Tweet
This topic is made to share the stories of the Armenian repatriates.
-
-
Re: Stories of Armenian repatriates
Razmik Arzooian finds permanence in the homeland
A repatriate discovers solace among the mountains
by Maria Titizian
Dilijan, Armenia -
Nestled on a lush mountai side in the northern resort town of Dilijan is a hidden treasure. Here is the home that Razmik Arzooian, guided by love and strength and a dream, built by hand. The result is a beautifully crafted three-story home replete with custom woodwork, handmade furniture and antiques, turned into a bed and breakfast simply called Daravand (or Terrace). In operation since 2006, Daravand has served as a haven for the weary traveler, for the foreign worker in Dilijan working on bridges, and for those looking to get away from the rigors of daily life. Guests staying at the bed and breakfast get more than a comfortable room, good food, and spectacular scenery - they get a dose of Razmik's charm and hospitality.
Tall, enigmatic, with a chiseled face, long hair, and a healthy growth of a beard, Razmik, known back in Iran as a community activist, literary critic, and reciter of poems, has created his own version of life and living in the homeland.
Losing the ground beneath your feet
Razmik was born in Masjed-e-Soleyman, Iran, near the Iraqi border. His mother was a pharmacist from Tabriz and his father, from the south of Iran, worked for - and struggled against - the British oil company there. His parents met when Razmik's father went to Tabriz to serve in the army.
When Razmik was a year old, he lost his father. After the family's unexpected tragedy, his mother took him and his older twin sisters to Tabriz to live with her parents. While trying to live a normal existence after the loss of his father, Razmik's life was hit with yet another tragedy, the death of his mother when he was barely 9 years old, effectively leaving him orphaned and in the care of his maternal grandparents. He spent his childhood in Tabriz where he went to a vocational school studying carpentry.
Upon graduation, he went to Germany, where he studied industrial photography, which involved taking photographs of buildings and factories. Later, when he returned to Iran, this included photographing the process of building oil pipelines and those structures of national importance for Iran like the atomic power station. Razmik stayed in Germany for five and a half years before moving back to Iran.
"I did this (photography) up until the revolution and then I changed my job. I returned to woodworking and in the years before I came to Armenia, I had a cafe," Razmik recalls.
The footsteps leading home
His first visit to the homeland was in 1980, when he came with a group of Iranian-Armenians to Soviet Armenia. Today, there are regular 1.5-hour flights between Yerevan and Tehran. Almost thirty years ago, in 1980, Razmik, along with his compatriots had to travel for days before they reached Yerevan: Tehran to Paris to Moscow to Yerevan. With his knack for telling stories and recounting memories, Razmik tells a group of us having dinner at his B&B the many comic and touching stories of his first visit to Armenia.
A decade later, in 1991, Razmik, as one of the representatives of the Ararat Organization of Tehran, was invited to Armenia by the Diaspora Committee. "Then in 1993 I came and stayed. I found a small apartment in Yerevan and stayed," Razmik says plaintively.
When he arrived in Armenia, it was the "dark and cold years," as that time period has come to be known. While an independent country was something that Armenians in the diaspora had dreamed about for decades and for generations, a mass exodus of Armenians returning to the homeland never materialized. Razmik came at one of the most difficult times of Armenia's fragile independence. What was it that beckoned him?
"I was one of those fortunate ones, whose teachers, educators, atmosphere was such that we had an objective, a purpose to our existence, a dream. Many things happened that encouraged me. I wasn't like many others. We grew up in a world of dreams. It occurs to me that I was already late in coming when I arrived in 1993 . . . but there were family issues at the time; it wasn't possible for me to leave. When it no longer made sense for me to stay in Iran, I quickly made arrangements to come to Armenia. And that's how it happened," he recalls.
He didn't have a specific purpose in mind when he made the bold decision to come. "That was how it was ingrained in us: if you had one place to go, that would be the homeland and that's what I did."
He credits his grandmother for instilling in him love of country. "The education I received from my grandmother, and all the teachers who I truly respect, well, they were a unique generation, they ingrained in us patriotism, love of country. We never received a piece of chocolate in our house for free - we had to either recite a poem or sing a song. If we ever used a word of Farsi at home, we would have to contribute our day's lunch allowance to the family bank, which would mean we would have to stay hungry during the school day," Razmik recalls.
When the decision was made to move to Armenia, he left everything behind - unlike some who left things behind to wait and see if they could "make it" in Armenia. He admits that along the way, he burned several bridges.
Getting down to work
After arriving in Armenia, Razmik bought a small apartment in the Actors' Building, which needed to be renovated. "I had to use oil lamps and flashlights to fix it up, remodel it. There were hardly any building materials available," he says. "It is at times like these that a person asks himself, what is it that you have done, where have you come, what have you left behind? If there had been an absence of purpose, then it would have been difficult to sustain ourselves. It was an interesting struggle. It wasn't a struggle for anything specific, but rather a struggle to establish oneself in the homeland, to make it through, and at the same time, provide hope to the people around you, your friends. That's how it's been for me."
Razmik recounts that he didn't know anyone or have any relatives or friends when he came to Armenia. So he made friends with local Armenians who, while embracing him, were pessimistic too. They would ask Razmik why he had come, why he had chosen to leave his comfortable life behind. Was it so bad there, they would ask him.
While the first years were difficult, Razmik remembers those days with a fondness. "I still have many friends from those early days."
After purchasing and fixing up his apartment, Razmik had about $1,300 left. "I had no employment and no prospects of employment at the time. I was an artisan After a while, I realized that my funds were running out and I needed a job," he says. His first job began in a most unlikely place - his neighbor's bathroom. "One of my neighbors was looking for a varbed to replace the toilet in her bathroom. She asked me if I knew anyone, and I told her that I would send someone over the next morning. But then, after I thought about it, I said that I would go and do it myself. So, I woke up the next morning and whatever tools I had at the apartment I took and went to my neighbor's house. I told her I had come to change the toilet. She was confused, but I told her not to worry, I could do it.
According to our agreement I was paid $8 for that job. That was my first pay in Armenia, $8. I felt very good though," he remembers.
