In trying to put on paper my feelings about Armenia after two years living here, I find my emotions in conflict with each other. I feel that I am generally an optimist, but I feel depressed for Armenia. I have come to love many individual Armenians, but despair over the lack of individual responsibility Armenians feel for their country. The over-wrought American expression “It takes a village to raise a child,” is not felt in Armenia. There is an under current of hopelessness in this country. I have been discouraged by the number of people who have asked for help to “get out.” I am really thrilled when I run into a young person who says that he wants to remain in Armenia and make the country great. But a part of me also wonders how that is possible.
I see myself as forward looking. I am always hopeful that things will change, and for the better. In Armenia I felt I was living against the tide. Because Armenia is land-locked and border-locked to the East and West (and South if you want to count Iran), this very poor country cannot advance economically until border issues are resolved. I have enormous sympathy for the Armenians in their relationship with Turkey. Armenians simply hate the Turks, and with justifiable reasons. The genocide of over one million Christian Armenians at the hands of the Muslim Turks in 1915 after decades of low-level conflict seems to have left the Armenians permanently depressed and unable to move forward substantially. Armenians are still discriminated against in Turkey. And with the increased rise of a Muslim consciousness in Turkey today I find it difficult to believe that the conflict can be resolved in the near future. The Armenians need an apology from the Turks. My hope is that Turkey will not be able to join the EU until it offers this apology, as many nations are asking, and that our President will use the word “genocide” in referring to the Armenian-Turkish border conflict, which hinges on a solution to the Azerbaijan dispute over Nagorno Karabakh. Our Presidents have refused to mention genocide because the US has military bases in Turkey, which take precedence over the despair of this nation of three million people.
Turkish citizens are news-suppressed, and students do not learn about the Armenian genocide. At the direction of the Turkish government, the incident “never happened.” But the independent reports from prominent European observers, aid workers, and missionaries leave no doubt about the indiscriminate murder of Armenian women, children, and old men. Christian Armenians who had lived in areas of the Ottoman Empire for centuries before it shrank in the 1910s due to excessive debt, war-mongering, and lack of a central structure became a target for the Turk’s drive for a Muslim state. For decades Istanbul Armenians had been bankers, merchants, and traders, positions not entirely compatible with Islam, and they were resented. During this period the Ottoman Empire lost Greece, the Balkans, what is now Eastern Turkey, and most of what became the Soviet Caucasus. (The story is much more complicated than what I’ve outlined.) I’ve come to believe that to psychically “save” Armenians, the Turks need to acknowledge what they did, and the world community needs to demand it. (There are 70 million Turks and three million Armenians in Armenia.)
I used to think that the Armenians should “just get over it.” The Germans apologized for the Jewish slaughter. In many other genocides, leaders have been brought to trial. The world community has condemned offending governments. But for political reasons, Armenia has not had the same backing. The country is not strategically important. The Armenians have a common expression, “I feel your pain.” They need to hear this for healing.
Armenians live in multi-generational family groups. Everything is passed down from grandmothers to grandchildren, including this ethnic pain. They hate the Turks, but I’m not sure that the Turks hate them; they just see them as “the problem” which is even more painful because it is as if the Armenians don’t exist, and never have, to them.
Armenia is also still remembering the good-old Soviet days, incorrectly. Education, business, work attitudes and ethics, and community responsibility are all still heavily influenced by the Soviet socialist period, though the Soviet Union dissolved in 1992. The country does not feel like a democracy, though it is in name, and it does not operate as a capitalist economy, though it is in name. Corruption is rampant in all aspects of society. A few families of oligarchs control strategic businesses and government.
I have often felt psychologically trapped in Armenian. It was knowing that I could not cross the border five kilometers to the West (Turkey) of Gyumri, to the South (Iran), or to the East (Azerbaijan). I’ve become very aware of how Georgia exploits their position to the North by charging unfair transit taxes for all goods that enter Armenia. Then the corrupt Armenian Customs Department levies unfair import taxes so that Armenians (per capita income is $3,000, though people I know make far less) pay far more for common goods of less quality then we do. In addition the border between Georgia and Russia is closed, further limiting trade.
