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The Armenian Weekly; Volume 73, No. 42; Oct. 20, 2007
Literature and Arts:
1. New Documentary Portrays Grief of 1988 Earthquake as Never Before
By Andy Turpin
2. Poetry Reading in New York
3. The Search: From Tigran Mets to Sayat Nova (Part VIII)
By Knarik O. Meneshian
***
New Documentary Portrays Grief of 1988 Earthquake as Never Before
By Andy Turpin
CAMBRIDGE, Mass. (A.W.) – On Oct. 3, at Harvard’s Carpenter Center within
the Harvard Film Archive, Czech filmmaker Jana Sevèíková previewed a rough
cut of her newly finished documentary, "Gyumri."
The film concerns the 1988 earthquake and children who were born afterwards
to parents, specifically, who had lost a child in the event.
Sevcíková has distinguished herself as a proponent of the "poetic
documentary." A graduate of the Prague Film Academy, her thesis film,
"Piemule" (1984), offers a frank examination of Czech émigrés in Romania
during the final years of Ceausescu’s totalitarian regime. She has produced
films independently, such as "Jakub" (1992), and received state funding from
the Czech Ministry of Culture. Her films have been shown at festivals in
Berlin, Strasbourg, Karlovy Vary and Krakow. Praised throughout Europe,
Sevèíková’s works often seek to challenge the distance conventions of
ethnographic filmmaking.
"Gyumri" is about grief, loss, remembrance, parenting-and a caustic national
event in Armenia that many Armenian-Americans are aware of, though they’ve
rarely been viscerally exposed.
Sevcíková pulls no punches in depicting how the pain from the quake still
resonates in the daily lives of the people in Gyumri. At one point, a
haggard father, who was prevented from identifying the remains of his child
because of Soviet-era bureaucracy, holds a signet ring to Sevcíková’s
camera, and speaking to his lost son, says, "My child, you are my saint, my
most precious of things. I have your name engraved on my ring."
Other moments in the film may not make total sense to the average viewer,
but will hit home hard to fellow Armenians. Those moments show Armenian
mothers coping with child loss while regaining a lost bond with their
Armenian Christianity (disrupted due to Soviet-domination).
One mother stands with her child beside the grave of his dead brother. The
child was conceived as a replacement of him. The mother says, "Do you know
how much responsibility you have to bear? You must make your dreams come
true and his. You are his continuity."
Confronted with such strong yet bleak emotions for the roughly three years
it took to complete the documentary, Sevcíková said of the filmmaking
experience, "It is still very fresh in my mind and difficult to talk about
after the screenings."
She explained, "When I first came to Armenia, I had no idea I’d be making
this film. I only knew there had been an earthquake. My original idea was to
make a movie about artists in Gyumri, people who do incredible work with no
money."
"I took my backpack and by myself, as I always do, went for a couple of
months to collect materials," she said. While traveling, she encountered
child after child who had lost a sibling or had been named after a sibling
lost in the quake. "For me, this was the moment when things changed. I won’t
use big words, but it was very profound."
"After that I went back to Prague. In the spring, I went back to Armenia to
work on this version of the film. It was very hard. I wanted to run away and
go back home."
During her countless emotionally despondent hours working on the film,
Sevcíková recounted that "Many of the mothers would comfort me and say, ‘You
were chosen by the souls of the children to make this film.’"
In later segments of the film, she interviews subjects who put forth the
adamantly adhered to local belief in Gyumri-that the quake may have been the
result of Soviet seismic weapons testing or storage in the region.
One subject states, "It was all staged. It wasn’t a natural quake. There
were weapons under the ground."
Sevcíková addressed this view, stating, "Nobody knows what really happened.
It’s not something the people will talk about openly, but [that belief] is
very present. It’s part of their grief."
She explained, "I didn’t want to make a conspiracy film." Twenty years from
the event, the archives will be open for scholarly and journalistic perusal,
but she stated, "I have no priority to see these materials. When they open,
maybe we’ll know I have no proof or facts. But I wanted to put in the
question so that people like you may want to find an answer."
"Gyumri" is set for limited theatrical release in the U.S. following
completed editing in 2008.
——————————————– ———————————————-
Po etry Reading in New York
On Oct. 5, eight contemporary authors read their poems surrounded by
artworks by Armenian artists at the Village Quill gallery in TriBeCa, New
York.
The poets, born in Armenia and the diaspora, included two Armenophiles who
have written much about Armenians. Nancy Agabian, Zepure Arman, Nora Armani,
Lola Koundakjian, Narine Karamyan, Dean Kostos, Sharon Olinka and Alan
Semerdjian each read for 15 minutes to a standing room-only audience of
about 80 people.
