LESSONS FOR A MOLOKAN
by Onnik Krikorian
Transitions Online, Czech Republic
5 September 2005
How can one educate Armenia’s equivalent of the Amish? From UNICEF
Armenia.
FIOLETOVO, Armenia | It’s not often that you encounter a village
that makes you feel like an “outsider” in Armenia but this is one of
the few that do, and in every sense of the word. It’s not that the
residents of this ethnically homogenous village made up of Russian
Molokans don’t like visitors. It’s simply that their presence is not
considered essential for Fioletovo to survive and prosper.
The Molokans are Russians that split from the Russian Orthodox Church
in the 17th Century. Fioletovo, a village inhabited by less than
1,500 people, is the largest community outside of Yerevan. Their
total population in Armenia stands at just 5,000 although 14 years
earlier, when independence was declared, there were approximately
12,000 Molokans living in the republic. Since then, most have left.
To call the community “closed” is not too far from the truth. Apart
from venturing out of Fioletovo and nearby Lermontovo to sell their
famous sauerkraut at market, the village resembles a traditional
Russian enclave cut off from the rest of Armenia. You might even be
forgiven for thinking you had entered a settlement somewhere deep in
the heart of Russia.
Many consider the Molokans as something akin to the Amish in the
United States.
True, the Molokans use motorized vehicles but otherwise, alcohol
is forbidden as is marriage outside the community. And, for the more
strict adherents to the faith, so is television. Streets are impeccably
clean with every other house sporting a fresh coat of paint. The men
wear long beards that haven’t been cut in years while most of the
women cover their heads.
Their fiercely blonde and blue-eyed children are unable to communicate
in any language other than Russian.
And herein lies the problem. As idyllic and refreshing as the scene
might be, the situation in terms of education is just the opposite.
In fact, according to a recent survey of education in national minority
communities by the Hazarashen Armenian Centre of Ethnological Studies,
“Molokans continue retaining [their] virtues over education and thus,
the inertia of perceiving education as secondary continues.”
The report, conducted for Armenia’s education ministry and the
National Statistics Service was made possible through the financial
and technical support of UNICEF. It follows a generic survey on
education in Armenia held during 2001. Then, UNICEF discovered that
school drop-out rates for national minority communities, in addition
to those made up of refugees, were twice the national average.
As a result, one of the recommendations from that 2001 report was to
conduct a new assessment but specifically focusing on national minority
communities. Although Armenia is considered a largely mono-ethnic
country, 2.2 percent of the population comprises ethnic groups such
as Yezidis, Assyrians, Russians and Jews. The report chose to focus
on the three largest in the republic – the Yezidis and Kurds, the
Assyrians, and the Russian Molokans.
“We discovered that there were no problems whatsoever in the Assyrian
community,” says Marine Soukhudyan, UNICEF’s Education Project
Officer. “Historically, as well as culturally, the Assyrian community
values education highly and does everything it can to ensure that
their children receive a normal education. Of course, there is still
a problem with the availability of textbooks and this is a serious
issue for every minority community in Armenia.”
Like the Molokans, the Assyrians receive much of their own education
in Russian but the textbooks that exist are mainly left over from
the Soviet era and do not comply with the requirements of the
new curriculum. There is also an insufficient quantity of teaching
materials in minority languages, but Soukhudyan says that the National
Institute of Education in Armenia is currently contacting intellectuals
within each community to address this problem.
However, she says that there are more serious concerns. “For example,
during the last 15 years, only a handful of children from minority
communities entered higher education,” she explains. “We also
discovered that in Yezidi communities, children attend school for
two to five months on average per year. At first, we thought this was
connected to poverty but later, we discovered that this reflected an
attitude within the community towards education.”
“With the exception of the Assyrians, the Molokan and Yezidi
communities prioritize labor,” continues Soukhudyan. “There is also
a great difference between attitudes towards education for girls
compared to boys. In many communities, grade 8 is considered the end
of the education cycle. This is mandatory under Armenian law but the
real picture is hidden away by many other factors.”
Children from national minority communities are instead expected to
tend the fields and shepherd livestock rather than attend school. The
UNICEF-funded report also noted that some Molokan families have even
been known to pull their children out of school as early as the second
or third grade.
“Parents think that 3 years of education is enough for a child to
know how to sell milk, cabbage and count 10 eggs, which means that
the child will be able to earn money,” says the report, summarizing
the attitude of Molokans in Lermontovo towards education. “Having a
full stomach is better than having an education.”
Education in minority communities is therefore seasonal and governed
by the agricultural calendar. At the same time, because teachers in
rural communities are also engaged in farming, they have no interest
in recording low attendance figures because they too are absent.
Soukhudyan calls it a “mutually beneficial situation for both teachers
and the families of schoolchildren.”
Indeed, when the survey team for the report visited Lermontovo
in August during harvest time, there was not a single child in the
village. Even pre-school children had been sent to help their parents
in the fields. Every year, they work there until mid-October and
sometimes, the beginning of November.
Even so, school work is still marked as “satisfactory” although
children have learned little or next to nothing. In some cases,
especially in Yezidi communities, pupils and teachers cannot even
communicate with each other. In these communities, while the teachers
are Armenian, each new intake of children from Yezidi families can
hardly understand anything other than their mother tongue.
“Textbooks are also in Armenian but it takes two or three years
before Yezidi children can understand the language,” says Soukhudyan.
“Until then, the child’s development is frustrated and, actually,
prevented. There are some Yezidi teachers, of course, but as they
generally come from other villages, there is also the problem of
transportation, especially during the winter months.”
Armenian teachers sometimes use body language instead of words to
“explain and impart knowledge to students.”
And while adverse socio-economic conditions faced by rural settlements,
as well as the poor upkeep of village schools, are detrimental to
education, the main problem is cultural. This is especially true for
females. “There are those who even consider education dangerous for a
girl,” says the report. “They reason that an educated woman may have
ideas and not be as obedient to men.”
However, despite these obstacles, there are children in minority
communities that would like to enter higher education. In the Yezidi
village of Zovuni, for example, one girl cries as she tells of her
inability to study French when she finishes school. Another Yezidi
girl says that if given the opportunity, she would like to study,
and later teach, Armenian language and literature.
Key to effectively addressing this issue, however, will be to launch
a public awareness campaign highlighting the importance of education
among national minority communities. The governor of the Aragatsotn
region in Armenia has already committed himself to supporting UNICEF
in this endeavor. In particular, there will be a specific focus on
teaching Yezidi and Molokan children the Armenian language from an
early age, especially in pre-schools.
UNICEF will also supply 100 schools in five regions of Armenia with
“school in a box” kits that contain essential supplies to meet
the needs of 8,000 schoolchildren. The kits will also be supplied
to vulnerable Armenian communities, especially those situated in
depressed border regions.
“It is my dream to become a doctor,” says one girl in Lermontovo,
“but how can a Molokan enter university? We can’t receive a higher
education because we don’t know Armenian. Nobody here does.”
Onnik Krikorian is a journalist and photographer based in Yerevan.
This article first appeared on the website of UNICEF Armenia.
;IdPublication=4&NrIssue=131&NrSection=3&NrArticle=14430&tpid=36