I felt frustrated by my work in Armenia. You can’t talk to businesses about financing inventory when bank loans are based on human relationships (and holding your wife’s gold jewelry as collateral), interest rates are 24%, the payback period is always two years, and the supply of goods is uncertain (due to the customs and duty ministries.) Students don’t do assignments unless they feel like it, and if they don’t feel like it they know they can “buy” their grades. Plagiarism and cheating are rampant, and not seen as something “bad.” NGOs, who do social good, often inflate their numbers, hire their own unqualified family members, redirect donations to their own use, and lie on their reports. The list goes on.
But I have no regrets about my decision to live and work in Armenia for two years. I have learned much about another culture, another language, and about the effect the shifting alliances and politics in this region have had on shaping what Armenia is today. A friend related a story about a diaspora Armenian she met at the US Embassy in Yerevan who asked, in a meeting, what the Embassy was going to do about the sorry state of the Armenian National Art Gallery. The issues and problems in Armenia are huge, and this is the very least of them. I appreciate what many of the issues and problems are, and I am grateful for that understanding. But the solutions seem over-whelming. I know much of what has to happen, but how to make it happen is the problem. The corruption in daily life is so endemic and Armenians seem so passive about it; “passive” in the same way that they were to the Ottoman Empire’s encroachment on their human rights.
Final Chapter re the Library Saga
I spent well over a year on several projects that I had hoped would help the Shirak Regional Library in Gyumri. (The library is like a main county library; it supports five district libraries and 127 village libraries.) One project was successful; a bathroom remodel funded by USAID. Another project, to obtain a “biblio-bus”, has been approved, the Mercedes 14-passenger van identified, and it is in transit from Italy as I write this. The bus application process began last August 2010 and a major disappointment is that it did not arrive before I left (though I did offer to go to Italy and drive it to Armenia.) The van has been donated by the US through EUCOM. My major project was to try and help create a modern library. The catchwords are a “Center of Civil Society”, meaning public meeting spaces, free Internet access, access during hours outside the normal workday, and educational programs. I identified financial and material help, including foundation aid, help from the US Embassy, individual donors, support from librarians in Los Angeles, a US based architect interested in historic preservation, and the possibility of help from a historic preservation foundation. The goal was to identify a new location for the library in the Kumaiyri Historic Preservation Area of Gyumri. Then I got lucky. 2012 is the 500th Anniversary of the Printed Word and Yerevan was selected the Book Capital of the World by UNESCO, so the Armenian Government wanted things to happen to celebrate the occasions. The Armenian Ministry of Culture offered a historical building that was under renovation in Gyumri for a new library.
The problems became insurmountable. The existing library has 10,000 annual users, 80 employees (though at no time did I ever count more than 32 employees in the library at one time), 200,000 books (mostly stacked in piles to the ceiling in storage), and realistic space for about 10 users. There are also ten obsolete computers (four of which are available to outside users), two newer donated computers, and an actual manual “card” catalogue. An equivalent US library with 10,000 users (per the American Library Association) would have 7-11 employees, 20,000 books, and space for 40 users. While the new space is more than three times the existing space, the architect calculated that shelving all 200,000 books would take up all the floor space offered, and that the floors could not support the load. The director insisted that each of the 80 “cultural workers” had to have her own workspace “by law.” We talked to the director about a book collection management policy following loose US guidelines, such as dumping scientific books after ten years unless they have historical merit. This step alone would have eliminated a significant portion of the books, which are Soviet era technical manuals, many of which are more than forty years old. The director insisted that “by law”, no books could be discarded. (Knowing that, if given three hundred new books, the director would never get rid of obsolete books, I never offered new books from the numerous sources open to volunteers. The library simply did not have the room.)
My plan had been to help create a vision of what this new library would look like, create a floor plan with the architect, outline the steps to make the vision a reality, and then apply for grants and the other sources of funding to create the reality. As it stands, the building will be finished in December and the library will move-in in early 2012. The Ministry of Culture lacks additional funds to provide new computers, furniture, shelving, or any amenities. The director insists that I don’t understand the “law” which places all books (obsolete, non-circulating, non-relevant, etc.) and cultural workers ahead of the needs of library users. What I do understand is that the director is not a librarian and he cannot prioritize his books, he has immense status as the result of having 80 cultural workers, and, as was true in Soviet times, the end user is the least important part of this equation. The director has sole authority for the management of the library.