Koundakjian, a resident of New York City since 1979, was invited by the
curators of the art exhibit to organize the evening of Contemporary Armenian
Poetry. Lola started the Dead Armenian Poets Society while at Columbia
University and has produced the Armenian Poetry Project on the Web and
iTunes since April 2006. In 1995, Leo Hamalian invited her to join the
Editorial Board of Ararat Quarterly, a quarterly published in New York.
"I am very happy to have had this opportunity to organize this reading, and
would like to thank the poets and the curators of exhibit, Anet Abnous and
Tamar Gasparyan-Chester, who worked very hard to bring this exhibit into
fruition," she said.
Have The Dead Washed One Hand?
Sparrows rinse their wings in pools of dust.
Do the dead begin like good children-
Meaning to wash their hands?
Is it slower for some, the ones
Who chafe on satin shirrs?
Do the dead-in their battle with soil-
Lave from flesh and memory
All that once clung, all that said I have?
Some dead wash invisible wings
In muddy thaws of March
Before their flesh flakes-
Gold leaf from an icon.
Some dead bathe only one hand
Before entering the cathedral of bones.
By Dean Kostos
***
Good-bye.
To say good bye is constant loss
Juggling with words behind
Dying of longing to see
And longing to get a reply
To messages, mails and letters,
And thoughts sent to outer space
And dreams as diverse as distance
And wait-ing. nights and days
For those cherished, much desired,
So dear, loved, God-granted,
In that eternal dance entangled
Tear to tear, hand in hand.
To death with crosses interwoven
Laughing, in ecstasy inspired,
We soar, in joy, above the planet
With feet on earth – to burning heat,
With heads in skies – to endless world.
To say good-bye is constant loss
To say good-bye is constant angst
A hope to meet, as days go by,
A prayer for our ways to cross:
May God keep safe, keep them unharmed
May He protect and bring them back.
By Narine Karamyan
Translated from Russian by Christine Bessalyan
***
Dissident
I am a dissident
of this torrid entanglement
in quest, for my own stance and
how I became who I have become.
the sloth rises all around me
submerging me into silence
quiet! just keep walking
with eyes frozen to the river
I am a disregard of this contemptuous
land full of box turtles
where the burden
bears hard on the spoken.
…and
then
the
river
runs
dry……….. ……………………
By Zepure Arman
***
Soup
The girls at the university
told me that if you eat the salty cake,
you will marry the person in your dream
who brings you a glass of water.
But what if someone you despise brings you the water?
What if a girl brings it to you?
What if your mother father brother sister
(or other assorted relative) brings it? they giggled and
I asked, what if you wake up and get the glass of water
yourself?
But now I wonder what would happen if you dream of
a different
person every year or a whole mob delivers the water or
what if
you’re already married/don’t believe in marriage/
wished marriage never existed?
What if you tell a Jungian psychologist about your
dream and
he replies that you are incredibly boring?
What if the person fetching you the water represents
some aspect of yourself? The part of you that actually
loves the 90% of yourself that is composed water?
What if your lover like lightning regularly appears with
sweet juice mixed
with water the way you like it
when you wake in the night,
mouth dry, half sighing?
What if on February 3rd you refuse the salty cake the
mother of your betrothed has baked but she
feeds you peanuts and popcorn instead and you dream
of tornadoes whipping through Manhattan,
two of the twisters combining and you cannot think of a
place to hide so instead you must watch the destruc
tion from across the wide East
River in Brooklyn,
your home.
By Nancy Agabian
***
Old Schoolbook
Old schoolbooks
prompt us notes
taken in class
while daydreaming
of another time;
another place
to come.
I found one such of mine
where I had jotted down
a thought or two;
a heart with an arrow
piercing it in two,
initials of names.
Really quite banal.
Then in a margin further down,
I read another line:
‘We have to go away,
in order to come back’.
It said.
I must have been
seventeen
when I made that
imprint there.
Quite prophetic now,
when I look back.
After many ‘goings away’
I am back where I started.
Yet, not quite,
for the place is no more there.
But now I understand why
I had to go away.
By Nora Armani
***
How To Read A Fortune In A Cup Of Turkish Coffee
I haven’t gone to places most people visit / mosques churches temples
synagogues sorcerers / but I’ve had my coffee ground read.
(Nazim Hikmet)
She studied fate on Sundays. It wasn’t every Sunday, but it felt like it,
mostly because of the way she held the handle, read the insides like
fantastic scriptures or subway maps. It was easy for her. In ten minutes of
work, she’d find two birds carrying white beaded necklaces, a baby in the
trees, and the curse of an eye exploding out of a volcano. The young in the
family couldn’t wait to grow up, their tongues hanging out for coffee and a
lick of the old country. In the Semerdjian family room, the women sang
stories like gypsies while I marked my height against the hall closet door.
