Letters from Armenia, by Antoine Terjanian

Like many others in Armenia, Gagik has had to leave Armenia to find work. He could not keep up with his debts. He went to Siberia, where he hopefully has a decent paying job so he can pay back his debts and attend to his family's needs. Our French friend Dominique sent him another EUR 250; sadly, the automatic teller ate EUR 30 before he got them.

Il y avait une fois, il n’y avait pas une fois, il y avait [*] un chauffeur aux cheveux blancs qui avait un jeune garçon de deux ans quand je l’ai rencontré. Il attendait au bas de la montagne, sur la route qui mène à Erevan avec 3 passagers. J’allais prendre le minibus (marshroutka) pour 1 200 drams, un des passagers m’ayant reconnu, me proposa d’être le 4 e passager de la Lada de Gagik pour 2 000 drams et d’arriver à Erevan plus vite. Depuis je l’ai vu plusieurs fois non loin de l’arrêt des minibus, et, voyant qu’il voulait du travail rémunérant, j’ai commencé à lui proposer de petits travaux et de longs trajets. Nous l’avons aussi recommandé à ceux qui nous visitaient en Arménie et ils ont aussi apprécié sa gentillesse, son sérieux et son exactitude. Un jour il me demanda un emprunt de $ 500 pour pouvoir installer lui aussi une salle de bain avec toilette aux normes occidentales dans sa maison, ce qui lui permettrait de recevoir des visiteurs et s...

Lettre 35: Gago gets his watch I am pleased to announce that yesterday, a generous lady from New York visited  Yeghegnadzor and gave Gago the watch he had dreamed about. Unfortunately, or fortunately, the Frenchman who had suggested he would bring Gago a watch, was not able to come to Armenia as planned--his wife was newly pregnant. We wish the family a healthy baby and mother. Gilberta Fass read about Gago on my blog (see my Letter # 32) and wrote me to ask if he had gotten his watch. When I said no, she offered to bring him one. You can see his happy face on the attached videos. Thank you dear  Gilberta. Antoine S. Terjanian Went there to move mountains, one pebble at a time

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 s...

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), born in Taranto, whose family has roots in our region and, I guess, must have known about this legend. Patrici...

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 s...

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).