So we reached an impasse. The architect told him that she could not work on a project that she did not believe in. I told him that I could not work without her to create a plan to present to potential funders, and I told him that he was not creating a “new” library but was re-creating a Soviet-style library in a new space. As disappointing as this whole process was, I do realize that the actual move may cause him to re-think what we had discussed about creating user-friendly spaces. He feels that after the move, he can create the center of civil society, which he really wants, if he can keep all his books and all his cultural workers.
The problems became insurmountable. The existing library has 10,000 annual users, 80 employees (though at no time did I ever count more than 32 employees in the library at one time), 200,000 books (mostly stacked in piles to the ceiling in storage), and realistic space for about 10 users. There are also ten obsolete computers (four of which are available to outside users), two newer donated computers, and an actual manual “card” catalogue. An equivalent US library with 10,000 users (per the American Library Association) would have 7-11 employees, 20,000 books, and space for 40 users. While the new space is more than three times the existing space, the architect calculated that shelving all 200,000 books would take up all the floor space offered, and that the floors could not support the load. The director insisted that each of the 80 “cultural workers” had to have her own workspace “by law.” We talked to the director about a book collection management policy following loose US guidelines, such as dumping scientific books after ten years unless they have historical merit. This step alone would have eliminated a significant portion of the books, which are Soviet era technical manuals, many of which are more than forty years old. The director insisted that “by law”, no books could be discarded. (Knowing that, if given three hundred new books, the director would never get rid of obsolete books, I never offered new books from the numerous sources open to volunteers. The library simply did not have the room.)
My plan had been to help create a vision of what this new library would look like, create a floor plan with the architect, outline the steps to make the vision a reality, and then apply for grants and the other sources of funding to create the reality. As it stands, the building will be finished in December and the library will move-in in early 2012. The Ministry of Culture lacks additional funds to provide new computers, furniture, shelving, or any amenities. The director insists that I don’t understand the “law” which places all books (obsolete, non-circulating, non-relevant, etc.) and cultural workers ahead of the needs of library users. What I do understand is that the director is not a librarian and he cannot prioritize his books, he has immense status as the result of having 80 cultural workers, and, as was true in Soviet times, the end user is the least important part of this equation. The director has sole authority for the management of the library.
So we reached an impasse. The architect told him that she could not work on a project that she did not believe in. I told him that I could not work without her to create a plan to present to potential funders, and I told him that he was not creating a “new” library but was re-creating a Soviet-style library in a new space. As disappointing as this whole process was, I do realize that the actual move may cause him to re-think what we had discussed about creating user-friendly spaces. He feels that after the move, he can create the center of civil society, which he really wants, if he can keep all his books and all his cultural workers.
At Gevorg's Dacha
A friend, Gevorg, invited me to his dacha to celebrate Vardavar Day, a pagan feast which was adopted by Christian Armenia because it is a celebration of love, beauty, and mostly water. Children (and adults) are free to throw water on whomever they wish at will. A friend in Yerevan brought a SuperSoaker from America for the feast, and the kids call her "The Terminator!" We celebrated with horovats and of course, water.
Gevorg's country dacha, outside Gyumri
Perishables are delivered door to door
Horovats prepared by daughter-in-law's father
Gevorg's wife Annahit at table
Nearby Marmashen Monastery
Maria at the Library
I first met Maria last year at the regional library in Gyumri. Of eighty employees, she is one of two who speak English, so I leaned on her heavily over the following months to gather information and complete reports. Maria has a real glint in her eyes, a matter of fact attitude, and she is living a typical Armenian life.
