Antoine Terjanian's letters from Armenia

Lettre 34: Armenia 2 – Ireland 1, but the Irish moved-on to qualify because I brought our flag early

2011-10-14T08:29:00.020-04:00

Letter 34: Armenia 2 – Ireland 1, but the Irish moved-on to qualify because I brought our flag early

Vachik, our young corner grocer, about 150 meters down from our house, asked to borrow our large Armenian flag to parade it in Yeghegnadzor at 1:00 am Wednesday Oct 12, if Armenia wins the game against Ireland and qualifies for the 2012 World Soccer Cup.
I agreed, but the issue was: Would we be up at 1:00 am so he can borrow it then. I told him that we usually go to bed before 10 pm.
On the evening of Oct. 11, I was going to buy milk, so I decided to take our flag down to Vachik, to save him coming to get it that evening. He felt a bit uneasy accepting it, because it is bad luck to brag before actually winning a game. Nevertheless, he took the flag and told us he had planned to watch the game at the Vayots Dzor Café, down on the main Yerevan-Artsakh highway, where it was to be projected on a large outdoor screen.
We don’t have a TV here, but when we heard of the large screen, we thought it would be fun to go and watch the game with a group of locals. The main point being that, since it was an outdoor cafe, we would not be bothered by tobacco smoke!!!. We therefore booked a taxi for 10:30 pm and we got there in time for the national anthems.

It was a beautiful clear and cool evening and the full moon was shining. There was a crowd of about 40 people there and Sheila was the only woman, but Vachik was nowhere to be found. I thought to myself, wouldn’t it have been great if I had noted my friend Berge’s cellular phone number. Berge had planned to watch the game at the “Sports Bar” on Yonge and College, with a group of TorontoHyes. I could have called them to give them impressions from the locals… They would have surely been impressed to know of the 150 TV’s at Toronto’s “Sports Bar”.

I was impressed how well the Armenian team played right from the start. Theirs was a fast-paced tactic with short passes on the ground to compensate for the height difference with the Irish team.

One of the most fascinating moments for me was when, early in the game, S. Cox managed to get almost alone in front of our goalie and midfielder Mkrtchyan stole the ball from him at the last moment, without any foul play (see photo), and saved us from a quasi certain goal.

Things started going bad for the Armenian team in the 26th minute, when the referee red-carded our excellent goalie (video replays showed that this penalty was unwarranted). Nevertheless, our outnumbered team continued to play valiantly and respectfully with one man short.

Ireland’s forward Simon Cox, the closest man to the play, remorsefully but nevertheless ‘honestly and magnanimously” declared after the game that it was not a handball by the keeper as seen and called by the referee and that the ball had accidentally touched his own hand immediately before.

In the 43rd minute, V. Aleksanyan scored a goal in Armenia’s own net, giving Ireland the lead.

The first half ended 1-0 for Ireland.

In the second half, Ireland’s Richard Dunne (who reminds me of my nephew Patrick) scored a beautiful goal at the 59th minute, and put the hosts 2 goals ahead. Look at him in the photo consoling our (second) ‘debutant’ replacement goalie!

At this point, the odds were overwhelmingly stacked against Armenia: facing the Irish on their home turf, with only 10 players, and needing three goals to qualify.

Three minutes later (62nd minute), Mkhitaryan (#18), linking up neatly with striker Yura Movsisian, scored a beautiful goal for Armenia. Our honour was safe!

The subdued crowd at the Vayots Dzor Café dispersed without much fanfare, behaving just like they did during the game. The final score was: Aleksanyan (Armenia) 43rd minute; Dunn (Ireland) 59th minute; Mkhitaryan (Armenia) 62nd minute. Like I said: 2-1.

Vachik returned our flag today. He said he didn’t use it. I told him I had been at the Vayots Dzor Café but did not see him there. He said: I was told there was no room left. He obviously did not want me to feel bad about having given him the flag ahead of time. He said: so you know we lost. I said: no, we won: the respect of the Irish team and that of all those who watched this game around the world. Our team played well and clean to the end and, in the spirit of the sport, did not make a scene contesting the referee’s decision (a request was made to UEFA after the game to annul the ban linked to the red card wrongfully awarded our goalie).

A video of the match highlights can be found in the following link:
http://news.am/eng/news/77576.html

Antoine S. Terjanian
Went there to help keep our heads up!

All rights reserved. This letter can be reproduced with full acknowledgements.

Letter 33: The Legend of Yeghegis

2011-03-23T21:38:00.008-04:00

We all know that Yeghegnadzor, the town we chose for our residence on top of the mountain in Armenia, is named after the Yeghegis River, which flows along the Silk Road, down below our house. This same river gave its name to the ancient town of Yeghegis which was destroyed by the viith century earthquake and volcanic eruption and which was reconstructed by Orbelyan princes as their capital and it is there that we inaugurated the re-opening last year of the medieval Jewish cemetery.
I was wondering where the river got its name, for ‘yegheg’ means ‘reed’ in Armenian and I was not able to find many reeds along its banks. Meruzhan Khoyents, the local bearded old bard, told me his version of the legend before he died. I thought it was too simple a story and it was left sitting somewhere in my memory. Until, until I read the lyrics of the song by Patricia Carli (Carlikian) whose family has roots in our region and, I guess, must have known about this legend. Patricia’s song is almost word for word the story I heard from our bard.
You can read Patricia Carli’s lyrics at: http://paroles.abazada.com/chanson,le-roseau-et-la-riviere,61945.htm . You can also listen to this song (or download it) free from a russian website (if you can't read russian, the song to download is written thus: "Камыш и речка" on this website: http://www.audiopoisk.com/artist/patricia-carli/ ; you can listen to the song by clicking on "СЛУШАТ ПЕСНЮ".)
The legend Merouzhan told me went like this: There was a little reed who was in love with the river. He was skinny and not so handsome, while she was pretty and proud. Night and day, the little reed declared his eternal and simple love to the river. The river liked to flirt. She made fun of his love. She sometimes went out of her banks and flooded the glade, tickling the little reed’s feet. The little reed thought it was reciprocal love and couldn’t wait till the spring for the flooding to repeat. One sad day foreign invaders came on horseback, destroying everything on their way. The little reed got scared and jumped in the river. The little reed died in the arms of his river while repeating the same simple and sincere words of his love towards his river.
According to the legend, the river was since called Yeghegis (Yegheg gic = Reed thrown-in)
Antoine S. Terjanian
Went there to move mountains, and why not, rivers too

 Yeghegnadzor changed names several times. It was also named Migoyan (after Anastas Migoyan the former President of the USSR - Անաստաս Հովհաննեսի Միկոյան) and his statue is still standing in the middle of the town’s central park, but historically, it was known as ‘Yeghegik’ (little reed).

Lettre 32: Gago and the watch

2010-06-06T01:16:00.014-04:00

Yeghegnadzor, Saturday, June-05-10 When I first met Gago a few years back, he was in the middle of the street, directing traffic in downtown Yeghegnadzor. When Gago tried to tell me where to walk, I did not quite understand until some passers-by quietly explained that Gago was just a friendly soul who wandered the downtown area and meant no harm to anyone. I have since always enjoyed seeing him clown around, smiling and laughing with everybody. It is about a year ago that Gago approached me to say he needed a waterproof watch so that he could bathe with it on. I told him I would look for one and, if I found one, I would bring it to him. Every time I ran into Gago in downtown Yeghegnadzor, he reminded me about the watch, and when I returned to Armenia last March, he had not forgotten. When he saw me, he said: Bari Kaloust, im zhamatsouytsu our e? (Welcome back. Where is my watch?) I had brought an old watch from Ottawa and gave it to him. His eyes lit up. He quickly examined it and said with such sadness in his eyes: This is not water-proof… the water-proof ones have a tightening mechanism on the back. This simple man knew what he was talking about. Indeed, as I later learned, water-proof watches have grooves on the circle of the watch’s back cover which watchmakers use to unscrew the back and work on the watch when necessary. I apologized to Gago; I was sorry I did not have such a watch, and I had not considered it a priority to get a watch that he could bathe with. I suggested that all he had to do was take his watch off when he had a shower. He looked so sad and his beautiful smile faded from his face. The next time I saw him, I told him that I would write a letter from Armenia about him, and perhaps some generous person with a waterproof watch would donate it and I could bring it next time I came. Now Gago can’t wait for me to leave and come back . Every time I see him downtown he asks, are you not gone yet? So if anyone has such a watch to donate, please think about making “Gizh Gago” happy in Yeghegnadzor!

Antoine S. Terjanian
Went there to move mountains and keep hope lit

p.s. A generous Frenchman, has read this letter in English, and is sending a waterproof watch for Gago. Thank you.

p.p.s. If you think Armenians are happy, watch this skit in the Yerevan fruit & Veg market: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xll8_FhATZs&feature=player_embedded/

p.p.p.s. Remember the four candles: Peace, Faith, Love and Hope If the first three candles are extinguished, make sure you keep the fourth lit.

Letter 31: The Legend of Yeghegis (revised - see 2011)

2010-06-05T11:52:00.006-04:00

Yeghegnadzor, Sunday, April-25-10

see revised "Letter 33"
Antoine S. Terjanian
Went there to move mountains
To read all my letters from Armenia, click on http://lettersfromArmenia.blogspot.com

 Yeghegnadzor changed names several times. It was also named Migoyan (after Anastase Migoyan the former President of the USSR) and his statue is still standing in the middle of the town’s central park, but historically, it was known as ‘Yeghegik’ (little reed).

Lettre 30: (French) Pourquoi, si les Arméniens sont des gens intelligents, n'arrivent-ils pas à développer leur pays

2010-01-16T16:31:00.007-05:00

Yeghegnadzor, dimanche, 13 septembre 2009

Une amie Belge qui réside en Suisse et qui comme moi aime habiter la montagne vient de me poser les deux questions suivantes, à la suite de sa visite en Arménie :

Je serais curieuse de savoir ce que vous répondriez à 2 questions qu'on m'a posé :
1) Pourquoi, si les Arméniens sont des gens intelligents, n'arrivent-ils à développer leur pays?
Réponse rapide : Parce qu’il est difficile de développer en vitesse un pays enclavé, en conflit avec deux des pays qui l’enclavent.

Mais avant de répondre en détail, j’avoue me sentir mal à l’aise pour répondre à cette première question, car avec le ‘si’ elle semble donner l’impression que les Arméniens ‘prétendent’ être ‘intelligents’.

J’aimerais tout de suite écarter cette hypothèse en vous offrant pour commencer une traduction de quelques vers du poème de Parouyr Sevak (assassiné par le KGB en 1971 sur la route que vous avez prise pour venir chez nous – vous auriez remarqué une stèle en granit noir en photo ci-dessous). Il avait récité ce poème pour la première fois le 24 avril 1965 lors de la commémoration spontanée du 50ième anniversaire du Génocide des arméniens à Yerevan :

Nous sommes peu nombreux, mais ils nous nomment Arméniens

Bien qu'en petit nombre on nous dit Arméniens,
Supérieurs à personne, certes nous le savons bien,
….
Simplement, nous savons bâtisseurs exemplaires,
Creuser de nos rochers palais et monastères,
Et finement sculpter des poissons de nos pierres,
Et modeler l'argile en images humaines,
Pour instruire, élever et dans tous les domaines,
Au beau,
Au bon,
Au sublime,
Au bien.

Bien qu'en petit nombre, on nous dit arméniens,
Supérieurs à personne, certes nous le savons bien,
Simplement, nous avions un destin différent.
Simplement, tel un fleuve a coulé notre sang,
Simplement au cours de notre vie séculaire,
Quand nous étions nombreux sur notre terre,
Et à nouveau, debout et dans la liberté,
Jamais une nation par nous fût maltraitée,
Ni de nos bras frappée, ni jamais asservie,
Des siècles ont passé, des siècles ont suivi,
D'aucun peuple jamais nous ne fûmes tyrans.
Et si nous capturions, ce n'est qu'en attirant,
Subjuguant librement par notre seul regard,
Et si victorieux flottèrent nos étendards,
C'est grâce à nos soldats, à nos propres armées.
Et si nous dominions, nos yeux seuls ont charmé.
Et si jamais nous fûmes d'impérieux vainqueurs,
C'est seulement par nos dons, par l'esprit, par le cœur

Nous sommes peu, il est vrai, mais nous sommes arméniens
Et d'être en petit nombre ne nous accable en rien,
Car il vaut beaucoup mieux n'être multitude
Que par la quantité réduire en servitude,
Car il faut préférer la qualité au nombre,
Qui souvent rend les peuples odieux dominateurs.
Et nous préférons la qualité au nombre
Et ne pas devenir bourreaux persécuteurs.

Certes, nous ne sommes supérieurs à personne.
Mais savons aussi que pour le monde entier,
Nous sommes arméniens, c'est ainsi qu'on nous nomme.
Cela ne doit-il pas nous emplir de fierté ?
Nous sommes,
Nous serons
Et plus encore,
Nous nous épanouirons.

Maintenant pour répondre à votre question : Il est inexact de postuler que les Arméniens ‘n’arrivent pas à développer leur pays’. Si vous observez le taux de croissance annuel à double chiffre que l’Arménie accuse depuis 10 ans, vous devrez vous rendre à l’évidence que l’Arménie se développe rapidement. Si, comme moi, vous reveniez chaque année, vous ne pourriez pas ne pas remarquer les améliorations d’une année à l’autre. Il est vrai cependant que l’Arménie se situe aujourd’hui économiquement parmi les pays du tiers monde. Après avoir fait partie du ‘second monde’ pendant 70 ans, il est dur pour nous d’avoir reculé ainsi. Nous aspirons tous à vivre en paix et avoir un niveau de vie semblable à celui de la Suisse, pays que nous envions et de qui nous avons beaucoup de choses à apprendre : Nous sommes enclavés comme la Suisse et devrions trouver le moyen de collaborer avec nos voisins (bien que deux d’entre eux nous soient ouvertement belliqueux).
L’Arménie était la République Soviétique la plus densément peuplée et industrialisée (per capita). Lorsque le système (économiquement intégré) soviétique s’est écroulé, presque toutes ces industries ont périclité et nous avons vécu un taux de chômage des plus élevés au monde. Nous sommes donc devenus des exportateurs de main-d’œuvre. Heureusement ou malheureusement, l’Arménie vit actuellement surtout de ces rémittences envoyées par la main-d’œuvre expatriée. Ce phénomène est en même temps un avantage et un frein au développement rationnel de l’Arménie.

Et 2) Les gens disent : pourquoi la diaspora envoie-t-elle de l'argent au lieu de développer elle-même des projets rentables sur place ? S'appuyant sur le proverbe: "Il vaut mieux apprendre à quelqu'un à pêcher que de lui donner du poisson".
Il faudrait distinguer deux diasporas : La main-d’œuvre émigrée (temporaire) qui envoie des rémittences, car sans elles, leur familles crèveraient de faim étant donné que la sécurité sociale est très pauvre en Arménie, et la diaspora établie dans différents pays d’Europe depuis le début du 20ième siècle. Cette dernière s’est en effet cotisée pour envoyer des fonds pour aider les familles arméniennes à se nourrir, se loger et s’habiller. Plusieurs bienfaiteurs et groupements de bienfaisance ont beaucoup aidé. Nous avons aussi bénéficié de la générosité d’organismes de bienfaisance non-Arméniens et nous en sommes très reconnaissant. Plusieurs de ses organismes de bienfaisance axent maintenant leur optique sur le développement de l’infrastructure et la création de projets rentables (par exemple : la production d’électricité par des petites centrales hydro-électrique; la recherche sur les énergies alternatives, etc..). Plusieurs entrepreneurs diaspora ns ont investi en Arménie dans les domaines de la production de conserves de fruits, légumes et miel pour la consommation locale et l’exportation; l’orfèvrerie, la taille de diamants, l’informatique, l’infrastructure hôtelières pour encourager le tourisme, etc… Mais il n’y en a pas assez pour remplacer une base industrielle massive qui existait en période Soviétique. Nous savons pêcher, mais il n’y a simplement pas assez de poissons dans notre coin. Nous continuons ce pendant à œuvrer dans ce sens. Je ne cesse personnellement d’établir des contacts et de lancer des hameçons là où je peux pour inviter des touristes, attirer des investisseurs et des acheteurs de nos produits, et je continuerais. Et avec la bienveillance de beaucoup de personnes généreuses comme toi,
Nous serons
Et plus encore,
Nous nous épanouirons. Je n’en doute pas.

Antoine S. Terjanian
J’y suis allé pour déplacer les montagnes
Pour lire mes lettres d’Arménie, cliquez sur http://lettersfromArmenia.blogspot.com

Letter 29: The Neighbour’s Family

2010-01-16T16:20:00.004-05:00

Sunday, June-28-09
When we first bought our house in 2003, one neighbour, in his early fifties, did not seem too happy to have us as his new neighbours. He had been using the abandoned house to store his beehives in the winter and he guarded the orchard like his own.
Their house was down the hill from us. His eldest daughter, Armenouhi, had married Tigran and moved to Aghavnadzor, the village on the mountain across from us on the west side of the old Silk Road. His son Armen had just married Lusineh, from Mozrov, another village that we can also see from our house, which is very close to the Nakhijevan border. They had a new-born baby and lived with the parents, together with a younger daughter, Hamovik, who was finishing high school.
At the time, our neighbour had offered to do all the work to finish our house, but when we visited his house and saw the poor state of repair and finishing, we diplomatically declined. I learned at the time from his wife, Nshkhar, that some “diasporan benefactor” had loaned (through a local bank) a group of women money to buy a mother sow to produce piglets. The sow had died and Nshkhar and the other women were stuck with the debt. Nshkhar asked me if she really had to pay the debt, given that it was from a benefactor. Needless to say that they struggled with that debt and paid interest on it. At that time, I took everything I was told with a grain of salt, having heard so many stories and warnings about lending people money. But when Our neighbour asked for funds to pay for Hamovik’s university tuition, promising to return the money in three months, I gave it to him, no receipt, no promissory note, just a gentlemen’s agreement. He paid me back three years later by building and finishing our wood floor, and what a superb job that was!

Our neighbour is a ‘character’. At first, he could not understand why we would not tolerate anyone smoking in our house. I have noticed recently, however, that now he does not smoke in his own house. Our neighbour is also a great craftsman. There isn’t a thing that we brought from Canada that broke that he couldn’t figure out and fix, better than before. It was the same with Armen. I was told by his former teachers that he had been a very poor student at school. (His parents blamed it on a head concussion he had in an accident a few years back, when he was hit by a speeding vehicle on the Silk Road while herding the neighbourhood flock. But I slowly realized he had a knack for figuring out how mechanical things fit together. He and his father took apart anything from water pumps to automatic door hinges to fancy flush toilets and installed them for us, although they had none of these gadgets themselves. For example, when we broke our flimsy spring-loaded shower-curtain rod, we bought a new one and broke it again. Armen fixed them both five years ago and they are still up.

Lusineh, Armen’s young spouse, is to me the ideal Armenian wife. She looks after her children with devotion, is always welcoming with a lovely smile, and works side by side with her mother in law and the rest of the family.

Then there’s Hamovik. Now 25, still single, she’s bubbly and beautiful like a rising sun. She’s the one they sent to university in Yerevan and went into debt for. Some anonymous Ottawa benefactors had given us money to help Armenia and we used some of it to provide her with a partial scholarship to cover her tuition during the last two of her four years. She studied economics and bank management and graduated two years ago, but the only job she could find was night cashier in one of those supermarkets in Yerevan. She could hardly make ends meet working 48 hours over a seven-day-week. She is now back in Yeghegnadzor and was able to find a job as a Manager in the University’s new Youth Centre. It pays less than in Yerevan, but at least she lives at home and has no high rent to pay. Hamovik is the one who convinced me, when we first arrived, that the mountain we saw from our living room window was actually Ararat (Masis). She took me to a different spot a few hundred meters away from where one could clearly see Sis in addition to Masis.

Despite their skills and some loans, our neighbour and his son Armen could not make ends meet in Yeghegnadzor, and I can testify that they worked day and night. I would wake-up sometimes at three in the morning and, while taking a short walk outside, I could see their basement workshop light on and hear their wood-working machines running. In 2006, Armen was called to work for a contractor in Ukraine. I gave him a warm jacket for the winter and off he went. A few months later we realised that he had been led astray, the job he was offered had not materialised and although he worked at odd repair jobs on the side and was too proud to return broke, his parents had to ultimately go into more debt for his ticket back. Yet, he went again last year, this time with his father, to Yakutia, in Arctic Russia. Apparently they were more successful this time, and although they had to return because our neighbour’s stomach ulcer acted up, they had managed to earn a few hundred dollars more than they had invested to go to Yakutia.

If you ever think that it is Western Armenian Diaspora money that keeps Armenia afloat, think again. It is people like our neighbour and his son who go regularly to slave in Russia and send remittances home. Sometimes, some of these migrant workers give up on Armenia and marry a Russian girl and never return. But most of those I know return home to their families.

With the money they made in Yakutia, this family’s males were able to pay off some of their debts and buy a second cow for their family. (Armen keeps telling me he will pay back the Principessa&General Fund loan… I am still waiting).
With the two cows now, next time you visit us, we will never run out of fresh milk, madsoun (Armenian delicious yogurt), butter or cheese. You should taste the freshness of the “alani panir” that I buy from Nshkhar regularly. It is like fresh ‘bocconcinis’. I have it with mountain honey in the morning for breakfast, and I put it with several of my tomato-based salads that have some of the subtle aromas of the Kanachis, the mixed fresh green herbs that are always present on Armenian tables.
It was when I wanted to see for myself the hygienic conditions under which the cheese from unpasteurised milk that I ate everyday was produced, that I realised that Nshkhar could not use the extra whey and was giving it away. She told me, had she owned a sow, she could feed the whey to it.

I had just heard from a benefactor couple in Toronto that they wanted their fund to be used for helping women entrepreneurs. So I helped Nshkhar prepare a business plan and the following picture is “worth a thousand words”. Except that I had to delete it, to protect these peoples' identity.
Photo of: Nshkhar, the sow, Lusineh and Armen (deleted)
(The names in this story have been altered to protect their identity and respect their privacy)
April 23, 2010: There is however a happy epilogue to this story. The sow in the photo that I deleted has reproduced and is living happily with the piglets, looking at Ararat. Here is their photo, also worth a 1000 words:

Antoine S. Terjanian
Went there to attract rainbows
to read all my letters from Armenia, open http://lettersfromArmenia.blogspot.com

Letter 28: Healing at Chiqi Vanq

2009-07-13T21:06:00.002-04:00

Tuesday, June-09-09
There was an article by Jeffrey Kluger in the Feb 23 issue of Time Magazine this winter about how faith can heal, entitled “The Biology of Belief”. He concludes the article by saying: “Doctors, patients and pastors battling disease already know that help comes in a whole lot of forms. It is the result, not the source, that counts the most.” The article by Kruger is followed by examples of different healing practices and pilgrimage spots around the world, the most famous of which seems to be Notre Dame de Lourdes in France.

Armenia is quickly becoming a pilgrimage tourism destination. As the first nation to adopt Christianity as a state religion, Armenia has a huge collection of monasteries and chapels scattered all over the mountainous landscape where monks and saints have lived and prayed, and, after their death, were credited with miracles. Armenia is also the closest Christian country to the Holy Land, and consequently Armenians have had easier access to Holy Christian relics than any other nation around the world. It is therefore no wonder that most monasteries and chapels in Armenia boast to have Christian relics hidden in them. While many of these relics were taken out of Armenia to Christian Europe (or ‘saved’) by Armenian clergymen in the Middle Ages after the Muslim conquest(s), many have remained buried in the foundations of these chapels until today, are still the object of veneration and are credited with even more miracles.

Interestingly, many of these monasteries and chapels are located on previously pagan holy spots and temples. In fact, the Armenian Christian Church has adopted and “Christianized” many formerly pagan festivals and holidays. The culture and beliefs in the healing powers associated with these sites is therefore well entrenched in Armenia. For example, you will find in the little chapel of St Phokas, near Noravanq (15 kilometres from our house), the basin of a sacred spring in which some miraculous healing oils seep from the relics of the Saint, according to the 13th century writings of Bishop Stepanos Orbelyan. Orbelyan wrote “Here surprising things used to occur. All kinds of pains, whose cure by man was impossible, such as leprosy and long-infected and gangrenous wounds, were cured when people came here, bathed with the water and anointed with the oil. But in cases where the wounds were fatal, (the patient) expired immediately.”

