DIY, a popuar bar in downtown Yerevan that attracted 'alternative thinkers' was bombed/ Photo via DIY Facebook group

An early morning arson attack on the popular Yerevan-based bar, DIY last week has led to an outpouring of support from concerned citizens, activists and customers who frequented the relatively new establishment, but also anxiously renewed fears in the country’s LGBTQ population, who have kept a relatively low profile and faced discrimination for years.

DIY, which bills itself as a bar for alternative thinkers, was frequented by many in Armenia’s gay community, a place considered a safe haven, free of judgment or discrimination. The violent act, which caused around $4,000 of damage according to well-informed sources, is being said to have been motivated by nationalistic and fascist ideology – the bar’s gay-friendly atmosphere as well as owner Tsomak Oganesova’s attendance at Istanbul’s Gay Pride Parade in neighboring Turkey have been cited as two key factors that have categorized the attack as a hate crime.

Armenia and Turkey, whose borders are currently closed, have strained relationships over long-stemming issues of the 1915 Armenian Genocide, which Turkey denies as well as the Nagorno-Karabakh war between Armenia and Azerbaijan, during which Turkey sided with the latter.

Two Iranian-Armenian men were detained in relation to the attack and allegedly confessed to their crime. Though it has not been confirmed, sources say the men are tied to a larger fascist organization in the country. At a press conference today, it was revealed that Artsvik Minasyan, a Dashnak member of parliament, paid the 1 million dram ($2535) bail to release one of the detained men free, a headline that local media have started to run wild with. The other, according to Oganesova, was released on signature that he will not leave the country.

The bar's damage is estimated at $4000 / by Nairi Hakhverdi

Since the attack (which was caught on CCTV camera) supporters have come together to help rebuild it, assembling donation boxes as well as posters and t-shirts to show solidarity as well as strength in the face of adversity. Activists are touting the phrase “We Are DIY” in an effort to spread the message that the act will not be tolerated or silence them.

A charity concert took place last week with another, titled “Gender Equality Charity Fair” planned on May 20. Organizers plan to make it an interactive event to raise awareness of human rights issues in relation to gender equality, discrimination and violence. Donations ranging from 500 to 1000 AMD ($1.26 to $2.53) are recommended, money that will go towards the repair of the bar.

Oganesova announced last week that she and others will “continue to solve this problem, to move forward and make sure [perpetrators] are punished for what they did.”

The speech also hit a somber note when she announced that after resolution, she and others closely involved with the bar will be seeking to leave the country.

“Once this problem has been resolved, we’ll be able to say we have done something for this country and then leave this country,” she said. “If there is another problem in the future, we’ll come back, solve the problem and leave again.”

Oganesova, who also heads the Armenian punk rock band Tsomak and Pincet Project posted in the bar’s public Facebook group, noting her departure.

“I’m going far away…I’m going to be with those like me, I’ll go fight for and with those like me…I love those who know love…thank you to my friends and close acquaintances, those who respect and understand our pain and joy…those who never leave us alone, those who don’t run away from problems…I love them a lot…thank you…!!!”

Her sentiments and the rise of neo-nazi nationalist groups  in Europe as well as the former Soviet Union come at a time when some in the country are feeling fearful, many for the first time.

Nationalistic sentiments are common in the South Caucasus country, which is almost mono-ethnic and still reeling from the psychological effects of genocide and war. Its isolation, where borders with both Turkey and Azerbaijan are closed and distrust of much of what falls outside the realm of the status quo have been discussed as underlying reasons as to the rise of hate groups whose violent actions have left many fearful.

In a widely circulated interview, human rights activists Karen Hakobyan and Lala Aslikyan sat down with CivilNet to analyze the bombing and the reasons it occurred.

A donation box outside of DIY bar/ by Nairi Hakhverdi

“Fascism has reached our door and is now saying I’m here,” Aslikyan said in Armenian. She regretfully emphasized that the stifling of freedom of expression in the country is growing, while Hakobyan pointed out that the groups, mostly consisting of young men in their late teens and early 20s define their “Armenian-ness” by spreading hate towards groups that perceive as threats to national interest. These conditions, he continued, are a regression for the country, whose time on the world map could be in danger if it continues down this path.

In a press conference today, local NGOS including Public Information and Need of Knowledge (PINK) Armenia and  Women’s Resource Center of Armenia (WRCA) as well as Oganesova answered questions from reporters about the implications of the attack.

WRCA Co-founder Lara Aharonian pointed out that danger and fear of these attacks is that they can be directed against anyone whose views certain groups or individuals do not agree with. She also said that as a mother, she was concerned, mentioning shortcomings in the education and legal systems of Armenia as well as the media, who sensationalize issues. Marine Margaryan of PINK elaborated that the nationalist groups have ‘terrorized’ other establishments, including Calumet, another popular bar just down the street from DIY. Margaryan said that the groups have spat, thrown up and broken bottles in and outside establishments were ‘free thinkers’ are known to gather.