Maria was married at seventeen to a young man five years older. As is customary, they lived with his parents. They quickly had a baby, Christina, who is now fourteen. Maria did not work and neither did her husband while they were together. They were divorced after seven years. She and Christina then moved in with her parents where they continue to live today. In Armenia this situation can be unusual. Often families do not welcome divorced children home. Divorcees bring ”shame“ on the families involved and very often parents will counsel their daughters to continue in a loveless relationship, even where abuse is involved. Maria is very grateful to her mother for her financial and emotional support, and for pushing her to get more education. Her ex-husband currently lives and works in Russia. She has never received any support from him. (It is very common for Armenian men to avoid paying child support by either moving out of the country or by working “off the books.”) In 2004, at 26 years, Maria started working at the library.
Maria’s mother is an actress, active on the stage in Yerevan. She has been in two movies and has traveled to the US as a performer. Her father is a musician and as a young man he performed with a group called Precious Stone. His partner was referred to as “Jag” after Mick. Now her 28-year-old brother plays guitar with a group, Bambir, which also includes Jag’s son. Christina wants to study performing arts at the university level.
Maria says that she was too young to be married, but at the time she could not be talked out of it. I asked her about re-marrying, and she told me that it is impossible. It is very rare for a divorced woman to ever remarry in Armenia. As she is 33, I asked her what is in her future. Her main concern is helping to pay for her daughter’s university education in three years. She also said that she feels exhausted just thinking about the future, as she really has no options. Her salary, which is 34,000 drams ($93 per month), leaves her dependent on her parents for a place to live and with no money for extras. Finding a “better” job is not really an option in this town, which has a 60% unemployment rate. When I asked her how she feels about the library, she said that originally she found it boring, but currently she finds it interesting and is realizing that there is a lot to learn.
I had talked to Maria about going to graduate school in library science. The first program ever offered in Armenia is two years old. But as is usual, just having a job brings security, and in Armenia most “workers” earn the same wages regardless of their education (a practice left over from the socialist Soviets), so the incentive to improve your knowledge to increase your wages does not exist. I suspect that Maria will be at this library for many more years.
Christina and her mother, Maria. Note Christina's T-shirt which is typical of those worn by Armenian girls. Christina does not speak English, and so she does not know what it says. But it is colorful, and in English, so it is "cool."
Maria was married at seventeen to a young man five years older. As is customary, they lived with his parents. They quickly had a baby, Christina, who is now fourteen. Maria did not work and neither did her husband while they were together. They were divorced after seven years. She and Christina then moved in with her parents where they continue to live today. In Armenia this situation can be unusual. Often families do not welcome divorced children home. Divorcees bring ”shame“ on the families involved and very often parents will counsel their daughters to continue in a loveless relationship, even where abuse is involved. Maria is very grateful to her mother for her financial and emotional support, and for pushing her to get more education. Her ex-husband currently lives and works in Russia. She has never received any support from him. (It is very common for Armenian men to avoid paying child support by either moving out of the country or by working “off the books.”) In 2004, at 26 years, Maria started working at the library.
Maria’s mother is an actress, active on the stage in Yerevan. She has been in two movies and has traveled to the US as a performer. Her father is a musician and as a young man he performed with a group called Precious Stone. His partner was referred to as “Jag” after Mick. Now her 28-year-old brother plays guitar with a group, Bambir, which also includes Jag’s son. Christina wants to study performing arts at the university level.
Maria says that she was too young to be married, but at the time she could not be talked out of it. I asked her about re-marrying, and she told me that it is impossible. It is very rare for a divorced woman to ever remarry in Armenia. As she is 33, I asked her what is in her future. Her main concern is helping to pay for her daughter’s university education in three years. She also said that she feels exhausted just thinking about the future, as she really has no options. Her salary, which is 34,000 drams ($93 per month), leaves her dependent on her parents for a place to live and with no money for extras. Finding a “better” job is not really an option in this town, which has a 60% unemployment rate. When I asked her how she feels about the library, she said that originally she found it boring, but currently she finds it interesting and is realizing that there is a lot to learn.
I had talked to Maria about going to graduate school in library science. The first program ever offered in Armenia is two years old. But as is usual, just having a job brings security, and in Armenia most “workers” earn the same wages regardless of their education (a practice left over from the socialist Soviets), so the incentive to improve your knowledge to increase your wages does not exist. I suspect that Maria will be at this library for many more years.