They read each other’s minds.
I once saw my mother begin her spin of the cup on a blue afternoon. I
remember how she swirled its insides, loosening the essential fibers at the
bottom, then turned it over. The tiny layer of thick mud poured into the
saucer’s curves. Its descent was slow and complete; the handle of the cup,
upside down now, looked like an Armenian nose.
She, too, gave her cup to my grandmother. She, who washed her clothes,
translated her mail, took the same address and never made a sound to wake
her at night across the hall. She asked for her fate as well. What could my
grandmother tell her? What could she read in the bottom of that cup of
coffee that she didn’t help write? What could she unpack that wasn’t already
put away? They tried at it for hours. Hours turned to days, days turned to
weeks and weeks turned the conversations into graffiti you almost forget is
there.
I knew then that I would ask for the same treatment. Over time, I would
finish my cup in a dimly lit middle eastern café on the lower east side and
tell the waiter to keep the change. My grandmother would be long passed
away. My mother would not be around, perhaps in the old family home worrying
about the length of my coat for the season. I knew then that when the night
came, I would put my pen and notebook away, turn the cup over, and imagine
what he’d see.
By Alan Semerdjian
***
You Said They Didn’t Exist
in memoriam, Hrant Dink
Birds circled our ferry
going to Karsiyaka.
The air chilled. I loaned
you my sweater. We were
two women, no longer young.
You taught Faulkner and
Hawthorne at your college, its twenty foot high
photo of Ataturk in the lobby.
And dust kicked up by
tires, narrowing steep roads,
crumbling rows of houses when I asked
Did Armenians live here?
Hatred lit your eyes.
No, you said. Not here.
Never. Outside. They lived
outside. I persisted.
Not one in this city?
Outside. It was outside.
You chose
which stores to label.
Stones to forget.
Land to steal. Children’s
eyes to bury.
Or warm embraces.
Or solace of
wine, its crimson
burst on the tongue.
Or tang of kasar cheese.
Empty hospitality.
For everyone. For me.
I saw residue
of ghosts in
bone-flecked ruins.
How easily all countries
could become
one country of
denial.
By Sharon Olinka
(Previously published in Nimrod, from the University of Tulsa)
***
Three cups of Heaven
It was John who mentioned it first:
"I’ve discovered Saffron Tea", he said.
And was quite determined that it should be "subtle".
"Tea is black", he added, "just as wine is red."
I couldn’t agree more.
Patty came in with a care package with IRAN stamped
all over it:
bags of prepared Saffron tea, 250 grams of Isfahani
Mirzapore exported
directly from EEEERAAAAN, green cardamom barely dried,
and a package of Saffron
you can’t buy this side of the Atlantic.
Saffron, the other gold.
I poured the water in the pot, added the tea, the pods
and the magic powder,
and drank three heavenly cups.
By Lola Koundakjian
————————————– ————————————-
The Search: From Tigran Mets to Sayat Nova (Part VIII)
By Knarik O. Meneshian
As we settled into our bedroom home, from the play area outside we could
hear the younger children playing and giggling. Their sounds were inviting.
A little later we would have to go outside for a while and watch them play.
As I finished putting away our belongings in and on top of the wardrobe, I
stepped over to the window, looked out at the wall and flowers, and thought
of our old apartment and my special window to the world of daily life in
Gyumri. Already, I missed the sights and sounds of that place and the people
there. I could only imagine what the people of this city-the whole
country-felt and endured on that fateful day in 1988 when they lost so much,
and then just a few years later lost even more when their identity as a
nation and way of life-their world-collapsed overnight. There was a knock at
the door. "Jashuh badrasd eh. (Dinner is ready.)!" announced Sister Dalita
with a big warm smile as we opened our bedroom door. Murad and I followed
her down the long hallway to the dining room, a cheerful and sunny place
with rows of large and small tables and chairs. From the open doors of the
kitchen we could see the cooks busy chopping, slicing and stirring, and the
children who were on duty performing their chores. Not only did the two
women in the kitchen prepare the center’s meals, but they also offered the
children individual attention, affection, encouragement, even a scolding or
two-whatever the need of the (younger or older) child was at the moment.
"In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen. Hayr Mer.