Hayki, our former-“shepherd” neighbour, had taken us to St Phokas when the Nabatians and Pascovichs visited in 2004 but I had never witnessed a true sacrifice and miraculous healing before, such as the one I witnessed at Chiqi Vanq. Chiq means skin disease (psoriasis). I found out at the last minute from one friend, Ruzan, that she was going with her family to Chiqi Vanq, a small chapel past Vayq, near Herher village. I had heard about the specialty of this “Vanq” for curing skin diseases. I asked Ruzan why they were going, she answered: just like that, for a picnic. I had wanted to go to Chiqi Vanq to check it out, so I asked if I could come too, and on the spur of the moment, she said yes. So off I went with her on the marshutka to Malichka, a large village 10 kms away from Yeghegnadzor, to her mother’s house where the rest of the family had gathered (Her mother, daughter, sister, nephew, her sister’s mother-in-law “Rosa Dadik” and two friends of her nephew). I noticed Ruzan’s 20-year-old nephew had a bandage near his wrist. He said he had strained it working. Soon Ishkhan showed-up with his little blue fourgon (van) and we all piled-up in. They insisted I sit in the front with Ishkhan, so eight adults were stuffed in the closed back and were warned not to make any noise if we were stopped by a policeman. Soon after we took off, they realized they had forgotten the most important guest on this trip, the rooster. We returned and soon Anoushik and Souren came-back with a captured rooster in a bag.

See the full series of the pilgrimage photos by clicking:
http://s192.photobucket.com/albums/z237/aterjanian/Matagh%20at%20Chiqi%20Vanq/

It wasn’t long after we passed Vayq (the second largest city in Vayots Dzor) that we turned left to get on the road to Herher. We went past the Herher dam and drove along the lake. Soon Ishkhan pointed to a spot in the mountains. It was Chiqi Vanq, our destination.

The overloaded fourgon could not make it up the mountain, so we got off and walked the last mile. It was gorgeous to climb the mountain and look at the green valley below. We ran into a horseman returning from the mountain. We soon had to climb the goat path to Chiqi Vanq. The nicely polished stones were visible, but many stones from the roof and siding had been ripped-away by the violent storms that sometimes occur on the top of mountains. On the way, we noticed the little pieces of cloth tied to tree branches by pilgrims to the site. As soon as we arrived, Rosa Dadik proceeded to examine the chapel, where she obviously had been before. She pulled out a bag which turned out to be full of home-made candles that she distributed to each of us. We each lit our pair of candles in the small niches on the side of the altar. The altar was full of little mementos left by previous pilgrims, usually handkerchiefs. Rosa Dadik then went into a mild emotional trance/prayer, chanting ‘cure my grandson’ with tears in her eyes. Then she called Souren into the chapel and proceeded to feel all parts of his body in some kind of a ritual, repeating the same prayer.

When we backed out (an archaic custom which is supposed to show respect to the altar), the Մատաղ Matagh (sacrifice rooster) was waiting, seemingly aware of his destiny. Rosa Dadik took charge. She took out the knife, sharpened it quickly on the bare rocks and handed it to Souren’s young friend, who had this incredulously funny smile on his face. He proceeded to slaughter the rooster and, in a minute, Rosa Dadik had her finger in the fresh blood-soaked earth and marked Souren’s forehead with a cross, again repeating the same prayer. She did the same thing to all those present. Then they walked around the chapel a few times. The whole “ceremony” was completed in a matter of minutes but I thoroughly enjoyed the serenity of the place and the stupendous view. We could see the snowy mountain peaks around, the extinct volcano, and the Herher dam reservoir. I was sorry to leave the place, but it was late evening already, and we still had to cook and eat the sacrifice.

So we returned to the car and chose a spot under an oak tree. On the way back we each gathered whatever dead wood we could find to light a fire. In a matter of minutes, we were boiling water in a pot for the bokhi some had also gathered on the way down. Bokhi is a wild mountain green vegetable that Armenians love to eat – it tastes a bit bitter, but is supposed to cure many stomach ills. After the bokhi had boiled, it was the turn of the yet unplucked bird. The two dadiks had dipped the deceased rooster in the boiling water and unceremoniously proceeded to pluck, clean and cut it into pieces which ended up in the pot with new boiling water and salt.

You are not supposed to cover the pot when boiling a ‘Մատաղ – Matagh’, perhaps to let the smell spread so that all hungry people can join in the feast. So it took longer than usual to get this broth to a strong boil, before they could add the rice. In the meanwhile visitors from the mountain kept trickling down, and each received a small something to eat, for which they said “dzer Mataghu entounvats lini” (may your sacrifice be accepted) . We all took turns to feed the fire to get the water boiling; at one point, the pot was partly covered (would this void the cure?). Souren asked: So do I now stop all medicine I took before? To which they all answered with no hesitation: yes! Souren’s mum recounted that she had done a similar (sacrifice) at Chiqi Vanq when she was younger, and by the time she had arrived home, she had been cured.

By the time the rooster was declared boiled enough, the picnic meal had been spread: Lavash bread, panir (unripened/salted white cheese), kanachi (green herbs), tomatoes and cucumbers. Each was handed a small deep tin dish with the broth and a piece of chewy rooster. It was good. Then the oghi came out and everyone made toasts wishing Souren a speedy cure and wishing all good health.

It was almost dark when we finished eating and while some were packing, the others danced under the volcano to varied tunes from the fourgon’s sound-system.
I was back home around 11 o’clock, happy to have witnessed an age old Armenian tradition in a spontaneous way, and to have documented it with photos.
http://s192.photobucket.com/albums/z237/aterjanian/Matagh%20at%20Chiqi%20Vanq/

The last I heard, Souren is feeling much better and looking for a job in Yerevan. He had already stopped itching by the time he got home.

Letter 27: Armenian Կոնյաք (Konyak)

2009-05-23T09:10:00.006-04:00

Եղեգնաձոր (Yeghegnadzor) Friday, May-22-2009
Dear Raffi:

What you say makes sense and I remember hearing many aspects of that story, but it will need digging-up.

_______________________________________________
 From: Raffi

Subject: cognac
To: Received: Monday, May 18, 2009, 8:41 AM

parev kerri
ouremen hima Amsterdam em, yev Ararat cognaki
marketingi vra g'ashxadimgor. ansial shapat, camille
g'essergor vor francatsinere porcecin 'cognac'
par arkilel ararati vra, yev verchavorutiunin, tsouic devin
vor...des moines armeniens ont apporte la recette du cognac
en France
d'ailleurs tu te soviens, en 2005 nous sommes alle
à la vallee d'armeniac.

alors tu peux me confirmer cette histoire? ou si tu as
un article la dessus...merci

Raffi
__________________________________________________________

Let us start from the Bible, Noah (3900 B.C. to 2900 B.C.) got drunk from the wine grown near where the Arch landed (probably the Ararat plain or the Areni area near our house). I don’t know any Frenchman who can boast having made wine at that time in France. Now do you think Noah would have gotten drunk on simple wine. He had probably met my neighbour Zorro who had him taste some of his ‘oghi’. But we can’t prove this at this time! However the symbolism of this Biblical story is clear in everyone’s mind: Armenia is the land where God gave man (through Noah) a second chance! Any oghi or Կոնյաք (Konyak) produced here has, aside from its’ special sun-baked aroma and fruity flavours, the distinction of being from the ‘land where God gave man a second chance’!

Now we all know that the Romans did partake in wine making and drinking. The King of Armenia was taken in chains to Rome when he refused to give them all his wines and specially his recipe for making oghi. There is a slight possibility, that this is when the Romans (and the French) learned to make distilled wine, but we have no historical proof they learned their lesson well. According to historian Boris Piotrovski, in the mid-5th century, after the Romans had appeased the Armenians, Rome was regularly supplied with barrels of ‘distilled grape wine’ bearing the seal of Dvin (which is located just beyond the Gegham mountain range, looking from our living room window towards Ararat). If it takes me an hour to get to Dvin by car today, how long do you think those barrels of distilled grape wine took to reach Rome? There you have it: The Romans were drinking “Hnatsatz oghi” without knowing it. In our town, hardly anyone has the means to drink “Hnatsatz oghi” for they drink fresh, all the oghi they produce long before it starts getting old. When they run-out of their own home-made oghi, they come to me to borrow money to go and buy some cheap Russian vodka until the new season, when they make the new delicious oghi again.

You will remember no doubt what the last known ‘Olympic Champion’ of antiquity, Vartakades (Arshakuni), Prince of Armenia, said in an Irish pub after winning the boxing contest in 369 A.D. He said: ‘Let’s drink to this’ and then they all sang: ‘խմենք ընկերներ, բաժակները լի, թող Հայոց գինին մեզ անուշ լինի’. (a popular Armenian wine drinking song). After the գինի (wine) they went on to the oghi and the ‘bachanales’ and then showed-up for 10 o’clock Mass, drunk!… So you can understand why the Olympic Games, which were held for more than 1100 years, were abolished in 393AD by Roman Emperor Theodosius, who considered them to be pagan and why we, Roman Catholics, have to fast from midnight on if we want to have Holy Communion.

When the Eastern Roman Empire was created and the Byzantine Empire took over, several of the Byzantine Emperors were Armenians (search for instance Emperor “Leo the Armenian”). The Byzantines raised armies from all parts of the empire, but never kept the ‘armed’ legions from a given ethnic group on their national soil, so there is no temptation to claim ‘armed’ independence. For instance, we all know that the Romanians are the result of the mixture of Roman (Italian) soldiers who were part of the Roman Legion that Byzantium stationed in that part of the world, away from Italy. They intermarried with the local Slavic tribes and barbarians and formed the Romanian language (close to Italian). The same was true with the Armenian Legion during the Byzantine Empire. They were not stationed in Armenia. They were stationed in Italy (precisely in the Veneto, in Ravenna and Rimini - where Rimini got its name from being called “citta degli Armeni”). It is well known that in the 6th century, under the rule of Byzantine Emperor Justinian I (the builder of Hajia Sophia), it is precisely the Armenian Legion that liberated Rome after it had been plundered by the Ostrogoths. … I remember reading it in a book called “From Ararat to San Lazzaro” published by the Armenian Mekhitarist monks in the Island of San Lazzaro in Venice. The Armenian Legion was under the leadership of General Nerces (sometimes written ‘Narses’, Narcissus). It went on to appease the Spaniards afterwards going through southern France (Gaul) and taught them a few tricks in the process, but probably not how to make oghi (yet).

Now in the early medieval period, after the Muslim conquest of southern Armenia (700 AD- 800AD) there were many schisms/heresies and sects that originated in the Anatolian/Armenian part of the Byzantine Empire. Please check the “Paulicians” if you have good access to the internet. I am sure Wikipedia has something on them. Now these guys were Armenians, and were persecuted by Byzantine emperors. They were a Gnostic and quasi Manichaean Christian group which flourished between 650 and 872. Some of their sects fought against the worship of icons, and therefore were given protection against persecution in areas of Armenia conquered by Arab-Muslims. Other sects moved west and ended-up in southern France, in the Languedoc.

You can look-up the ‘Cathars’ and the ‘Croisade des Albigeois’ which was a crusade called for by Pope Innocent II to eliminate these ‘Manichean’ preachers and their followers who had been welcomed by liberal-thinking southern French Princes of Languedoc because they made such good oghi (these “non-Parisian” French could not pronounce the ‘gh’ sound – like the ‘r’ in ‘Paris’ - and ‘oghi’ became known as “eau-d’vie”). Incidentally the Cathars (cat-arse) never called themselves by that name, it is a name given to them by the Dominican monks who led the theological fight against them, for they accused them of ‘devil worship’ and of ‘kissing the arse of black cats on their altars during Holy Mass’ (which is totally untrue), but since all we had as a written record about them was what those Dominicans had recorded during their ‘inquisition’ trials of these poor Armenian preachers before they burned them alive together with all their bibles, oghi making secrets and religious books, the name and stories stuck. It wasn’t until after WW II that an ancient bible written in old Languedoc French was discovered in the destroyed Jewish ghetto of Warshava and it was found to be the only surviving book of those so-called ‘Cathars’. This is how we now know what kind of pseudo-Christian religion these sects practiced.

I suspect that it is at that time that some of these monks started making oghi in oak barrels to keep it from the inquisition and found that it tasted smoother, and that this monk Armenak gave his name to Armagnac. It is at that time also that Saint Pey d’Armens was founded (see photo).

Now I do not have direct evidence of that, for I have not had time to visit any of the Languedoc archives in Toulouse, but you may have such an opportunity.

On the other hand, a Germano-Russo Canadian friend of mine sent me a description of an episode during which an Armenian bishop, carrying relics and other precious items, was separated from his treasures by the perfidy of the Counts of Sayn, in Westphalia, at some time in the 12th century. (For details, see the “endnote”). Below is the photo of the shrine where the relics are still kept near Bonn (unfortunately there is no oghi there now, they drank it all).

Now this poor Armenian Bishop was fleeing the Seljuk black-sheep bashibouzouk conquest, and I don’t really know whether he came in the same migration wave as Armenak of Armagnac fame, or if Armenak came earlier from General Nercess time.

It is undeniable that Armenians have entered French lives and culture at several times in history. Everyone in France knows the story of the “Masque de fer” where one version of the legend has the secret prisoner as an Armenian bishop or prince who cured the ‘Dauphin’ from dysentery with ‘madsoun’ (the name Armenians have always used for their special and delicious ‘yogurt’) … How about d’Artanyan and the Three Musketeers? Do you remember their first names? (Arthos, Portos and Aramis). Are these French names or are they more likely to be Artin, Poghos and Aram? And I am sure your mother told you the story of ‘Artin partir à Paris’… How about (former) President Jacques Chirac: Did his ancestors come all the way here and founded the ‘Region of Shirak’ (Շիրակ Մարզ) in northern Armenia or is it the other way around?

The fact is that when the French Cognac producers took the Armenian Konyak producers to court for calling their ‘hnatsads oghi’ Konyak (Կոնյաք), they lost. And you can notice that in Armenia and in Russia, Armenian Konyak still has labels legally calling it Konyak. I understand several historic arguments were made in court by the Armenian side, some around the same kind of anecdotes I reported here, and some of more recent history: as you said, Armenians (Nercess Tairyants) called their oak-matured “hnatsads oghi” Կոնյաք and exported it to Russia (1877) as such, much before the name was copyrighted or the copyright laws were created! Armenian Կոնյաք was even awarded the “Grand Prix” (in a blind tasting degustation) by the jury at the 1900 International Exhibition in Paris, under the brand name “Shustov Cognac” (after Nikolai Leontevich Shustov, who had bought the Yerevan oghi factory from Tairyants a year earlier).

I hope this helps you.

Համբույրներ (Bisous)

Uncle1

p.s. This story is copyrighted. If you, your other uncle or Pernod-Ricard dare to infringe on this copyright and use any of this text, you won’t fare as easily in court as the Armenyan Կոնյաք (Konyak) producers did ;-)

Antoine S. Terjanian
Went there to drink oghi
to read all my letters from Armenia, open http://lettersfromArmenia.blogspot.com

__________________________________________________________
 The following material is derived from “Sayn’sche Chronik” by Alexander Graf von Hachenburg (Published by Ludwig Röhrscheid, Bonn, 1929). This book traces the history of the Counts of Sayn in Westphalia. It describes an incident with an Armenian bishop at the time of Heinrich II, Count of Sayn. The following abridged extract and its informal translation were provided by my friend Leo Sayn-Wittgenstein:

Heinrich I is mentioned in documents dated 1139, 1140, 1149, and 1152. He died near the turn of the century and was succeeded by his son, Heinrich II, who is mentioned in documents from 1180, 1197, and 1201. He founded the Premonstratensian abbey at Sayn in 1201 and the abbey of St. Maximin in Cologne. His wife was Countess Agnes of Nassau. She died in 1202 and was buried in the crypt in Sayn, where her husband, who had built the fortress of Blankenburg in 1184, was buried in 1205.

Heirich’s brother Bruno was Probst (Prevost/ Provost) in Bonn and later Archbishop of Cologne. He died on the Sayn fortress of Blankenburg on the Sieg in 1208 and is buried in the crypt of the Dome in Cologne. Two years before his death (1205) Bruno presented the abbey with the relic of the arm of the holy apostle Simon. It is still there, preserved and worshipped in a beautiful shrine of the period.

This is how Bruno acquired the treasure: an Armenian bishop came from the Orient to worship at the shrine of the Three Wise Men in Cologne. Travel was dangerous , because it was the time of the war between the kings Philipp and Otto. (Philipp of Swabia, son of Barbarossa, and Otto of Brunswick, nephew of Richard I of England. LSW).

Just past Bonn, at Wesseling, the defenceless traveller encountered a roaming band. He realized the danger, but was more concerned about his treasure than his life. He had the treasure buried in the church yard in Wesseling and continued to Cologne, expecting to recover it on his return. Several locals, however, observed him, dug up the treasure, and brought it to Probst Bruno in Bonn. The Probst recognized its value and appropriated it.

In the meantime, the bishop continued his journey and was attacked by robbers. He carried nothing of value and was, therefore, badly mistreated. His wounds had not yet healed when he started his return from Cologne. At Wesseling he found the place where he had buried his treasure, but the pit was empty! Unconsolable and sick, he stopped in Bonn to recover. Probst Bruno visited him, took him in, and cared for him until he recovered. The Armenian then told Bruno about the unhappy fate of his treasure. Bruno said nothing!

When the bishop was ready to return to the Orient he asked Bruno how he could show his appreciation for the reception and care he had received. Bruno thanked him and asked that he be allowed to keep the relic as a souvenir, if he should happen to come into its posession. After some hesitation, and with a heavy heart, the Armenian agreed and left, richly supplied by Bruno with horses, clothing and money. Bruno sent the relic to the fortress of Blankenburg, to his brothers Heinrich II and Eberhard. Later, the arm and the shrine were brought to the abbey at Sayn.

Seal of Heinrich II

Letter 26: We’re in March, don’t leave us alone!

2009-03-07T18:57:00.005-05:00

Letter 26: We’re in March, don’t leave us alone!
Saturday, March-07-2009 to April-02-09
Here again, hanging on the steep slopes of our mountains,
In the middle of our gardens devastated by the elements provoked by climate change,
We do what the unemployed do, what prisoners do,
We cultivate hope!

We’re a young country with a long history, but have become less smart.
The IMF and the WB still let us borrow and mortgage our children’s future!

Here, on the steps to our house, where the smoke rises
From last fall’s leftover leaves and the street garbage
We can’t breathe. I say, better not to be able to breathe from that than from the smoke of the guns….

But spring is in the air, our apricots have blossomed before the cherries and I hear the buzz of the bees who come from far (Vardkes has left his beehives elsewhere this year). The local black-flies are out, they bother everybody else for 10 days, but they don’t seem to like Canadian-Armenian blood.

Everyone talks of the “Jknazham” (The Economic Crisis) and wants to know how it affects us in Canada). Some people have lost their home. Others who lived beyond their means, those who borrowed money for consumer goods rather than investment will sell their car, their furniture.

Ararat is still there, shining from our window. We can always count on him, whether we see him or not.

Our living room is without its beautiful wooden floor. It was infected by wood borers and I had asked Vardkes to take it away and burn it last winter, but I had left him with the new wood to prepare for installation upon my arrival. He broke his arm in an accident and he now walks around, frustrated, in pain, unemployed, not from lack of work, no insurance except his family.

Had the policeman, who used his club to beat-up peaceful opposition demonstrators a year ago, in March, contemplated his victims’ faces and reflected upon what he was doing, he may have remembered the faces of his grand-parents during the “Metsn Yeghern”, he may have set aside the might of the club, the might of the gun.
This is not the way to build a country!

Alone, we are alone up to our elbows, but for the rainbows that visit us every once and then;
We know we have brothers and sisters beyond these rainbows.
Good brothers and sisters. They love us.
They look at us and rain Manna on us from time to time; then they say:
Why can’t they solve their …. But can’t finish their sentence, for they don’t know what hit us.
Don’t leave us alone! Don’t leave us !

Antoine S. Terjanian
Went there to attract rainbows
to read all my letters from Armenia, open http://lettersfromArmenia.blogspot.com

Letter 25 : That stubborn pain, the pain of hope!

2007-11-21T04:28:00.010-05:00

Yeghegnadzor, Monday, November 12, 2007

Here, on the steep slopes of our mountains, there is no time for life (Kyanqi hamar zhamanaq ch’ka). We do, like those who rise towards God: We forget pain! That stubborn pain, the pain of hope!

Onnik is the man in his seventies who lives on 5 Khachatryan st., the other end of our street. He welcomed us so kindly when we first moved in that I thought I would ask him for advice on where to acquire the goods and services we needed locally. I called several times the number he had given us; no one answered. Then I saw him on the street and asked if I had taken-down his number wrong. He said no, you have the correct number, it is just that they have cut my phone line (for non-payment - 900 drams). So I asked him if perhaps his wife would be willing to wash our laundry, since city water rarely reached our house at the time (because of our altitude). He checked with her and we started taking our laundry there and his phone line started working.

Onnik is an agricultural economist who had a relatively important position in Soviet times. His family came from Karagloukh, a village on the Silk Road, up in the mountains just before you reach the Selim caravanserail which was built in the 13^th century by the Orbelyan princes. “Kara Gloukh” means “Stone Head”, not because these villagers are stubborn, I am told, but because of a big rock in the form of a head marking the entrance to the village. If they were all like Onnik, they should have called the village “Voske Sirt”, for Onnik has a heart of gold.

He used to visit me regularly when he knew I was alone and he recited Parouyr Sevak poetry for me, he explained to me the nuances and the different versions of the same poems published in Soviet times, some by the underground press.

He liked to indulge in a bit of oghi and used to smoke. When he noticed our non-smoking sign, he stopped smoking all-together. He ran to our house whenever it looked like we might be needing help or some vegetables from their garden. I always slipped him a banknote or two; then when he noticed that we liked our privacy, he always called first. Onnik complained about his eyes, so I helped him establish contact with some generous Americans who had come to visit us (the Eyecare Project and VOSH). They offered him free eye care and surgery.

Whenever we had visitors, we suggested they have a family meal at Onnik’s instead of going to a restaurant, it helped the local economy and it gave our visitors an opportunity to visit an Armenian village home and experience their hospitality. It is a win/win deal.

On their living room wall they used to have a framed photo of his older brother who died in 1944, in the “Hayrenakan Paterazm” (Patriotic War), just before his battalion reached Berlin. When I came to Yeghegnadzor last March, the photo inside the frame had been replaced by Onnik’s son, the one who lived and worked in Leningrad and used to send him some $ 100 per month. He had died in January in a car accident there and Onnik borrowed the money to go and burry him, in Leningrad; yes, they still call it by the old name here.

Last week he called me late at night. He wanted to borrow some money in a hurry to get his second son, Azat, out of the morgue so he could bury him. They had not seen him for a couple of days, they found him after breaking down the door of his house, where he lived alone.

I had seen Azat a few times at Onnik’s house, on the street, and even once lying on the sidewalk, dead-drunk (a sight you rarely find in Armenia). For some reason I never felt any sympathy for him. I thought there are enough people looking for work here, why would I encourage a drunken tramp. I never offered him work, nor did I ever invite him to our house. But I felt sorry for him this spring when I saw him limping badly. I was told his foot had frozen this winter and they had to amputate his toes. What a difference I thought between Onnik and him, how could they be related?

At the funeral I learned who Azad was. He was a brilliant child and student who graduated with honours from Yerevan’s Polyteknik Institute. He got married, built a beautiful house and had three daughters. Then came independence, the Karabagh war and unemployment. He went to Moscow and worked at anything he could find to send money for his wife and kids. He was one of those Armenians who were badly beaten in the Moscow metro by neo-fascist skinheads. He was lucky he did not die, although in retrospect, perhaps Azat died then. When he returned home, his wife was having an affair. He took to the bottle.

Yes, we forgot pain, that stubborn pain of hope!

Antoine S. Terjanian

Went there to move mountains

to read all my letters from Armenia, click on http://lettersfromarmenia.blogspot.com/

Please feel free to disseminate this letter.