Christina and her mother, Maria. Note Christina's T-shirt which is typical of those worn by Armenian girls. Christina does not speak English, and so she does not know what it says. But it is colorful, and in English, so it is "cool."
Christ is Rising!
I live in an apartment building located next to a cultural theater (performance auditorium). When I walk to the central square, I walk behind the theater. When I first moved in and began taking this path I would often stop to watch an older man who was carving animals or crosses (khachkars) from stone in front of a house directly behind the theater. About two months ago a very different object began to grow. At first I thought that he was sculpting a mountain. It has now become the most amazing object. Jesus is rising!
The sculptor, Artush Papoyan, has been commissioned to create a bronze sculpture of Christ that will rest on the top of a Russian Orthodox Church in Syria (a Muslim country.) The church (not yet completed) is located on the slope of Mount Hermon (also known as Mount Sion in the bible). The location is in Syria where four countries intersect (Syria, Israel, Lebanon, and Jordan.) The hope is that it will become a place of pilgrimage for all religions.
The form for the statue is at least three stories high. About one block away through a densely packed neighborhood, the sculptor has a foundry. When I asked how the form (fashioned from Styrofoam and plaster) could possibly be moved, his son said that they will cut it into four pieces, lift it by military helicopter to the foundry, create the mold and cast it in bronze. In February, it will be lifted by helicopter to the Gyumri International (two flights to Russia once a week) Airport where the pieces will be transported by a Syrian military aircraft to Syria under the guidance of the Syrian President. The sculptor will then assemble the statue with a team on the top of the church.
The figure is of Christ with his arms held up (cross) and the thumb and fourth fingers touch in the orthodox blessing sign. This is usually done with just the right hand, but in this case they wanted a cross form. Christ has his foot on the head of a serpent and touching the foot is a statue of Adam with a submissive Eve at his side. It was in a city at the southern base of Mount Hermon that Jesus Christ told his disciples that he would build his church upon the Rock Peter. (A friend noted that Adam and Eve are clothed in this sculpture, which he feels is artistic license!)
The statue of Christ the Redeemer on Corcovado Mountain in Rio de Janeiro is 125 feet tall. This statue is at least half that. One of these days I’ll remember to ask how tall it is. I feel like skipping every day as I gaze at this magnificent creation in my backyard. Maybe some day I’ll get to see it in its final resting place, as a pilgrim!
Note the sculptor on the top platform for an idea of how large this is!
Fully clothed model figure of Adam, which will be touching Christ's foot at the base of the statue.
Sculptor's son with model of statue in background.
Discussion on Culture
Anahit, Barbara, GevorgYesterday an Armenian friend asked me if I would have dinner with him and his family “out of town.” So he and his wife and son picked me up in his car: unusual, because I know almost no Armenians who have cars. We drove at frightening speed on a country road to a place called Amasija where my friend has a summer “dacha”, which is really just a railroad container car on a fruit treed and heavily overgrown piece of land. Many Armenians have such small pieces of property as families were given “farms” when the Soviet Union broke up its 840 centrally managed collective farms (usually one in each village) into 440,000 individual farms.
Anahit, Gevorg’s wife, brought along a typical Armenian picnic dinner. It consisted of baked chicken, fresh thick green string beans which had been boiled, drained, and then mixed with raw eggs which are “cooked” by the warm beans, extremely salty Armenian cheese, a stewed eggplant dish (delicious), and the ubiquitous white bread and cucumbers and tomatoes (no dressing or seasoning.) (Note: “chicken” never includes white meat. Most of it is imported from the US under the Pacific Pride label.)
Their son’s wife had a baby just over forty days ago, and as is custom, after forty days she went to stay with her parents for forty days so that they could enjoy the baby. In the family three-room apartment in Gyumri, inherited from Anahit’s mother, live Gevorg and his wife, Gore and his wife and baby, and Gevorg’s daughter, Ani. The baby’s name is Anahit. It is customary to name grandchildren after the paternal grandparents, so the same two names alternate every other generation. It is also extremely unusual to have more than two children.