Jashagestsook khaghaghootyamp usgeragoorus. Amen (Our Father. In peace let
us eat this food. Amen.)," the children, the Sisters, Murad and I prayed
together before each meal. Each morning we heard the children and the
Sisters praying and singing hymns in the chapel, and each night we heard
them praying and singing there again. On Sunday mornings, it was off the
Soorp Astvatsatsin (Holy Mother of God) Armenian Catholic Church, a couple
of blocks from the square, for services. As one day unfolded into the next
and then the next, we slowly grew accustomed to life at the center-to its
sights and sounds, and to the people not only at the center but also in the
area. Although we could not see much beyond the walls of the center other
than the tops of the mountain ranges and surrounding apartment buildings,
which had been built after the earthquake, we could still hear the barking
of the street dogs and the occasional calling out from one apartment window
or balcony to another.
It was Saturday again, and time for weekly household chores-now we only had
the cleaning of a bedroom and bathroom to do. Here at the center, clothes
were washed in the basement and hung there to dry. While we did our chores,
the children and the Sisters did theirs. With dusters and rags in hand, the
younger ones, like ducklings, marched behind Sister Dalita who, with a
twinkle in her eye, a smile on her face and a feather duster held high above
her head, would call out in drill-sergeant fashion, "Yala, yala
(Arabic-indicating let’s go)!" as together they dusted and cleaned their
dormitory-style bedrooms and parts of the center and chapel. Once in a while
some of the youngsters would giggle as they worked, playfully repeating
"Yala, yala!" to each other. The older girls and boys, and the novices too,
cleaned the rest with the supervision of Sisters Rebecca and Datevik, while
Sister Arousiag tended to the countless things required in the smooth
running of the convent and orphanage/center.
Finished with our chores, it was time for us to explore the streets of our
new neighborhood-the Ani District-located in the northern part of the city.
If one continued north by car from the Ani District, the Georgian border was
just 45-minutes away, and not far from there Javakhk. Up and down the
streets of Section 58, as the area was also known, we strolled. We stopped
to visit the district’s shuga (a small one), some of the shops, an internet
cafe, and the newly (2002) constructed Soorp (Saint) Hakop Church. Though
the area was fairly new (about twelve years old), the buildings and
neighborhoods appeared old and run down. There was rubbish and neglect
everywhere. Before the earthquake, the residential district was a farming
area and remnants of its past were still evident where grazing fields met
city streets. Around seven every morning and seven every evening, shepherds
and their flock lumbered across Shiragatsi Street to and from the nearby
fields where crumbling, unfinished apartment buildings stood along with
rusted cranes and silos-stark reminders of construction projects zealously
begun soon after the earthquake and then quickly abandoned. As we looked out
into the open area where the unfinished projects stood, we saw laundry
hanging from a few of the balconies. Even there people somehow lived, just
like in the rusted metal domeeks scattered throughout the city.
"Barev dzez!" said the young man leaning against the side of a building next
to where the small shuga started. Nearby, in an open area, a rat was
scurrying past mounds of trash. "Would you like to come to my house for a
cup of kofe?" At first we wondered who he was, then realized he was one of
the guards at the center. Without waiting for our reply, he said, "Egek, it
is not far from here," and motioned for us to follow him. We walked past one
rundown building after another until we came to an area with a common
courtyard surrounded by three buildings. In the center of the courtyard
overrun with tall grass and weeds and litter were the broken, rusted
remnants of a play area. "See that over there," said the guard as he pointed
to the eyesore. "Flowers even grew there, but when the man who built and
maintained the play area for the enjoyment of not only his children but all
the other children in the area left for Russia, never to return again,
people did not take care of the pretty play area. So now it looks just like
the rest of this place." We continued talking and walking when suddenly he
stopped, pointed to a nearby building and announced, "That is where we
live!" Unlike most of the unkempt and neglected patches of land in front of
the apartment buildings we had seen, this one had a small flower garden-a
simple yet delightful garden. How wonderful it was to see Nature’s gift to
all appreciated and so carefully and lovingly tended. The simple patch of
beauty reminded me of the humble and neat yet picturesque Molokan village
Murad and I had once passed on the road to the 10th century churches Haghbat
and Sanahin. In the 1800s, the Czar had exiled the Molokans, a religious
Russian group (whose beliefs and ways of life are similar to that of the
Amish), to the Caucasus, including Armenia and Kars, for their "heretic"
religious beliefs.
"Come, this way!" said the man as we followed him into the dimness and up
the stairs of the apartment building. In places the concrete steps were
crumbled. He opened the door. As we stepped out of the dimness, we entered
into even more. But, the tiny austere apartment was neat and clean, and the
windows glistened. Two small beds, covered with carpets, were lined against
the wall in the living room along with a couple of other pieces of
furniture. Out of the bedroom came his pretty young wife holding their
sleeping newborn in her arms followed by the dadeek (grandmother) and babeek
(grandfather). The baby was wrapped in swaddling clothes. After all these
years, this custom was still observed, as was the custom of the hars (bride
or daughter-in-law) speaking just above a whisper in front of her in-laws.
