COLLAPSE OF A CULTURE: YOUNG PEOPLE SEE NO FUTURE IN ARMENIA’S “SECOND CITY”
THE SPITAK QUAKE | 04.12.13 | 20:56
NAZIK ARMENAKYAN
ArmeniaNow
By GAYANE MKRTCHYAN
ArmeniaNow reporter
In the courtyard of Seven Wounds Church scarlet red rose petals
soaring in the air paint a road for the couple which has just received
a blessing in the holy wedding ceremony. As the tradition goes,
the newly-weds, standing on the church stairs, release a couple of
snow-white doves to fly up into the now grayish winter skies. The
bride and the bridegroom then move to the wedding caravan of family
and friends waiting for them. Women beggars block their path asking
for some coins in exchange for blessings of long happy life and
many children.
Enlarge Photo Gohar Smoyan Enlarge Photo Karen Aleqyan Enlarge Photo
Sargis Hovhannisyan
“Please, be patient for just a second and I will give to all of you,”
says the Godfather of the wedding and gives away 1,000-dram notes
($2.50).
The festive part of the day ends as the wedding procession leaves,
and the city once again is left to embrace itself. By the dusk elderly
people enjoying the scarce sunrays hurry home. It would seem that
nightlife would come to take its turn, but nobody comes to replace
the elderly in the streets of once prosperous, beautiful and busy
Gyumri, known for its talented offspring, craftsmen and artists,
unique architecture, hospitality and humor.
“Sister, you won’t see anyone in the streets after six in the evening,
only stray dogs… who has mood for anything other than getting home
after a tiresome day of work?” says a taxi driver.
Life in Gyumri calls it a day after 6 p.m. Those who leave their
jobs later have to manage to catch the last buses before 8 p.m. to
get home. Public transport stops after eight o’clock in the evening,
and taxies are not affordable for everybody.
Professor at Gyumri’s Academy of Fine Arts Gohar Smoyan says leisure
and entertainment sites close after 7 p.m. And the reasons for it
are rather serious.
“Gyumri is the country’s second city, but has no progress in terms
of employment, while everything depends on people’s social-economic
state. If a young person is unemployed, financially insecure, what
else can we talk about? Certainly, life seems dead in the city.
Businessmen are well aware of the fact that even if they open new
entertainment venues and leisure centers, there won’t be anyone to
attend,” says Smoyan.
She is certain that the earthquake factor has nothing to do with
the dire situation the city is challenged with. People, she says,
simply like to link everything to the earthquake – perhaps it is
easier that way.
“Twenty five years have gone by, and the authorities still lack
domestic policy. No matter how much we criticize the Soviet Union,
at least there was faith for future rooted in people back then; I
have no idea what tricks they used to achieve it, but people believed
in tomorrow. Even after the earthquake that faith was there, which,
I guess, was a remnant of soviet mentality. That faith is no longer
there,” she says.
Another professor of the Academy, Karen Alekyan says all issues are
interconnected and that polarization is too immense in a small county
like Armenia.
“It would have been different if the country were big by its area and
turnover. The faith in future was greater during the ‘cold and dark’
years [early 1990s], than now, when there seems to be no shortage
of anything. A city where elementary social issues are unresolved
I, as a man of arts, question whether art is needed and whether it
can truly save the world. The modern world no longer follows that
logic. Economy is emphasized, which we do not have and that fact has
led to today’s regrettable reality,” says Alekyan.
Gyumri, with population of around 146,000 in the north-east of the
country, is 115 km from capital Yerevan and 110 km from the Turkish
border. Students and graduates of the 11 institutions of higher
education functioning in the city confess that the city offers
almost no chances for employment. Professors admit with regret that
the huge human resource is being wasted and cannot be used for the
city’s benefit.
“A lot of our friends use any occasion to leave Gyumri. And it’s a
very important issue, why would people leave a place that’s overwhelmed
with art and culture and where soil bears talent and geniuses. That’s
a painful issue for us. Rather than asking ‘what is it that we lack?’,
the more accurate question would be ‘what do we have at all?’. There
isn’t an attraction point even of a lower level than what could have
been regarded as satisfactory, a pivot point basing on which the
youth could build future plans here,” says Alekyan.
Arman Gevorgyan, 22, has been working as an anchor at GALA TV in
Gyumri for a year now. He says he took this job while yet a university
student.
“After graduation they, indeed, fail to find a job, that’s why many
among boys start working at construction sites, others buy a car to
use it as a taxi or become bus drivers; girls either stay home or get
married,” says Gevorgyan. “I live in the military district and see
many people who have taken up work in the military, well what else
is there to do, either that or leave the country. You know people
are depressed, have no mood, social-economic issues are suffocating,
so what entertainment or leisure can we talk about?!”
Among the post-graduate students of the Academy of Fine Arts, Artashes
Pilosyan says he is trying to find a job that would be more or less
art-related.
“I will surely leave if I do not find a job in my field of
specialization. As for staying and persuading my friends to stay and
try to promote arts, recover Gyumri’s culture, it sounds absurd to me,
because such things cannot be achieved by a few people’s efforts,”
he says.
Painter Sargis Hovhannisyan graduated the Fine Arts Academy in 2006,
but has never been employed in Armenia. In 2007, together with his
friends he founded The Fifth Floor creative group, which has since
been cooperating with European countries, participating in most
prominent international forums and exhibitions.
“Our group consists of six artists, two of the boys have left for
France, one for Serbia, three of us are left here. I resent the
thought that one day I’d be leaving, too,” says Hovhannisyan.
Regret is great in the young souls full of sorrow and endless love for
their hometown, but social issues make them resort to desperate steps –
leave Gyumri to find another job in their profession in foreign lands,
where their skills are of higher value.
Professor Smoyan says with frustration that Gyumri is being killed
gradually.
“If Gyumri somehow manages to survive this winter … and Gyumri
has seen earthquake, life in domiks [temporary tin houses], those
earthquakes seem nothing to it. The authorities know what is going
on in Gyumri … people sold their last rings [wedding bands] last
year and have nothing else left, hence people are no longer worried
about living in domiks, their only concern is to get the bread and
fuel issues solved, that is what happiness comes down to for them,”
says Smoyan.
http://www.armenianow.com/society/the_spitak_quake/50640/gyumri_earthquake_seven_wounds_church_unemployment_youth