Anahit led a wonderful discussion about Armenian culture. She identified several problems that she thinks are holding the country back:
Armenians are thieves. Armenians always talk about the “good days” under the Soviets when everyone had a job, a place to live, free medical care, and a secure adequate pension. But people who worked in factories stole the products they made and then sold them on the black market. In Gyumri this was often clothing, socks, leggings, and chocolates. There was a very large black market for all these stolen goods, and as a result people did not shop at small stores. The real market was in stolen goods. There is no shame in stealing or in selling these goods even today. Which must explain why all bags are checked before you enter a market, why there are always an excessive number of clerks, and why I am always followed around by a store employee when I shop (a huge annoyance.)
Armenians do not understand the concept of “public/common property.” If it is not my neighbor’s property, then I can take it. A perfect example of this are the thousands of missing manhole covers which people have stolen to use as garden decorations or to sell as scrap metal. I am still amazed, after two years, that I have not stepped into one of these coverless manholes and broken my leg. You cannot walk around Gyumri without your eyes on the ground, and a flashlight at night. (Just last month a volunteer ended up at the hospital with a missing tooth, a scar on her lip, a black eye, and head x-rays, just for looking up.)
School directors operate under incentives that encourage cheating. Students can “buy” their grades so that they can get into “good” universities, which only accept students with perfect grades, which everyone knows are bought. If a teacher fails a student for non-performance, the teacher will lose her job. Everyone knows this. So many students make no effort or even attend classes. Since parents choose which school their child attends, most will not choose a school where their child cannot pay for excellent grades. The schools receive funds based on how many parents choose to send their children there. If the school director chooses to disallow the corruption, parents will not enroll their children and the school will close.
After the devastating earthquake of 1988 when Gevorg and Anahit’s 1978 Soviet-era nine-floor apartment building collapsed, they were given 20,000 rubles ($126 at the time, a lot of money) to replace what they lost (everything.) For the next several years they lived with other family members and then lived in a domik (metal shipping container) for ten years until they moved into their current apartment, a 1938 Stalin-era four story building. The outside of the building, halls and stairwell, and roof appear to have had no improvements or maintenance since 1938. There is no sense of common ownership for the shared spaces. The family living directly under the roof is responsible for the roof above them, not all the building occupants. So walking around, and taking a chance looking up, you see several sections of roof on apartment buildings, all of different materials and conditions.
In 1992, after the collapse of the Soviet Union, the Armenian government converted all rubles in banks into a new currency, the Armenian dram. Between the conversion rate, and rampant inflation, Gevorg and Anahit’s bank account became worthless. While most people lost their jobs, Anahit continued to teach, though she would go as long as six months without being paid. Their lives were so incredibly difficult in the nineties, that she attributes this for the nostalgia for the Soviet system of the eighties. The collapse of the banking system led to a massive distrust of any banking system. Today Armenia is a cash-based society. Few people have any consumer credit and I do not know any Armenian who has a credit card. (Actually the Internet is so unreliable that a credit-based society does not seem possible since ATM machines are regularly down, and vendors could not run credit transactions through.)
Gevorg told me that they couldn’t leave their car parked on the street overnight (no one does this) because the tires will be stolen and the car will be broken into. People are obsessive about locked doors, barred windows, and not leaving anything out. There is no community trust.
Anahit tells me that the only hope is for the next generation that did not live under the Soviets, though I am skeptical because families have a very powerful and persuasive effect on the young. I am thinking of arranged marriages, the inability to let go of the 1915 Armenian Genocide (looking back instead of forward) and the fact that multiple generations live together.
Anahit, Gevorg’s wife, brought along a typical Armenian picnic dinner. It consisted of baked chicken, fresh thick green string beans which had been boiled, drained, and then mixed with raw eggs which are “cooked” by the warm beans, extremely salty Armenian cheese, a stewed eggplant dish (delicious), and the ubiquitous white bread and cucumbers and tomatoes (no dressing or seasoning.) (Note: “chicken” never includes white meat. Most of it is imported from the US under the Pacific Pride label.)