We sat at the kitchen table and chatted with the grandfather and the young
father, who was now holding his child, while the grandmother set the table
and the young mother made Armenian coffee. Together we drank kofe and ate
biscuits. As we said our goodbyes to the family, we hoped that the life
ahead of them would be brighter. "Just go left down this street, turn right
and continue until you get to the center," explained the young father as he
walked us out of the building to the sidewalk.
"It’s still early. Shall we go to the museum?" I asked Murad. We walked past
the center to the bus stop on the corner. Within a few minutes, the
marshutka (mini bus) came rumbling down the dusty street, and we were off to
the Museum of National Architecture and Urban Life at the corner of Teryan
and Haghtanaki Streets. The museum, a red brick two-story building, was
built in 1872 by Petros Dzitoghtsian, one of four brothers who had
immigrated from Western Armenia to Gyumri. The brothers had been the city’s
prominent merchants and benefactors. Among the things we saw at the museum
were artifacts, craftwork, household items, furniture and paintings. The
recreation of a prominent 19th-century Gyumri family’s residence (the entire
building was once a residence) was one of the highlights of the visit. As we
admired the beautifully crafted pieces of furniture and tastefully arranged
rooms of the period, my attention veered towards the woven handwork hanging
on the wall. It reminded me of this city and the craftsmen, benefactors and
all the other people who together created this rich and colorful tapestry
called Gyumri.
Across the street from the museum was the eastern end of the shuga, and was
as usual bustling with people. It was windy; dust was blowing everywhere.
With the coming of the dusty winds came ailments, among them lung and eye
infections. On our return ride back to the Ani District, the marshutka had
only two other passengers. After a while, they got off and it was just the
marshutka driver and us. Suddenly, he began speeding down the street. At one
point, in order to miss some large pot holes, which were numerous in the
city, he swerved across the opposite lane and, skillfully dodging traffic,
bounced onto the sidewalk where he nearly hit a post before coming to a
jolting halt in a patch of dirt and weeds. He momentarily leaned over the
steering wheel, took a deep breath, swerved back onto the street and
continued on his way up north. Calling out our street, we rose and waited
for our stop. As the marshutka door creakily opened, I turned to the driver
and said, "Ay mart, (Oh man), why did you drive so fast? Meekeech mnats
vakheets beedee merneheenk (We were almost going to die of fright)!"
He grinned mischievously and said, "I thought you were in a rush!"
I threw my hands up in the air, slowly shook my head and then grinned back
at him as we descended the marshutka. We waved to him and he to us as we
made our way across the street. Strolling down Charents Street to the
center, Murad chuckled and said, "Remember the marshutka ride to Yerevan?"
Oh, the ride on that winter day! By the time we had arrived at the bus
station at the far end of the shuga, only two seats had remained on the
marshutka to Yerevan. It soon became obvious to us as to why no one wanted
to sit in them. As the marshutka sped along the road, at times stopping to
let off and pick up passengers, we quietly sat, just like everyone else,
staring out the window. Every time the marshutka came to a jolting halt,
which was not infrequent, Murad’s head would hit the door track and I, with
my feet dangling in the stairwell and having nothing to hold on to, would
almost fall forward out of my seat. As we waited for the marchutka to move
again, I looked around at the passengers sitting stoically and silently in
their seats and at the two passengers sitting on short, small pull-out
stools in the isle, and shouted out to the driver, a big, burley fellow,
"Tell your boss that these two seats should not be here. They are dangerous
and unsafe! Just look at my husband, his head is bleeding!" The passengers
turned their heads as one, and with eyes wide and mouths slightly open,
stared at me, and then turned around again. The driver turned around, glared
at me and shouted back, "This is not America, you tell him!" and began
driving. The passengers sat motionless as he drove down the road. The
marshutka stopped several more times to let off and pick up passengers.
During one stop, the driver turned around and called out, "You two, come
here!" and motioned for us to sit in the front row with him. Two male
passengers in black leather jackets and dark glasses had just gotten off. I
sat next to the driver and Murad sat next to me. The driver turned on the
radio, pulled out a cigarette, and began smoking and chatting with us. At
last, we had arrived in Yerevan. Just as Murad reached to open the door, the
driver grabbed and kissed me, and said, "Seeroom em kez (I like you)!"
Shocked and frightened at first, I then thought, Only in Armenia! "Now tell
me, where are the two of you going?" After we gave him the name of the
street, he said, "No, do not get off! I am going to drive you there!" and
before we could move or say anything we were off down one narrow side street
after another. At our destination, he smiled waved to us, and said goodbye
as he drove off.