The next job came in the form of designing and remodeling a nightclub in Yerevan. The owner had agreed to pay Razmik $1,200 if he completed the job in one month. "Once I started to do the interior work it actually ended up taking me 2.5 months to finish it. I did it all on my own; not a single person helped. At the end he only paid me $500 and never gave me the remaining $700, saying that this was more convenient for him. And I said, ‘A gift to my homeland.' "
This experience led him to start his own contracting business, after which he opened a carpentry shop. People started coming to Armenia and buying apartments. "Because I knew a lot of people in Iran, friends would come from Iran and say, ‘Here is the key to my apartment, please have it ready for me in three months; time.' I assembled a group of professionals, more friends than employees. And we worked," he recalls.
In 13 years Razmik renovated 116 apartments in Yerevan.
Turning a new page
As the years slipped away, Razmik realized that he was tired of his job. People, he felt, had changed. They no longer came to Armenia with no preconditions, no expectations. They came demanding that their kitchen in Yerevan be the same color as their kitchen in the United States; otherwise life would be unbearable for them. This began affecting him and he realized he could no longer live in the city.
Nature, trees, the forest, and the mountains had captured his heart - especially the city of Dilijan, where he had seen the Haghartsin Monastery during his first visit to Armenia in 1980. "I was always thinking about being in the forest, having a small house there. But who of us in 1980 imagined that Armenia would become independent?"
Along with his life partner, Melineh, they found the house of his dreams in Dilijan. "I sold my house in Yerevan, got an additional loan, and purchased this building. We decided it should be a house for us to live in and to also run a business in," he recalls.
So on August 11, 2006 (Navasart, the old new year, which he commemorates every year), Razmik invited all his former workers, sacrificed a lamb, and by January 1, 2007, they had finished the renovation and Daravand was open for business.
Today the bed and breakfast boasts seven comfortable rooms, a games room complete with a billiard table, card table, and darts; and a great room, which also has a library with comfortable reading chairs with a phenomenal view of the mountains and valley below. This year, Razmik also built a separate cottage that can accommodate up to eight people.
All the woodwork throughout the building was crafted by Razmik, including all the tables and chairs.
Every morning when Razmik wakes up, he walks out to the balcony he built overlooking the valley and the mountains, and the first thing that comes to his mind is, "Why are they cutting down the forest?" He explains that when he moved to Dilijan, he announced that he would shoot whoever cuts the trees in this forest. "Now, I'm not going to shoot anybody but this statement of mine has spread throughout the city. So they don't cut the forest in front of me because of what I have said. But they cut it a little further down, on the other side of the mountain, on the other side of the street." He shakes his head as he explains that they are destroying the forest. In Dilijan there's a saying that the man of the forest doesn't have to pay for natural gas (to heat his home). That would be fine, according to Razmik, but that man of the forest who cuts the trees and then turns around and sells it for a profit is unforgivable. The forest rangers in his neck of the woods, who are there to supposedly protect the forest, drive around in Mercedes, Razmik says. He cringes every time he hears the sound of an electric saw.
And what about the road Armenia has traveled since independence? There is something that exists in Armenia, which Razmik calls jeeger, that doesn't exist elsewhere. It's an unwritten code of conduct, it is the way people treat each other. They help one another, their jeeger allows them to exist in a country of stones, where it is difficult to survive. "We shouldn't try to refine that jeeger - we can't be European that quickly, we still need to be a little coarse," he explains.
With independence, Razmik believes there is an overwhelming amount of mental traffic: "It's like trying to find a station on a short-wave radio - there's so much static no one can understand what's going on . . . but we need to have cooperation without all that static." He feels that those who repatriate to Armenia must try and integrate into local Armenian society here as quickly as possible because only in this way will there be mutual respect and mutual understanding. "There's a lack of information about each other. But today things are changing, which is good and can act as a catalyst toward more understanding."
As the stars sparkle gloriously in the dark, deep sky of Dilijan, perched upon his terrace on the mountain side, Razmik reflects about his life's journey. "It was only after coming to Armenia that I realized that my whole life before that was temporary. I realized that I am really living only after moving to Armenia," he says. "If someone wants to condemn me to death, all they need to say is ‘leave Armenia.'" -
Re: Stories of Armenian repatriates
"It was only after coming to Armenia that I realized that my whole life before that was temporary. I realized that I am really living only after moving to Armenia," he says.Comment
-
Re: Stories of Armenian repatriates
Meet Hakob Hakobyan: repatriate, patriot, painter
Discovering new forms of expression in an unfamiliar time
Yerevan - When I asked a friend of mine, well versed in all things artistic and articulate, if there was anything I should know before interviewing the renowned artist Hakob Hakboyan, he said: "Hakob's main characteristic is that he is the conveyor of the eternal pain of Armenia. The Genocide is permanently imprinted on his essence as a man."
Riding up the elevator to the 10th floor of his apartment building in Yerevan, I tried to form images in my head of this Western Armenian painter who had come of his own volition to Soviet Armenia in the 1960s. Would he be candid? Was he bitter? Did his art suffer because of his desire to move to an elusive notion of homeland? Did his nationality, his history dictate his path in life as an artist? Did it make him a better artist?
He opened the door to his spacious apartment/studio and welcomed me in, quickly escorting me through a maze of rooms and corridors to his sitting room. Once we settled in and had spoken for a few minutes, I realized that after 47 years he had not lost his Western Armenian; in fact he had retained most of it and only a few Eastern Armenian expressions and pronunciations made their way into his speech.
Not only was he candid and unassuming, but he allowed me to travel with him back to his childhood, unlocking some of the pain and confusion of his early existence, which undoubtedly led him to become one of the greatest Armenian painters of our time.
This is the story of Hakob Hakobyan.
Fate, loss, destiny
Hakob Hakobyan was born in Alexandria, Egypt, in 1923, the second of three children. His parents were from Aintab. I assumed that here his story would take the traditional narrative: parents forced on to deportations, barely escaping, make their way to Egypt. But fate had saved them from the tragedy that befell so many. "We were lucky. Only some members of our family were forced on deportation routes and then killed. The rest had left before the Genocide," he said.