Lettre 25: (French) Ce mal tenace, le mal de l'espoir

2007-11-16T18:57:00.009-05:00

Yeghegnadzor, lundi, 12 novembre 2007

Ici, aux pentes raides de nos montagnes, pas de temps pour la vie (Kyanqi hamar zhamanaq ch’ka). Nous faisons comme ceux qui s’élèvent vers Dieu : Nous oublions la douleur! Ce mal tenace, le mal de l’espoir!

Onnik est le septuagénaire qui habite au 5, rue Khachatryan, à l’autre bout de notre rue. Il nous avait accueilli si gentiment quand nous avions emménagé que j’avais pensé lui demander conseil pour savoir où acquérir les biens et services dont nous aurions besoin, localement. J’ai composé plusieurs fois le numéro de téléphone qu’il nous avait donné, personne ne répondait. Je l’ai alors croisé dans la rue et lui ai demandé de vérifier si j’avais mal copié son numéro. Non, me dit-il, vous avez le bon numéro, ils m’ont coupé la ligne (pour non-paiement des frais – 900 drams). Je lui ai alors demandé si sa femme pourrait faire notre lessive, puisque l’eau courante atteignait rarement notre maison (à cause de son altitude). La réponse positive de sa femme vint sans tarder. Nous avons amené notre lessive chez eux et leur téléphone se remit à fonctionner.

Onnik est un économiste agricole qui occupait un poste relativement important en période Soviétique. Sa famille est originaire de Karagloukh, un village sur la Route de la Soie, dans les montagnes, juste avant le fameux caravansérail Sélim, bâti au 13^esiècle par les princes Orbélyan. ‘Kara Gloukh’ signifie ‘Tête de Pierre’, non pas parce que ses villageois sont têtus, m’ont-il-dit, mais à cause du gros rocher en forme de tête qui surplombe l’entrée du village. S’ils étaient tous comme Onnik, ils auraient pu appeler le village ‘Voske Sirt’ car Onnik a un cœur en or. Il venait me visiter régulièrement quand il savait que j’étais seul et me récitait la poésie de Parouyr Sevak. Il m’expliquait les nuances et les différentes versions du même poème publiées sous les soviétiques, parfois par la presse clandestine. Il aimait bien prendre un coup d’oghi et fumait beaucoup. Il arrêta de fumer complètement quand il nous a vu afficher notre interdiction de fumer. Il accourait chez nous chaque fois qu’il paraissait que nous aurions besoin d’aide ou de légumes de son jardin. Je lui ai à chaque fois glissé un petit billet; puis, quand il a compris que nous n’aimions pas trop être dérangés, il nous a toujours téléphoné avant de venir.

Chaque fois que nous avions des visiteurs, nous leur suggérions de prendre un repas ‘en famille’ chez Onnik, au lieu d’aller au restaurant. Ceci aide l’économie locale et permet au touriste un contact privilégié avec nos gens et leur hospitalité.

Dans la salle de famille où nous prenions nos repas, on voyait dans son cadre en bois, la photo de son frère aîné, mort en 1944, dans la “Hayrenakan Paterazm” (Guerre pour la Patrie), juste avant que son bataillon n’atteigne Berlin. Quand je suis retourné à Yeghegnadzor ce printemps, la photo à l’intérieur du cadre avait été remplacée par un autre jeune homme, le fils d’Onnik, celui qui travaillait à Leningrad et lui envoyait 100 $ par mois. Il avait été tué là-bas en janvier dans un accident de voiture. Onnik avait emprunté des sous pour aller l’enterrer, à Leningrad, oui, on l’appelle toujours du même nom ici.

La semaine passée Onnik m’appela tard le soir. Il voulait emprunter vite de l’argent pour sortir son second fils, Azat, de la morgue, pour l’enterrer. Ils ne l’avaient pas vu pour 2 jours. Ils l’avaient trouvé mort après avoir défoncé la porte de sa maison, où il vivait seul.

J’avais aperçu Azat quelquefois à la maison d’Onnik, je l’avais croisé dans la rue, et même trouvé couché sur le trottoir, ivre-mort (ce qui n’est pas commun du tout en Arménie). Je ne sais pas pourquoi, mais je n’ai jamais eu de sympathie pour lui. Je pensais : Il y a tellement d’autres personnes qui nous supplient pour du boulot, pourquoi encourager un clochard? Je ne lui ai jamais proposé du travail et ne l’ai jamais invité chez nous. J’ai cependant eu pitié quand je l’ai vu boiter misérablement ce printemps. On m’a dit que son pied avait gelé en hivers et qu’on a dû lui amputer les orteils.

Je me disais : Quelle différence entre Onnik et lui? Comment peut-il être son fils?

J’ai su qui Azat était, à ses funérailles.

Il avait été un enfant prodige, un étudiant brillant, premier de sa promotion à l’Institut Polytechnique d’Erevan. Il s’est marié, construisit une belle maison et eu trois filles. Puis vint l’Indépendance, l’écroulement de l’Union Soviétique, la guerre du Karabagh et le chômage. Il partit pour Moscou où il fit n’importe quoi pour envoyer des sous à sa femme et enfants restés en Arménie. Il fût l’un de ces Arméniens qui furent sauvagement battus dans le métro de Moscou par des néo-fascistes au crâne rasé. Heureusement, il eu la vie sauve; mais rétrospectivement, Azat était peut-être déjà mort ce jour là. Quand il rentra en Arménie, sa femme avait pris un amant. Il prit la bouteille.

Oui, nous oublions la douleur, ce mal tenace de l’espoir!

Antoine S. Terjanian

J’y suis allé pour déplacer les montagnes

Pour lire mes lettres d’Arménie, clickez sur http://lettersfromarmenia.blogspot.com/

Le droit de publier cet article est accordé

Letter 24: When Mané's great-grandmother died

2007-10-28T01:17:00.001-04:00

Letter 24: When Mané's great-grandmother died
Saturday, October 27, 2007
Her name was Elizabeth. She was born in 1918, a few months after the Sartarapat victory. She got married in 1936 and had two daughters, one of them Rima, Mané’s grandmother.
I met her for the first time six months ago, the night before Mané flew to Canada on a scholarship. Mané had invited me for a good-bye dinner party at Rima’s house.

They called her ‘Nana’. She was sitting on the couch side of the dinner table and she looked so sweet with her hair covered in a cone-shaped scarf, I decided to sit next to her.
I found out she had almost zero vision, but she was sharp and witty and laughed and responded in kind to my jokes. She was so sweet, I couldn’t help go and visit her regularly after that. I brought her bananas (an imported fruit in Armenia, a luxury in Soviet times). I always joked: “Don’t let anybody have them, these are for you”. She never ate any, they all went to her great-grandchildren. I always brought my lap-top along during these visits and showed the rest of the family photos I received from Canada. She sat-up in her bed and listened to the conversations, to my jokes, she sometimes commented or asked a question.
I saw her two days before she died. She had been refusing to eat or drink. She did not sit-up in her bed. I tried to joke with her, my usual joke : “Get well quickly so I can come for you and kidnap you and take you away”. No response. I left heavy-hearted.
Today I went to her funeral. As is the custom in Armenia, her coffin’s cover was standing at their house’s entrance. Men, friends and neighbors were standing nearby. She was laying in the open coffin, right where the dining table was, surrounded by benches where women, family and neighbors were sitting, mourning in silence. I stayed in the ante-chamber for about an hour and a half. I listened to the emotional mourning of one of her great-granddaughters. She sat by her coffin and went on and on: My Nana, my sweet Nana, my wise my docile Nana. My Nana who kept my secrets. My tortured Nana. You’ve suffered so much for us. These hands, Nana, these fingers that clawed the soil constantly to feed us. My sweet my sensible my delicate Nana… I wept.
They carried her open coffin to the cemetery nearby. They wept and said goodbyes and covered the coffin with earth and went back home to mourn. The day after burial, Armenians hold a wake. Friends and relatives go to the deceased’s home and have a meal together and then go a second time to the cemetery to visit the deceased. It is during this funeral meal and related traditional toasts that I learned a lot about Mané’s Nana and the hard life she had. I would never have guessed it from looking at her, so delicate, so sweet. Soon after she had her two daughters her husband was sent to the Ukrainian front and was killed in action in 1941. Did she receive a Soviet pension? Of course she did, but what is a pension when you have to raise two toddlers on your own, and what happened to Soviet pensions when the USSR collapsed! She went to work in the tobacco fields in their kolkhoz, so said her kolkhoz colleague who headed our table. Stalin used to say that agriculture is an activity that needs to be done at the ‘right time’. If you did it earlier or later than required, you are doomed to fail. Elizabeth worked the fields day and night, ‘like a man’ they nodded. They recalled how she once dragged an abandoned log home to heat the house for her children. She never stopped; she continued to work their own garden and fed her household till last year when she became incapacitated.
Nana, so frail, so delicate and considerate. I could not imagine that she would have toiled so much. Didn’t they all?
Hoghu vran tetev lini (may the earth be light on her).

Antoine S. Terjanian

Went there to move mountains
to read all my letters from Armenia, click on http://lettersfromArmenia.blogspot.com

Please feel free to disseminate this.

Letter 23 Buying a cement truckload in Armenia

2007-05-25T02:47:00.000-04:00

Wednesday, May 16, 2007

Thank God the parliamentary elections went relatively well (better than the last election, improving like everything else in Armenia)… Thank God there is no war going on here… We still have quite a few problems to deal with though.

This morning, my neighbour Vartkes asked me how much I paid for a truckload of cement I bought directly from the factory last week. When I told him I paid 37000 drams per ton + 26000 for the transport, his reaction was: ‘Aynkan tangatsel e’ (It has gone up so much)! And he proceeded to blame ‘Doddy Gago’ for jacking-up the price after he bought the factory. (Doddy Gago is one of those oligarchs who made a quick buck buying-up everything when the Soviet Union collapsed. He is now reputed to be ‘Godfather’ to thousands of local Armenians.)

On May 10, I took 300,000 drams cash (about 1000 US$) out of the bank and rode with two young men in an old ‘Zil’ Soviet truck to the town of Ararat, normally a one hour trip across the Nakhichevan range west of Yeghegnadzor. The town of Ararat, in the Ararat valley, is 20 kilometres east of Khor Virap (the place where Srb Grigor Lousavorij was held prisoner in the third and fourth centuries). Ararat was an industrial city in Soviet times, but now most factories are closed, except for a large cement factory, which now operates 24 hours per day and is fueling the construction boom in Armenia. A Canadian-owned gold mine and a stone cutting facility are two other operating plants I know of.

In 2003, when we first started building our house, we paid 2000 drams for a 50 kilogram bag of cement. Now the price has risen to 2300 drams per bag in the local stores. This time, I went to buy the cement directly from the factory in Ararat basically to help a young man, Arman, who wanted to earn some income selling the extra cement we would bring in his truckload. I thought I would learn something in the process. I did.

When we started climbing the Nakhichevan range towards the ‘Toukh Manouk’ pass, the driver, noticed that the motor was heating-up, so we stopped and added water to the radiator. Ten minutes later we did the same thing. It was obvious the old radiator had sprung a leak. I suggested we return to Yeghegnadzor, reasoning that if we were having problems with an empty truck, how would we manage with a full load? But both Arman and the driver insisted they could fix it. So we stopped in a restaurant by the road and bought another packet of cigarettes and some ‘Karmir Pipar’ (red pepper). The driver ground the tobacco with his fingers, added the karmir pipar to it, and then put this mixture into the radiator and off we went again. Needless to say, an altitude of 1800 metres was too much even for that miraculous concoction, and by the time we got to ‘Zangakatoun’ (birth-town of our famous poet ‘Barouyr Sevak’, also where his ‘house-museum’ is located), the motor heated-up again. The rest of the way, we stopped every ten minutes to refill the radiator with whatever water we could find.

By the time we made it to Ararat, it was half-past noon. First, we lined-up with other trucks to pay for the cement. The ‘treasurer-cashier,’ a lady in her mid-thirties, asked us where we were taking the cement. We said to Yeghegnadzor. She then asked whether it was for our own use or for sale by a registered company. When we said it was for our own use, but that we intended to make some money on selling part of the load, she replied: “You therefore don’t need an official cash-register receipt. I will only give you a special voucher which will allow you to load the 8 tons you paid for and ask you to bring me back the voucher on the way out.” I quickly realized what was going on” “But how will we show the owner of the house how much we paid for the cement?” I said. She replied: “You are bringing him the cement aren’t you?” When I insisted that we would still need to show him how much we paid, we reluctantly got an official cash-register receipt for the full amount of 296000 drams and proceeded to the factory to load the cement. As if this was not enough, while loading the cement, the manager there approached us and offered to load an additional ton for 20,000 drams cash (under the table).

So I decided to recount this story to Vartkes, explaining to him that if the price of cement went up, it was because these crooked employees were robbing us all. He nodded in agreement: “We always blame the king, but how could the king be good if his people are so rotten!” he said.

This conversation reminded me of how shocked I was on my first visit to Armenia, in the summer of 2002, when a worker on lake Sevan had made this fortuitous assertion: ‘Hayu misht gogh e yeghel, Hayu chi gara ch’goghanal.’ I also remembered the approach to combat corruption in Armenia advocated by Tom Samuelian: Start with the judicial system, offer the judges a proper salary so they do not need to take bribes.

Were these cement-factory workers paid properly or were they just greedy?

Sheila often recounts what our friend Gegham told us in Canada before our first trip to Armenia. Gegham said that when he was driving in Armenia (indeed the Soviet Union), he always had a small banknote in with his driver’s license. Whenever he was stopped by a policeman, and he presented the driver’s license, he got it back minus the banknote. He would then tuck another banknote with the license in preparation for the next time he was stopped. He explained: “You people think this is a bribe, but to us, we know this policeman is not paid enough to feed his family, and we can afford a car, so think of it as an extra tax.” Well if this policeman was able to supplement his salary this way, how would his chief of police who does not have direct contact with the driving public? We learned that to be hired as a policeman one had to pay a small fortune to the chief of police, usually borrowing it and paying it back by stopping as many drivers as possible. Wait a minute! How is that different from the corrupt tax-collectors of Ottoman times who bought their function?

Take for another example the school teachers. Everyone knows that in 2002 their monthly salary was 12000 drams (approximately 25 USD$). No one expected them to live on that. So it was natural that they would work overtime to supplement their income. They gave private lessons after hours. Now this is perfectly normal and honest. But what if the teacher came and suggested to the parent: ‘Your child may not pass the grade unless he got private lessons’, or ‘your child will not get good enough grades to enter university unless he got private lessons’… What if the child actually never got the private lessons, only the good grades?… What if the school principal only hired school teachers who paid him?...

In June 2003 when I left Armenia for the first time, I had bought four carpets to take home. I knew that they had to be accompanied by certificates from the Ministry Of Culture stating that they were not cultural heirlooms, so I had these ready with me. Sure enough a customs official approached me and asked for the certificates. He examined them and then pointed to the photograph of one particular carpet and said: where is the yellow sheet that goes with this certificate. I had left it at home. Without that extra yellow sheet, you have to pay taxes, he said. Since friends had accompanied us to the airport, I decided to leave the carpet with them and wait until my next trip to bring out the carpet with the proper documentation which, I knew, was in our house in Yeghegnadzor. I told the official that I had been working in Armenia for the past year as a ‘volunteer’ trying to promote exports, and I thought that what he was doing was counter-productive as he was, in fact, discouraging exports. He replied, without any irony in his voice: “Did you say you worked as a ‘volunteer’? Does this mean you worked for no pay”? I said yes. Well, he said, then I am also working here as a volunteer because I have not been paid for 6 months.”

Needless to say things, have improved since then (in fact, every time I return to Armenia I notice things that have improved): The teachers’ salaries have now gone up to 60,000 drams per month (about 170 USD). A Presidential decree in 2003 abolished any luggage inspection for customs purposes upon exit (in fact I have never had my luggage checked since on entry or exit). This year when I returned in March, the Militia (police) stations on the highways, at the entrance to Yerevan, had disappeared. (I am told they were replaced by automatic cameras). I know judges’ salaries have been raised. So while it looks as if the public service is being cleaned-up, I frankly never expected that the ‘private sector’ would still be so corrupt.

AST

Letter 22: Chateau Armens

2006-03-28T20:42:00.001-05:00

Château Armens
Yeghegnadzor, March 2006

There is a very well hidden family secret[1] in the Armen family. Garbis, the patriarch of the clan has not told his children or his grand children of the existence of their ancestral château in the south of France, in the St-Émilion wine producing region. As a matter of fact, I understand he did not even bother to put it in his will. “Château Armens” is a ‘Grand Cru’ Appellation Contrôlée St-Émilion, which was acquired a few years ago by the Comte Alexandre de Mallet-Roquefort.

We happened inadvertently on the château when we were searching our way to find the town of Castillon. This town, 40 kilometers east of Bordeaux is the site of the last battle of the 100 years war between the kings of France and England. The people of Castillon created some twenty years ago a ‘sound and light show’ which has become world famous. It is the re-enactment of some of the historical background leading to the battle and the actual battle that are portrayed by some 600 volunteer actors from the region with some 60 horses and some paid staff who look after the lighting, the sound, the costumes, the ticketing, the out-doors meal before and after the show and the related entertainment.
With my continued effort to bring similar sound & light shows to Armenia for increased tourism, I decided to go to the Castillon la Bataille S&L show, and try and learn how they do it. Thanks to my sister Lena and my wife, Sheila, we managed to do more. We got to meet with the director and he invited us backstage during the preparations and briefings to the actors before the battle. We also got him interested to come to Armenia (on a French government sponsored project) to help develop the Armenian S&L show projects (See my Letter from Armenia: Gyumri’s Sound & Light Show).

So can you imagine our surprise when we suddenly see on the road the sign for Garbis’ château. We stopped and took some photos (see http://www.flickr.com/photos/aterjanian/sets/72157600803881621/ ) and realized the château was located in a municipality called “Saint Pey d’Armens”.

That kept us wondering about the origin of the name. The only word that was not obvious in the municipality name was ‘Pey’. Ethymological research of local dialects led me to two meanings for ‘pey’: The first meaning is ‘puits’ meaning ‘waterwell’ and the other is ‘pays’ which means ‘country’. Therefore the translation of ‘Saint Pey d’Armens’ would be: ‘Holy well of Armens’ or ‘Holy land of Armens’; either way, I thought we could claim it as part of Hayastan, before the Turks did ;-)….

Unfortunately we were there on a Sunday, the château’s winery was closed, the only place open was the boulanger/pâtissier (Bakery) but they had no ‘pakhlava’ and they were from out-of-town and could not enlighten us about the mystery of Saint Pey d’Armens. So we returned on the Wednesday in time before the winery shut and managed to buy two cases of 2001 at 20 Euros a bottle. I am told it will be drinkable in 10 years. But we also bought some of the paraphernalia the château offers, such as pouring spouts and wooden signs with the name “Château Armens” well emblazoned on each of them. We will donate one to Garbis’ family. I also immediately tried to get exclusive rights to import the wine into Québec and Ontario. We also found out that the château exports over 100 cases per year to a wealthy Armenian in Moscow, whose first name only is ‘Armen’, and I am pleased to say that you can now buy Château Armens in some of Québec’s SAQ liquor stores (see: http://www.saq.com/ and search for Armens ).

The representative of the Maison Malet-Roquefort, Mr. Pierre Larché was in Toronto on January 24, 2006 for a “dégustation” promoting the sale of their wines, including Château Armens”, but he says it may be a while before the LCBO (Ontario Liquor Board monopoly) agrees to import “Château Armens”. Before he left, Mr. Larché promised to help look-up in the Bordeaux archives the origins of the name St Pey d’Armens.

Another producer with the label Armens is “Château l’Eglise d’Armens”[2]. It is owned and operated by Bertrand and Jocelyne Martigne. Mr. Martigne is the son of a small farmer of the Bordeaux region who decided to build a winery in St. Emilion and produce his own wine. He slowly bought-up small parcels of eligible ‘St-Emilion’ vineyards and now owns approximately 4 hectares, which is enough to justify the building of a small but very modern winery (see photos). It is located next to the Church, hence the name ‘Eglise d’Armens’. Despite their size, “Château l’Eglise d’Armens” has won the first prize and the appellation ‘Grand Cru St Emilion’ for several years in a row. I hope we can find and interest a small farmer (from France or Italy) with such a knowledge to come and help build such a modern small winery in Yeghegnadzor, to take advantage of the best soil, water and sun conditions for growing our, yet not so famous, ‘Areni’ wine-making grape variety. I hope we can develop such an export opportunity for Armenia and interest investors and drinkers.

[1] I was recently able to elucidate why Garbis had kept the secret to himself all this time. Apparently, when as the official representative of “UK Dept of the Environment” he gave a lecture to the Bordeaux “1971 Conference Européene de Logement Social”, the title of "Bourgeois de St. Emilion" was conferred on "Le Docteur Garbis Armen" in none other but the famous wine cellar next to St. Émilion’s famous tower. The green silk velvet "Certificat de Bourgeois de St. Emilion" which was awarded to him at the time has been kept with him until now and brought all the way to Vancouver with him into retirement... One can see now that in the 1970’s, at the height of the cold war, bearing the title “Bourgeois” would have landed one in the Gulag archipelago if you ever set foot in Armenia, and I hope you can understand why this was kept a secret.
[2] Martigne, Bertrand:11 Le Bourg 33330 Saint Pey D'Armens Tel: 05 57 47 16 45, fax : 05 57 47 16 54

Letter 21: Ottawa's annual Tulip Festival

2005-05-23T20:38:00.003-04:00

Ottawa Tulip Festival, May 2005

It is that time of year after the Winterlude season is over, when Ottawa welcomes tourists by the thousands from all over the world, again. It is the time of the world famous “Ottawa Tulip Festival”.

The festival originated with the generosity of HRH Princess (later Queen) Juliana of the Netherlands and the Dutch people. HRH expressed her gratitude to Ottawa, where one of her daughters was born and where she and her family found refuge during the Second World War, by sending us an annual gift of 20,000 bulbs of tulips.

Ottawa photographer, Malak Karsh, in love with the beauty of the tulip, conceived the idea of the “Tulip festival.” He founded it and promoted it. His Armenian family having escaped from Mardin, after the Armenian Genocide of 1915-1923, Malak was familiar with the splendor of this flower in his original homeland. When it was decided that playing on the Tulipomania of the XVIIIth century would bring an exotic flavour to the Tulip festival, Malak worked on the idea and brought it to fruition. In his typical spirit of “Peace and Friendship” he involved the Turkish Embassy in the project, and a Turkish pavilion has been part of the Ottawa Tulip Festival for a few years now. Some people now believe that tulips originated in Turkey, and a few are even aware that Sultan Ahmed III bankrupted the Sublime Porte (The Ottoman government) in 1730 because he speculated on Tulips as the bubble burst at the height of Tulipomania.

In her recent book “The Tulip”, even famous gardener-author, Anna Pavord, forgets that when she went hunting for one particularly beautiful variety of “brilliant red tulips”[1] in “Eastern Turkey”, she had actually set foot in “Historic Armenia”. Pavord recounts her first encounter with a truly indigenous variety of tulips there: Tulipa Armena. She writes: “…On the road between Askale and Tercan (sic)[2], we came across an isolated group of tulips, with at least two dozen flowers in full bloom…..We excavated one bulb and,…established that it must be T. armena, for it did not have much wool under its tunic[3].” Then, on the same page, Pavord goes to describe a strange encounter with an Erzerum wolf. She writes: “The …T.armena conundrum was rolling around my head like a riddle. I opened my eyes to find a wolf silhouetted against the sun… Only inches from my eyes, were the tulips, brilliant red blazes in the foreground. Behind them was the wolf, stark against the sky. When I sat up, it bolted away, disappearing into a low cave under a neighboring rock crag. The conjunction of the two was …enigmatic… I thought still of these tulips, slashes of brilliant blood welling from the bare… slopes of the mountain. Wolves were nothing to them… Millennia had passed by on this slope, while the wild tulip slowly, joyously had evolved and regenerated itself. Even now,…the tulips were plotting new feats, re-inventing themselves in ways that we could never dream of.”

