EMIGRATION AND “INDEPENDENCE”: REALITIES AND REGRET IN A REMOTE VILLAGE
SOCIETY | 13.09.13 | 14:20
NAZIK ARMENAKYAN
ArmeniaNow
By GAYANE MKRTCHYAN
ArmeniaNow reporter
The aroma of basil and mint blend in the air excites the senses as
the royal purple of basil catches the eye, the cuddled bright green
mint leaves show the way from the garden to the house.
A gray woolen shawl is wrapped tightly around the waist of the
woman in red sweater. Drops of sparkling sweat roll down her face,
her complexion as fair as the snows of Ararat. She tries to stop the
sweat-flood with a sleeve, while constantly stirring the deep-red
dewberry jam cooking on a wooden stove.
Enlarge Photo Greta and Grisha Mnatsakanyans Enlarge Photo
“Blackberry, cornel, 15 kg of honey to each… I send when someone
agrees to take it with them. You know how it feels missing someone?
It’s killing me, if you say more I will start crying,” says 72-year-old
Greta, her fair eyelids turning red as if reflecting the color of
the jam she is cooking, tears mix with the sweat streaming down her
face, as her mind takes her to her sons and grandchildren living,
as she says, ‘in those Moscows…’ for 18 years now.
husband, 76-year-old Grisha Mnatsakanyan puts a dish with just picked
fresh figs on the table and says with stubbornness and rebellion
written all across his face: “No way we are leaving, too. That place
is not fit for living. Whether we are sick or helpless or alone,
we are staying in our house. Our home is here.”
Their home is Syunik, Tchakaten, their small village, giant mountains
and deep gorges, the forest sounds, apples, cornels, blackberry,
medlar…
In Tchakaten, 328 km from Yerevan, silence generates anxiety, gray,
rusty locks on the doors seem to mock or, maybe, miss the house hosts
who have been away for a long time now. Life in Tchakaten is being
somehow dragged like a spiral by the village elders, well aware,
though, that if nobody comes to replace them, the spiral won’t last.
Looking at the Yerevan-Meghri highway crossing this remote village,
Grisha says: “This road is a source of life, of breath; when cars
pass we rejoice, it means humanity is still alive.”
Tchakaten has 45 households and 144 residents. For six years now the
village has not heard the first cry of a newborn baby, for four years
the first bell has not rung at the village school – no first-grades.
“There are around five families left in the village. And they’d leave,
too, if given a chance. In a decade the village will cease to exist,
the elderly are dying. In order to keep the young there must be
micro-workshops producing milk, cheese, clothes, but there aren’t any.
The second most important issue is that there is no irrigation water
here. Thirdly, the whole year long villagers work hard to produce
something, then sell for pennies to resellers, return with nothing,
feeling cheated and resentful,” says village head Artsrun Harutyunyan.
The heartbeat in the village is bound to stop one day, that’s the
inevitable obvious bitter reality here. Still, officials, in this case
Seyran Avetisyan, head of department of regional administration and
republican executive bodies at Syunik local government, assures there
is inflow of people in the villages of Armenia’s southern province.
“There have been inflow of migrants over the recent years, they come
and start businesses. Emigration was the case here in the post-war
period, they left for good and settled elsewhere, not temporarily, say,
for six months of labor. Our small villages are like nursing homes,
because the youth leave for Kajaran (with developing mining industry)
and Kapan (regional center) with higher employment chances,” he says.
Emigration from remote villages of Armenia is like a machine that’s
slowly gaining speed – from Kapan to Yerevan to Moscow. The majority
of those who have left Tchakaten are now in Moscow.
Greta says two families have left the village this September.
“Our neighbors haven’t left, up there Varuzh’s family has not left,
but the others are mostly gone,” says Greta, who has worked as an
accountant for years at the local vocational school for construction,
and points to the lonely houses flanking the village. “I would never
have guessed that we’d be spending our last years in such solitude. I
thought we’d hold our grandchildren’s hands and take them for a walk
in our yard, in our splendid forest.”
The refreshing smell of just brewed mint tea saturates the air. Greta
pours it from an old-fashioned soviet thermos. Grisha brings honey
with bee wax pieces he collected himself, and the ripe figs sitting
in a corner of the table have cracked from pleasure, the honey-sweet
juice drop sparkling in the crack like a morning dew in the sun. Greta
fetches her photo albums and tells about her grandchildren, this way
feeling a bit closer to them.
They are analyzing the recent political developments – the Customs
Union or the European family.
“The factory was functional during the Soviet times. Part of the
production was sent to Kazakhstan, the other part to the Ukraine. They
can’t do it now… they should have treated economy with great care,
whereas recovering a crashed economy is a tough task. Independence
is good, but we are a small nation,” says Grisha.
It’s hard to say whether it is Tchakaten that holds the mountains
in its embrace or it’s the mountains that embrace Tchakaten, so
harmoniously intertwined they seem.
“That high spot is Sal Qar. That part over there, we call it Mtes Khut
(Great Ledge), the other part is Kndzorut, and the forest is our home,”
says Grisha.
Having just met, it is still not easy to leave Greta. Her eyes say
“don’t go; it is so rare to meet new people.” She holds me tight and
says: “Come stay, there is plenty of room in this house, you only
come. Here, write down our telephone number.”
Memories of Tchakaten follow the return to Yerevan: Greta in her red
sweater and metallic ladle, stirring the scarlet jam; her grandchildren
smile at her from a photograph, she asks them questions and responds
in their stead.
“Independence shouldn’t mean being alone, independence has to be while
living with a family, that’s what our state officials should think
about,” she said. “I give away quince, I give figs, I give to those
who don’t have, I do it for free, I give and say ‘take and enjoy’,
my children are not here, let God help them in a foreign land.”
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress