MEETING WITH STALIN
Henry Hairapetyan The Demo Newspaper

KarabakhOpen
20-02-2008 11:36:07

In the previous issue of the Demo we wrote about 115-year-old Nubar
Mesrop Aghabekyan who died in the Russian city of Novorossiysk.

Nubar had 14 children. Her family lived in the Karabakh village of
Avetaranots. Nubar was an energetic woman and led the large family
with success. However, an accident was about to ruin her family.

One day her husband Mirza carried something from the neighboring
village on the back of the donkey. He reached home, tied the donkey
and started to unload. The neighbors decided to play a trick on
him. They put the issue of the newspaper Communist on the donkey’s
head and started chanting: "Read, jackass, read."

They stood around and laughed while the donkey "read" the newspaper.

However, the joke turned into a tragedy. Stalin’s portrait was on
the front page of the newspaper.

Although it was 1946, in a few days Mirza was invited somewhere
everyone knew where. The poor man was tried and sent to the prison
of Astrakhan for many years.

What could Nubar do? How could she support a family of 14? She appealed
to everywhere but in vain. And finally she decided to go to Moscow,
meet Stalin and tell him about her problems. She asked her relatives
to take care of her children and went to Moscow with the help of Kuka
from the village of Sarushen.

The next problem was to meet Stalin. She wrote a number of letters
but then she decided to meet the leader personally. "Surveillance"
began to find out when Stalin arrives at the Kremlin, when he leaves,
and in what car. The Armenian woman did a desperate thing – she
waited until the motorcade was near and rushed in front of one of
the cars. Stalin got out of the car and received her on the spot.

Nubar told that she had complained to the leader in Armenian. What
happened next? Till the sunset Nubar took the plane to Astrakhan and
fetched her beloved husband home to Karabakh.

They live there for some time and in the 1950’s they move to Baku
and live there until the beginning of the movement and leave for
Novorossiysk.

The family of the Armenian refugees got a warm welcome there. The
city hall gave them land, built a big house, provided them with
fertilizers. The mayor helped them bring nurslings of grapes, apricots,
peaches from Armenia and plant an orchard.

This is the Odyssey of long liver Nubar Aghabekyan: Kars-Karabakh-Baku-
Novorossiysk. Her 14 children also had a lot of children who are now
living in different parts of the world.

Nubar Aghabekyan died at the age of 115 in 2005. The city hall
organized the funeral and erected a memorial arrow on her grave.

Nubar’s things, including the golden belt weighing 2.8 kg, a lot of
silver jewelry and old clothes are displayed at the museum of the city.