I am as puzzled by this encounter with the wolf as Pavord seems to be. It brings to mind the very recent attempt by the Turkish government to change the scientific names of local animals. In a story aired last March by the BBC[4], an official with Turkey's Ministry of the Environment was quoted as saying that many old names were contrary to Turkish unity: "Unfortunately there are many other species in Turkey which were named this way with ill intentions. This ill intent is so obvious that even species only found in our country were given names against Turkey’s unity," a ministry statement quoted by Reuters news agency said. Some Turkish officials say the names are being used to argue that Armenians or Kurds had lived in the areas where the animals were found. The name changes affect the following: Red fox, known as Vulpes Vulpes Kurdistanica, would become Vulpes Vulpes. Wild sheep, called Ovis Armeniana, would become Ovis Orientalis Anatolicus. Roe deer, known as Capreolus Capreolus Armenus, would become Capreolus Cuprelus Capreolus.

Will the Turkish government also attempt to rename T. armena, this brilliant red beautiful wild tulip? Will they try to change the name of the apricot from Prunus Armeniaca? How far will they go to try and wipeout any evidence of Armenians from their historic homeland? How far will the genocide extend? I do sincerely hope that Turkish citizens of good will, will on their own put an end to these deceitful tactics of their government.

Perhaps Pavord’s vision was prophetic. Like the Armenians, the brilliant red tulips did regenerate themselves. Gagach is the Armenian name for tulips, and every year on April 24, mountains of these gagachs, brought by individuals in memory of their fallen family members, accumulate in front of the eternal flame at the Genocide memorial in Yerevan, Armenia

So next time you visit beautiful Ottawa in May for the Tulip Festival, remember it might as well be named “Gagach Festival”.

Antoine S. Terjanian
is an Ottawa resident who spent one year working for sustainable development in the Republic of Armenia, as a volunteer.

My letter 21 was published May 10, 2005 by the Ottawa Citizen on the Editorial page A-15 (see photo by clicking http://www.flickr.com/photos/aterjanian/2235990035/in/set-72157600803882235/ ) . The article was published with a big 'provocative' headline (they were touched by our story and told me they verified all the facts, but hey, remember, their business is to sell newspapers...).
In a spirit of fairness, I am posting the following responses which were also published by the Citizen. It is conforting to me that the Turkish Embassy in Ottawa does not seem to support the renaming of species, although the CBC website indicates that it is the "Turkish parliament is now even removing references to Armenians and Kurds in the animal kingdom". See April 27, 2005
http://www.cbc.ca/dispatches/sept04june05.html

Ninety years ago, Armenians suffered a genocide they can't forget, and one Turkey won't admit.
In fact, the Turkish parliament is now even removing references to Armenians and Kurds in the animal kingdom, as we hear from the CBC's Bruce Edwards near Istanbul.
Listen to Bruce's dispatch

AT’s comment: This is yet to be verified. I also agree with Dr. Paktunc: Let's enjoy the gagachs! :D :-)))

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The Ottawa Citizen

Thursday, May 12, 2005

Re: A tulip by any other name, May 11.

Antoine Terjanian's article is a manipulative and opportunistic attempt to convey a controversial message about Turkey's renaming of tulip species.

I am not familiar with the protocols of naming species. However, I gather that any attempt to do so would have to go through a scientific panel for approval. It is not up to governments to name or rename species.

Although I sympathize with the sufferings of the Armenians during the war, I don't want my celebration of spring, peace and freedom be tainted by prejudices.

So, Mr. Terjanian, do the honourable thing as Malak Karsh did: Enjoy the flower for its beauty, keep your politics away from our celebration of peace and friendship and let the historians debate the genocide claims.

Dogan Paktunc,

Ottawa

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Turks are proud of tulips

The Ottawa Citizen

Friday, May 13, 2005

Re: A tulip by any other name, May 10.

Malak Karsh and his wife Barbara always gladly attended events organized by the Ottawa Tulip Festival and the Turkish-Canadian community, which held the Karshes in great esteem.

Mr. Karsh often tried to spot Turkish tulips to photograph during the festival. While he was indeed very pleased with the Tulip Festival board's decision to feature Turkey, he did not initiate Turkish involvement, contrary to what Antoine Terjanian contends.

Rather, Ayse Heinbecker and Carole Reesor, then Tulip Festival board members, thought of it during a conversation at a Swiss Embassy dinner in the winter of 1992.

Following Mrs. Reesor's suggestion to the board, Pamela Hooker, a board member and long-time supporter of the festival, approached me, as the then- president of the Turkish-Canadian Cultural Association, to join the festival board of directors.

The Netherlands had just announced that 1994 would be the 400th anniversary of the tulip's first journey from Turkey to the Netherlands. (European ambassadors to the Ottoman Court had introduced tulips to Europe in the 16th century.)

The board decided to feature Turkey in the 1994 festival as the tulip's country of origin. The 1994 tribute to Turkey, organized jointly by the Canadian Tulip Festival, the Embassy of Turkey and the Turkish-Canadian Cultural Association, was a great success.

Following this tribute, the Turkish government invited Malak Karsh to tour many sites in Turkey and photograph to his heart's content. He was most pleased with his trip.

The Turkish-Canadian community of Ottawa has been a proud participant in the Tulip Festival's international village as a "friendship country" for the past 11 years and will gladly continue to do so in the spirit of peace and friendship.

Fusun Oren,

Ottawa

AT’s comment: Wait a minute Fusun Oren, in the beginning you state that, contrary to what I wrote, Malak Karsh did not have much to do with bringing a Turkish flavour to the Ottawa Tulip Festival. But at the end you say: “Following this tribute, the Turkish government invited Malak Karsh to tour many sites in Turkey and photograph to his heart's content”. Unless he was substantially involved in bringing this idea to fruition, why would the Turkish Government pay for Malak Karsh's trip to Turkey “Following this tribute”?
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Misleading

The Ottawa Citizen

May 13, 2005

In his opinion article, Antoine Terjanian focuses on Tulipa armena through a series of misleading selective references from Anna Pavord's book, Tulip.

Pavord also writes: "About 14 different species grow in the mountains of Turkey, though only four of these, T. armena, T. biflora, T. humilis and T. Julia are thought to be indigenous." Many other tulip varieties originated from Central Asian steppes and Persia.

If one variety is called Tulipa armena, so what? The name given by a botanist to that single species does not change the fact that the tulip was cherished, cultivated and enriched first in the Ottoman Palace and then discovered by Europeans in Istanbul.

The official who suggested scientific name changes of some animals endemic to Turkey was ridiculed for weeks by the Turkish media, professors and the public. But this was not found newsworthy abroad. Instead, his initial remarks were repeatedly covered in the international media, probably not because the issue was seen as that important, but because it presented a chance to tarnish Turkey's image.

Isn't it as ridiculous to suggest that the Ottawa Tulip Festival might be named as "Gagach Festival" because a single tulip variety is named after Armenia?

The "tulip era" that the article attempts to diminish to a "bankruptcy" is indeed a complex phenomenon of Ottoman renaissance in arts and letters, unfairly portrayed only as a period of royal extravagance. There was no bankruptcy at all but a political revolt of the palace soldiers finished the era and the Sultan's life.

Malak Karsh never "involved" the Turkish Embassy in anything, albeit he was indeed friendly because he was not a fanatic. Unfortunately, even his legacy can not escape being abused in this way.

Mr. Terjanian uses the subject of the tulip as a chance to further the national cause of Armenians to defame Turkey. The fixation of self-vindication displayed by some Armenians in seeing everything from this narrow angle of what they would like to call as "Armenian genocide" is indeed troubling.

Fazli Corman,

Ottawa,

Counsellor, Embassy of Turkey
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AT's Comment: Thank you Mr. Manoukian, for writing this "to the point" effective supportive letter.
Not surprising

The Ottawa Citizen Page B-7

May 14, 2005

Re: A tulip by any other name, May 10.

This is an interesting article, indeed, about changing tulip species' names and denying the Armenian genocide of 1915. Turkey still denies this sad event and commits childish acts such as changing the scientific names of animals, plants or even microbes containing a mention of Armenia.

Such acts are not surprising if we consider the systematic destruction of Armenian architectural treasures in western Armenia or eastern Turkey.

Manoukian Berdge,

[1] Pavord, Anna. “The Tulip” ISBN 1-58234-130-3, Bloomsbury, UK 1999. pp 19-21.
[2] Tercan, while pronounced ‘terjan’ by the Turks, is the spelling in the Turkish new alphabet of the ancient Armenian name « Terjan » which means in Armenian ‘Dear Lord’. This author should know better the meaning of his own patronymic.
[3] I can vouch for that ;-)
[4] See: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/4328285.stm

Letter 20: Hazarapet the Thyme Entrepreneur - draft needs editing

2004-12-11T20:37:00.000-05:00

December 2004
Hazarapet Nazaryan is Mosso Nazaryan’s elder brother and the family’s patriarch.
I met Mosso in 2003 when I had given-up on getting proper water pressure in the castle. Arsen from Vayk said he’d take me to the water authority’s boss and we took a taxi there. The boss was not there, but his brother Mosso was there. After hearing my plea, he said come with me, let’s go see what we can do. We rode in his 4x4 russian vehicle and drove up to the castle. On the way he stopped in some employees’ houses, the much feared water baron for my part of town and told him he was going to get me water. Sure enough, he opened a few water holes, opened and shut a few large taps and when we got to the castle, I had water. Mosso was simply concerned that a diasporan ‘guest’ in Yeghegnadzoe had no water.
He accepted no gift, hardly a drink for celebration. Samson later confirmed that he had been in a heated discussion with his brother (Hazarapet, the boss) and that got him nowhere.
This time Mosso came to see me with a cousin. He wanted me to try a new natural, wild mountain thyme tea. He had an attractive box of tea bags and Sheila boiled some water and served the tea. It had a powerful aroma that filled our house. We were very pleased to learn that they had recently started packaging and commercializing this tea for sale in Armenia and they wanted to ask for our help to market it abroad.
Needless to say we were delighted that such a high quality product was produced in our mountains, how could we turn down such a suggestion? We asked to see the ‘factory’.
Mosso said he would arrange a meeting with his brother to visit the factory. A week later we were driven to the Water authority’s office and Sheila and I were introduced to Hazarapet. He was sitting in his office and received us with his wide gold covered teeth smile. He was so kind to us, yet so authoritarian towards others, including his own younger brother, Mosso. We spent a good half hour in his office where we learned of the family’s involvement in Thyme tea production in Soviet times. This was the story of entrepreneurial people, doers, risk-takers who organized people into collecting the wild thyme, devised their own tea-bag making machine and managed to package it and market it, during Perestroika.
We learned that The tea is made from wild thyme which grows in the mountains of Armenia at an altitude of 1000 TO 2500 meters. They call their tea "Noravanqui Shountch" which translates as Breath of Noravank -- Noravank is an ancient monastery located in the mountains in the surrounding area. Noravanqui Shountch is collected at altitudes above 1600 meters in areas where there is no conventional agriculture, just some small scale beekeeping.

What further makes the difference in aroma between BC thyme and Armenia's thyme is the wild species native to the high mountains of Armenia, sunshine, pluviometry, soil and air-purity. This region of Armenia receives less than 300 millimeters of rain annually, sun intensity reaches its paroxysm immediately after the snow melts till almost just before the summer solstice when the thyme is harvested. The location is far from any human habitat or polluting industries.

The thyme is harvested in late spring by cutting the stems (not by uprooting them, thus preserving the soils as well as ensuring there will always be a harvest). The harvest is then sun-dried in glass houses which are also high up in the mountains, 1400 meters altitude, for a period of four weeks. Leaves are individually separated by hand, then, the dry leaves (not the stems) are pulverized and the tea is packaged in a small building which is next to the drying houses, using specialized porous paper to make double pouches and then packed into packages of 30 tea bags in a small and elegant cardboard box which is wrapped in cellophane to preserve freshness. The drying and packing operation is located about two kilometers from a paved road which is about two hours from Yerevan where an international airport is located.

The aroma is distinct, and because of the concentration of leaves vs. stems, is overwhelming.

Letter 19: Haikouhi’s mother’s plea - draft needs editing

2004-11-11T20:36:00.000-05:00

We are now in November, the days are getting shorter and less hot, very pleasant if you ask me, but cooler for local Armenians. Two years ago, Makour Yerevan, the project originally sponsored by the Tufenkian Foundation had chosen to move the volunteer street cleaning time from the usual 10:30 am to a more reasonable 1:30 p.m. starting time, thus avoiding cool weather for the volunteers (many of whom are school children). The usual get-together following the street cleaning effort was also moved to an indoor location (the Youth Center in downtown Yerevan – a decrepit building in downtown Yerevan, whose elaborate façade and sculptures prove that it had seen better days in Soviet times). That Saturday afternoon, Haro Setian, an energetic young volunteer from South Carolina, had brought a large group of orphans from the Zatik orphanage (the kids who make the Christmas cards I sold in Ottawa). The Zatik orphans performed a song & dance show for us while we were offered the usual glass of soft-drink and a piece of brioche. We stayed a bit later than usual that afternoon in the Youth Center, chatting and dancing

Paid for Marshutka… this is when I discovered there were marshutkas that only charged 50 drams for the ride (instead of the usual 100 drams. I never figured why).

Bread kiosk, accounts, boss, errors

Used to work for American couple, who offered to take her to the US when their posting finished, but she would not abandon her family. When I told her about Haikouhi paying for my marshutka fare, she said: well, I taught them to work and earn their own pocket money, so they could survive on their own when I died.

Taxi to their home, prepaid by boss,
Mother, Mrs. Osmanyan off a bit earlier (she said she had an errand). When we got home, Handicapped father, twin brother and 16 year-old older brother all working on their homework in a small living/bedroom while a soviet TV entertained the unemployed / handicapped father. Mrs. Osmanyan arrives with some pastries to “hyurasirel” (literally to love the guest).

Letter 18: Vayots Dzor's & Syunik's Abraham Srbazan – Draft needs editing

2004-10-11T20:33:00.000-04:00

Octobre 2004

I was so surprised to find a brand new building in downtown Yeghegnadzor when I returned from Ottawa this October. It is a beautiful building

From Rind (pronounced rrind, as in ring) a small village some 20 kms from our place, off the Silk Road to Lake Sevan (now known as the “Lincy” road because Kirk Krikorian’s Lincy Foundation has paid for its reconstruction).

Architecture inspired from Tamanian’s Yerevan and Venice’s Palazzo Docale.

I was told it was the new Yeghegnadzor University, which had been build by the Primate of the diocese for the Provinces of Vayots Dazor and Syunik, Abraham Srpazan.

There was nothing in that spot last December when I left, and the building was now in use for the school year. Although cranes were still there and construction was continuing. Judging by the length of time it was taking us to “renovate” our B&B / House, I was impressed by this building’s realization and was eager to meet Abraham Srpazan, brief him on our activities and offer him our collaboration and any services we could perform.

Letter 17: A village named “Horse” Draft needs editing

2003-11-11T20:31:00.001-05:00

You must have heard of the silk road. You must also remember that it goes through Armenia, and that Kirk Krikorian’s Lincy foundation has just completed the segment from Yeghegnadzor (where I call from these days) to Martuni (on Lake Sevan). The official opening of this segment was accomplished with the presence of the benefactor and Armenia’s President. It is abeautiful road that goes through some of the best scenery anywhere in the world. Marco Polo had gone through here on his way to meeting the Great Koublay Khan and he described the poor and primitive conditions of the Armenians living there. The Mongols had appropriated the best lands and local Armenians were indeed living in very poor and primitive conditions. They still are. Most people barter their products and quite a few have never seen a 5000 dram ($ 10) banknote. But the spirit and hospitality are there, and the natural beauty is untouched.

If you have seen Martiros Saryan’s 1923 painting entitled “Armenia” (now at the National Gallery), you will recognize the scenery on your way to the Selim Saray pass, high up, at 2200 meters altitude. On the way there, after you pass Getap (pronounced “Get-up”) where the famous semi-dry Vernashen wine is produced and Sally where the famous Armenian goat cheese is churned, you will come to a sign pointing to a village perched on the edge of a cliff. The sign used to say “Gors” in Russian (the Russians don”t have an ‘h’ sound so the h’s are pronounced and transliterated ‘g’), but now there is a new sign in English and Armenian.

Last week, when I went to get Andrew, Sis, unlike Masis was not covered in snow, but on the way back, it’s top was white again. Today it rained in Yeghegnadzor, but the three mountain ranges surrounding us (Vardenis, Zahgezour and Nakhitchevan are now covered with snow : a sure sign winter is coming. The temperature in the house is now 17 degrees. Outside this morning, with the sun it was 15.5. It went up to 17 and then when it started raining it went down to 14, and I still don’t have the stove hooked (sounds familiar? We need to have the hot-water in the bathroom tested before we put the floor).

The sun now comes in to the edge of the kitchen door from the kitchen window and from the LR window all day. I wish we had more windows on that side..
We changed the hour last weekend, so the sun rises earlier and also it gets dark faster (7 :00 p.m.)

By the way those thin walls between the rooms, despite the inch thick plaster on both sides is not soundproof at all. I could hear the guest’s bed creaking next door.

We went with the Nabatians to the Areni wine factory. I had arranged for musicians and dance troupe. We had a fabulous time. The wine was fantastic. They seemed to think that Areni was at it’s best at 3 years, after which it went down. So we asked to try the 99, it was great, so we tried 98 it was even better. They had not kept any of the previous years!

It is wine time now here, everyone is extracting wine or oghi. I tried some of the vin nouveau from Malichka, it was so powerful! I kept some in a coke bottle, a week later when I opened the bottle I got it all over my clothes. It reminds when I used to go to Alberobello, south of Bari and buy wine by the gallo0n from the farmers, it was still bubbling! What memories! All I need is spaghetti carbonara.

Letter 16: Call Mama if you want your father

2003-10-30T20:29:00.000-05:00

October 2003

The Georgians call their father "Mama". To call their mother, they go: 'Déda'. Armenia's neighbors to the Northwest are a people hardly known in the part of the world I come from. I knew Stalin and Beria were Georgians, and I always loved their songs and dances, but this was unfortunately all I knew about them. I knew many Armenians lived there, and that Tbilissi (in the past Armenians called it Tiflis - Charles Aznavour's dad was born near Tiflis - but since Georgians prefer Tbilissi our Yerevan airport signs now say Tbilissi in Armenian characters) had been a center of Armenian culture, producing some of our best artists and writers. In fact, Georgia is a country where Armenians still constitute over 8.5% of the total population, which is the highest percentage for Armenians anywhere in the world outside Armenia. Georgia is a country also shared by many ethnic groups. Other minorities living side-by-side, peacefully* with the ethnic Georgian majority are: Svans, Mingrels, Chechens, Russians, Yezdis, Kurds, Azeris, Ossetians, Abkhases, Jews, Greeks, and so on... (Did you know there is a sizable Greek Minority!).

We (Armenians) call them Vratsi (the ones above). They call us Somkhebi (no meaning I could determine!). They call themselves Kartelebi. And their language Kartuli and their country Sakhartvelo. Contrary to what I previously thought the name "Georgia" has nothing to do with St George, who happens to be a patron Saint of Georgia (as well as England). The name Georgia comes from the name given by the Russians to the land of the Kartelebi: 'Gruzya".

I could not miss the opportunity offered to me when Greg Levonian invited me to accompany him there towards the end of September. Especially since he suggested he could get me in there simply with my Armenian Passport, without having to pay the hefty Georgian visa fee of USD 80. Greg, an Ottawa native, is a seasoned traveler who has been working in Armenia and Georgia for a few months. He loves Georgia, the Georgians, their music, songs and dances and has even taken Georgian dancing lessons (Have you ever seen him dance?). He is an excellent "ambassador" for friendship with our Georgian neighbors, for he believes, like myself, in friendship among all peoples. I consider myself lucky to have had such a great guide, companion…

On my guide's advice, we declined a faster private taxi offer to go to Tbilissi and took a common 'marshutka' instead. You can take a marshutka to Tbilissi from 2 locations in Yerevan: We had just missed the marshutka from in front of the railway station (Sassountsi Davit statue), so we took a taxi to the Kilikia central bus station. There, a marshutka was ready to go around 10:30 a.m. The driver checked our 'Armenian' 10 year passport and looked for the round 'peshat' (official stamp) on page 4 (It should say "This Passport is Valid for All Countries"). We both had it, so he declared us fit to cross the Georgian border and took our money (13 USD each). My guide and I rejoiced, we had just passed the first hurdle toward saving the US$ 80 visa fee exacted from normal Canadian visitors.

The Yerevan - Tbilissi road takes you through some of the most beautiful sites of Armenia. After passing through Ashtarak and climbing the mountain to Abaran (the object of Armenian Newfie jokes) the road takes you down the other side of the pass to Spitak (epicenter of the 1988 earthquake), then Vanadzor. After that the road follows the bed of "Debed" (pun intended) river. It is a beautiful site and drivers usually stop for a break near a fountain and by one of the restaurants nestled on the river. You can have a quick great meal there of khorovadz, salads and delicious madzoun for a very reasonable price. The road then goes by the Kobayr Monastery and Odzun, then through Allaverdi (“God given” historic gold mines) and by the Monasteries of Sanahin and Haghbat, which we had visited with Joan last March.

The border crossing is reached very soon after Allaverdi. Armenian and Georgian border guards face each other across a small bridge. We handed our passport to the driver who went alone to the Armenian border post, completed the formalities and drove off across the bridge. Now we faced our vital test! My guide, who is more fluent in Russian than I am, advised me to keep silent. A Georgian border officer returned to our minibus, took a look at the passengers and handed us our passports back. We breathed a sigh of relief** as the barrier went up and we crossed into Georgia.

If you think Armenian roads are poor, wait till you see Georgia. We practically went at 25 kms/hour for the first hour. It finally took us 6 hours for the 374 km ride between Yerevan and Tbilissi. When we reached the outskirts of Tbilissi, A roadblock was awaiting us. It was the only one we faced all the way in (if you travel by 'marshutka' - like we did on my guide's advice - you go easily through the border and any other road blocks, for these professional drivers have already paid-off all potential hasslers). My guide (Greg) explained that the Georgian government had lost control of large parts of the country and that this roadblock was their way of protecting Tbilissi. The roadblock officer asked me in Russian what I was doing in Tbilissi. I said I was visiting friends. He then wanted to know what work I did in Armenia. I said I was working on renovating a house. He was satisfied and let us through. Another Armenian passenger wasn't as lucky. He was called inside, and I guess he must have paid a bribe.

The taxi we took to center-town had Turkish music blaring from the cassette player, but when he learned we were of Armenian descent, he addressed us in perfect Armenian. He said he WAS Armenian. The fact he was playing a Turkish cassette in our presence didn't seem to worry him, and we listened to it all the way.

What strikes you when you arrive in Georgia is the street signs. You think you can read them, but you really can't, for it is in the Georgian alphabet. It resembles Armenian (it is said to have been invented by the same monk who invented the Armenian alphabet - Mesrob Mashtots). The sensation reminds me of my first visit to Addis-Ababa, when I thought I recognised the shop signs, but could not read them for they were in Amharic, another alphabet font that resembles Armenian. Yet my guide managed to learn enough Georgian to read the signs in Tbilissi. He was even ordering food at the restaurant in Georgian, and could effectively stop young beggars from pestering us by acting like a native! ("Ara, ara, ara!" He cried convincingly). You can see some artistic photos of Georgia taken by Greg on http://pg.photos.yahoo.com/ph/gregorylevonian/album?.dir=8cd9&.src=ph . or if not available on: http://www.flickr.com/photos/aterjanian/sets/72157600803342944/

Tbilissi has many tourist sites. My guide made sure we went to many of them, from old churches to old-city quarter, to art galleries. My favorite spot was the 'Hamams' (bathhouses) for which Tbilissi is famous. In fact Tbilissi was founded by a Georgian King in this location because of the thermal water springs he found there. Like other water springs (Jermuk near my house) they are said to have medicinal properties. They are located in the old city, not far from the Armenian Church with its Sayat Nova memorial and the Azeri Mosque. If you remember the Soviet dissident movie "Color of Pomegranates", you would remember the boy Sayat Nova doing some voyeurism on the roof of these hamams. The movie was shot right here. Greg and I went to the most luxurious one. It cost us something like $5 each for one hour and another similar amount for a 'kissa' and soap massage.

Tbilissi boasts a Soviet style Metro, like that of Yerevan, but it goes even deeper underground, probably because it crosses under Tbilissi's river. Greg said it was a dangerous place for being mugged, but I insisted and we tried it without any problem.