At the time of the 1896 massacres, Hakobyan's father, 15 years old at the time, was sent to the United States by his family to live with his married sister. "We don't know much about our father because we lost him at a very young age," Hakobyan said. All they know is that he stayed in the United States for 18 years before moving to Egypt sometime in 1913. "In the meantime, my mother's father had moved to Alexandria also before the Genocide. My grandfather then returned to Aintab to bring the rest of his family, but they were killed before he got there. My mother and father then were spared of the Genocide."
After losing his father at the age of seven, Hakobyan was sent Melkonian Educational Institution in Cyprus to continue his education. "I guess they sent me away to school so that I wouldn't be left on the streets, and to receive an education. I wasn't able to continue my education because of the war. That's how my life progressed - with different waves. I really never had a plan," he explained.
The joy of revelation
One day Hakobyan's father took him in his lap and drew a rabbit on a piece of paper. "For me it was like witnessing a miracle. I had never seen anyone draw before. My father asked me if I could draw one. I tried and I was able to draw the rabbit. After that I always drew," he said plaintively. He admits to loving the attention he would get every time he drew. "As a child when I would draw people would compliment my drawings. I guess in a way it was very psychological. When people compliment you, you then want to receive those compliments, so you draw."
His first art teachers who had a great influence on the young student while at Melkonian were Arakel Badrig and Onnik Avedisian. However his tenure at Melkonian was short-lived and he was forced to return to Egypt in 1941 because of the Second World War. "Life was difficult. I was forced to work. It's very dangerous to stop something halfway through," he said, referring to his education, which he never was able to return to. "I always lived in uncertainty. Everything was in disarray, unorganized. Even my painting was unorganized," he admited. But his love of reading Armenian literature and history sustained him through those difficult years.
In 1952 he traveled to Paris. It was during his time there until 1954 that he decided not to abandon painting. "It was a very high ideal - to paint and support my family through my painting."
The journey "home"
The yearning to move to Armenia started at a very young age for Hakobyan. "It was my destiny to move here," he said. He hadn't been able to come during the great repatriation of 1946-48 when over 100,000 Armenians from all over the world repatriated to Soviet Armenia. Even after hearing all the stories of how the repatriates had suffered, his desire to come to Armenia remained the guiding light of his life.
He was finally able to repatriate in 1962 with his wife Mari and their two young daughters, aged five and 11.
He said that even after living here for more than 40 years, people still ask him why he came. "I always wanted to come to Armenia," he put it simply. The fundamental desire for him was to live in the homeland and not in odarutyun. "There is and was only one Armenia. There wasn't a capitalist Armenia or a Bolshevik Armenia. There was only one Armenia. At that time it happened to be under a communist system. Armenia is a much older thing than that regime it was under for 70 years - that regime disintegrated and disappeared but Armenia remained," he said.
Though he is softxspoken, with kindly eyes, his tone shifted when he started talking about the Soviet regime and its lasting impact on the people of Armenia. "Whoever hasn't lived under the Soviet regime can never understand what kind of a monstrous regime it was. A regime like that has never existed in the history of mankind. It was a regime that wiped out millions of people. Very few heroic people tried to struggle against it. They paid the price with their lives or were exiled. Look at how they killed Charents," he said, as he became more animated.
He admited that he wasn't treated as badly as some, yet he could never escape the "nightmare" because of what he saw the Soviets do to other people. When he spoke about 1946, he didn't mince his words. "The great repatriation was a disaster. Repatriation was the final, terrible blow to the Western Armenians. What the Turks had left unfinished, the Soviet Union completed. Those 100,000 people weren't accepted as Armenians, but as foreigners. After arriving they figured that out, but it was too late," he told me.
When I tried to broach the subject one more time, gently reminding him that the repatriates who came in the 40s must have contributed, at the very least through their way of life, through their cuisine and customs, something to the fabric of society , he said, "What good is it when you bring people in 1946-48 and then you exile them to Siberia in 1949? If you didn't want these people, if you brought them by mistake, why not just send them back where they came from? Why do you exile them?"
There was more to his anger than appeared on the surface. He understood what the loss of homeland meant. More than that, he understood the hunger for returning. For him it was about their collective fate, their collective suffering, the Genocide that always hung over their heads. These feelings are portrayed in his paintings from that time period.
With all that this artist has seen in his life, the one thing he doesn't have is regret. "It was my destiny to move here, however. I have never regretted coming. I have never thought about leaving or living somewhere else. I always wanted to live in my country among my people," he told me.
His thoughts about repatriation today are ambiguous but of one conviction he is sure. "Repatriation today? Don't you think it would be better for them to find ways of hampering people from leaving the country?" he asked. "The Diaspora Ministry should concern itself with finding ways of keeping people in the country, then trying to bring back those who left."
MORE HERE http://www.reporter.am/go.cfm?path=/...t-painter&pg=2Azerbaboon: 9.000 Google hits and counting!Comment
-
Re: Stories of Armenian repatriates
Tebi Yergir Information Fair Highlights Opportunities in Armenia
From its very inception, the ARF came onto the world stage voicing the call of “Tebi Yergir.” It appealed to all Armenians to go to the homeland directly to take part in its defense and development. As an organization, the ARF has always believed that, ultimately, Armenia is the only place where we could truly flourish as a nation.
Today, after 17 years of Armenian independence, a new generation of ARF activists is seeking to reinvigorate this age-old call to return home and engage in our nation’s advancement. Led by the ARF “Shant” Student Association (ARF Shant), an ongoing campaign has been launched to encourage students and diasporan Armenians to travel, support, and ultimately resettle in their homeland.
The first event to kick off this Tebi Yergir campaign was an “Opportunities in Armenia” Information Fair held on Thurs., May 14, at the Glendale Hilton Hotel. A capacity crowd turned out for the event, which featured over a dozen booths, four speakers, a video slideshow, and a photo exhibit outlining the many opportunities existing in Armenia.