"Only in Armenia!" said Murad, and then whispered, "Let’s make sure on our
way back to catch a bus with a different driver!"
I nodded vigorously and said, "For sure!" as we walked into the courtyard
and up the stairs into the building. "Remember our bus ride with the
students and teachers into the mountains to visit some churches?"
Murad shook his head and replied, "Unbelievable!" We shuddered as we thought
about that day: The bus was speeding down the open road. The faster the
vehicle went, the more frightened everyone grew, especially the children.
Even as the bus began snaking higher and higher into mountainous terrain,
the driver continued driving fast. Finally, unable to bear the fear any
longer, I got up from my seat and said to him, "Baron (Mister), please,
drive slower, the children are so scared that some of them are beginning to
cry."
He snickered and said, "Ah! You are just not accustomed to the way we drive
on our roads here!"
"But I am, and have seen some bloody accidents. Please, slow down."
He continued driving fast. The children-all of us-were tense with fear. Some
of the children, sobbing and clinging to each other, got down on the bus
floor. As the bus continued climbing higher and higher at a speed too fast
for narrow and curving terrain, the driver suddenly slowed down and then
came to a stop. Before us was a mangle of steel and bones drenched in blood.
The driver turned and looked at me. His face was white. For the remainder of
our trip he drove with great care.
Engrossed in our conversation as we walked down the street to the center, we
were surprised when we realized that we had already arrived at its gates.
The guard buzzed us in, and inside the center we exchanged greetings with
the Sisters, who then informed us, "Dinner will be ready soon."
"We will be in the dining room in just a few minutes," we replied, and
quickly walked down the hallway to our room. Near the chapel, one of the
teenage girls, an orphan, stopped us and said excitedly, "Deegeen Knarik,
Baron Murad, these are for the both of you!" and handed me some wildflowers.
"I have been waiting here to tell you that I decided to continue with school
after all. I really did listen and remember what you told me all those times
you talked to me, and I started to work harder. We got back our test scores
this morning, and I got 5s!"
Thrilled by her decision, we hugged her and said, "Desar anoosheek (See
sweetie), we knew you could do it! You are one of the brightest students we
know." Trembling with excitement, she smiled a huge smile, and with her eyes
sparkling she nodded and said, "I will see you at dinner!" and waved to us
as she walked down the hall.
It was shortly after dinner, and the center was quiet. The children and the
novices were busy upstairs with their studies. The cooks were finishing up
their chores. And the Sisters, leaving us in charge, were out running some
errands. One of the mothers, a single mother whose husband had left her for
someone else, had come to pick up her children. She brought them early every
morning and picked them up every evening. We had just finished speaking to
her and were walking towards the chapel when suddenly she called out from
down the hall, "Deegeen Knarik, Baron Murad, something is wrong with my
son!" The boy was crying as he stood near the door with his mother. "He
says he has a bad stomach ache and I do not know what to do!" We rushed
towards them. By the time we got to them, the child was on his knees buckled
over with pain and crying harder while his mother tried desperately to
comfort him.
"Let us go to the nearby clinic," said Murad. "I will carry the boy there."
"No, please let me carry him," said the mother with fear in her eyes. (A few
years earlier, she had lost a little girl to cancer.) The boy, still buckled
over with pain, began shivering and crying even harder.
"Let me go and see if I can bring some help," I said and ran down the street
to the clinic. Within a few minutes I was back. The facility was closed for
the evening.
"Do you think we can get hold of Karine?" Murad asked.
"Let me try," I said, and ran to the office to phone her.
"Karine, there is a little boy at the center who is complaining of a very
bad stomach ache. His complexion is sallow and he is shivering. What should
we do? The clinic down the street is closed for the evening."
"Take the child immediately to the Austrian Children’s Hospital!" said the
doctor. The hospital was built by the Austrians after the earthquake.
Murad ran out of the building and up the street to the main thoroughfare in
search of a cab. Within a little while he returned with one and we all got
into it. In about 15 minutes, the cabby, driving fast because of the boy’s
condition, let us off in front of the hospital. Inside, we thought someone
would come to help the ailing child, but instead we were directed to a woman
down the hall sitting behind a glass window. "You must pay before the child
can be seen!" she said matter-of-factly. Murad and I tried to pay for the
service, but the mother refused our offer.
"Please, no, I cannot thank you enough for bringing us all the way here in a
cab. I will pay." She opened her purse and carefully counted 5,000 drams
($9.00). For her, the amount was huge.