The mosaic of cultures co-existing friendly side-by-side Georgia is proud of is exemplified by the two-storey Synagogue, a stone-throw's away from Tbilissi's Azeri mosque and its main Armenian Church." Jews have NEVER had any problems throughout history in Georgia" confirmed Greg, but like everybody else, they are moving out for economic reasons. Even Azeris and Armenians live in peace in Tbilissi, side-by-side.

Internet cafés are to be found, like in Yerevan on every city block downtown, with prices and speed similar to what you get in Yerevan. However cellular phones are so much cheaper than Armenia, that Greg only uses his cell phone in Georgia (so much for Armentel's monopoly). Tbilissi also has one more advantage on Yerevan, it has at least two MacDonald's restaurants. Greg said it was a disadvantage, I agree, but I was very happy to be able to use freely their clean washroom in time of need.

Although water is available 24 hours a day in Tbilissi (unlike many parts of Armenia), Georgia faces a serious energy crisis. They have no nuclear power generators and their hydroelectric power generation is insufficient for current consumption levels (eventhough they are very low by North-American standards). Georgia has to import most of its fuel from Russia and now Azerbaijan. Since they also have a foreign currency shortage, their situation is problematic. Electricity is often cut-off, and portable noisy gasoline generators, like the ones you see in the cities of Pakistan, is a common site in the streets, in front of most shops. These streets seemed cleaner to me than those I was used to in Yerevan.

While I am sad to have witnessed on TV a brawl caused by a member of the public "insulting" a campaigning politician by calling him " Somkhebi " (Armenian, like some Armenians insult Kotcharyan by calling him "Setrak-oghlu"); a very classy young Georgian lady we met, explained to us that "every proper Georgian family has an Armenian grandmother". She was proud to have a very loving Armenian grandmother.

Just to think of it, the fact they showed election campaign violence on TV… Isn't this a sign of freedom of the media?

I was pleasantly surprised to hear and see Armenian song and dances in discos and in classy restaurants with live bands. I was privileged to be invited with Greg to someone's birthday (you can see some photos at: http://pg.photos.yahoo.com/ph/gregorylevonian/album?.dir=2314&.src=ph or if not available on: http://www.flickr.com/photos/aterjanian/sets/72157600803342944/ ). It was like going to an Armenian wedding. The food was so abundant and delicious, and the wine… Well, as you may know, Georgian wines compare very favorably with French wines (who in turn are often as good as our own Areni, Vernashen or Gandzag wines). But Georgian toasts are something else. They have a ritual of their own. While I can now make sense of Armenian toast rituals, I had to rely on my guide's savoir-faire to avoid making a fool of myself with our Georgian hosts. Georgians are in fact some of the most hospitable and jovial people I have ever met. And boy, do they ever love to dance. According to Greg, everyone there goes to dance school, and they take very seriously their beautiful traditional dances, and they know and practice them with pride at all occasions.

Polyphonic singing is when people get together to sing, but they sing different melodies at the same time for the same song. They manage however to harmonize the whole. While we have Armenian choirs who sing beautiful Armenian 'polyphonic' songs (Komitas, Ganatchian), especially in church (the Karadzayn Patarak - Ekmalyan or Komitas), the practice in Georgia is a lot more common. It happens regularly when 2 people or more get together to sing, privately, in a classy restaurant or in church. And it is just beautiful! (Greg: don't forget, you promised me a selection of my favorite Kartuli songs on CD!)

I close with extending my wishes to the people of Georgia, that they resolve their present political differences peacefully, without resorting to a civil war, and look forward to visiting Georgia’s Black Sea coast next time.

* Now don't ask me why they are sometimes reported to be on the brink of yet another civil war!
** On the way back I realized that our worries were not very well founded: A Georgian lady on our minibus didn't even have a passport. When she went through the border she had a 5 Lari note with it and she went through the Georgian border, no problem. At the Armenian border, the young border guard came and told her there was a problem, but he asked for 10 US dollars. She handed him $ 5, while another Georgian lady protested in Russian that $ 10 was outrageous. She went through with $ 5.

Letter 15: Buy a popok to use with joy

2003-10-11T20:28:00.000-04:00

Octobre 2003
Yesterday morning, I agreed with two neighbors to go to Getap (on the silk road) to look at a huge Popok for sale (Popok is Armenian dialect for a walnut tree.). Arsen, my neighbor who has 2 children (a girl & a boy) in University in Yerevan, has bought an old truck which he drives for a living. He rebuilt the motor himself and converted it to diesel, which was to transport the Popok. And Vartkes (our new Rhéal neighbor, expert craftsman in all, who borrowed 400 USD from me to pay for his daughter's first year in Yerevan U) came along as my expert and to help load. At noon, we got in the mechanically fit blue Truck and coasted down the mountain (to save on fuel) till we found a gas station. Arsen had asked me to pay only for the cost of fuel, so he asked the attendant for seven liters of diesel (called by its Russian name "Salyarka"). I intervened. It made no sense to keep stopping to buy only 10 liters at a time , so I insisted they put in 40 litres instead . (The habit in Armenia seems to be to put in only a little at a time, probably because they can only afford a little.), I insisted that they put in 40 liters.

Five minutes later we were looking upward at our house to the east, perched on top of the mountain, dominating the silk road. Two minutes further, and we were there. On the bank of the Yeghegis river (an affluent of the main river of the region, the Arpa), stood this huge popok (Walnut) tree. It still had many of its leaves but they were changing to yellow. Its twin-brother had already been trimmed the previous year and had already born excellent fruits this year.

The owner, an 80-year-old man, introduced himself as "Napoleon Bonaparte Without an Army". I laughed; another of my neighbors has Napoleon for a first name. They offered us coffee, but we declined and we proceeded immediately to examine a branch that had already been cut. Vartkes checked all the knots in it and determined there was no rot. Arsen climbed the tree with this huge Soviet-made chainsaw and proceeded to trim the other branches. Napoleon's son brought his soviet made jeep (called Milice) with a long cable and pulled the falling branches away from the river.

After 2 hours we had cut and trimmed 9 more huge branches. Arsen brought his truck to the river bank so we can load it. One 3 meter long branch measured almost half a cubic meter and I thought there is no way we (5 men) could lift it in the truck. I asked Vartkes to go look for a crane. He went in the truck with Arsen, and Napoleon (pronounced "Napalyon") got close to me and spilled his life story, while I calculated the volume of each branch on my credit-card-size calculator (that Lena got me on Iberian Airlines on her way back from Cairo in 1987).

Napoleon's wife died suddenly 5 years ago from a heart attack. She was 10 years younger than him and healthy. He said that she always climbed the mountain faster than he could. He had remained a lonely widower since then. Although he has one son and six married daughters. Napalyon had been born and lives in "Gladzor", a famous medieval university on top of a mountain near our house. But he had gone with his family to live in the Russian north Caucasus during his childhood. We were now at his "dacha", a decrepit old one storey building with a small barn for a few cows and two fierce Caucasian huge dogs to guard it. The bear-like-looking dogs were chained with heavy chains. My attention was drawn to two metal sheds next to the barn, with all sorts of stainless steel tubing and pressure gages sticking out. I was told that in these sheds was one of two liquid azot factories in Armenia, still in operation. This plant supplies the artificial insemination stations in Eastern Armenia with liquid nitrogen to store sperm. But like everything else, business is in decline and they can hardly scratch a living with it.

Soon later Vartkes had returned and he gave me the thumbs-up. Two minutes later a huge old soviet truck with a crane arrived and went down to the river bank. We started tying the logs with a cable and lifting them on to the truck. The operation for the ten logs lasted half an hour after which I asked the crane operator how much he wanted. He asked for 2500 drams (5 USD. He said as he was leaving : "For whatever purpose you are acquiring this wood, may you use it with joy".

Napoleon insisted that we should join him for a drink before we left. We entered the decrepit building into a small room with two beds end to end and with a small electric cooker on the floor. Napoleon's daughter-in-law had set a table for us and roasted some peppers on the stove. Napoleon's life memories (photographs) were glued on the wall. I could see his father with his black Caucasian costume, his mother with her head kerchief and all his children at different ages. He described each photo one by one with emotion pride and joy in his voice. We had some freshly baked bread with the roasted peppers, some mashed potatoes, some panir (cheese) and some home-made Touti Oghi (eau-de-vie made from mulberries). Of course we had one toast after another and Napoleon closed with another toast that we may use this wood with joy! (ourakhoutyamp)

I can just imagine the cupboards, dining-room table and chairs, beds that we will make. How can they not bring us joy after all this?

We returned slowly to Yeghegnadzor and took the wood to the sawmill (located on the highway to Yerevan, next to the USDA goat project). It reminded me of the Bénards' sawmill, next to our farm. The popoks will be sawed tomorrow and we will store them in our attic for a few months to dry before we process them into furniture.

The sun has just risen and Ararat is splendid and bright from my window as I finish writing these lines.

Letter 14: Water and Energy Shortages in Armenia

2003-09-11T20:26:00.000-04:00

September 2003
The Blackout in North America this August is now almost forgotten. Yet I cannot help remember the number of times we thought we should teach these former Soviet Republics how to conserve energy. How they could make more airtight windows to keep the heat, how they can save water... This last item, water, is a sore point with me. I am now back in Yeghegnadzor, trying to renovate the house I bought, and am frustrated that drinking-water only comes sometimes through my pipes, and that for no more than one hour per day, while my neighbor downhill leaves his outside tap open to water his garden.

Yes, Soviet culture was based on free energy and water supply that were provided to every household. This obviously led to unwise consumption and waste. I remember when Sheila used to keep shutting-off the kitchen tap in our host family’s home, which was left running when washing dishes. She tried to make a point of it. One day, she did that in front of some guests. Our housemother quickly exclaimed: Oh I’m sorry, I forgot, Sheila likes to conserve water. The guest wondered: Do you not have enough water in Canada? Sheila said: Of course we do, and proceeded to explain how much water Canada had. The guest surmised: Then your large bodies of water must not be clean for household use!… Moral of the story: When you’ve got plenty for free, not even the smallest effort (such as turning a tap off – let alone fixing a leaky tap) needs to be made to conserve the resource… Yet Armenia, while having the world’s purest and tastiest waters, cannot be considered a country with water surplus... When we were in Yerevan, City water only came twice a day, 3 hours in the morning, and 3 hours in the evening. The rest of the time, people relied on filling-up bathtubs for their daily supply, or if they could afford it, install a reserve tank.

In 2003, Armenia decided to charge people for water usage. House and apartment owners were asked to purchase and install a water-meter; failing that they would be charged a much larger amount per month for water usage. A move that was welcome by some, but shocked so many others: Imagine, they said, now they want to sell us our own water! It is expected that this measure alone, will allow people in Yerevan to finally enjoy permanent water availability. I even heard that the pressure in the water system became so over-elevated when a substantial number of households in a neighborhood installed meters and fixed leaky taps that some sections of the network burst. Of course, there are also so many who cannot afford to buy a water-meter (about US $ 15).

A similar kind of a solution was devised to alleviate the energy shortages of the mid-nineties. First, the gas pipelines were blown-up by Azeri saboteurs. The people of Armenia spent almost three years freezing in the dark. The Government forced people to install electric-meters. Butane tanks became common practice, then natural gas returned and gas was provided to those who installed gas-meters and paid for their consumption. I must say, it seems to have worked, for I do not recall a blackout in Armenia during the year we spent there.

I have another anecdote that sheds some light on what happened. This past winter was the coldest on record in Armenia. Before knowing about this, we, as environmentally-conscious Canadians installed plastic sheets on all our windows to conserve the heat (and hopefully feel more comfortable). We noticed however that very few Armenian households had done the same. The cost was minimal (for us). It came to about US $ 10 to do all windows in our apartment. It wasn’t the most elegant thing, but we felt good about doing this. I was curious to see how our electric bill would compare with that of our neighbors this winter.

In Yerevan, householders do not get individual bills in the mail for their electric consumption. Instead, every apartment building gets one single printout that shows the electric consumption of each apartment and the amount to pay for each. The printout is posted at the building’s entrance for all to see. One then goes to the Post-office to pay one’s bill. It is therefore very easy to know what your neighbors consumed. Can you imagine my surprise when month after month this winter our electric bill surpassed that of all our native-Armenian neighbors by three-folds. Yes, despite our energy conservation efforts, extra insulation etc., we were far behind our native-Armenian neighbors in saving energy! And no! I checked, nobody was siphoning-off our electricity. So how could that happen? Did they go to Florida for the winter? Wrong again, they were still there. They simply did without.

Before we returned to Canada on June 7, we spent our last night again with our host family. We had moved-out of our apartment and they, with their usual generosity, offered us their bedroom. When I went to the bathroom in the morning to have a shower, there was no hot water. They hat unplugged the water heater and had not remembered to turn it back on for us.

Who are the winners, and who are the losers in this?
Among the winners are people like me, on the top of the mountain, who are the last in the queue to receive their share of “free” water, and who will finally get some. How many of us are there? A small minority, I suspect. Next come the civil servants who administer the distribution networks: They get to add their salaries to the distribution / meter-reading costs and they finally get paid. The manufacturers of electric and water meters are also winners because they realize sales to about a million Armenian households, keep in mind, all these meters are imported. So the people who hardly used water before, and conserved energy are penalized. They are forced to pay for imported meters. Yet again had there been no suspected waste of water and energy, would we have embarked on such an endeavor?

Letter 13: The Lone Cyclist in the Snow

2003-07-11T20:25:00.000-04:00

I am now back in Ottawa. It is a hot day; We have not been spared the heat wave, and I cannot help reminiscing about the coldest winter on record we spent in Armenia in 2002-2003.

In December, one of our volunteers, Narineh Azizian, a young woman with a huge and golden heart, conceived the idea that we, volunteers, would do something to cheer-up the thousands of less-fortunate children in Armenia. After a few meetings the idea took shape and we immediately started working on preparing group trips to visit orphanages in even more unfortunate cities than Yerevan.

We took "Dzemerr Babig" (Santaclaus) along, together with his beautiful helper "Dzuyn Anoush" (Snow-beauty, word-for-word translations from the Russian "Dyet Maroz" and "Snegourichka"). Being from Canada, I knew some of the risks involved in winter driving and warned our group of the dangers, we therefore made sure that we would check weather conditions before going.

That Saturday morning, we were to go to Gyumri. It had snowed on Friday, and Yerevan was covered by some 8 cms of snow, but it had subsided and the temperature was hovering close to the freezing mark. I was tempted to say: Let's not risk it, specially since the weekend before we had gone to Spitak in an old Marshutka (Minibus) and the water in their radiator had frozen and busted it. It had taken us then 5 hours to get there and 7 to return. But this time, we had splurged the extra money and hired a modern Minibus. The driver was there ready to take us. How could we let down all these children who were anxiously awaiting our arrival, all these preparations that our Gyumri volunteers had gone through, the fact that other volunteers from Spitak and Vanadzor were going to join us directly there... So we hoped "Rudolph the red-nose-reindeer" would guide us and we chanced it.

The road was snow covered but clear. Hardly any traffic. Not a good sign! I thought. But with all these enthused, beautiful young people around us how could we worry. Armen, Arina's new fiancé had joined us. He is a kick-boxing champion and instructor, fit like a tiger, so I felt re-assured. We sang, chatted and shared some of the goodies we brought along for the road.

I love the road to Gyumri, for if you sit on the left side, you can see Ararat for a good part of the journey. It normally takes less than 2 hours on this new highway by marshutka, and we were moving quite well, despite the snow-covered road. We hardly saw any other cars, and the packed snow muffled the noise of the road. It was a very serene morning. We were well dressed and warm. After we passed Talin, and started climbing the Shirak escarpment, I saw this dark dot in the snow on the road ahead of us. As we got closer, we saw that it was wobbling up and down the small bumps on the left side of the road, a wise move I thought for a cyclist. What! I thought: Do we also have crazy cyclists in Armenia, who tackle the snow-covered roads like we do in Canada? What kind of tires did they use? I was all curious and as we approached the 'crazy cyclist', the whole minibus had moved to the left-side windows to take a close look at this phenomenon. It was not till we were about 200 meters behind him that we realized that this was not a cyclist. It was a man running and pushing an automobile wheel alongside of him. There were no houses or cars in sight, and I could not remember how long ago we had passed a village on the road, nor did we know how far the next village would be. We all genuinely asked our driver to stop so we can offer the man a ride. He stopped. Armen, Taliban and I walked back to the guy to offer him help and a ride. He soon was in front of us, thick steam pouring-out of his nostrils. We noticed it was a young man in his mid-teens, but well-built. He didn't even stop to talk to us. He kept on going. He was not really dressed for the outdoors and I noticed that his gloveless hands were blue and swollen, or were his bones that thick?.. But he kept pushing that tire along. We offered to take him with us, in a warm minibus, offered him water, food, gloves... But he politely said No! and kept on running. We asked him: Aren't you cold. He said: "Votch-inch" (nothing!) shrugging his shoulders.

We were obviously intrigued by this brave and proud young man. So we cleaned the snow that had accumulated at the back of our bus then asked our driver to go slowly behind him, just in case he changed his mind. Soon enough, after a couple of turns, we saw a car stranded on the right side of the road with a wheel missing. It was covered with a bit of snow, and an older man was already outside waiting for our young cyclist with his tools in hand. I thought: What a brave and proud people. They have gone through so much hardship, this IS nothing for them!

Really?

Antoine Terjanian

Letter 12: The dance of Sassoun

2003-03-11T20:24:00.001-05:00

I came to Armenia to “move mountains” (read that: to “create jobs”). So what am I doing selling boxes with Grigor Khandjian’s “Sassountsineri Par” painted on them? I have never produced, designed or sold a piece of art in my life!

I love Russian art, and I particularly like the papier maché boxes painted by Russian miniature artists (from Palekh). They are beautiful! But it bothers me that they are being sold as souvenirs in Yerevan’s Vernissage street market and in souvenir shops around town. Don’t we have our own miniature artists and our own Armenian themes to paint?

Thinking about this, an idea came to mind -- why not reproduce Grigor Khandjian’s “Sassountsineri Par” on native-Armenian obsidian and ceramic boxes. Our famous poet, Gevorg Emin, had immortalized the proud struggle of the inhabitants of Sassoun in a poem by the same name. The poem is based on a true story. After three weeks of resisting a full fledged attack by the Ottoman army, the inhabitants of Sassoun had run-out of ammunition and food. They decided to face the final Ottoman army assaults dancing together. In their typical white costumes and with their typical pride, the Sassountsi decided they would dance together in a semi-circle, arm-in-arm. When the Ottomans shot them, they would keep on dancing, holding-up their dancing comrades that were hit by bullets. One-by-one the Sassountsi were hit, but together they kept on “dancing”, until finally, they all fell together.

Gevorg Emin wrote:

Baryx Sasovnn5 ov o.] a,qarhu hiaxaw5
Baryx Sasovnn5 ov o.] a,qarhu hasgaxaw5
Or bar [e sa5 a3l` mi yrgri
Ka] badmov;3ovn5
Ovr bardov;3ovnn ancam ovni hbardov;3ovn5
Yv [i ha.;i o[in[ a3n hin =o.owrtin5
Or a3s ]ankow ov a3s gamko\w
Baryl cidi777
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . .. .
Yv a3s baru
Masis ly-an lan]in barys777

(Translation)
Sassoun danced and the whole world marveled,
Sassoun danced and the whole world understood,
That this is NOT a dance, but the brave history of a country,
Where even defeat has pride.
And nothing can vanquish this ancient nation,
That knows how to dance with such ardor and will...
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . .. .
May you dance this dance on the slopes of Massis

Grigor Khandjian immortalized the poem with his painting by the same name and you can find it in Armenia’s National Art Gallery. I found three different Armenian artists who reproduced Khandjian’s painting on obsidian and ceramic boxes. I am proud to say that all three, first produced, boxes are already sold. The theme had touched the soul of Armenia’s Ambassador to the United Nations’ Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO), Mr. Zohrab Malek. Our artists are now producing more of them for your enjoyment. You can see these boxes and learn how to order them by visiting: http://www.flickr.com/photos/armenvahramian/sets/72157602322325957/

(Antoine Terjanian is an Economist, Statistician and Geomatician from Canada. He is working as an AVC volunteer in Armenia on several projects, helping make Armenia self-reliant). To read the Armenian script, you require the arasan.ttf font.

Letter 11: A wedding between 2 elections

2003-02-19T20:22:00.000-05:00

February 19, 2003

Today is election day in Armenia, most businesses / government offices and schools are closed to encourage people to go and vote. I have some time to write, as I do not qualify to vote here. It has been snowing since last evening in Yerevan and we have a good 7 cms on the ground. The city is calm, and by what I observed, this is a fair election. However some may differ, and I am happy that those who differ (specially my good friend Peter Eicher) would like to see much higher standards applied for democracy and human rights in Armenia. see http://www.osce.org/odihr/elections/field_activities/2003armenia/). There are many false rumors spread by opposition members. For example, a good and serious university student I know asked me on Monday to let Peter Eicher know that Kocharyan's supporters were offering people 20,000 drams for their passport, which they would hold so they can be sure they don't vote. She assured me the information was very reliable. I spoke about it to others to see if it was true. I did not find anyone to confirm the story. Some poor people I talked to were genuinely interested to deposit their passport for the duration of the election against a payment of 20,000 dr.

So I went back to this friend and asked where people could get 20,000 dr. She called me back after checking with her “reliable” source and said: unfortunately, they will only give the money to their friends. I pointed-out the contradiction in her statement.

The male/female ratio is quite exceptional here as the country has lost a lot of young men from the war in Karabagh as well as many of them leaving Armenia in search of work in Moscow or the United States. As a result, there is a surfeit of young women here and now that people know that I had a visit from a son, I have been getting all kinds of invitations for the next time James comes to Armenia! There are lots of young women here and they are very pretty and generally well educated -- so this may be one of the reasons for his inclination to come back!

The weather has now warmed up considerably and winter is more like the winter we had been expecting. The temperature hovers between about 4º Celsius and minus 4 or 5, which is very bearable for Ottawans and the sunshine and warmer weather have melted all the ice and snow that were making walking dangerous while Anoush and James were here. They really saw the worst of Armenian weather. People tell us they haven’t seen a winter like we had in December and January for 40 to 70 to 100 years, depending upon the person! So it is a little disappointing that we were so focused on staying warm while they were here. We did have a lot of cosy times around the kitchen table, surrounded by heaters and Kleenex boxes, but we couldn’t warm up our living room and so we weren’t able to do much entertaining for them. The sun is wonderful here, and I am now sitting in the kitchen with the lovely sunshine streaming in on my back.

So with this better weather, I have decided that it really is a great place to live in the winter and have started to look at apartments with the thought that I might make this our winter residence. There is so much to do here that is useful. I guess my problem is that I am just not a golfer! I really enjoy the work we have been doing here and every where you turn, there is another place that needs our experience. In addition, it is rather exciting to be in a young country that is starting to grow and it is very pleasant to be working with young people again. We are also surrounded by orchestras and theatre groups and dance troupes that are extremely accomplished and we can see the kind of concert that we would enjoy in Ottawa for a fraction of the price -- although you have to keep your coat on!

Yesterday we were invited to another Armenian wedding - the daughter of the sister of an Armenian immigrant in Ottawa that I had befriended when he first arrived. Her name is Laora. This family, like everyone else here, has been living frugally on the salary of the only employed member, Laora. She is a linguist and specialist in international relations and has a job at the Egyptian embassy - probably as a secretary and probably earning no more than $200 a month if she is lucky. Her mother is an unemployed engineer and her father is dying slowly from lung cancer and she also has a brother who is 28 and appears to be unemployed as well, though trying for work in Moscow.