“The turnout was extremely encouraging,” said Vrej Haroutounian a lead organizer in the ARF Shant “Tebi Yergir” Campaign. “The over-150 people who attended only encouraged our committee to push forward with even more vigor towards our motherland. Each person there made us want to work that much harder to help achieve our common goal of returning to Armenia.”
The first portion of the program consisted of representatives from various organizations and institutions, which were stationed at booths along the perimeter of the hall, offering information to attendees about volunteering and moving to Armenia. Some of the groups involved included Birthright Armenia, Hamazkayin, Land and Culture, AGBU, Vernon Travel, AYF Youth Corps, Armenia Tree Project, the Armenian Consulate of Los Angeles, and Imega Tour and Travel. Booths offering testimonials from repatriates and information about job opportunities in Armenia were also featured, as well as a special “Armenia in Seasons” photo exhibit by noted repatriate photographer Arsineh Khachikian.
After about an hour of having everyone visit the booths and gather in the hall, Armen Aboulian, the chairperson of ARF Shant and the mc for the evening, welcomed the audience and invited them to take their seats. Aboulian began his opening remarks by stating that this was only the first of many events that ARF Shant plans to organize, to show that moving to Armenia is a realistic possibility. “Our goal is to make everyone realize that moving to Armenia isn’t just a dream for a few fanatics and hopefuls,” said Aboulian, “but a real opportunity for every Armenian to enrich, not only themselves, but their homeland.”
Aboulian then invited the winner of the 2009 “Visit Armenia, It’s Beautiful” Essay Contest, Nanar Derderian, to the podium. Derderian, an 11th grade student at Alex Pilibos High School, proceeded to recite her first-place essay, for which she was awarded a $500 dollar prize. Written in Armenian, her paper was an expression of her anticipation and desire to visit the land of her ancestors.
“I want to visit Armenia for the simple reason that it is my homeland yet I have never seen it,” said Derderian. “Armenia is all I really think about when in class. I daydream about its rocky landscape, green fields, and ancient monuments on a daily basis.”
Speaking about her own journey to Armenia, Anoush Tatevossian was next to address the audience. She explained how she first traveled there in 2004, upon graduating college, and described how she felt after volunteering there for six months with the Armenian Volunteer Corps (AVC).
“When I came back from Armenia, I worked in a boring, 9-to-5 consulting job. It was very monotonous and uneventful,” she recalled. “In Armenia, I was making things happen and seeing the fruits of my labor right in front of my eyes,” Tatevossian exclaimed. “I was making a difference.”
The relative emptiness in her U.S. job led her to apply for the executive directorship of the AVC. “I got the job, applied for a 10-year residency in Armenia, and rented an apartment in Yerevan,” she said. “I went to work every day like I would here, the only difference was that it felt like I was making much more of a difference.”
In addition to the more meaningful impact one can have working in Armenia, Tatevossian insisted that life there is just as promising. “It’s very possible to have the same type of life there as it is here,” she said, adding that repatriation is a very tangible and practical approach to maintaining one’s Armenian identity at a level that generations past could only dream of.
Many of the youth in the audience shared Tatevossian’s assessment of repatriation. “Moving to Armenia is a very viable option for my generation,” said Greg Bandikian, a finance and real estate major who volunteered at the Armenian Ministry of Finance in 2006 and worked with the Central Bank of Armenia in 2007. “The jobs that have left the United States in the last decade are not coming back and things are not going to get better here any time soon,” argued Bandikian. “But Armenia is a developing country and has enormous untapped potential for economic growth.”
Following Tatevossian’s testimonial, the vice-consul of Armenia in Los Angeles, Sahak Sargsyan, took to the floor. Sargsyan spoke about the recent introduction of dual citizenship in Armenia and how one would go about applying for such a status. Those interested, he explained, should make a request with the consulate in Los Angeles. Once the consulate’s new website is launched, Armenians will be able to apply for dual citizenship online, he added. Accompanying his talk was a detailed PowerPoint presentation outlining the key parameters of the new law.
Concluding the program was the keynote speaker for the evening, Dr. Stephan Astourian, executive director of Armenian studies at UC Berkeley. Drawing on his important study of the demographic challenges facing the Armenian nation in the 21st century, Astourian spoke about the changing landscape of both Armenia and the diaspora.
According to his research, the traditional diaspora of the Middle East and Iran is “melting away” at a rapidly concerning rate. This is a threat to the sustainability of the diaspora as a whole, he said, because those communities that best preserved the cultural traditions and identity for generations are now shrinking and less organized. The majority of these Armenians have left for the West—the U.S., Europe, and Canada—where it is extremely difficult to maintain Armenian identity.
Meanwhile, Armenia’s population has been depleted since the collapse of the Soviet Union, with at least 600,000 to 1 million Armenians having left the country in recent years. “Today, it is highly unlikely that Armenia’s population exceeds 2.5 million,” Astourian explained, noting that this is a serious problem for a country that has a small internal market and is surrounded by enemies.
In this context, the Tebi Yergir movement becomes even more relevant, according to Astourian. It is a task that should be taken seriously if we care about the future of Armenians, something that should be approached in a practical and realistic sense. “Tebi Yergir means we should not just see Armenia in a romantic sense but also realize the plight of our people,” stated Astourian.
He also emphasized the importance of not just sending dollars but engaging directly in the country’s development. “We must strengthen the rule of law and the independence and accountability of institutions because the economic progress and investments needed to make Armenia a viable place to live will not happen until the government becomes accountable to the people.”
Attendees at the event were visibly galvanized by all of the talks and information offered that evening. The vast majority of the audience remained in the hall following the program, continuing to visit the information booths and discuss the many points raised regarding repatriation.
“As the inaugural event in our newly initiated campaign, the information fair succeeded in focusing our community’s attention on the critical need for us to look to our homeland for our future,” concluded Caspar Jivalegian, an organizer involved with the ARF Shant Tebi Yergir campaign. “We plan on using the interest and enthusiasm generated from this event as a springboard for organizing a series of future activities which will intensify the growing movement of repatriation to Armenia.”