Finally, after sitting in the dim waiting area for what seemed to us to be
forever, the child and his mother were called into the treatment room. Murad
and I waited for them in the waiting area, all the while listening to the
shrill cries of the child and wondering what was wrong with him and whether
or not he would be all right. As we sat and waited and listened to his
cries, I remembered what my cousin in Yerevan had told me about an
experience she had had with her young son in a Yerevan hospital during the
Soviet days. Even after all the years had passed and her son was now an
adult, with her eyes welling with tears she had described the incident with
intense emotion and anger. She had trembled as she said, "My husband was out
of town and had forgotten to leave me some money. In the meantime, our
little boy had fallen outside… His lacerated arm needed many stitches. At
the hospital I was callously told, ‘If you want anesthesia for the boy you
will have to pay!’ I had no choice but to listen to my little boy, my baby,
scream and scream as they stitched him up and then handed him over to me.
And all because I had no money!"
A couple of hours later, the mother walked into the waiting room with her
child, and said, "They gave him an enema and told us we can go home, but
that he has to come back for tests."
Murad and I looked at each other, then at the little boy, so pale and still
shivering, and then at his gaunt, worried mother. "Wait here, I will go and
find a cab," said Murad in a low tone, and rushed out the door.
Sunday, after church, as Murad and I were taking a walk around the
neighborhood, we bumped into the mother and two daughters of the family we
had stayed with briefly when we first arrived in Gyumri. "Barev! Barev!" we
greeted one another, and then they said, "We are going to visit our friends
just down that street there. Come, join us! We know that they will be happy
to meet you." We accepted their invitation and joined them. "Their entrance
is in the back," said the mother as she pointed to the building. We followed
her and the daughters to a littered, graffiti-marred, crumbling courtyard.
Up one flight of crumbling stairs we climbed, and then another and another.
The debris, it seemed, was the accepted decor on the stairs, landings and
hallways. Dimness was everywhere. "Barev dzez! Barev dzez! Please, come in,"
said the lady of the house and graciously showed us in. We stepped out of
dimness, debris and destruction into brightness, cleanliness and pride. ".We
are the owners of the bakery around the corner. You will have to visit our
shop before you go home," said the lady as we sat on the sofa, drank
Armenian coffee, and ate cake and dried fruit meticulously arranged on
plates placed on the small table covered with a carefully ironed tablecloth.
It was Monday morning, and time again for our classes at the
orphanage/center. Murad went to his computer class, and I to my English
class. In the afternoon, it would be off to the Armenian Missionary
Association (AMA) Center for our classes there. Only a few more days
remained at the AMA Center before classes ended for the summer, as they
already had at the public school.
"Good afternoon students! How are you today?"
"Fine thanks, Teacher. How are you?"
"Very well, thank you! What will you be doing this summer?"
A male university student raised his hand and said in a disheartened manner,
"Mrs. Knarik, my friends and I will be spending another summer doing
nothing. There are no jobs; there is nothing for us to do here in the
summer."
"I am going to AMA summer camp!" said a grade-school student excitedly.
"I also will be doing nothing this summer. That is why I wish this class
would not end," said a female university student wistfully.
One by one the students described their plans for the summer. As they spoke,
some haltingly, some not, it was evident that all of them had become more
fluent in English.
"Students, since our lessons will be coming to an end in a few days, I have
a special assignment for you and hope you will have fun doing it." The
students looked sad when I said that our lessons were coming to an end, and
I felt sad, very sad. "Today you are going to write a story!" They looked at
each other. "But, you must use one of the two beginnings I am going to write
on the chalk board," and began writing:
1.) A chicken was walking on Rishkov Street. Suddenly.
2.) It is winter. The snow is falling slowly and softly. In the distance.
The students giggled when they read the first sentence, and some said, "I am
going to do that one!" Others said, "Oh, I am going to do the second one!"
They all began to write. And what wonderful stories they wrote!
It was evening, and we were back at the center. The children were studying
upstairs, and Murad and I were in our bedroom preparing lesson plans for the
summer. We were going to Tzaghgadzor with the children and Sisters, where
the Sisters ran a summer jambar (camp) for underprivileged children from all
over Armenia and Javakh. "Let’s take a break and go and have some tea?" I
said. In the dining room, Sister Arousiag and the other Sisters were sitting
and chatting with one another over tea. We joined them. As we discussed the
children-their lives, their hardships, their future-Sister Arousiag said,
"We can feed, cloth and educate the children, but we cannot give them what
they most need-parental love." After the Sisters left for evening prayers in
the chapel, Murad and I lingered over another cup of tea, at times
discussing the various children: the little boy with poor vision; the little
girl who had been raped; the teenage girl who had been sold; the child who
was abandoned; the budding young girl who had barely escaped the hands of a
"Mama Rosa"; the boys and girls who had no parents or only one parent; and
the ones whose parents could not afford to take care of them. Those were the
ones who came to the center during the day and returned home in the evening.