She married a lovely young Armenian from Tbilisi and so the wedding was unusual in that half of the guests were from Georgia, although they were all Armenians. As requested, we arrived at their apartment for 1:30 in the afternoon and found her there in a simple white wool dress with her mother, her aunt and her mother’s cousin and daughter. We weren’t sure at all what was going to happen! They had set out a table with cakes, nuts, fruit and lots of glasses, cognac, and vodka. About an hour after we arrived, there was a great honking and noise on the street below and we all hung out the windows (we were on the 9th floor) to see a bus and lots of cars arriving and then three musicians playing traditional Armenian instruments come out and people began dancing in the street before the apartment building and holding great baskets in their hands. The next thing we knew, the apartment was invaded by the musicians and about 40 people who all piled into a rather small living room. After introductions, I suddenly noticed that all women had left the room and they all squeezed into the bedroom, into which they had brought the biggest basket. It turned out that the basket contained the bridal outfit - complete with underwear and shoes! The tradition is that the groom’s family dresses the bride (actually they even take her to the public bath and dress her there) -- here the groom pays for all of the weddings. So I had been taking all kinds of pictures (see: http://photos.yahoo.com/geghamvoskanyan ) when we first arrived, thinking that Laora’s simple wool dress was her wedding gown and here she was being decked out in lace and flowers and chiffon! In the meantime, the men were drinking cognac and eating sweets in the living room. When she was ready, the groom came to bring out his bride and then we all descended to the cars and bus below, once again to the loud and lively music of the three musicians.

The actual wedding ceremony was only about 10 minutes long, and we waited our turn as wedding parties came in and out of the church, one after another. (There are only seven churches in Yerevan, a result of the Soviet period when churches were destroyed. We were relieved with the short ceremony as the Armenian orthodox mass is three hours long!) Then we followed the bride & groom’s car, honking in the street and circled Republic Square (former Lenin Square) three times. Then we all went to the “Miami restaurant”. When we learned of the wedding, Laora’s mother came to borrow some money from me because “she needed money for the wedding”. I had offered our apartment to help them out and they declined as the guests were “invited to a restaurant” afterwards. Well, I was happy to see that Laora has evidently married into a well-off family as the “restaurant” turned out to be a magnificent hall with high ceilings, great tables filled with food and a live orchestra and wonderful dance floor. To my delight, we started with plates of black and red caviar. As the night progressed, the food kept coming. At 11 p.m., the last platters arrived - platters of what Armenians call the prince of fish, a great trout from Lake Sevan -- and we left at 11:30 to the protests of the bride and groom -- but we were exhausted!

One of the things I love here is that everyone loves to dance and the dancing went on all afternoon and night. The music is usually Armenian but this time they also played some Georgian and some Russian music, as well as a couple of Arabic songs in honour of the Egyptian ambassador who was there with his family. It is almost as if they can’t help themselves; as soon as the music starts, everyone streams onto the dance floor. It is not necessary to have a partner. Men dance with women, other men or in groups and similarly for the women. And, of course, they do these great traditional line dances that we know so well. In between, there were speeches and toasts. Armenians love to give toasts and they can talk on and on in very poetic language. In addition, the groom sang, the bride’s brother sang, the ambassador’s children sang; everyone loves to perform here, especially with a live orchestra. About half-way through the dinner the Master of Ceremony, suggested to guests to present their gifts to the Newlyweds. Many had nicely boxed jewellery, but some had envelopes that they handed the Bride or Groom. So it was a very lavish wedding. And now hopefully, this family has another wage-earner who will be able to provide them with a little easier life. As I am very fond of Laora, I was happy to find that the groom is a terrific fellow, kind, serious and very respectful to Laora’s family. I especially loved him because he dances traditional Armenian dances well!

We have another wedding next week. One of our Armenian friends in Ottawa married a widow here and her son is getting married to a young woman in a village (Garni) about half an hour’s drive from Yerevan. The actual wedding is being held at a beautiful monastery called Geghard (http://www.cilicia.com/armo5_geghard.html ) that was carved out of the rocks of the mountain in 1200. We expect a very different wedding this time and we figure we are pretty lucky ‘tourists’ to be invited to both a posh Yerevan wedding and a village wedding, all in the same month.

Tuesday, March 4, 2003

Tomorrow is “election day” for the second round of the Presidential election. Yesterday was a televised debate between R. Kocharyan and S. Demirjyan, handily won by the incumbent President. Demirchyan has organised massive but peaceful protests, and accusations of fraud during the elections are prevalent. What a pity that we are such a nation that still has not learned to respect democracy and the will of the people.
The wedding of Moses Keoshkerian and Narineh’s son (Artyom) to Manoush went very well. But the actual church was not Keghart because of the snow. Photos can be seen at: photos.yahoo.com/narinekoshkaryan

Wednesday, March 5, 2003

Today is election day for the second round of Presidential elections. All is very calm. We went to see last week an excellent satyric play making fun of the incumbent President and of politicians and of everything that is wrong in Armenia.

I don't know if this country NEEDS a change of government. It needs most of all economic development, jobs, our involvement. People would not cheat in an election, or accept to be paid to vote or cheat unless they were desperate. But unfortunately I have a strong suspicion that the present regime is trying to maintain itself via cheating tactics, to be fair, perhaps in fear that the opposition is doing the same. I am disappointed. Is this the country we want to be? Is this the people we are? Do we have to cheat to win? Do we always complain that the situation is unfair to us when we loose and that there is either cheating or treason involved? I just witnessed such an incident myself coming to work this morning. It is one incident, is it prevalent? But I saw it and tell like I saw it:

Rhoda, another AVC Volunteer from Britain, has taken time off to be an OSCE/ODIHR official observer. She is assigned to the schools next to our office. So on my way to work, I dropped-in to say hi! As I entered the room, an attempt to cheat was in progress. A young (25) man was attempting to stuff ballots in the box and the inspector (a 40 yr old woman) caught him and grabbed his hands before he was able to stuff them. He started punching her. Ignoring all AVC warnings, I jumped on him and grabbed him. He started to try and run away, still with the stuffing ballots in his hands. At this point, a tall young man, wearing eyeglasses and a black leather jacket punched me and then grabbed me to make me let go of the offender, who got away. By then the police arrived, three 30 yr old men in uniform. I pointed to the guy who hit me and was walking slowly away, and said that’s him. They walked behind him with no attempt to arrest him. I went to the office and recounted the event to Jason and asked him to accompany me back to the polling station in case they needed an eye witness. We went back in there. Because the tall man in the black leather coat had a strong resemblance to Jason, people pointed to him as we entered. But we quickly explained who we were, and found out that the offender had gotten away with the fake ballots he was attempting to stuff. No one was interested in having an eyewitness. I suppose the officials were busy and did not want to jeopardize the process. On our way out two men followed us, one was well dressed, the other unshaven. They asked us who we were supporting, we said “no one”, we are diasporans and cannot vote. The unshaven guy said he was working for Kocharyan and wanted to calm the situation. The clean guy said he was an official observer (but not with OSCE). None of them showed ID (we did not ask). The clean guy wanted to note my name. I asked them to call the policemen so I can give my particulars to them. They said the police is not allowed in here so as not to intimidate voters. I said we were outside and they could come, but they offered again to take my name, I replied that I will give it to the OSCE observation mission. When we walked away, a woman who was there voting and leaving told us she knew the young tall guy who punched me and identified him as a Kocharyan worker. She looked and sounded honest and afraid to speak-up.
_________________

Letter 10: A wedding and a concert

2002-10-28T20:21:00.000-05:00

Monday, October 28, 2002

What a week end!

On Saturday I was invited to a wedding. Remember the lady (Seta) from the building across who let me go up on their roof to photograph Ararat on a clear day and then sent up her daughters (see photos.yahoo.com/aterjanian). Well it turns out the two girls were her grand-daughters. She wanted me absolutely to meet her young son, Viktor Hambartsoumyan`s (of the Pyurakan observatory) right-hand man (an astrophysicist who has to his credit the discovery of 2 stars). He is now working in the Canaries, but would be coming to Yerevan for his nephew’s wedding on the 26th. I expressed interest in the wedding, so I was invited. At 1:45, a third Grand-daughter, 18 year old Diana met me at Prospect & Toumanian and we walked to this beautiful hidden old church “Sourp Zoravor Asdvadzadzin” (Holy Strong Mother of God)… Seemed to be a favorite for weddings. Literally a wedding every 10 minutes, the next couple waiting in line 10 meters from church door with their guests. I was amazed how there was no traffic jam or parking problems in the “Bak” where the church is located. Beautiful trees surround it and of course some beggars, but not too annoying. What a relief to have a short Armenian religious ceremony… “intérêt commercial oblige”…. Two priests were in charge and a few sacristans, one ringing the bells every time newlyweds were created. The traditional “to protect” for the groom, and “to serve and to obey” for the bride, in sickness and in health” had to be heard clearly, otherwise the priest would ask them to repeat. Amazing how a line of 50 congratulators can pass so fast in front of the altar, then off to find the cars and get-out in a cortège in the streets with horns blaring.

We went to the groom’s parents’ house for the wedding reception. A single dwelling up above the Hayasdan superstore (Komitas area). Neighbours were waiting and the mother-in-law ready with two fresh loaves of Lavash, some wheat grains, a cup of honey, some candy, some coins, and 2 ceramic plates on the floor at the door step. She first kisses them both and puts the lavash on their shoulders (so they never miss food). Then they are asked to smash each of the plates with their foot (to break away difficulties), then she gives them a spoonful of honey (to have sweet relations) then she spread on their heads the wheat grains (plenty and fertility) and the candies and coins (symbols of sweet wealth to come to them). Then they are welcome to an outdoor sit-down meal in the back yard, at the precise moment they light the BBQ wood fire in the corner. There were friends and relatives and a “personality”, the director of the Erebuni Museum, who stood-up and made traditional toasts at least 15 times. Everyone and his uncle made toasts; it didn’t matter if you did not listen… The groom is a techie, so he had his computer programmed to play MP3 music in the order he wanted… which we had to turn-down for the toasts. The guys in charge of the BBQ had trouble getting the fire going, so I went-out on the street in my suit and picked-up a few empty corrugated card-board boxes or pieces thereof and brought them over to their delight… So while everyone else was having a feast, they were busy preparing the BBQ, till they brought them their own varieties of food and drink so they proceeded to get drunk and have a ball.

Soon the dance started (they didn’t wait for the bride & groom to open the ball). They mainly did the Caucasian single dance step, from time to time they would form a line and do the kotcharee step or yerek-ou-mek. The food was kept being refilled on the table, the drinks and the toasts. Then the bride threw her bouquet, and the groom threw her crown to the male guests. Then they cut the cake (both together holding the same knife. Several times the father of the groom would dance with the bride with visible emotion and kind of embarrassment. The mother of the groom was wonderful, so lovingly supportive of her husband, running the show and making sure everyone was served and comfortable. I left around 9 to go to Sarah’s party.

The party was in honor of Artyom and Anahid who had just gotten jobs with “Douleur sans Frontières” in Gyumri. It was the usual crowd except for 4 Peace Corps guys and gals from Gyumri. We looked at some digital photos and I left by 11:30 with Jason and Anna.

On Sunday I went to Vernissage and bought a glass cutting and knife sharpening tool for 1000 drams. It seems to be doing marvels at the demo!

Then in the afternoon, I was invited to a ceremony, at the Sayat-Nova music institute (just behind the Opera, near Sayat-Nova’s statue. The ceremony was for the 70’s birth-day of Villie Mogatsyan, the former director of the Institute, died 5 years ago. Angela Nigoghossyan, the young violinist who plays in the National Chamber Orchestra and in the Komitas Quartet, took me there. He used to be her prof, and she used to be terrorized by him. He used to yell and scream a lot, but no physical violence (perhaps to the boys, but definitely not the girls. It was a ceremony filled with humor, recalling events that happened to Prof Mogatsyan at different points of his career, interspersed with beautiful duo’s, solos of piano and violin music pieces, including Debussy’s Clair De Lune. There were also some projections of Videos and photos of Mogatsyan’s career. Very short speeches. He was sent by the Soviets to create the Cuba conservatory, and there were many hilarious anecdotes of his stay in Cuba. They showed a skit about the “hantess” they had when he returned from a stage in Greece (after independence) Where some of his students played Zorba the Greek on the piano while coming on stage to make a presentation, then 3 of them came-up on stage carrying each a cardboard tray of white eggs, then they suddenly threw the whole carton of eggs on the audience... it turned-out they were plastic eggs... It was fun, an example of the kind of ceremonies that aren’t boring. Mogatsyan’s wife was in the audience. She had refused to sit on the front row. They asked her if she wanted to say a few words. She stood-up and thanked everyone who made this wonderful evening a reality and said Mogatsyan would have enjoyed it. She was soo nice.

On Tuesday Oct 29. Angela gave me 2 tickets for their Chamber Orchestra pre-premiere concert at the Baronian theatre. So I gave one to Rhoda. Tickets were 2000 drams (1st 5 rows) then 1000 drams, then 500 then 250. When I got there, I waited for Rhoda, she came later with a group from Arlex and they had extra tickets in the first 5 rows (mine was a bit cheaper, so I joined them. The Chamber Orchestra was just marvelous. I love the violin, the viola and the cello in general, but these people satisfied everything I felt like at the moment. They played Armenian and classical pieces and usually put in a new piece from a living composer who happened to be in the audience and was invited on stage to everyone’s applause. A memorable evening. Thank you Angela and Rhoda!

Letter 09: Yerevan weekend

2002-09-04T20:20:00.000-04:00

September 2002
Thursday night I went to Esfira's home in Bangladesh. Her door was coming off the hinges so I tried to fix it with longer screws, like I did 24 years ago to our front door. On the way, walking at night to look for screws, she asked: Aren't you going to ask me why I moved here. I responded to the effect, if she wanted to tell me I'd listen: She said two weeks ago, her husband's sister showed-up and said to her: this is our house, please move-out. Her husband kepts islent, so she called a taxi, packed-up her stuff and moved-out with her sister and daughter to their Bangladesh appartment (10th floor, relatively clean).

So they wanted to talk about a loan to her sister's shop-owner, a dentist not finding a job, running a pharmacy, on the back of which he gave her a room for a beauty salon. I took Rhoda there (haircut 1500, pedicure 3500). But it was impossible to tell from the street there is a beauty salon. So that's when I suggested they should have a better sign....

On Friday I got invitation tickets to the National Chamber orchestra. I took Leyla's dad with me. It was fantastic. The second half was Dvorjak. Ihad warned the young violinist I would not stay till the end because I had promised Tamar Haytayan I would go to her house warming. I had trouble pulling myself-out. So I told Leyla's dad to go back-stage and invite her for dinner at our place... But he was too shy to go.

So I went a bit late to Tamar's appartment. It is 2 streets up from AUA. Old building but clean entrance (no garbage suit). I think she has one of the best appartments. She pays 120, constant hot & cold water, 4th floor, no elevator. Bedroom like ours, 2 hallways like ours, living room smaller, but additional covered balcony makes it equal. equipped kitchen. Her landlady phoned her last week to see if she needed more blankets. The usual crowd had showed-up. She put Narineh's oriental music on. I refused to dance till she put Armenian music. But she had a great spread of food and lots. I pigged-out, and the next day she brought me some delicious left-overs. We had a big rain-thunderstorm during the party, and the next morning the haze had left Ararat and I took some great pictures. Actually Leyla's dad was supposed to take the bus to Echmiadzin and I found he had to be at Mashtots and Pushkin at 9:45. Leyla called from Becky’s apartment to say that the view of Ararat was great. So I rushed him and we took the elevator to our roof. It was locked. So I rushed him over to Mashtots. On the way back I stopped at Irina’s apartment, took the elevator to the top. It was locked again. The lady on the last floor was outside, she said: can I help you. I said I was new here and heard that the Ararat view was good today and wanted to take photos. She said: I have a key. So she brought it for me, said not to loose it, and proceded to send her 2 daughters to help me out (pose). They were University kids and paused for me and took my photo too (I’ll post it when I can download) (Incidentally you should look at photos.yahoo.com/meghr1981 and photos.yahoo.com/meghr 1965 for some recent photos of me).

This time Makour Yerevan was at 1:00 p.m.. They took us to “Monument park” which is the victory park, near the Mayr-Hayastan statue with the sword (used to be Stalin’s statue). The usual crowd was there, but Gore showed-up with Mher and they played under the statue, with no loud speakers for the crowd. They sounded so much better (Jason accompanied). When I got back to the office, there was an email from the violinist hoping I enjoyed the Gharabekian concert (Gharabekian is originally from Iran but had been living in Boston when he was recruited to head the Chamber orchestra). I was embarassed, so I invited her for dinner Sunday night.

On Sunday morning we had the brunch for Narineh Gharashor’s housewarming. She had asked me to bring her some of the small chairs and some small plates. So I went ahead to the little flower guy near our office and he offered me two huge bunches of fresh white fleurs de Lys for 800 drams, and threw-in a bunch of carnations. So I carried them over to her apartment, clean and put them in vases for her before guests arrived then went back home, changed and came back with chairs and plates. 20 people came, it was very pleasant. She pays 100$ / month but she redecorated the place at her own expense and installed new water reservoirs hot and cold. It was really nice and cozy. One of the apartment owners had redecorated the whole entrance and stairways, and installed a door security buzzer system for all apartments (because in the last 2 years night-club patrons had been known to relieve themselves inside their entrance after midnight). So now it is all bright and clean.

After brunch the Meneshians came to see my place. They are very nice and happy to be here. Then Tamar came and borrowed my video camera. Then I did some cleaning then I went for supper with this young violinist. We went first for fruit juices at the outdoor cafe near the linguistics institute, then we walked to “Charlie” ( the place next to my stooge’s cafe, because the piano player is her original music teacher from childhood. She is a marvelous young lady, and Gharabekian has taken them on tours to LA, Boston, London, Greece, Cyprus, Lebanon and Paris. They are preparing to go to Germany soon. So I’ll be getting some more invitations for their concert season (so the sooner you get here, the better).

I just went to buy tickets for Ararat’s only presentation with the original soundtrack, this Thursday at 9:30.
_________________

Letter 08: Ara ler and Raffi s khente

2002-08-31T20:18:00.000-04:00

Saturday, August 31, 2002

We went with the Habitat project to a small village on Ara ler, above Ashtarak , to help a family insulate the roof over their house. We spent the whole day working with the family and they prepared a great happy meal for us which we ate outdoors. It was tiring but pleasant.
On the way back, we visited the Church in Oshakan. It is the church where St. Mesrop Mashtots (the inventor of the Armenian Alphabet) is buried. It has a special Byzantian style architecture, unlike other Armenian churches I have seen so far. Oshakan is a stone’s throw from Etchmiadzin, the seat of the Armenian Katoghikos, and was an ancient pagan city. People living there often find old pagan statues whenever they undertake an excavation.

Sunday, September 01, 2002

I went with Badal to Saralandj, a small village on Ara Ler (King Ara Keghetsig’s mountain). On the way, we stopped in Ara Kyough, where Badal pointed to me a bust statue of “Khente”, see photo. The inscription on the pedestal says “Sasnon Boghos DerBoghossian 1846-1911”. Apparently it was erected in 1974 by the local villagers most of whom came from the same region as Raffi’s Khente.

We then went up the valley to Sourp Nishan Church with is again in ruins, after being reconstructed by Kouyr Viktor, a nun from Etchmiadzin, who was saved with other Armenian orphans in 1915, but who had doubts on whether her own family were Christian Armenians or Yezdis. The Church is on a hill dominating the Kassakh river valley (the same river that goes through Saghmosavank). The church is also called “Asdvadz-engal”

Letter 07: Are you sick of our dug-out sidewalks?

2002-08-30T20:16:00.000-04:00

Dear Repats:

Are you sick of our dug-out sidewalks?
You can now do something about it
1) log-in to Antoine’s column at http://www.cilicia.com/board/viewforum.php?f=14 and send a message to Kirk Krikorian to fire his project manager in Yerevan, or give the forum a piece of your mind;
2) Get a shoe shine:
· On Abovian near Artbridge (between Toumanian & Sayat-Nova);
· Mornings between 9:00 and sunset;
· Regular leather shoes (black & brown) for now ;
· 150 drams (exact change please) – tipping is welcome; If shoe has to be taken-off foot 200 drs
· you can take photos, he is a “Babig” his name is Zhoura. Please put up with him and help him with his training period..

If you know of an unemployed person interested to continue this job, contact me. The shoeshine box maker is already churning the second unit!
This project idea is designed to get the shoe-shine business back on the streets of Yerevan: a) to fill a tourist need; b) to create jobs for needy people as an alternative to begging; c) to show that one can be creative in finding self-sustaining work.
I am doing it because people resent others “telling” them what to do. Leading by example is better. If the business is successful, then I expect, like everywhere else, others will imitate it and hopefully improve on it; and we’ll all have clean shiny shoes despite Kirk Krikorian’s project manager’s mistake.

=.=.==.=.=.=.=.==.=.=.=.=.=.=.=.=.=.==.=.

Are you sick of the dug-out sidewalks in downtown Yerevan?

When I first arrived on May 30th, they had started digging-out streets and sidewalks in downtown Yerevan. I then learned Kirk Krikorian had donated the funds. It sounded like a good win/win deal. He was creating jobs. Some of the streets/sidewalks being dug-out seemed perfectly OK, but I convinced myself they will look even better in a month. I blessed Kirk Krikorian for his excellent initiative.

Come August, with all the strong winds and dust in the air, with more sidewalks dug-out and few finished, with more street garbage accumulating in the holes and all the museums closed, I thought, surely they are planning to finish the whole thing at the same time for the height of the tourist season in September. Then I thought they will have them ready for “Independence day, Sept 21”… Are you still waiting?

Of course Mr. Krikorian himself is NOT to blame, especially not his motives. He also took a further step in specifying what his donation would be used for (renovating downtown streets). But did he ever imagine that he did such a disservice to tourism in Yerevan in the 2002 season? Mr. Krikorian does not check-out the fine print in the contracts his foundation issues, but he has managers who are supposed to do that. These are the people I point the finger to.

If they are on this list, I beg them to clear their names.

What do you think? Do you know how to contact Mr. Krikorian? If you do, please forward this (or about this) to him.

Best regards
AT

Letter 06: Sound and light show in Gumri

2002-08-17T20:14:00.003-04:00

Saturday, August 17, 2002

I have been very busy and did not have time to write, but I had a delightful week. Great project ideas and meetings with such exciting people, Armenians, young and young at heart. I will share with you my impressions of a visit to Kyumri (sometimes written Gyumri or Gumri).

Kyumri used to be Armenia’s second largest city before it was destroyed by the earthquake of December 1988, for which we have collected money in Ottawa and across Canada. If you remember, the Soviets had called it Leninakan then, changing the name from Alexandropol, which was given to the city by the imperial Russians. It is now called Kyumri again, but was historically called Ko-Mayri, in memory of some famous words pronounced in battle by Prince Vahram Pakhlavouni, in 1047, before the fall of Ani (80 kms away) to Alp Arslan’s Seljouk Turks. Prince Pakhlavouni, although very brave (he died sword-in-hand in that battle together with his son Krikor), did not use very polite words when he met face to face with a huge Turkish bashi-bouzouk who was hurling insults at him. Prince Pakhlavouni, picked-up a spear aimed it at a spot between the eyes of the bashi-bouzouk and threw it at him shouting: ‘ays al ko mayri’ (and this one for your mother). Ko-Mayri became the battle cry of the Armenian troupes and they were able to repel the invading Seldjouks then, but as we know, not for very long. Some of the people who escaped from Ani ended-up building the new settlement: Ko-Mayri.

I visited the tomb, 8 kms north of Kyumri, where Prince Vahram Pakhlavouni and his son Krikor are buried. (see http://www.cilicia.com/armo5_marmashen.html ). They lay peacefully in front of the beautiful church of Marmashen Vank, which was recently renovated thanks to a grant by the Italian Government. The tombstone is cracked and I would not have been able to decipher the inscriptions had I not had the help of this wrinkled-faced old Armenian villager, Seriosh, who guards the church and the surrounding park at the corner of this beautiful creek (Azat) with lovely water falls, and the Akhourian river. I went swimming under one of the waterfalls. It was great! Seriosh seemed very knowledgeable and he told me so many anecdotes about that part of Armenian history, and about the Pakhlavounis that I had never heard before. I will share one of them with you.

Apparently the Pakhlavounis were very famous in that period. If you remember the Katoghigué and Ketcharis Churches that we visited in Dzaghgadzor, these were also built by some other Pakhlavounis. The ancestor of the Pakhlavounis was a very smart peasant with an appetite for good food and a good sense of marketing. He liked so much the ‘Tertanoush’ that Movses Koshkerian used to bring to church; he stole the recipe and started commercialising the pastries under his own family name, calling it «Pakhlava». As we now know, pakhlava was adopted by many cultures in the region, but by then, the Pakhlavounis had become very rich and their descendants became brave princes, who gave us beautiful churches. Unfortunately, only the main church chapel in Marmashen was renovated. Two other beautiful chapels destroyed by the 1988 earthquake stand next to it, but the walls of the houses surrounding the vank (monastery) can hardly be distinguished from the rubble. From the Vank, I can see the remnants of the Vahramabert fortress on the Akhourian river, one mile away.