For more information about the ARF Shant Student Association and their Tebi Yergir campaign, visit www.ARFShant.org.
Azerbaboon: 9.000 Google hits and counting!Comment
-
Re: Stories of Armenian repatriates
This is great to see Armenians returning to their
homelands. We need to have more Armenians in
Karabakh also. When I grow up I plan on opening
a company in Armenia, so you know I don't have to
live with the guilt of not giving back to my country.Comment
-
Re: Stories of Armenian repatriates
Who knows... this could be you someday, Ara(87)!
----------------------------------------------------------------------
An Armenian from Texas promotes information technology in faraway Gyumri
by Taleen Babayan
Gyumri, Armenia - Life in Gyumri is a far cry from life in Texas for Jason Paul Kazarian. But when the opportunity arose to fill the vacant executive director position at the Gyumri Information Technologies Center (GITC/GTech), he accepted it without hesitation.
Moving 5,000 miles away from his home country provided quite the lifestyle change for Mr. Kazarian, both professionally and personally. But the vision and goals he had for GITC prompted his move and have remained his priority.
Each day for him at GITC – a competitive post-graduate IT institution – varies. On Mondays, he teaches a class for students working on their thesis projects and helps them with the organization of their papers including the format, thesis, thesis chapters, and gives overall guidance to the 20 students so they can graduate on July 14. Mr. Kazarian also makes it a point for himself to travel out of Gyumri into Yerevan to do development work and build partnerships between the IT industry and GITC. There he frequently visits the office of the Fund for Armenian Relief. He also spends his time writing grant proposals and finding sources of revenue, in addition to supervising GITC's employees.
Founded in August 2005, GITC promotes the IT industry, drives the formation of an IT infrastructure and promotes employment opportunities in this area devastated by the major earthquake in 1988. GITC has graduated about 50 young adults. In exchange for nearly free training, students commit to remain in the Gyumri region for two years following graduation.
The cultural differences between Armenia and the United States are ones Mr. Kazarian has observed while living in Gyumri. "The way women and men engage with each other is similar to the US in the 1950s," said Mr. Kazarian. "The women's lib movement hasn't taken full effect, although it seems it's going to happen with the current generation who are 25 and under. I'm seeing a modern mindset in some of them," he said, noting that Gyumri is a mix of eastern and western cultures.
"It's interesting to look at our students because they have a provincial mindset. Gyumri has a population of 150,000 people and there's a prevailing village mentality," said Mr. Kazarian, who has a bachelor's and a master's degree in computer science.
Moving across the world naturally poses many challenges and obstacles to complete even the simplest tasks. "There's not an open market for rental property," said Mr. Kazarian, who had to hunt for a place to live when he first moved to Gyumri. "Something as simple as finding a place to live is basically done by word of mouth." He compared Gyumri to most European cities where it's very compact. Mr. Kazarian walks 20 minutes to work every day and doesn't need a car to get around, as it's easy to get everywhere on foot.
Originally from California, Mr. Kazarian lived the last 14 years in Texas. He has been in software development for about 25 years and spent three years in industrial education in technical topics such as telecommunications and software development. Prior to joining GITC, he worked six years as an independent contractor for multiple customers and owned a boutique IT company.
Mr. Kazarian's vision for GITC is three-fold. He wants to modify the curriculum so that there are no prerequisites to complete before enrolling in GITC, other than earning a degree from a public institution. He would also like to hire local Gyumri-based full time faculty which both reduces expenses and improves the quality of student life. "Now we have instructors who commute from Yerevan and come once a week," said Mr. Kazarian. "There is no opportunity for students to interact with their teachers. Having our own faculty will also make it easier for students to get help on projects and homework assignments during the week."
He sees GITC moving from an academic model to a vocational and certification model of training which is more job-focused and will be more beneficial to students who don't want a college degree but want to work in a technical discipline. "The vision is going towards that direction. We are targeting people that don't have those kind of resources and are being ignored by the rest of the educational community," said Kazarian.
In addition, Mr. Kazarian wants GITC to engage with more Americans, in particular, American-Armenian companies and have GITC students perform outsourcing and off shoring work for them. "We need to build bridges with these companies who are moving in that [off shoring] direction, especially with the recession we have going on in the US," said Mr. Kazarian.
"Armenia is an optimum market for generating wealth through intellectual property. Salaries paid for talented technical specialists are reasonable, even when compared with Chinese and Indian markets. Dozens of companies are engaged in hardware and software product development for export, including National Instruments and Virage Logic. Some organizations, Epygi and Synopsys to name just two, are betting the entire company's future on Armenian based talent – and winning. GITC is becoming a bridge to Gyumri for companies like this and many others. I would love to see this opportunity – GITC, explored and supported by, especially, young generation of Armenians from the diaspora."
Mr. Kazarian is indeed enjoying his position at GITC and living in Gyumri. Two of his favorite things in Gyumri are the weather, which he said is comparable to Denver, and the healthier food, including the locally grown organic fruits and vegetables.
Gyumri, located 75 miles outside of Yerevan, is the second largest city in Armenia, and has made substantial progress since it was hard hit with the earthquake in 1988. The calamity took the lives of 50,000 people and injured scores of others. "One of the big changes is the amount of construction since I was here in December 2006 to today. There are buildings popping up everywhere. I've seen 3 or 4 multi-story large buildings go up in spaces that were vacant in a little over 2 years. Earthquake-wise, they're rebuilding the original Armenian Church, and the project is coming along. There have been a lot of changes. It doesn't look anything like it did, five, or even two years ago."
There are many things Mr. Kazarian wants to accomplish as executive director of GITC, including starting a full-time faculty, hopefully with the participation of diaspora Armenians. "I wish I could encourage people in the IT industry who want to become educators to come and teach at GITC," said Mr. Kazarian. "If we had half a dozen people who would be willing to move here for a year or two, we would have a cutting edge educational institution. We would like to have people from the diaspora to come here and do something different than a typical nine-to-five job."
