are heartbroken. However, they don't understand that cats are my children, my wealth, my beloved. I have to protect them. They have no one but God and me. Animal love is the foundation of human love, but only a person who loves animals can reach the true level of perfection. It terrifies me that children are brought up deprived of such unconditional love. Sometimes children want to touch cats, hold them and caress them. Some parents forbid them. There are no words to describe how I feel when I leave cats alone in such a wicked world.”

"I can't get a pension because I'm not old enough. I've applied for targeted social assistance several times. But they don't give me help because I don't have an official job and because I have a flat. They say ‘you have a house in the Old City, what more do you want?’

But nobody will hire me at my age. And how can I leave cats alone? They are my work and my life. I have dedicated my life to them. Even at my age, I don't have a minute to spare. I sleep only two or three hours a day because I take care of them."

*Psychologist Aydan Gurbanova is a distant relative of the author.

This article was prepared with support from the Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung (FES) South Caucasus Regional Office. All opinions expressed do not necessarily reflect the views of FES.