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.
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