Mr. Kazarian's friend from Texas, Ken Maranian, participated in FAR's Young Professional's Trip to Armenia in the summer of 2006 and had an incredible experience that he shared with Mr. Kazarian once he returned to Texas. Mr. Kazarian was interested in Mr. Maranian's experience with GITC and contacted FAR to start volunteering and teaching part time. "When I came back and told my parish about the trip and how wonderful and promising it was, Jason got in touch with FAR and started teaching there," said Mr. Maranian. "We're really proud of him."
Patrick Sarkissian, one of the founders of GITC said he is proud of having Jason as the executive director of GITC. "As a fellow American-Armenian, I am amazed by Jason's sacrifice and dedication. As a colleague from the IT industry – I am impressed with his talents and capabilities," said Mr. Sarkissian. "He is bringing Western business ethics and culture to GITC."
While there may have been no hesitance on Mr. Kazarian's part when he assumed the executive director position at GITC, the staff was concerned whether he would be able to adjust to the realities of life and culture in Gyumri. Those concerns, however, eventually faded. "We thank God Jason is with GITC," said Amalya Yeghoyan, deputy executive director of GITC. "Students admire him, even though he is a tough and very demanding teacher, and the staff owes him a lot for an incredible learning curve we have gone through under his leadership. Jason is an excellent example of what diaspora Armenian could do in Armenia."
"Jason is helping the young talents in an area devastated by the earthquake to regain hope for a better future," said Mr. Sarkissian.
Azerbaboon: 9.000 Google hits and counting!Comment
-
Re: Stories of Armenian repatriates
"The cultural differences between Armenia and the United States are ones Mr. Kazarian has observed while living in Gyumri. "The way women and men engage with each other is similar to the US in the 1950s," said Mr. Kazarian. "The women's lib movement hasn't taken full effect, although it seems it's going to happen with the current generation who are 25 and under. I'm seeing a modern mindset in some of them," he said, noting that Gyumri is a mix of eastern and western cultures."Originally posted by Federate View PostWho knows... this could be you someday, Ara(87)!
----------------------------------------------------------------------
An Armenian from Texas promotes information technology in faraway Gyumri
by Taleen Babayan
Gyumri, Armenia - Life in Gyumri is a far cry from life in Texas for Jason Paul Kazarian. But when the opportunity arose to fill the vacant executive director position at the Gyumri Information Technologies Center (GITC/GTech), he accepted it without hesitation.
Moving 5,000 miles away from his home country provided quite the lifestyle change for Mr. Kazarian, both professionally and personally. But the vision and goals he had for GITC prompted his move and have remained his priority.
Each day for him at GITC – a competitive post-graduate IT institution – varies. On Mondays, he teaches a class for students working on their thesis projects and helps them with the organization of their papers including the format, thesis, thesis chapters, and gives overall guidance to the 20 students so they can graduate on July 14. Mr. Kazarian also makes it a point for himself to travel out of Gyumri into Yerevan to do development work and build partnerships between the IT industry and GITC. There he frequently visits the office of the Fund for Armenian Relief. He also spends his time writing grant proposals and finding sources of revenue, in addition to supervising GITC's employees.
Founded in August 2005, GITC promotes the IT industry, drives the formation of an IT infrastructure and promotes employment opportunities in this area devastated by the major earthquake in 1988. GITC has graduated about 50 young adults. In exchange for nearly free training, students commit to remain in the Gyumri region for two years following graduation.
The cultural differences between Armenia and the United States are ones Mr. Kazarian has observed while living in Gyumri. "The way women and men engage with each other is similar to the US in the 1950s," said Mr. Kazarian. "The women's lib movement hasn't taken full effect, although it seems it's going to happen with the current generation who are 25 and under. I'm seeing a modern mindset in some of them," he said, noting that Gyumri is a mix of eastern and western cultures.
"It's interesting to look at our students because they have a provincial mindset. Gyumri has a population of 150,000 people and there's a prevailing village mentality," said Mr. Kazarian, who has a bachelor's and a master's degree in computer science.
Moving across the world naturally poses many challenges and obstacles to complete even the simplest tasks. "There's not an open market for rental property," said Mr. Kazarian, who had to hunt for a place to live when he first moved to Gyumri. "Something as simple as finding a place to live is basically done by word of mouth." He compared Gyumri to most European cities where it's very compact. Mr. Kazarian walks 20 minutes to work every day and doesn't need a car to get around, as it's easy to get everywhere on foot.
Originally from California, Mr. Kazarian lived the last 14 years in Texas. He has been in software development for about 25 years and spent three years in industrial education in technical topics such as telecommunications and software development. Prior to joining GITC, he worked six years as an independent contractor for multiple customers and owned a boutique IT company.
Mr. Kazarian's vision for GITC is three-fold. He wants to modify the curriculum so that there are no prerequisites to complete before enrolling in GITC, other than earning a degree from a public institution. He would also like to hire local Gyumri-based full time faculty which both reduces expenses and improves the quality of student life. "Now we have instructors who commute from Yerevan and come once a week," said Mr. Kazarian. "There is no opportunity for students to interact with their teachers. Having our own faculty will also make it easier for students to get help on projects and homework assignments during the week."
He sees GITC moving from an academic model to a vocational and certification model of training which is more job-focused and will be more beneficial to students who don't want a college degree but want to work in a technical discipline. "The vision is going towards that direction. We are targeting people that don't have those kind of resources and are being ignored by the rest of the educational community," said Kazarian.
In addition, Mr. Kazarian wants GITC to engage with more Americans, in particular, American-Armenian companies and have GITC students perform outsourcing and off shoring work for them. "We need to build bridges with these companies who are moving in that [off shoring] direction, especially with the recession we have going on in the US," said Mr. Kazarian.
"Armenia is an optimum market for generating wealth through intellectual property. Salaries paid for talented technical specialists are reasonable, even when compared with Chinese and Indian markets. Dozens of companies are engaged in hardware and software product development for export, including National Instruments and Virage Logic. Some organizations, Epygi and Synopsys to name just two, are betting the entire company's future on Armenian based talent – and winning. GITC is becoming a bridge to Gyumri for companies like this and many others. I would love to see this opportunity – GITC, explored and supported by, especially, young generation of Armenians from the diaspora."