I thought about the little girl who came to the center with the rest of her
siblings every morning for breakfast, lunch and dinner, and returned home
every evening. The family was extremely poor, and the parents had great
difficulty feeding, clothing and educating their children. Despite their
poverty, it was obvious that the children-polite, clean, caring, bright and
industrious-were well loved at home. One day, while I was outside watching
the younger children at play, I heard someone weeping in the garden and went
to see who it was. There, on the bench, surrounded by flowers and a
fountain, sat the little girl who came to the center every morning with her
siblings. "Anoosheek, what is it? Why are you crying?" She would not answer
and I sat down next to her. She leaned against me and wept even harder. I
put my arm around her and whispered, "Tell me, why are you crying?"
"I do not want to be Armenian anymore!" she said. "When we lived in Russia,
the boys and girls there were never mean to us. But here, because my mother
is Russian, they are not nice to us. Sometimes they are very cruel. I want
to live in Russia again where I was happy." The little girl wept and wept.
I dried her tears, swept her dark, shiny hair out of her dark, melancholy
eyes and said, "Bayts, anoosheek aghcheek (But, sweet girl), you are
Armenian!" and told her how, as an immigrant child growing up in Chicago,
"the kids at school ridiculed me because I was not a local and had a ‘funny’
name, and even some of the teachers wanted to change my name to Karen, but I
always said no!"
Surprised, she looked at me and asked, "And you still wanted to be
Armenian?"
"Always! Even though, like you, I am half Armenian," I said, and took hold
of her hand as we walked around the garden.
Summer was over and the Sisters, the children, the center staff, and Murad
and I were back from Tsaghgadzor. Soon, it would be September 1, the
beginning of fall or voske ashoon (golden autumn) in Armenia, where each new
season officially begins on the first of the month of the particular season.
On this day, ornate and colorful signs that read "Baree Galoust (Welcome
Back)" would once again decorate school doors and windows to welcome back
students. And, in a few weeks, it would be time for us to move again-this
time back home.
The remaining days and weeks at the center were flying by and although we
were both looking forward to returning home, we were also feeling a little
sad leaving this city. Finally, it was the evening before our departure. I
walked over to our bedroom window, pulled back the curtains and opened the
window. A gust of cool mountain air rushed into the room along with the
familiar street sounds. I took a deep breath as I looked up at the moon and
the stars. Oh, what a beautiful sky! I thought about all the changes that
were taking place in Gyumri since our arrival. Although they were slow in
coming, they were taking place. New buildings were being erected and streets
were being paved-projects funded by the Lincy Foundation; a new school and
apartment buildings were nearing completion-projects funded by the Mormons;
the main shuga had gained several more shops; and a few more families had
moved into our old apartment building on Sayat Nova Street. These things
were only a start. There was still so much more work to be done-work that
did not require money.
After saying our goodbyes to the Sisters, the children and staff, we were on
our way back home. As we rode down Sayat Nova Street past Tigran Mets for
the last time, I took a lingering look at this city that had become a part
of us. Over there, down that street lived Melkon and his family; the
grandmother was still not feeling well. Up ahead, in that apartment building
lived Dr. Amatuni and her family; they were so happy these days because
their son Hayk, who had been studying in the U.S., had recently returned
home to be of service to his country. And over there, up on the third floor,
was our old apartment, and down below-tucked away in the back-were the
domeeks where people still lived, including the lady who’d bring our mail
sometimes, the old lady with the cats. And there, across the street just a
little past the park was the public bathhouse. Down that narrow, meandering
street lived Rusanna and her parents; they were longing for the rest of
their family who had no choice but to move to Russia where there was work.
Way down that street lived Vartush and her children; she was still waiting
for her husband, and the children were still waiting for their father to
return home from Russia where he worked to support them. Way down there,
around the corner, lived Gamo and his family, and across the street from
them lived Marina. Straight down Rishkov Street past the grocery store,
pharmacy, floral shop, antique shop, toy store, music shop and bank was the
Dak Lamajo eatery. Just to the right, in the square, was Yot Verk Church and
to the left was the shuga-the heartbeat of the city-with its countless
stories yet to be told.
As we continued on our way, we stopped for a few minutes to gaze at a large
monument standing off of Karekin Nejdeh Square. Surrounded by litter and
weeds, the Hammer and Sickle-the emblem of Soviet utopia, greatness and
power-was now a rusted epitaph. A few yards away was another monument.
Standing victorious, and looking down at the rusted epitaph, was the man the
communists had driven out of Armenia-Karekin Nejdeh.
I looked back towards the city one more time, and whispered, "Goodbye,
Gyumri! Goodbye, Mountain Flower!"