Their son’s wife had a baby just over forty days ago, and as is custom, after forty days she went to stay with her parents for forty days so that they could enjoy the baby. In the family three-room apartment in Gyumri, inherited from Anahit’s mother, live Gevorg and his wife, Gore and his wife and baby, and Gevorg’s daughter, Ani. The baby’s name is Anahit. It is customary to name grandchildren after the paternal grandparents, so the same two names alternate every other generation. It is also extremely unusual to have more than two children.
Anahit led a wonderful discussion about Armenian culture. She identified several problems that she thinks are holding the country back:
Armenians are thieves. Armenians always talk about the “good days” under the Soviets when everyone had a job, a place to live, free medical care, and a secure adequate pension. But people who worked in factories stole the products they made and then sold them on the black market. In Gyumri this was often clothing, socks, leggings, and chocolates. There was a very large black market for all these stolen goods, and as a result people did not shop at small stores. The real market was in stolen goods. There is no shame in stealing or in selling these goods even today. Which must explain why all bags are checked before you enter a market, why there are always an excessive number of clerks, and why I am always followed around by a store employee when I shop (a huge annoyance.)
Armenians do not understand the concept of “public/common property.” If it is not my neighbor’s property, then I can take it. A perfect example of this are the thousands of missing manhole covers which people have stolen to use as garden decorations or to sell as scrap metal. I am still amazed, after two years, that I have not stepped into one of these coverless manholes and broken my leg. You cannot walk around Gyumri without your eyes on the ground, and a flashlight at night. (Just last month a volunteer ended up at the hospital with a missing tooth, a scar on her lip, a black eye, and head x-rays, just for looking up.)
School directors operate under incentives that encourage cheating. Students can “buy” their grades so that they can get into “good” universities, which only accept students with perfect grades, which everyone knows are bought. If a teacher fails a student for non-performance, the teacher will lose her job. Everyone knows this. So many students make no effort or even attend classes. Since parents choose which school their child attends, most will not choose a school where their child cannot pay for excellent grades. The schools receive funds based on how many parents choose to send their children there. If the school director chooses to disallow the corruption, parents will not enroll their children and the school will close.
After the devastating earthquake of 1988 when Gevorg and Anahit’s 1978 Soviet-era nine-floor apartment building collapsed, they were given 20,000 rubles ($126 at the time, a lot of money) to replace what they lost (everything.) For the next several years they lived with other family members and then lived in a domik (metal shipping container) for ten years until they moved into their current apartment, a 1938 Stalin-era four story building. The outside of the building, halls and stairwell, and roof appear to have had no improvements or maintenance since 1938. There is no sense of common ownership for the shared spaces. The family living directly under the roof is responsible for the roof above them, not all the building occupants. So walking around, and taking a chance looking up, you see several sections of roof on apartment buildings, all of different materials and conditions.
In 1992, after the collapse of the Soviet Union, the Armenian government converted all rubles in banks into a new currency, the Armenian dram. Between the conversion rate, and rampant inflation, Gevorg and Anahit’s bank account became worthless. While most people lost their jobs, Anahit continued to teach, though she would go as long as six months without being paid. Their lives were so incredibly difficult in the nineties, that she attributes this for the nostalgia for the Soviet system of the eighties. The collapse of the banking system led to a massive distrust of any banking system. Today Armenia is a cash-based society. Few people have any consumer credit and I do not know any Armenian who has a credit card. (Actually the Internet is so unreliable that a credit-based society does not seem possible since ATM machines are regularly down, and vendors could not run credit transactions through.)
Gevorg told me that they couldn’t leave their car parked on the street overnight (no one does this) because the tires will be stolen and the car will be broken into. People are obsessive about locked doors, barred windows, and not leaving anything out. There is no community trust.
Anahit tells me that the only hope is for the next generation that did not live under the Soviets, though I am skeptical because families have a very powerful and persuasive effect on the young. I am thinking of arranged marriages, the inability to let go of the 1915 Armenian Genocide (looking back instead of forward) and the fact that multiple generations live together.
My Neighbor Viola
Viola at the front door to her apartment.
Viola and her fifteen year-old daughter Alice.