While a report [pdf] released by Pink Armenia in 2011, found that 72 percent of people they surveyed in Yerevan, Gyumri and Vanadzor, Armenia’s three largest cities, had negative attitudes toward ‘non-traditional’ sexual orientation, the International Lesbian and Gay Association launched its very first annual review of the human rights situation on LGBT in Europe today. Among its findings – Armenia is one of 10 countries in the negative zone, and does not meet the basic requirements of human rights. Our own initial piece on the attack generated comments of support from in and outside of Armenia, but was also subject to commentors who expressed enjoyment at seeing the bar become the victim of a fire attack.”Bravo to the arsonists,” one commenter wrote in Armenian. “We are all on their side.”

Recently, a 2011 Human Rights Watch report on Armenia found that the country continues to restrict freedom of expression.

Watch Karen Hakobyan and Lala Aslikyan discuss the larger issues implicated in the bombing of DIY. (CC for English captions):

Special thanks to Nairi Hakhverdi and Adrineh Macaan who contributed to this report

DIY, a popular bar in Yerevan was set on fire today when arson suspects threw a bomb in its entrance, burning down the front half of the establishment in the attack.

The front part of the bar sustained major damage/All photos sent to us by a citizen journalist on the scene

Closed circuit security cameras caught the two alleged suspects, who were male. Motives for the attack, which occurred at around 5:30 a.m., are currently unknown, though sources speculate it is a hate crime for nationalist fascist, possibly tied to an organized group.

DIY bar sustained heavy damage to its front half, where the bar was located. An air conditioner was completely melted, with the only thing that ironically stayed in tacked being a bottle of Kilikia beer, sources said. Though the fire was put out, police took around 12 hours to arrive at the scene, a move that is being criticized by supporters.

Supporters have been gathering at the bar for the majority of the day, making posters with slogans such as “Your bombs don’t affect us,” DIY – no to fascism” and “I am DIY. Other bar owners in the area have dropped by to share their condolences. Messages of support were also left on the group’s Facebook page. Boxes to collect funds in order to start rebuilding are also being distributed. The bar did not have insurance.

Located in downtown on Parpetsi street was opened in 2011 and quickly earned a reputation as a bar for alternative thinkers. The attack on the bar hasn’t been the first. It escalated from verbal abuse to breaking glass, before today’s attack.

Local NGOs are planning a press release about the incident, which is not immediately available. More photos below:

Civilnet spoke to bar owners briefly after the attack:

Featured image via DIY’s FB page

The gap between poverty and wealth seems wider than ever in the South Caucasus country. by L.Aghajanian/© ianyanmag

With the fall of the Soviet Union and the emergence of an independent Armenian Republic, the tectonic landscape of Armenia, culturally, economically, socially, and of course political, has drastically shifted. Twenty years on and the ground is still unsteady, although clear patterns of change are emerging, and these changes seem less than positive. While political independence and the fall of communism are often hailed as opening the doors of freedom here in Armenia and elsewhere, this freedom seems superficial at best, and perhaps even illusory.

The new freedom prevailing in Armenia is the freedom Herbert Marcuse wrote about in a Western context 60 years ago, a quantitative and not qualitative freedom, or, as he put it, freedom to choose between “brands and gadgets.”

Before coming to Armenia from the United States I had never seen such blatant wealth disparity. On a daily basis walking around Yerevan one is confronted with obscene wealth (in the form of luxury cars and other goods) and abject poverty, both extremes coexisting in a contradictory and mind-boggling juxtaposition. Feudal capitalism, it seems, has not been kind to Armenia—or at least the masses of people living off the scraps let go by the oligarchs and their political cronies. And yet, this truth is as plain as day, the blatant, extreme, and clearly unethical income inequality, corruption, and lack of governmental accountability goes unchallenged by large swaths of the population. Why? The answer to this question has several elements.

The largest contributing factor to mass indifference toward the Armenian political process and the failures therein seems to be the poisoning effects of consumerism and commercialism on Armenian society. The work of Armenia’s leaders in politics and business has been as effective as their strategy is genius. They know that an individual has only a finite amount of energy to devote to any given number of tasks. If, then, the individuals’ finite energy supply is consumed on tasks other than effective opposition to government policies and Armenia’s feudal style economy, the leaders have won. Ubiquitous commercialism has allowed for just such an outcome. Opening the floodgates of capitalism in its most feral form, sowing the seeds of an all-encompassing consumer culture, has transformed the social structure of Armenia with far reaching effects on politics as well.

Brands and gadgets loom large in the Armenian psyche here, especially in the capital, Yerevan. Despite the fact that the per capita income in Armenia is under$3000 U.S. dollars, the perception of wealth and status rules the day. Turning life into a game, a game of appearances where each individual has not a life to live but a role to play. Even though most roles are obviously divorced from reality the game goes on, the players suspend disbelief and Armenia turns into a red carpet runway, an open air Paris boutique. The sidewalks and buildings are crumbling, social and government services are abominable, but fake designer clothes wash away the misery.