Mr. Kazarian is indeed enjoying his position at GITC and living in Gyumri. Two of his favorite things in Gyumri are the weather, which he said is comparable to Denver, and the healthier food, including the locally grown organic fruits and vegetables.
Gyumri, located 75 miles outside of Yerevan, is the second largest city in Armenia, and has made substantial progress since it was hard hit with the earthquake in 1988. The calamity took the lives of 50,000 people and injured scores of others. "One of the big changes is the amount of construction since I was here in December 2006 to today. There are buildings popping up everywhere. I've seen 3 or 4 multi-story large buildings go up in spaces that were vacant in a little over 2 years. Earthquake-wise, they're rebuilding the original Armenian Church, and the project is coming along. There have been a lot of changes. It doesn't look anything like it did, five, or even two years ago."
There are many things Mr. Kazarian wants to accomplish as executive director of GITC, including starting a full-time faculty, hopefully with the participation of diaspora Armenians. "I wish I could encourage people in the IT industry who want to become educators to come and teach at GITC," said Mr. Kazarian. "If we had half a dozen people who would be willing to move here for a year or two, we would have a cutting edge educational institution. We would like to have people from the diaspora to come here and do something different than a typical nine-to-five job."
Mr. Kazarian's friend from Texas, Ken Maranian, participated in FAR's Young Professional's Trip to Armenia in the summer of 2006 and had an incredible experience that he shared with Mr. Kazarian once he returned to Texas. Mr. Kazarian was interested in Mr. Maranian's experience with GITC and contacted FAR to start volunteering and teaching part time. "When I came back and told my parish about the trip and how wonderful and promising it was, Jason got in touch with FAR and started teaching there," said Mr. Maranian. "We're really proud of him."
Patrick Sarkissian, one of the founders of GITC said he is proud of having Jason as the executive director of GITC. "As a fellow American-Armenian, I am amazed by Jason's sacrifice and dedication. As a colleague from the IT industry – I am impressed with his talents and capabilities," said Mr. Sarkissian. "He is bringing Western business ethics and culture to GITC."
While there may have been no hesitance on Mr. Kazarian's part when he assumed the executive director position at GITC, the staff was concerned whether he would be able to adjust to the realities of life and culture in Gyumri. Those concerns, however, eventually faded. "We thank God Jason is with GITC," said Amalya Yeghoyan, deputy executive director of GITC. "Students admire him, even though he is a tough and very demanding teacher, and the staff owes him a lot for an incredible learning curve we have gone through under his leadership. Jason is an excellent example of what diaspora Armenian could do in Armenia."
"Jason is helping the young talents in an area devastated by the earthquake to regain hope for a better future," said Mr. Sarkissian.
http://www.reporter.am/index.cfm?fur...ay-gyumri&pg=1
Modern mindset in the US.... has caused the downfall of the entire social stucture. Somebody save Armenia before it becomes the shortest lived independent country in the world
"Nobody can give you freedom. Nobody can give you equality or justice or anything. If you're a man, you take it." ~Malcolm XComment
-
Re: Stories of Armenian repatriates
Montreal repatriate Araz Artinian raises $250,000 for Yerevan schools
Check her image here
YEREVAN—You may know Araz Artinian as a noted Canadian videographer whose films have gained a vast degree of international notoriety.
The 35-year-old repatriate left her roots in Montreal three years ago after completing a tour with “The Genocide in Me,” an angry, tender and funny work that deals with her father’s passionate commitment to Diasporan Armenians and her own personal needs.
The video landed her a Golden Apricot Award in Armenia and was ultimately shown in 47 cities throughout 10 countries.
Prior to that, another film called “Twenty Voices” provided testimonies from 20 survivors representing different provinces in Armenia—a commitment that extended four years (2001-2005) and ran parallel with “The Genocide in Me.”
“Very few ever got to see the final product and none are alive today,” she said. “I look at people like Rev. Vartan Hartunian and Armine Dedekian and how they provided my inner strength. They were my inspiration and this was their legacy.”
These days, Artinian is living in Yerevan with a different mission. She’s raised $250,000 to benefit 50 different art and music schools throughout the capital city. Also visible is an ambitious website project designed to promote history which is running jointly with the humanitarian work.
Her quest is a necessary one, looking to renovate all the toilet facilities in these institutions that have been virtually untouched over the past four decades, together with the purchase of new instruments, uniforms for dance ensembles as well as the renovation of classrooms and music halls.
Already opened is a new department in the Method Center at the Yerevan Conservatory. Many grand pianos have also been restored.
Artinian raised the money in six months time, much of it through Vivacell, a cellular phone company, and through the generosity of Hrair and Anna Hovnanian Family Foundation.
“People in Yerevan know how awful the condition of all the music and art schools remains in Armenia,” she said. “The students and instructors deserve better. If it continues, art will disappear. It gives me more of a satisfaction in helping others with their art than myself.”
That brings Araz to a second project. She’s launched a website project (Zart.am) which stands for “awakening,” in an effort to get the word out and elucidate the cultural population. Keeping tabs on all 50 schools with periodical visits and constant updates makes for one busy schedule. Her cell phone is always on call.
On her website, you’ll tour 21 centuries of Armenian culture. Thirty different children between the ages of 11-17 have been recruited from 12 different districts of Yerevan. Each child will represent a specific art form.
Artinian visited 400 churches in Armenia to select 21 shooting locations she deemed worthy for the project. Research was done at the Madenataran. Artinian recruited the help of Suzanna Baghsaryan who designed and made the costumes. Karen Mirzoyan was commissioned to shoot the website photography.
Artinian expects the work to be completed sometime next year, a project that runs an additional $100,000. Of that, $50,000 has already been exhausted, including $30,000 from Canada.
There appears no rest for the weary when it comes to both endeavors—the website and the schools. Both are critical in this repatriate’s mind.
