ARMEN TOROS: ONE MAN’S JOURNEY FROM CALIFORNIA TO PLANTING TREES IN AN ARMENIA VILLAGE AND 40 COUNTRIES IN-BETWEEN
Sona Avagyan
hetq
12:44, May 18, 2012
This is the story of Armen Toros, a young man born in California to
Armenian parents from Iran who has travelled the world over and now
finds himself in an Armenian village, planting trees and farming.
“I was on a tiny island in Indonesia, surrounded by the clear blue
ocean waters. We swam with the fish through the coral reefs. It was
an idyllic life. I’d make my carvings. At night, we’d sing and eat. I
loved it there,” says Armen, who can be called a free spirit.
It was there, thousands of miles from Armenia, that Armen wrote a
letter to his father, suggesting that he tend to the family plot of
land in the Armavir Marz village of Nalbandyan.
Armen told me that he had met up with an American called Binsly on
another Indonesian island. The American was also a traveller who
sold his silver handicrafts and sculptures along the way as a source
of income.
For a while, Armen worked in the Binsly’s factory in Indonesia learning
the craft. Armen regards the American as his spiritual father and
saw him as something of a role model as to how he could live his life.
“He was a man a lot like me. He started to travel at an early age.
When I met him, Binsly had turned 50. I thought to myself that I just
might turn out like him. He had no family, travelled, and engaged in
art. It was a happy-go-lucky lifestyle. I imagined such a life for
myself. But then I realized that I didn’t want to end up all alone
like him. Our family has some land in Armenia so I decided to change
my path and go to Armenia; to plant some trees,” says Armen.
Four days later, via ship and plane, Armen reached Armenia. He planted
3,000 trees in eleven days.
30 year-old Armen started to travel the world at the age of seventeen.
He’s been to some 40 countries since – Argentina, Latvia, Finland,
Spain, Poland, India, Singapore…His work history is just as diverse
– construction, shoemaking, farming, lumber cutter, tractor/combine
driver, goat herder, beer maker, ironsmith, stone carver…
“At times, I worked just for my room and board. I’d stay in one place
for weeks or months depending on the work or whether I decided it
was time to move on,” says Armen.
Right now Armen is learning how to craft silver and copper adornments.
He plans to start learning the art of stone-cross (khatchkar) carving
when work on the Nalbandyan land eases up.
Armen was 16 when he first visited Armenia and he’s crisscrossed the
country several times.
“I especially like the villages around Mt. Aragatz in Armenia and the
regions of Kashatagh and Karvatchar in Artsakh. It’s the mountains
that attract me. I also love the Sevan area.”
Armen studied psychology in college, not with the aim of working
in the field but because he wanted to understand his feelings and
thoughts, his relationship with other peoples and the wider world,
and how to live a clean life.
“That education directed me to the village life in the mountains,
to sustainable farming,” he says.
Armen’s father purchased an 11 hectare plot of land in Nalbandyan.
Four years ago, Armen began plating plum, apple, walnut and cherry
trees. This year, there will be a small plum harvest. He’ll also sell
the clover harvest as animal feed and plant new saplings.
Future plans include the construction of a hothouse and a barn for
raising goats. He’s also like to build a few cabins so that friends
from overseas can visit, stay, and help out on the farm.
Armen says that adequate irrigation water is an ongoing problem. He
wants to build a small holding reservoir in a few years to resolve
the problem.
Yura Sargsyan, lives adjacent to Armen’s fields. The neighbour makes
the rounds of Armen’s fields in a daily basis, tending to the crops and
keeping his eyes peeled. Come harvest time, 3-4 other village residents
join in to help. Right now, Armen is out working on the land every day.
Armen tells me that many local residents have called him a fool for
investing his time and money in farming. The young man says such talk
offends him.
“When I meet people, there’s only one in a hundred that will tell me
I’m doing the right thing and who will encourage me. I am doing all
this for me and my family, for Yura and his 5 year-old son. I learnt
this attitude here; that people would rather fight amongst themselves
rather than work together, for the good of the motherland. It’s
a pity.”
>From childhood, Armen has worked and lived amongst Mexicans and
other Latin American peoples. He confesses that at such times he’s
experienced conflicting identities – sometimes American, sometimes
European.
“Nevertheless, I always felt myself as an Armenian deep down. But here,
in Armenian, I feel like an outsider. Sometimes, I’m treated quite
badly. I don’t feel like an Armenian. Despite this, I realize that
being an Armenian doesn’t necessarily mean you have to be a local
resident. It’s a mixture. There are the Armenians from the diaspora.
They are all different. When I spend time with my friends from the
diaspora, that’s when I know that I too am Armenian.”
It grates at Armen when he gets surly glances while strolling the
streets of Yerevan for the way he dresses and looks. He wears rings in
his ears and his arms and neck are adorned with a variety of bracelets
and pendants that Binsly made and gifted to him.
Some Armenians still have a hard time accepting others who look
different and who don’t conform to the mainstream; their conception
of the mainstream. The defence mechanism employed by these people,
unsure of their own personal identity, is ridicule and insult.
Many, including residents in Nalbandyan, also find Armen’s outlook
on life and his opinion to be strange and somewhat alien. Again,
it’s a matter of perspective.
These people give up on Armen and the young man, in turn, also gets
disillusioned.
“The way I see things, people should live and let others live the
way they want. Just so long as they don’t do harm to others. I do not
judge others for the way they live or what they might think. People
are different and variety is the spice of life. It enriches humanity
and helps us develop. Unfortunately, people here don’t think along the
same lines. People who stand out in Armenia are viewed as alien, as
a threat, as something bad. Sometimes this behaviour really gets to me.
I see it in the way they look at me.”
Despite all this, Armen continues to live in his house in Yerevan
and even toys with the possibility of staying.
“When I first started plating the trees, I was more or less compelled
to visit and check up on things. Now, I want to come back to the
village, to see Yura and the family. Whether I like it or not, I
am creating something in Armenia and I feel better here with each
passing year. I would really get irritated in the beginning. I still
get annoyed but not as much.”
A few days ago, something really got Armen angry. So much so, that
he was thinking about selling the land and leaving Armenia. When he
calmed down, he returned to the fields.
“You know, I really love what we’re doing here. I feel like I could
stay here with my girlfriend.”
Let’s hope it works out for Armen.