Letters from Armenia, by Antoine Terjanian

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 a...

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, our 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 Nakhi...

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 portr...

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 fest...

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 ti...

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 us...

Octobre 2004 I was so surprised to find a brand new building in downtown Yeghegnadzor when I returned from Ottawa this October. It is beautiful; its architecture is inspired from Tamanian’s Yerevan and Venice’s Palazzo Ducale. 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 (Bishop Abraham). There was nothing in that spot last December when we 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. I learned that the Srpazan is from Rind (pronounced rrind, as in ring), a small village some 20 kms from our home in Yeghegnadzor, off of the Si...