Huge Russian machines are used to extract the re-inforcing steel from the concrete walls that were dumped nearby after the 1988 earthquake. The steel is being recycled. Can you imagine, 14 years after the earthquake, half the population still lives in «domigs», those little metal containers brought by the rescuers in December 1988 to house the people whose apartment buildings were destroyed. There is so much to be done, but there is hope. A large part of the population is unemployed, but they have creative ideas to attract the tourists and let them spend the night in Kyumri, instead of just coming over looking at the ruins and driving back to Yerevan (less than 2 hours away).

There is a beautiful 19th century Russian fortress in Kyumri (Sev Gol). It is perfectly round and beautifully preserved. It resisted all Ottoman and Persian attacks, and was not affected by the1926 nor the 1988 earthquakes (read http://www.cilicia.com/armo5_gyumri.html sorry Raffi Kojian did not see fit to include a photo of the fortress). It dominates Kyumri, next to the huge monument to «Mayr Hayastan».

The unemployed but educated youth of Kyumri got together and formed a co-operative to create a «sound and light» show and the representation of a historical battle around the fortress during the beautiful and cool summer nights in Kyumri. The tickets are inexpensive (10 USD) and the show is definitely worth to stay-over for. So when you come to Armenia make sure you do not miss this unique show. You arrive at dusk to the bottom of the ramp leading to the fortress; you can hear from afar the davouls and zournas of the Turkish army besieging the fortress. Once you get there, some bashibouzouks check your tickets and let you through to climb the ramp on foot. You can see the bivouacs of Turgut Bey’s army, they are preparing for the final assault on the fortress …tonight…

Through the smoke you can see some soldiers gathered around a crazy looking Kurdish clown who is entertaining them, berating the “…chicken Russians and their Armenian vassals who are hiding in the fortress with their women, and dare not come down to fight like men…” According to the young interpreter-guides accompanying us, the clown is shouting in fluent Kurdish and Turkish… The scene is obviously taken from Raffi’s “Khente” (did you read the book ?– if not, you can read or download a beautiful English translation in http://www.cilicia.com/armoz.html ).

We are now halfway up the ramp, in the no-man’s-land. We can hear both armies hurling insults and trying to intimidate each other. The last bashi-bouzouks we meet ask us to explain to these ‘giavours’ (infidel Christians) when we get up there, what they will do to them tomorrow once they take the fortress. It is definitively scary!

As we go further up we can see the beautiful monument to «Mayr Hayastan», standing high and proud above the smoke next to the fortress… Is this real? Will the Turkish army leave the monument untouched?… I remind myself this is just a sound & light show.

When we arrive at the fortress’ door we are greeted by this beautiful Armenian maiden, Sara. She is just gorgeous. She insists and repeats her name to us ‘Sar-a’ with one ‘r’, ‘mer lerneri bes’ she says; she has a pictogram to prove it. We are shown our seats inside the fortress by some elderly ladies who offer us ‘sourj’ (Armenian coffee) and later read our fortune in our cups. They are a bit jealous of Sara’s beauty and we learn that Sara is the Russian commander’s mistress. We learn about the history of the fortress: The city is now called Alexandropol. We learn that the few Russian troupes and the brave Armenian volunteers defending the fortress are exhausted, that they used the last water they had to, in legendary Armenian hospitality, serve us sourj. We learn that they sent volunteers to try and bring some water from the Akhourian but none of them returned. We learn that a crazy Armenian volunteer, Vartan was sent through the besieging Turkish lines to inform Count Smirnoff, the leader of the Russian armies in the Caucasus stationed in Kars about their desperate situation. Then we hear the Kroonks (cranes) fly over the fortress. Sara gets on stage and sings Gevorg Emin’s famous poem (Kroonk Kna, hayots tashdi, dzaghigue dar bantoukhdneri…. Per mer hayots, bantoukhdneri, ou yed tartsir, parov tarnass). She hardly finishes her song when there is an agitation among the defenders. We see the crazy Kurdish clown, he is Vartan, and he made it back through the Turkish lines. But he does not bear good news. Count Smirnoff cannot help relieve the besieged and has ordered the Russian garrison to abandon the fortress through the secret tunnel leading to the Akhourian River.

The Armenian volunteers have decided to stay and fight and will cover the Russian retreat. The Russian commander wants Sara to come with him. She gets on stage and sings this beautiful song. She is torn between going with her lover to safety and comfort and staying with her brethren to fight and die. I let you guess what she decides*… A few trumpet bursts signal the Russian retreat. After they leave their flag is lowered, and the Yerrakouyn is hoisted to face Turgut Bey’s hordes. The Kyumri folk-dance ensemble performs ‘Sartarabadi bar’ (war dance) on stage. We can now hear the ‘zoulgouts’(wails) of the Turkish women, from below the ramparts, encouraging their men for the final assault. We are summoned to the ramparts to help defend the fortress. The view is breathtaking. There is a huge number of Turkish infantry attacking with ladders and shining swords… Where did they get so many actors to play the role of Turkish attackers? Are there so many unemployed in Kyumri? Did they actually invite a Turkish crowd from across the border to participate in these games?…. I am a bit scared, but keep reminding myself that this is just a sound & light show…. Some Armenian defenders come to us and offer us rifles: for 200 drams (50 cents) we can actually take 3 shots at the Turkish attackers. For 5 dollars, we can blast them by firing the big cannon at them. I tried that, it was less personal, but what a trip it is when you see the Turkish attackers fly-off with their ladders….

The battle lasts as long as the tourists are willing to pay and shoot. Then suddenly there is this big noise. The platform on which we are standing near the ramparts is shaking like mad. I hold on to the ramp. We are told it is an earthquake. The attacking Turks are as petrified as we are. They take off leaving behind their ladders…. We are told this is the worse earthquake to hit the region. The fortress stands, but Alexandropol is destroyed. The Turks are gone but there is a lot required to build Ko-Mayri again. Sara and Vartan are there to lead the effort and inspire us**… Later on they may get married, and we’ll all gather to hear Aida sing Nigoghos Tashdjian’s Lorke, and we’ll all dance.

Sorry folks, this sound and light show is not staged “yet” in Kyumri. It is the product of my imagination. But I know we can do it, and I will work on it with all those interested. I am convinced the local hotels can fork-out some funds to help set it up. After all they will benefit from tourists staying overnight in Kyumri. Will the Mayor of Kyumri and the Governor of the Shiragui Marz offer the fortress to the youth co-operative to stage the show? Perhaps they can clean it up and transform it into a museum with paid and guided visits during the day? Would Kouyr Arousyag and her wonderful orphans help? Perhaps they can sow the costumes, sing, and perform?? What a job-creation idea? When revenues from the tourists cover the debt incurred for the purchase of sound and light equipment, the Kyumri actors will start getting paid. Does any of you know how whole villages in France and Italy participate in running their sound & light shows?

So many ideas… Let us get moving on this one too.

Letter 05: Pokrig Anahid's heart-breaking story

2002-07-27T20:12:00.001-04:00

Saturday, July 27, 2002

It’s been a long time since I last wrote. We’ve moved to our new apartment, adjusted to living on our own and starting new jobs…. But I feel compelled to write now, because some of the events and relationships I had not understood have come together…. So this text will have a few flashbacks and it is a bit emotional…

We are at home. Sheila is nursing the beginning of a cold…. She does not want to miss work on Monday. Yesterday, we had left work early with a few of the volunteers. Albert Pailaki Abramyan had invited us for a picnic in the mountains. He is a businessman I had helped when he was visiting Canada in 1997. His friend, art dealer, Badal Badalian (Arshile Gorky Gallery / Café on Abovian) and two other friends, Levon and Benig Shahumian got together to invite us, AVC volunteers. We’ve had a few of these tourist outings to beautiful spots which I should tell you about, but perhaps you should come and discover them yourselves. As you should discover the real taste of Armenia’s fresh fruits and vegetables. We’ve been through strawberries, mulberries, cherries tart and sweet, apricots, watermelons, cantaloupes, and of course the great tomatoes, cucumbers, parsley, green peppers and specially the scrumptious eggplants. Soon it will be grape and fig season... So we drove Friday, in 2 cars, to this beautiful spot, up the valley from Bjni (famous mineral water) to Solag, where we were treated to a wonderful Armenian Barb-Q (which reminded me of my Argentinean cousins’ “Parrilladas”). Our hosts dipped and swam in the pure mountain stream (ask me to show you the video… Sheila took some digital photos, which we will post soon on photos.yahoo.com/aterjanian ) …. We were cautious. I am glad Sheila did not swim this time; I would have been feeling responsible for her flu today…

So, remember Anahid, the mother in the family who hosted us during our first month? Some of you told me it was odd that she had named her daughter also Anahid! … Some of you were also curious about this beautiful 13 year old (pokrig Anahid = little Anahid)… Well she turned 14 on July 9, and we were invited to the Hovannissians’ home for the B-day… At that occasion we met again a few of those “not-real sisters, relatives”, but we also met for the first time “Babig”, a slightly parkinsonned man in his 70’s who was treated with respect by all (old people are always treated with respect here), who was presented to us as Pokrig Anahid’s grandfather but was neither Dadig’s husband nor Hagop’s father…. At the time, I asked a direct inquisitive question about “Babig” to cute Asdghig, a 20 year old relative (cousin? sister?) whom we had met looking after the orphans on our first Saturday in Armenia, when we went to the Sourp Asdvadzadzin Church… Asdghig laughed and gave me an evasive “I don’t know”…. Well, Anahid (the mother) called us this afternoon and offered to bring us their table lamp and some cutlery (which she said they did not use). Soon she was at our house, elegantly dressed, jovial and energetic as usual. She brought the lamp and the cutlery, we offered her a drink, she sat down and delicately told us. She said: Remember when you showed us the video you took on Anahid’s B-day, and you asked us, again, about who Babig was, and we gave you again an evasive answer? Well Babig, is truly pokr Anahid’s grandfather, but Anahit is not our natural daughter. We adopted her in very sad circumstances six years ago. Anahid is the youngest of 4 children (a sister and 2 brothers were presented to us at the B-day, but we thought yeah! more sisters/brothers). Their father abandoned them in despair (perhaps died?) in the dark years of the 93-95 Azeri gas sabotage/blockade, when there was no heat or electricity, when people froze in the dark, when Ann McLellan, then Canadian Minister of energy, refused to see then visiting Armenia’s Minister of energy (Sebouh Tashjian). A year later, the desperate mother found some hard to come-by kerosene (was it the kerosene we collected money for in Ottawa?). She poured it on herself and lit a match (perhaps to provide heat for the building occupants). That is when the unemployed Hovannissyans got to know Babig and his 4 young orphaned grandchildren. They brought them in to their house, gave them a bath, burned their infested clothes, dressed them and tried to share whatever food they had with them. Soon, they noticed the youngest, pokr Anahid, was very ill. She was diagnosed with cancer of …(I am not sure which – can you imagine at age 7!!!). Some volunteer American surgeon removed the organs surgically (with no electricity), but she had to undergo chemotherapy. The doctors gave her a couple of months to live; Anahid (mother) took her into her home to care for her before she died. That’s when they decided with Babig to baptise the 4 children. They baptised them in the little Gathoghigué church, near our present apartment. A miracle happened: Anahid survived, she got better. She is now this intelligent, delicate, polite, soft-spoken, beautiful 14-year-old. I am going to post some of her B-day photos on the yahoo site when I get a minute.

Sheila and I sat to watch the B-day video again. We watched the brothers, sister, Babig and his weathered sad face; we can see the resemblance. We now guess why some are called sister, brother… These people have been through a lot together… We look at these smiling but pensive faces on this B-day video… Why do they say that Armenians have sad eyes? Is it because they held back so many tears?

Letter 04 : Amberd and Mount Aragats

2002-06-24T20:11:00.001-04:00

Saturday, June 22, 2002

Today we drove to Amberd and Mount Aragats. We rented a minibus for the whole day (11 passengers from 9 till 18 hrs) and it cost us 15000 drams. The driver, Alig, is an actor-musician from the Spendiarian Institute. He plays percussion equipment and the Xylophone. Most of the Spendiarian artists have defected to the West. He decided to stay and earns his living driving the minibus. It was a beautiful day, and we were treated again to the beautiful sight of Ararat, all along. Amberd is a 12th century fortress that was destroyed by Timor Lang’s Mongol –Tatars before they sacked Baghdad in 1233. The fortress walls are still standing but the town below is destroyed. The Church outside the walls, however, has been repaired. (You can see the photos/description of this and other sites on www.cilicia.com ). The guide to the Church, Aram Manookian is a WWII veteran whose battalion was wiped-out during the siege of Stalingrad. He was wounded there but survived with 3 other companions and continued all the way to Berlin with Marshall Bagramian. You can see him in Atom Egoyan’s film ‘Calendar’. Of course the view of Ararat, from all angles, is spectacular. It is such a beautiful, clear and warm day. I cannot resist the call from the torrents running in the ravine on each side of the fortress. Soon I am bathing in and drinking from the limpid and cold water (sorry, no digital photo available).

On the way back, we take a vote: Shall we drive-up mount Aragats to the lake and the observatory? The yeas win, and Alig is happy to accommodate us. The paved road is a single lane, but reasonable. Alig is a good driver, but we have to stop in high altitude to let the motor cool down (and allow our bodies to adjust to the altitude. We pass by some shepherd encampments. The shepherds in Armenia are mainly Yezdis (pagan tribes of Armenia). Their encampments looked like Gypsy camps, but I noticed a car covered in cloth, to protect it (keep it new?) from the elements. Again Ararat seemed to grow taller as we rose up Aragats. I now know why: From Yerevan, unless you are on a very tall building, you really only see the two peaks of Ararat. However when you climb a mountain or a tall building, the higher you go the more you can see of the valley between Ararat and you, and the more you can see the full body of Ararat from his peak to his feet.

To reach the lake and the Aragats observatory, the road goes through eight feet high snow-banks, but in the sunny slopes, the grounds are bare and green. We are high above the tree line, and there are no trees. The air is rare. The lake is mainly frozen, but the beach is bare and the crystal clear water is inviting. Some of us dare go in, knee-deep. It is a beautiful sunny day. I am in short sleeves. Someone has planted a huge cross on the hill dominating the lake. The observatory buildings are modern looking. An enterprising family has brought-in a camper trailer which they use to serve light meals and refreshments from, to the visitors. There is a middle-aged man who has packed about 10 children in his 4-wheel-drive (new-looking) vehicle and brought them there for a picnic lunch. The children run all-over the snowy slopes… a great spring-skiing day (Toros: don’t forget your snowboard!). The man is eager to engage us. He insists that we join them. He offers us kyababs wrapped in lavash, delicious tomatoes and cucumbers, wine and oghi. Most of these children are not his, but he brought them up for an outing. In the rarefied air near the peak of Aragats, this man exhales Armenian pride and happiness. Meanwhile, Sarah has befriended the family with the camper-trailer. They offered her (and our group) ‘sourj’ (Armenian coffee), she has not yet finished her cup when we have to get back in the minibus. She had turned her coffee cup upside-down, but there is no time to read it… The young son of the café owner is bewitched by Sarah's charm. He predicts that they will read the cup when she comes back in a month. I am in a teasing mood, I can’t resist it, I start singing*: “Sareri hovin merrnem… Im yari boyin merrnem… Me amiss a Kenaliss… desnoghin achkin merrnem” .. Our group has caught-on to my teasing mood and roars the now well rehearsed refrain: “kena, kena, hedt yem hahahahahahaha!… Sarino yar djan, varino yar djan, our vor yertas modet yem-ha, sarino yar djan, varino yar djan” met by great laughter and accompaniment of the family. …And then, we hear this voice from the lake. It is that of a pubescent young male singing. His voice, unwavering, rises majestically over our laughter. Alig turns-off his engine. No one utters a word. We can see the boy standing, above the food spread on the ground, and his family’s picnic. There is no hesitation in his voice. He is singing about the longing for the fatherland…. He goes on and on… he names them all: the lost cities, the mountains, the valleys, the rivers on the south side of Masis …the whole song!…. It is as if time froze on this frozen lake on top of Mount Aragats. … Is the song finished? We applaud…. I don’t look at the others. I know, like me, they have tears in their eyes.

* « May I die in the wind of the mountains…. May I die in the beauty of my beloved… My beloved is gone for a month…May I die in the eye of the one who sees him/her ». Refrain : “Go, go, I’m with you hahahahahahaha! ..My beloved of the mountain, my beloved of the valley, wherever you go I’m with you-ha! My beloved of the mountain, my beloved of the valley”

Monday, June 24, 2002

We have just rented our own nicely furnished 2-bedroom apartment, starting June 30. So we have a guest room if you come. We are paying 270 USD / month plus heat & electricity.

Letter 03: Kouyr Arusiag’s orphans in the Dzaghgadzor summer camp

2002-06-15T20:09:00.000-04:00

Saturday, June 15, 2002

We’re waiting for the minibus promised to us for 9:00 a.m. to drive us to Dzaghgadzor, to meet the orphans of ‘Kouyr Arusyag’ (Sister Arusyag), the Armenian Catholic nun who spend 30 years teaching children in Philadelphia and decided to devote herself to the orphans of Armenia. To save time, we take a taxi to the ice-cream factory to buy ice-cream sticks as a treat for the children. The factory is near the Dzidzernagaberd Genocide Memorial. It seems like a state-of-the-art factory. Well organised, clean… we bought the 150 sticks at wholesale prices, in record time, no sweat… Armenians love ice cream! There is plenty of freezer-chests plugged-in all-over town selling ice cream to go… They are delicious, and your best Haagen-dash chocolate with nuts stick imitation costs less than 200 drams on the street (50 cents Cad.).

We finally take-off at 11:00 and climb the Caucasus range to leave Yerevan. The scenery is as beautiful as our first Saturday, and Ararat still dominates everything. We go by the castle built by the owner of the Kotayk beer factory; it is baroque looking, perched on top of a hill… Is it fortified? To redeem himself, the Kotayk owner has built an Armenian Church close-by, downhill from his castle.

We arrive at the Hrazdan hydroelectric plant. This is a major project built to help Armenia gain energetic self-sufficiency. It is supposed to bring excess water from Lake Sevan through huge underground pipes. Unfortunately, because of the Azeri blockade of the gas supply from Turkmenistan and acts of sabotage by Azeris in Georgia, Armenia has been forced to use more water than the excess, and the water level at Lake Sevan has been steadily falling in the last 10 years.

The city of Hrazdan, 70 000 inhabitants, used to be Armenia’s fourth largest city before the earthquake that wiped-out Leninakan in 1988. It is now the third largest city, but is a sight for sore eyes! Potholes all-over the downtown streets. The factories that used to produce Soviet tanks and armoured vehicles are shut. The engineers who worked there have left (Yerevan, Russia, anywhere)… Would you blame them?

Dzaghgadzor is a further 20 minutes away. It is Scotland all-over again… this time we see a lot of sheep. We pass by a beautiful church/monastery complex that we promise ourselves to visit. Dzaghgadzor was the training site for Soviet winter olympians and the facilities are still there, ski lifts and accommodation. We arrive at the ‘Diramayr Djambar’ (the Camp of the Mother of God). 150 orphans aged 5 to 16, neatly dressed are lined-up outside to welcome us. Some are wearing traditional Armenian folk costumes, and Kouyr Arusyag is standing in front with two of these folklore clad girls, offering the new comers the traditional bread and salt. We wish them that they never run-out of these. This ceremony is followed by a folkloric dance performed in the open by some of the older girls. We are then invited to have a small chat before lunch with sister Arusyag. Another nun, Sister Rebecca, having heard we are Terjanians wonders if we know her relatives. Her brother married a Terjanian. Guess what! She is Lena Avsharian’s father’s sister! What a small world! (Visit our Yahoo photo album: http://photos.yahoo.com/aterjanian to see all the photos related to my letters from Armenia).

Kouyr Arusyag is full of stories about the orphans, some of them were orphaned by the 1988 earthquake, and many are social orphans. Parents, who are so desperate, they have to abandon their children. She refuses to admit many who are not really desperate cases. Very sad stories …. Sister Arusyag hovers over the children as if they were her own. She does not keep boys once they reach puberty… She knows ‘how strong nature is’ she says with a twinkle in her eyes. Armenian orphans are not different. She tells us how Markar was pampered to death by all the girls: they quarrelled about who was going to iron his shirt, bring him his lunch, sit next to him in class… “kich menats Markarin bid loghatsenenk” (what next? Are you girls going to give him a bath?) Cries Kouyr Arusyag! She also tells of Lousineh she was 18 and was in charge of feeding the chickens. She went to feed them so often that they noticed there was more than chicken feed involved. The young man came to ask for her hand from Kouyr Arusyag, who reluctantly agreed to a wedding before she turned 19. But he was a good young man. The orphans are taught a regular school curriculum in the orphanage and live in it (in Gyumri – this is their summer camp). K. Arusyag dreams of preparing them better for the working world. She wants to create a vocational school for them, with practical skills. She pleads with us, she was promised a volunteer by the AVC to teach the orphans English. A 19-year-old French-Swissess, freshly out of high school has just arrived volunteering to teach French for one month. K. A. is desperate for help. Are any of you out there interested? Here is her new email adress 2003: diramer@web.am

We are invited for lunch. The older children serve the meal. The service is impeccable; K.A. wants her children to get positions in the growing tourist industry in Armenia. She has even expanded 2 new wings with individual and double rooms and suites to receive vacationers and small conferences ($ 20 per night 3 meals included); this will allow her to rely a bit less on donor money. I am sitting across from her. She is so lively talking to her guests, yet running the whole show at the same time. She asks if we have any children, then she asks for their names. When I mention Toros, she pauses a moment, the name rings a bell, she once knew a Toros Terjanian. I tell her it is my father. She pauses again; this time she has an expression on her face. She looks at me; she does not say anything. We both remain silent, biting our lips, then we move on. I am sure she has a story there…. One day perhaps she will tell me.

After lunch we visit the different wings, we see where the older children are taught to make beautiful embroidery. Yes, they will embroider table-clothes according to specs. We plan to order one. We see where they sleep in bunk beds, 8 to a room, approximately all the same age. I remember the story K.A. told us about these 5 girls aged 5 to 14 whom she discovered living alone in Gyumri. The family had managed to survive the earthquake, but the economic collapse was too tough on the father who abandoned them in shame. The mother turned to prostitution, of all places in Turkey. When first discovered, the children refused to go to the orphanage. K.A. kept insisting. They put a condition: If you don’t separate us, we will come. This strong-as-steel nun made an exception, the 5 children all sleep in the same room.

We are then invited to their auditorium; there is a small stage. The children recite poetry and perform beautiful folksongs and dances in authentic costumes, made by themselves. They sing ‘Kna Groong, Hayots Tashdi, Dzaghigue dar, Bantoukhdneri. Ararati, Dzouyn dar tevit, Djour Sevana, Bantoukhdnerin**’. Our tears flow.

We then go out to discover that they have a small park on the property they have named ‘Robert Burns Park’ and have posted one of his poems on the sign. Sheila turns red (see photo). To top it all, the children cross their arms and join hands to wish us good-bye singing ‘Aule Lang Syne’ in Armenian. Sheila can’t take it anymore, she is weeping openly.

On the way back we stop to visit the beautiful church-convent complex built over different periods by the Pakhlavouni princes and completed in the 13th century. It has been recently renovated thanks to funds from the Arutyunian family. The four churches in the complex are truly beautiful, austere but warm, some of the ‘vortan garmir’ (the red dye extracted from a red nematode) paintings are still standing on the main door arch. What a tribute to the Armenian genius in Architecture that so many churches have survived in an earthquake-prone zone.

The countryside is so beautiful; I can see the heatherrr, but can’t smell it. Along the highway, young men are selling colourful wild flower bouquets in gorgeous symmetric designs (antaram dsaghigner). At least they are doing something useful with their time. Unemployment is so high in Armenia. Is it not the root of all these social problems?

I have met so many construction engineers, either unemployed or doing (trying to do) something else. Can’t we employ these skills? There are so many construction contracts being awarded around the world, can we not have an Armenian company bidding on these. Apparently one such small Armenian Company bid on a contract in Kuwait, they had all the qualification, but they could not post the bid-bond and were eliminated…. Couldn’t we find a sister Canadian or American Company that would bid jointly with them and benefit from bid-bond posting by an agency such as the CCC? If any of you is interested, we could work together for the next suitable contract that comes up…. I believe Armenia should export ‘services’… any ideas? Will employment agencies in Ireland be interested in 5$ per hour qualified labour? We should all be creative with ideas and finding and facilitating contacts for Armenians to create employment…

We arrive late to Yerevan. We had invited our host family and Anahid Keusseyan for supper at the fresh fish restaurant (England Garden). Thank God for mobile phones, we had called from the minibus to tell them that we would be a bit late. They are waiting patiently and we walk to the restaurant. In fact we have been walking all the time in Yerevan. It is great not to have a car. We walk everywhere… 15 minutes to work, 10 minutes to lunchtime restaurants and we usually take a longer walk in the evening. The Fish restaurant is 16 minutes away; we invited Anahid Keusseyan to meet us there. It is called England Garden. They have a pool in the middle with water fountains springing, a forest of climbing vines cover the whole garden, and we sit to eat under these. They serve ‘Ishkhanatzoug’ (‘Prince of Fish’) it is live in the pool, they pick the one you want and cook it for you the way you like. We chose ‘Khorovadz’ (Bar-b-q’d) and ‘Lavashov’ (wrapped in Armenian paper-thin bread ‘Lavash’ with butter and baked). They were both delicious, and we paid by the kilo (3000 drams /Kg… 8 $Cad/kg). A first class 5-person live band played beautiful romantic and dance music, including folklore with traditional instruments (duduk)…We paid for the whole meal, including wine and tip 14000 drams ($46 Cad for 6 people). Yerevan is full of outdoor cafes and restaurants many within public parks with view of the water and live swans and children boating entertainment, all very affordable. For instance a glass bottle of Coca-Cola is 200 drams in a restaurant; hard liquor wine and beer are even comparatively cheaper than Canada: 300 drams for a shot (50 cl) of vodka in the best hotel in Yerevan. We had been very careful in the first week and ate no uncooked or un-peeled vegetables. We have followed advice and experience and adjusted slowly and are now eating and drinking almost anything …with moderation… what a delight!)

The fruits in Armenia are the best I have tasted anywhere in the world. We only eat the local fruits that are in season. Now it is the mulberries’ first season, and they are scrumptious. We pass under several mulberry trees on our way to work everyday, and we always stop to pick a few. Last week it was the peak of Cherries and strawberries, also delicious. We are waiting for the apricot season. Fruits are so plentiful and delicious in season. I pay 1 cad$ per kilo of mulberries (in Canada they are for at least15 $ per Kilo. Imported bananas are the same as in Canada; we buy them to please the Dadig who lives with us.

Letter 02: The Orran urchins

2002-06-12T20:07:00.000-04:00

Wednesday, June 12, 2002

This afternoon we visited the ‘Orran’ (the haven) Centre in downtown Yerevan. It is an old building that smells like boiled hamburger fat, where the social ministry or other institutions send street-children. Children are fed and taught there and sent back home (usually single parent families). Orran’s director is Gail Howard, who came to Armenia with the Red Cross and is now managing this centre created by Raffi Hovannissyan’s wife. Gail is a wonderful woman with a huge heart and bosoms to match.

There were some 50 children there when we came, and Sheila pointed-out a young boy who reminded her of Raffi. He turned-out to be one of the smartest ones and was the first to win a candy in the little intellectual/vocabulary games our volunteers had prepared for the children. I don’t know if they had had enough candy that day (I’d be surprised), but several of these children came to me and offered me the candy they had just won, as if I needed any candy at my age. Among all of these children yelling with delight to try and win these small competitions set-up by us volunteer foreigners, one of the boys, Ashot was sitting very quietly and not participating in any of the competitions. When we wanted to have those who had not won any candy try-out on easier questions, he still would not participate; he said he did not know the answers. Yet he was quiet and looked healthy and clean dressed. I pointed him out to Gail during their class break. She said that he might be having a bad day and she quickly went to him and took him under her wings and brought him inside.

In the hallway they had a series of photographs from the life of a 72 year-old lady who is fed at Orran. There was also a summary of her life story that they had compiled for her birthday. Both her parents were orphans that took refuge in Yerevan after the 1915 genocide. She was born in 1930 and had been an important teacher who participated in different communist congresses in Hungary and Czechoslovakia. Some of these old people tell the kids their life stories and about the way life was in the old days, the children find their stories very interesting. What is interesting to me is to see from how high these elderly people have fallen: from participating in international conferences abroad in Soviet times, to being clients of Orran now.

Gail asked for some of us to volunteer with her centre for she had no one to look after the elderly. Arina immediately volunteered.

Letter 01b: First impressions (continued) Lousavorich Cathedral

2002-06-02T20:01:00.000-04:00

Sunday June 2, 2002 We slept-in… our hostess did not want to disturb us and waited patiently… we have 20 minutes to be in church… fortunately across the street… We make it in time for the ‘tapor’ procession. The church is impressive… The largest Armenian Church ever built. At the entrance, a small marble kiosk containing the relics of Sourp Krikor Lousavorich, recently returned to Armenia by the Vatican.. The ‘tapor’ is impressive… I am moved to see the faithful gather to the side of the church to try and touch/kiss the banner, kiss the cross in the bishop’s hand… The deacons exhaling encens from their little ‘encensoirs’ the others shaking the small bells… the faithful donate encens from their hands straight into the recipient held by the head-deacon. This is their offering!… they go all around the huge church… It is beautifully built… The painting of the mother and child on the altar is unique.. They look Armenian (it is a painting made by Soureniants in the 19th century and donated to Etchmiadzin. The original is in the Etchmiadzin museum (just behind the altar). The faithful take the order to worship God literally and some bow to the ground and kiss it (the word for ‘worship God’ in Armenian is: “Asdoudzo yergir-bakestsouk” which literally means ‘kiss the ground before God’… other faithful touch the ground with their hand and kiss it… There is a young man from Karabagh, standing proud to my left, he makes those huge and slow signs of the cross every time, starting on the top of his head, widely across his shoulder… He seems so proud to do it, almost boasting to be Christian…Yet he bowed his head with such humility towards the altar every time..

Then there is the group-confession… the priest is standing there in his black robe, with a lot of humility in his eyes, the flock kneeling in the side of the church on a large carpet, surrounding him… someone reads an unaudible list of sins and the crowd roars ‘Megha Asdoudzo’ (I sinned Lord)… The priest in all humility, not pompous at all, grants them God’s pardon, then comes the next list, the roar again and the pardon..

I was shocked at communion time, all lined-up for the altar, so I stayed a bit behind… there were too many people, then I saw this head deacon tell a bunch of them to get back below the altar, rather unceremoniously I thought.. I thought to myself, I am glad I was patient… Then a lady told me I should be up-there with the men, first… That’s when I realized the head- deacon had chased away the women (at least 60% of the faithful of the Church that day)… I wasn’t going to make a point then, I went for communion with the men… later I told my host about this event… he assured me, it was in the scriptures (Bible or Gospel ???) he promised to show it to me…

End of week one Friday, June 7, 2002 He did show it to me…. It was Saint Paul’s Epistle… The great Misogyne… We did have several friendly discussions on the subject, in the presence of his wife… who is very smart/vivacious, but willing to play second fiddle… They discuss decisions before they are made… They are happy together, they went through ups and downs together… Waiting for the men to have Communion first is not that important. It still bugs me…I am going to ask him had he had a son in addition to his daughter would he, as in KSA have his son eat first then send the leftovers to the women in the family? Why wouldn’t the Lord’s table be the same? I know of course the answer.. they don’t do that here, they eat all together… It is the Church! someone has decided on a certain interpretation of the scriptures and the traditions… Yet I noticed, they did not enforce the rule about women covering their hair to have Communion… Also, unlike the Catholic Church, the Armenian Church has remained neutral in the debate on abortion and birth control… Progressive?

We have had a marvelous week… Our host family is so nice. Every time I travel, I never let my guard down for the whole trip… I spent 2 years like that in Senegal… Here, I am completely relaxed at home. I can sleep on both ears the whole night…This is such a great way to get to know a country and people… getting to live with a family… We learn so much from them and vice versa.. I would have never thought that Sheila and I would sleep together in a ¾ size bed, and manage to share one bathroom with a family, with water only available 2 hours in the morning and 3 hours in the evening… and be delighted..

We have had Armenian language classes in the mornings, and lectures on development in the afternoons… very interesting… It is interesting to get to know the other volunteers and hear of their motivating factors.. Many of them are very smart and capable… It is going to be interesting to see how many mountains we can move together!

I worked during lunch or ran errands, but twice I had lunch with the group and got to know some of them.. I have been careful, drinking only bottled or boiled water, no uncooked veggies or fruits… I have not been sick and will start eating slowly a bit of cucumbers and tomatoes tonight, as well as a small cup of water every two days, till I get used to their conditions…

This morning, we got Ararat and little Massis on the digital….One mystery is solved about the ‘mystic’ mountain… It was simply technical, about focusing on the right spot… We are still attracted by the mountain, and whenever we get a chance we take a few steps or stretch our necks to see it, as if to make sure it is there, or to help us orient ourselves…We are yet to figure-out how to transfer the photos to Sheila’s computer, so we can email them, or perhaps set-up a public website.

Sunday, June 9, 2002 09/06/02 8:07 We had a good and long night’s sleep. Yesterday we went with all the volunteers to help a man build a cement patio to his house. It is part of the ‘Habitat Armenia’ project… He had filled an application and 20 volunteers were brought over with an engineer by truck. We mixed gravel, crushed-stone, sand and cement, cured it with water, then mixed it again and carried it and laid it on the platform with steel rods. Six hours’ work for 20 youths, with 2 coffee breaks and a celebrative lunch out in the open, with a view of the glenns, the new constructions, the orchards and the rubble. It was a great team effort, great spirit, with Armenian songs, wine, juice, tsoreni oghi (vodka made of wheat and Armenia’s pure water), even Armyanski Shampanskoiy The whole interspersed with toasts to friendship, Armenian brotherhood, wishes of a happy life in the new home to the family ( younger looking wife, 3 sons and a daughter age 6-11, and a husband who looks like he has aged, shy about receiving this free help)…. No neighbours showed-up to help, but they were quite benevolent when I went to borrow extra shovels, rakes.. feeling of a disconnect… Are we a drop in the bucket? Do we make any difference? Does one really move mountains a pebble at a time? … We are all tired, muscles aching, but careful not to overstrain our backs… We returned piled in the back of the truck, tired but happy and jovial with a sense of having achieved something!..

In the evening, at supper time, we started-out talking about cheating and corruption in society and ended-up arguing with Hakob about moral values in Communism and scriptures-based religion. He grew-up as a communist atheist till age 22… his family fled Van in 1915 and took refuge in Etchmiadzin, and it was the Armenian Church that looked after all these refugees. Unlike the Russian Imperial Church, the Armenian Church was frugal and monastic. Although there was some good in the ideal of communism of sharing, they had reigned by terror. It wasn’t the ideal of comrade communism that made local merchants and official not cheat, it was the terror that if many people reported against them Moscow would interfere and the official or party boss be purged. It was ‘terror’… There isn’t one family that has not lost one or several members to the terror… and it was not Russians doing it, it was local Armenian commies. While he saw some merit to Nikita Krutshov’s and Gorbachov’s resigning from power, other Communist leaders were corrupted by power and clung to it… to him, morality could not exist without religion… but he does not necessarily represent mainstream Armenian thought…

Before going to bed, I notice a new face in the kitchen, a frail and young looking woman… She is sitting at the table, and Hakob is having a ‘serious’ conversation with her… I had not heard the bell ring… I found-out from the Tatig, she was hungry, she came in to eat… It must not be the first time…

Monday, June 10, 2002 We had a great day yesterday, Sunday. We started by taking a walk to the ‘Vernissage’. It used to be a park where artists exposed their paintings all day Saturday and Sunday. It is now a large flee market. Most good artists have gone back to the park near the Opera. We could have spent the whole day there. There is beautiful artifacts, carpets, hand made/decorated table-clothes, china, pots, antiques, music instruments, among which the famous Armenian ‘duduk’ made of apricot wood… We had to leave for we were invited to Kegham’s sister, Esfira. She lives up the mountain, on the road to Lake Sevan, just next to the Coca-Cola factory. We climb up the highway built during the war by German war prisoners. We go by the light-bulb factory… It used to export to the whole Soviet Union, it is now operating at 20% capacity, a large part of it’s equipment has been cannibalised and exported to Iran. Esfira’s daughter (Laoura) had come downtown to pick us up, so we don’t loose our way there. She has hired a taxi and had him waiting for us at the steps of St. Krikor Lousavorich where we agreed to meet… she did not want us to waste time looking for a taxi… so thoughtful… She is the Egyptian Ambassador’s assistant. She had studied Persian and Arabic at the Institute in Soviet times… The Iranian Embassy would not hire her unless she were married, but the Egyptians did, and they treat her very well. The Egyptian Ambassador’s daughter, 6, speaks fluent Armenian, with no accent. We go by the youth palace with its revolving restaurant, now occupied by refugees from Gyumri and Karabagh , the victory memorial,. Laoura is a great guide. We finally reach the house, kind of semi-detached clinging to the mountainside with a fruit orchard behind it. Laoura uses her mobile phone to warn her mother that we are there in 2 minutes. The table is copiously filled… There’s enough for 20 people, they had set places for 7 people… I had misunderstood that I should have invited our host family.. We call them, and the 2 Anahids come by Marshoot… It takes them half an hour, Laoura goes out to wait for them in front of the Coke factory.

The food is marvelous, Esfira has even prepared the Apricot juice from her own orchard. She has a delicious apricot liqueur and a cherry liqueur made from her own orchard fruits and Armenian wheat-vodka made with the best water in the world… They drink the best Coke, made with the best water, then she brings-out the ‘apricot lavash’ an apricot jam dried and preserved like a flat thin bread, also home made, paper-thin, out of this world, like everything else. Esfira was trained as a construction engineer and worked for 18 years in the light-bulb factory down the road. She has been unemployed since but tries her hand at everything…. From wool tricot to food preserves… seems like not much income though, although that does not alter her generous hospitality. Her son is looking for work in Moscow… She will NEVER leave… she will be here to say good-bye to the last Armenian leaving Armenia… Armenia is like Lake Sevan she says, the water level goes down,, but one day it will come back up again… She reminds me of Shake Guenkababian’s mother, diguin Arousyag… we watch some videos of Kegham that I shot in Ottawa, they are in tears… time flies… we have to meet our next social appointment who are also waiting for us outside so that we do not loose our way. Laoura has called for a taxi… we realise she has prepaid for it….

Our new hosts are the young Armenian-American couple who volunteered last year. They are about to return. Kohar Der-Simonian’s mother is of French-Canadian descent in central Maine. Armen Karapetyan is an economist whose family came to the US from Iran… They live in this modernised apartment near the opera. It has been such a re-birth for them to work a year in Armenia. She, with a political science degree, was just accepted into medical school in the US, otherwise they would have stayed. He was hired by ARLEX. We nibble at their food and listen to their stories. They are very descent people, with a big heart. The hardest story comes from Armen… he was walking down the street, this cold evening, this frail young man comes to him and says: ‘Sovadz-yem aghpeyr… pors mashel eh’ ( ‘ I am hungry brother, my stomach is worn-out’)… Armen runs to the store to buy and give him some food… By the time he’s back, the man is no longer there, he had not realised that Armen ran to get him food. This memory still bothers Armen, who now carries bread on him.

There are of course some professional beggars, who make it difficult to identify the bad cases… This is a society that suddenly moved from a communist welfare state to one where they divided-up ownership of everything among themselves and each was left to his own. After the factories stopped functioning for a few years, people got tired of acting like they were going to their factories/offices and not receiving any pay, the government divided-up the land, houses and means of production to the workers, and they all started to look for ways to earn a living. Some never succeeded. Hakob, our host, was unemployed from 1995 to 1999. With a partner he tried to open a small commerce. He used to leave at 7:30 in the morning and return at 11:00 at night. Often he'd fall asleep in the Metro and miss his station and have to walk back. There is still a large proportion of unemployed people, many have emigrated, fleeing unemployment and corruption.

Antoine Terjanian
Still trying to move mountains
www.armenianvolunteer.org

Letter 01.: First impressions

2002-05-31T19:56:00.000-04:00

May 31, 2002, 4: 30 a.m. Austrian Airlines has just flown over the Black Sea, and entered Anatolia over Trabizond… We fly over Erzeroum, and I wish I could see the two peaks towering over Terjan… but I’ll try to take a flight that lands in Yerevan at a more Christian hour, in daylight… Perhaps on the way back I will finally be able to take that air shot of Terjan’s peaks… Isn’t it good that Turkey has opened its airspace for flights to and from Armenia?

It is dark out, and I can see the lights of all the villages… Are these in Armenia? We land in Zvartnots airport… I remember it from a Soviet picture book, with its futuristic architecture à la CDG… It is now an old cement structure whose metal re-enforcements are showing like the bones of a cadaver being mauled by wild dogs…

Early this morning, people on the ground are extremely welcoming, and the air is still and clean, and very pleasant. I remember Kegham’s words about how beautiful Ararat is when you land at Zvartnots. I know it will sound corny, but I ask a young official on the tarmac: in which direction is Ararat, hoping that I could be the first to photograph it… She’s cute, she smiles, diaspora Armenians must have asked this question before, she points to it and says you could see it in an hour… So I hoped the line-up would be long and slow at passport control, so we could see it, photograph it… The line-up was long, but not disorganised, and officials were very kind and helpful… but the place is a dump. When I asked for the toilets, they were available before passport control, but they were decrepit, with water taps running from lack of maintenance and the walls and toilet bowl’s ceramics browned from neglect… Not a good impression…I am told Zvartnots will soon be privatised and made more presentable…

But people were friendly and helpful despite the surrounding decay…There were a few guys who came around and tried to get your luggage stubs (so they could claim to be the first to offer you a taxi ride to town.) but they weren’t at all threatening… We met a young lady from Lyon, who is coming to Yerevan for a wedding… What a great idea… You get 10 times the bang for your buck here. She got an 8 day return ticket for 455 Euros. Her sister whose MEA flight arrived 1 hour later had gotten a ticket from Paris, including a week stay in Beirut for 435 Euros…

Sheila finally gets her visa (no sweat, US$ 30_ cheaper than the $60 in Ottawa and probably with as much time to waste)… We clear passports, and our luggage is all there… How pleasant. An official comes to me and sees I am claiming them and asks for my luggage stickers. He is satisfied they are ours and offers to get us a trolley from outside… he did not ask for any money… I was so pleased I gave him 5 $… we were waved through customs, and Jason Demerjian who had come to the airport to greet us at this unchristian hour and had waived to us from the window when we arrived, was waiting for us with 2 AVC drivers outside. Several men offer to help us with our heavy luggage and do not take no for an answer, so I gave one of them 1 $… and we drove off in 2 cars… On the way out of the airport I ask the driver for Ararat. Dawn is barely allowing us to see the buildings around us, and then suddenly over a small bridge, there it was…Huge, dominating the landscape, majestic, white, with his little brother, so pointed so elegant. I ask if I can take a photo… with my new Nikon digital… I had it on movie… nothing came out… But I was happy to have seen it… little did I know that it was to be always there, most every time you turn around, from most places in Yerevan and the countryside, you can always see Ararat….

The 20 minutes ride to town is uneventful except for two stops by police to the second car… very quickly resolved… did they have banknotes in their driver’s license book?

It is light when we arrive to Yervand Kochar Street, we see the new Krikor Lousavorich cathedral, and our host, Hakob Hovannissyan is out there on the street, gesticulating to our driver so he shows him how to enter the parking lot… They all carry our luggage up a very dark flight of stairs, through a lugubre building entrance. Upstairs our hostess, Anahid, in a brightly lit and super clean apartment is waiting with a full dinner table… We meet another staff. Ann Sargsyan, and we all sit at the table, for some food, wine and Konyak… I have a sip of wine… Soon their 13-year-old daughter, also Anahid, very kindly shy emerges from her bedroom all dressed and welcomes us sooo politely, and so serviably, sooo well behaved… Is she always like that?…. She IS !!!

Jason leaves, we are given a large bedroom (by local standards, their master-bedroom) with a ¾ bed… They had emptied the cupboard, and equipped us with a radio-alarm clock… we unpack and Sheila goes to sleep.

I go for a walk downtown with the 2 Anahids… We walk through a series of parks…My first feeling is disappointment, because of the rubble from street work and renovations on the sidewalk…. But that evening we go to nicer parts of town, although the grass is not mowed in the public parks (lots of them scattered about town – hey! I thought they had cut all the trees in Yerevan when they were at war with the Azeris and the heating and electricity were cut-off… but no, there is plenty of mature trees everywhere, and birds singing… ), in the privatised areas (to outdoor restaurants and cafés) all is trimmed and proper, and the prices oh so reasonable… The “England Garden” has a pool with water fountains, and they have fresh trout on the menu. They pick-up the live fish that you choose from the pool and if you like it they weigh it for you and prepare it… you pay by the kilo…

Saturday June 1. We are up early, so we decide to go and see Ararat from the parvis of the cathedral. At 6:00 a.m. it is there HUGE, GLORIOUS…. How can it not impress you?… We ask the keeper to take our photo… he does; we look good, but can’t see Ararat in the digital Nikon screen… Is he invisible?

We have decided to go with our hosts and their underprivileged school children classes for an excursion in the Ashtarak district…. We walk to the gathering spots for the 2 medium buses waiting for us and the school children with their single parents waiting. It is neither the most organised nor the most disorganised I’ve seen, and we pack 70 people in these 2 buses and climb the hills to exit Yerevan The more you climb the Caucasus slopes, the more Ararat seems bigger… It is a glorious day, and the teachers and children sing songs that I know… Suddenly the children start singing Loorke, with the words composed by Nigoghos Tashjian, the Ottawa Bard! The song has been around the world!

Climbing these mountain roads is not easy, the road is narrow, no protection or railing from the precipices we drive along, but everyone seems to feel safe… they drive slowly and there is hardly any traffic.. We pass by the Puyrakan Astro laboratory, near Amberd. The glenns and the meadows are just like around Dunblane and Inverness… I look in vain for Uncle Ebbie’s railway line, and I can’t find any heather either!…We have to stop several times to ask for the way to our destination; we even back-track and re-backtrack, until suddenly at a curve, it appears, black in its basalt dress, the Sourp Asdvadzadzin Church, intact, built in 1253, perched on top of a hill, watching over the valley, staring at Ararat… It is a beautiful day… we feel very comfortable… and I point out to the Hovannessyans the Ouri in front of the church, it is a ‘Happy’ Willow, a true native tree of Armenia, just like the ourenis we have at the farm, and with the same amount of leaves…. Now it is time to sing and dance the Pap-ouri…

Gourken, the Church guard is happy to open the church and show us in, explaining that the black basalt quarry used to build the Church is 2 km away, and no one has figured out how the 21 ton single piece columns were rolled over the rocky hills to bring them there… The church is dark inside, but the teachers brought candles, and the children are so happy to light them and recite the Lord’s prayer. According to Gourken, the church is cool in the summer and warm in the winter, although there is no glass on the openings that let light in..

The children play in the church yard, they are well coached to keep the place clean, not to litter, not to pick the (wild) flowers… they have fun games (searching for candy in a flour pan with their muzzle)… they look funny and are jovial…. Sandwiches of paper-thin lavash bread wraps are distributed for lunch… On the way back we stop on the side of a road and let the children pick wild flowers for their mothers… soon we are back in Yerevan. One of the mothers asks me about her 9-year-old son: Char er? (was he naughty?) I had to admit I didn’t notice anyone misbehaving, in these packed buses… they were all dealt with with kindness, happiness and laughter by the teachers.

On the walk back home, we stop at AVC, they had just had a successful day of volunteers for ‘Makour Yerevan’ and were still doing work at the office… a dedicated, happy bunch.. We stop in a terrace-restaurant and have some ‘assortie’ pizza with delicious and cheap Armenian beer…. We are exhausted.

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2002-04-12T13:47:00.000-04:00