Yesterday evening, after Viola spent four hours meditating with a close friend and her father, I went over to visit. Her fifteen year-old daughter Alice has been accepted into a program (FLEX), for high school students from former Soviet bloc countries, to study next year in the US. It’s an exciting time for Alice and her mother and we were discussing the possibilities, and the obstacles.
Viola was born in November 1962 in Tashkent, Uzbekistan into an Armenian family. In May 1966 an earthquake in Uzbekistan led the family to move to her grandparents home in Gyumri after one month of living in the yard outside their Uzbekistan home. Viola went to school in Gyumri, married at 23, and in December 1988 she was teaching school at 11:40 am when a devastating earthquake, which killed 25,000 people in Gyumri, shook the earth. She ran outside, watched a tall building collapse, and ran home to check on her one and a half year-old daughter who was with her husband. Her husband ran to check on her parents who had survived. Days later the bodies of her uncle and his family were found in the collapsed fourth flour of a six or seven story building. Initially bodies were laid out on a public square for identification and left there as there were no coffins. She described the horror and chaos of the situation. Because there was no gas or water the family made its way to Yerevan for two weeks and then returned to Tashkent for one year. The family then returned to Gyumri, lived in a domik (metal shipping container) for eighteen years heated by a wood stove, and moved into the apartment just over one year ago. She divorced her husband in 1988 after he was institutionalized (and still is) for mental problems.
In the meantime Viola earned a doctorate in philology (a type of linguistics centered on written texts, common degree in Armenia) in Russian and English. She has now been teaching for eighteen years and currently teaches at two universities in Gyumri.
Immediately after the earthquake, she prayed for God to help her, realized that she needed God everyday, and that began her spiritual journey; hence, the long weekly meditation sessions. Her spiritual master is an Indian (Sant Baljit Singh) who she met in Crimea (Ukraine) many years ago.
Viola says that her fellow teachers don’t like her, and while she rustles with some discomfort at that statement, in the end, it doesn’t seem to bother her. And this is precisely why I enjoy her so much. In a country where everyone worries about what others say, and everyone conforms, Viola goes against the grain. With her bleached blonde hair, progressive attitude about her daughter’s opportunity in America (few men would let their daughters go), vegetarianism, openness about discussing problems in Armenia, divorce (6.4% of women and 2.3% of men ages 50-59), religious views (93% of Armenians identify with the national Armenian Apostolic Church), un-Armenian name (her father named her after the flower) and not living in a multiple family situation, she is anything but typical. And in a society where women are obsessed with meticulously clean homes, Viola can’t be bothered to keep up.
Viola struggles to make ends meet, though she says that she doesn’t “pity anything in my life.” Her oldest daughter lives in Yerevan, where she is an under-employed university psychology graduate whose biggest concern is that she may have to move back to Gyumri. Her mother worries that her daughter can’t afford heat and was sick much of last winter. Viola has resigned herself to paying bribes to get a visa through in time for her daughter to leave for the US in August. Last week she paid a judge AMD6000 ($17), a significant portion of her monthly wages, to get paperwork related to her husband’s incompetency processed, after being told initially that it would take at least three months. Additional fees to the translator and courts are AMD24000. Both she and her daughter are struggling to learn how they will communicate by Internet once Alice is in the US. In Armenia, daily Internet access outside of Yerevan is rare (and prohibitively expensive.)
Alice’s self-assurance amazes me. At fifteen I could not have done what she is about to do. She currently goes to school when she feels like it, a common practice in Armenia where there are no penalties for absence. She wondered what would happen if she did not go to school everyday in the US; what if she didn’t feel like it? I told her that her host family and the school would have a problem with that. She told me that she heard that students didn’t “help” others (cheat) on tests. (This is the area that probably bothers PC TEFL teachers the most!) I confirmed that cheating was unacceptable. (I could see her mind spinning as she was trying to figure out how that could possibly be so.) And then she is mildly concerned about money, clothes, prom dresses, the possibility of being on a farm, not having access to a large city, not fitting into her host family, etc. She seems amazingly comfortable with her English, often cutting off her mother who tries to translate back to her in Russian, to let her know that she understands. Alice is fluently tri-lingual. I think that Alice will be a charming addition to any American host family, and they’ll be fortunate to have her.
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