Armenian center in Beirut’s Burj Hamud aims to keep tradition alive
tert.am
10:47 – 18.11.12
By Beckie Strum
Re-published from Daily Star
A pink house nestled among the narrow streets of Burj Hammoud has
accumulated piece-by-piece relics of the country’s Armenian heritage.
A decrepit but functional loom sits at the end of a narrow workshop –
its worn wooden frame taking a temporary rest after 60 years of daily
work.
Armenian-style rugs hang in the dining room alongside elaborately
woven satchels, which Armenian monks filled with salt and carried on
their solitary trips more than 100 years ago.
Nearly all the items – from the hand-embroidered pomegranate on the
napkins to the abstract iron sculpture on the second floor – carry a
story of Armenian heritage, all of which Arpie Mangasarian has
memorized.
Mangasarian is the mind behind the pink house, which will open under
the name Badguer at the end of the month as a hub for Armenian
craftsmen and culture.
Badguer will house workshops for traditional trades, showrooms for
budding artisans, galleries for Armenian artists and an enormous
dining room, where local housewives will come to dish up traditional
fare for the public.
No other cultural preservation project like Badguer exists in Burj
Hammoud. The house will serve in passing down traditional trades,
skills and foods to younger generations, which Mangasarian fears have
turned en masse to jobs and lives outside the Lebanese-Armenian
community, she said.
The center will also give a boost to local artisans by highlighting
their work and giving everyone from fellow Armenians to short-term
tourists information about the community and where to find a
particular craftsman.
`They deserve this kind of attention and to preserve this culture,’
said Mangasarian, who has been involved in community organizing and
advising the municipality’s government for decades.
`They work day and night without negotiating on time or materials or
serving their clients. But they don’t know the value of their product:
This is the strategy, to raise awareness about the quality of their
product,’ she said.
Take any of the traditional craftsmen for example, she said.
Nazareth Besserkian, who died several years ago, worked on the loom
that now occupies a corner of Badguer since 1959, through the Civil
War and up until his very last days weaving carpets.
`It wasn’t until he was invited to do exhibitions that he began to
know the value of his work,’ she said. `He spent his whole life
sitting in the corner of his shop, and when he brought his products
out of Burj Hammoud, that’s when he saw there was an interest in his
skills and his talent.’
The old weaver and Mangasarian had become friends by the end of
Besserkian’s life, and when he passed away, he offered his loom to
Badguer. With the loom and the help of a master weaver of Besserkian’s
skill level, Badguer will create a women’s workshop specifically for
weaving traditional rugs.
`More and more young people are going to offices to work, they don’t
inherit the know-how for these crafts,’ she said.
Among Armenian traditional crafts are textiles, like weaving, sewing,
shoe cobbling and embroidery, as well as metal work, such as gold and
silver smiths, welding and other related trades.
Armenian goldsmiths have found it particularly hard to transfer the
business to their children as the price of gold in recent years has
skyrocketed after the global recession. Many Armenians have had to
close their gold shops entirely, Mangasarian said.
It takes a very dedicated family to pass such skills on to children
without a business that makes those skills necessary, she said. `The
son now isn’t learning the know-how. It is this fear that makes me
work. It’s the fear of losing this specialness that we have.’
At the heart of Badguer sits another tradition: Armenian cuisine.
During a short tour through the large pink house, Mangasarian lit up
as she described the future restaurant.
She showed off the color palate of the flatware, the pomegranate she
had local ladies embroider onto the serviettes and the piano she
brought in to make the large dining room feel like a home.
She gleamed as she described the sorry state she bought the house in,
as brand new tiles and chestnut-colored kitchen cabinets line the
walls now ready to serve hungry guests.
The restaurant will have a limited menu each day of specific dishes
made by local ladies from the neighborhood.
Some of the women involved with Badguer debuted their food at the
Beirut Cooking Festival earlier this month. They too saw the value of
their skills as strangers savored carrot dolma, sweet carrots stuffed
with rice and topped with a savory broth; a light pudding dessert with
raisins and apricots; tiny meat dumplings called mante; and the
ever-popular sou beoreg doughy cheese dish.
Determined to explain the recipes despite a language barrier, Marie
Hogapian described in a hodgepodge of Arabic and
English the work that goes into soft lentil dumplings covered in
Armenian-style tabbouleh.
`One of the lady’s daughters told me her mother was up until 3 o’clock
in the morning cooking last night,’ Mangasarian said. `It’s not enough
to say it’s good. They need to see, to be convinced, that what they’re
doing has value.’
At the cooking festival and at the Badguer boutique, the women will
sell homemade preserves and treats like Armenian-style baklava,
pomegranate molasses, Armenian wines and, a novelty in Lebanon,
homemade apple cider.
The boutique will also sell items made by Armenian fashion and shoe
designers, jewelry, work from the carpet workshop and other wares
collected from the community.
`I love the passion, the organizing, but I hate the math,’ Mangasarian
said, with a laugh. `I wish I could say don’t give me money and don’t
ask for money.’
On the second floor of Badguer a small gallery already houses a
photography exhibit by local Nareg D.B.
The second floor will also be home to the master artisan, who will
come from the community or Armenia for several months and stay in a
cozy studio flat and teach the women how to work on the loom.
The short-term resident will have plenty of other spaces to explore in
the giant house.
The second floor has a veranda where Mangasarian envisioned guests
will come to chat and strategized new ways to uplift the community. A
large conference room will also offer discussions and seminars related
to Armenian history and cultural heritage.
The project itself is Mangasarian’s inheritance. Mangasarian purchased
the house and began Badguer with money she inherited from an uncle
living in Australia and homesick for his community in Burj Hammoud.
The idea for Badguer: an inheritance also from a family dedicated to
its roots, she said.
`My parents and my grandfather were telling us all the time their
past, their story,’ she said. `This was rooted in our soul. It become
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