“Yerevan is home to 22 music schools and 28 art schools,” she points out. “Teachers average $100 a month and principals get $140. There are no decent instruments left and the government sadly won’t help. It’s $10 a month to send a child to music school and there are parents who cannot afford even that. No student should be deprived of an education because of a shortage of money or desperate conditions.”
In 2008, Artinian spent seven months writing a $3 million proposal to install heating and new windows in the music schools.
“They don’t have heating in Yerevan,” she confirms.
When the money didn’t come through, she took matters into her own hands, a relentless mission that often robbed her of sleep and a viable social life. It also led to an imminent book of poetry called “Philophobia,” detailing her personal relations and the fear of falling in love.
“When I was young, I hated Armenian history,” Artinian revealed. “It was far too complicated for me. I want kids to look at these 21 centuries and get a better appreciation for history. I want to raise awareness.”
***
About Araz Artinian
Canadian-Armenian Araz Artinian spent 27 years trying to comprehend her father’s obsession with his nationality.
She spent the next four years with growing degrees of that same “Armenianness” entering her blood. For the filmmaker, understanding came around the family table in Montreal, through the lens of a camera in Turkey, through the voices of survivors in North America of the very genocide that has been the theme of her home life.
The passion continued with the making of a film titled “Twenty Voices” in which she documented the eyewitness accounts of 20 survivors.
That was later followed by the award-winning film, “The Genocide In Me,” which thrust the 35-year-old into the spotlight as a film artist.
Dr. Henry Theriault, associate professor of philosophy at Worcester State College, says of Artinian’s work, “There exists just a small initial literature on such topics as the intergenerational transfer of genocide trauma. If only for its documentation of these survivors, the work is of historical significance.”
Artinian was the recipient of numerous awards for “The Genocide In Me,” which was produced in 2005 and given the full tour universally by the artist.
She also worked with Canadian filmmaker Atom Egoyan as head researcher for the feature film “Ararat.”
Today, Artinian lives in Yerevan raising money for music and art schools throughout the region.
Azerbaboon: 9.000 Google hits and counting!Comment
-
Re: Stories of Armenian repatriates
Armenia diaspora comes home
Daniel Bardsley, Correspondent
July 11. 2009 7:17PM UAE / July 11. 2009 3:17PM GMT
Zak Valladian is one of the foreign-born Armenians returning to the country of their heritage
YEREVAN // Charles Masraff does not mince his words when he describes what he wants to achieve in Armenia.
The 59-year-old restaurateur says he was attracted to the country “by the possibility of giving Armenia a future”.
Although he was born and brought up in London, Mr Masraff’s paternal grandparents came from what used to be Western Armenia, and is now eastern Turkey.
He is one of what is thought to be a growing band of western-raised diasporan Armenians moving to their ancestral home country.
In the decade after it became independent in 1991, Armenia lost as much as one-fifth of its population as the economy declined in the early 1990s, with most emigrants going to Russia.
Since the mid-1990s, the economy showed strong annual growth until the recent financial crisis, and the parallel modernisation has attracted many of Armenia’s huge diaspora, which is over twice the size of the country’s 3.2 million population, to live in the country for the first time.
While Armenia has achieved significant economic growth, Mr Masraff believes the country remains stifled by a culture of corruption, which he describes as “a way of life here”.
“Armenia desperately needs people with outside experience,” he said. “There’s a culture among Armenians living in Armenia that makes progress difficult – corruption, the sense that the present is all there is.
“But if you look at the Armenian diaspora and the success they’ve enjoyed in different societies, compared to the inability of this society to achieve very much – why did we get this huge contrast? The post-Soviet hangover has a lot to answer for.”
Mr Masraff spent most of his career in Scotland in hotel management, but for the past three months has been running a restaurant in Yerevan.
“I came here to try to achieve something,” he said. “I’m not just an observer. By running a business, I feel I have a greater chance to achieve something.”
Among the analysts who believe a growing number of diasporan Armenians are moving to Armenia is Arpi Vartanian, country director for the Armenia and Nagorno-Karabakh offices of the Armenian Assembly of America, a lobbying group.
Born and raised in Detroit to two diasporan Armenians, including an Iranian-Armenian father, Ms Vartanian moved to Yerevan in 1993.
“I’ve seen families come and go, I’ve seen people get frustrated they weren’t able to succeed but I see more and more people coming or expressing the desire to come. They want to live in their homeland,” she said of the “repatriates” moving to the country.
“That’s not to say everyone is coming with rose-tinted glasses. They’re coming with the hope that Armenia will change them, but [also] that they can use their experience or knowledge to change Armenia.
“Every encounter impacts people. I’ve had people say: ‘You’ve taught me.’ They told me later they watched how I worked and my work ethic and that taught them. They were able to use that later.”
For diasporans brought up in the West, Ms Vartanian said Armenia was now a much easier place to live than when she arrived, when there were few cafes or nightclubs.
“There are still some things I miss and crave,” she said. “It drives me nuts when people don’t stand in line. But people have been so open and interested in who I am.”
Rudolf, a 27-year-old born in Bahrain and brought up in France, London and Lebanon, and who declined to give his full name, admitted however that diasporan Armenians often tended to socialise with their own kind rather than locals.
“My friends are diasporan friends from Syria, Beirut, the United States,” said Rudolf, who has a “pagan Armenian metal” rock band and has lived in Armenia for the past 18 months.
Even if his social circle is largely made up of fellow diasporans, he hopes he can effect change.
“We’re coming here to do something good,” he said. “We have done stuff that there wasn’t here five or six years ago – the first rock band in the Caucasus. We come with new ideas. We’re trying to relate it more to Europe. I’m against the Soviet mentality. I think it’s ruined the country.”
His friend, Zak Valladian, born and brought up in Dubai, is a member of a group called Tebi Hayrenik or “back to the motherland” that encourages diasporans to relocate to Armenia. He believes “absolutely” more of them are doing what he did four months ago, and moving to the country.
“Change comes from within,” said the 30-year-old, who runs a special effects business. “I do believe for Armenia’s sake, the only thing they can do is to encourage the diaspora to come and invest. It’s home from home for us.”
Azerbaboon: 9.000 Google hits and counting!Comment
Comment