For example, one can walk into the relatively new “elite” boutique in Armenia: “Billionaire Italian Couture” (yes that is the real name) and buy an incredibly gaudy pair of jeans for about 389,000 AMD or Armenian Drams (about $1,000 US dollars). The shop is located in Yerevan’s trendy Northern Avenue, a street of faceless and incongruous looking shabbily built “luxury” high-rises, the space for which was provided by the government’s legally dubious wholesale demolition of the existing homes and structures already on that land, an Armenian version of eminent domain.

Clearly most of the individuals flaunting these ostentatious styles cannot be wearing genuine articles, the cost of which typically rivals the average Armenian yearly salary. It seems those who can afford this clothing buy it; those who can’t, the vast, vast majority of Armenians? Well, they buy knock-offs.

And of course this fact is widely known. Most people wearing such expensive labels simply cannot be wearing the real deal. But this is not the important issue. As said before, perception is what’s important. An obsession with wealth—and thereby status and power—serves effectively to set the masses of Armenia into constant competition with each other; divide and conquer as Machiavelli once said. A population obsessed with being seen as “elite,” being able to partake in “luxury,” or any other such social construct cannot possibly have the energy left to challenge those structures that force them into this game in the first place. Therefore, while the masses are left fighting over scraps to see who has the biggest crumb, those at the table, the politicians, the oligarchs, the modern day Armenian aristocracy are left laughing over the main course.

While the constant race and struggle for recognition and status is going on, if it has not, like flame and oxygen, consumed every last modicum of available human energy (available human energy, that is, after work is finished, meals are prepared, shopping is done, the children are cared for, and the rest of the daily list of necessary tasks is accomplished) then there is energy left that could congeal into a united and effective opposition to the status quo. But, leaders, fear not, modernity and the global digital society at large has solved that problem. Enter the new world of “slacktivism.”

While the place of the Internet, and specifically social networking sites, is still being decided and debated their use to express political and social opinion is firmly established in Armenia. However, as is the case with the new phenomenon of slacktivism, the activism stops there: with largely meaningless expression within an established online, and therefore largely fictitious, milieu. With the movement of struggle and opposition from reality to the pseudo-reality of the Internet, all that is solid turns to air. The power of activism is undercut in a misplaced satisfaction that something has been accomplished when, in reality, all that has been accomplished is the expenditure of finite energy lost in an irrelevant avenue.

With this black hole negating political expression, an outlet that seems viable to many and yet, in actuality, merely swallows up infinite amounts of misplaced energy to no real effect, the elite of Armenia are able to rest assured that, after hours of work, chores, and other jobs, if an individual has any effort to express their legitimate dissatisfaction with the powers that be, such expression will more than likely take place in this futile way. But what about Mashtots Park? Teghut? Mass environmentally based occupy style protest actions that—combined with online awareness campaigns—have garnered widespread attention and are having some effects? These actions are indeed laudable and deserve immense respect. However, we have seen the tactics adopted by the Armenian government when the outrage of the people overflows into actual and possibly effective demands for change. The fraudulent election of 2008, mass unrest, and a state of emergency declared by the conservative nationalist government that left ten dead at the hands of unprovoked and brutal police aggression.

The safe guards are in place. All eventualities are planned for.

So what is to be done? This question is a difficult one. In short, however, I believe the Armenian people need to start a meaningful discussion that leads to concrete action to reverse the tide of consumerism and misplaced outrage in this country. Episodes like the political action at Mashtots Park can serve as one example that effective political opposition in Armenia is not impossible. As well, there are many NGOs in Armenia that are doing good work and are attempting to chart a progressive way forward for an Armenia adrift. However, this is not enough. Niche movements will not solve overarching problem. As well, Armenian can no longer afford to be caught up in the non-productive nationalist rhetoric, emanating from leading politicians, or the dogged insistence of Turkish recognition of the Genocide. Such dead end policies only hold Armenia in the status quo and relegate the blame for internal problems to outside scapegoats. The new national discussion, therefore, should encompass all aspects of Armenian society, civil, economic, and political—as forces standing for illusory change are colonizing all of these spheres. This discussion furthermore, must be both general and individual. A rejection of superficial consumer culture begins with individual acts of resistance that multiply to be felt by society at large.

To clear up any confusion about the motivations for writing this essay I will emphasize the following. My goal is in no way to denigrate or patronize the people of Armenia; rather it is the opposite. My goal is to sound the alarm, to alert those who care about this country to what I see happening here. Armenian culture, once rich with literature, theater, music, art, is being eroded under the faceless, valueless, and utterly substantively bankrupt forces of consumerism and political corruption. The contradictions so clearly inherent in Armenian society are superficially glossed over with a veneer of a growing consumer culture and the inability to successfully and meaningfully express opposition to inequality and injustice. Furthermore, the phenomena expressed in this essay are, clearly, not unique to Armenia. The pacifying effects of consumerism and slacktivism can been felt throughout the world without limit, however, Armenia offers a clear and compelling example of the ravaging effects of these phenomenon to retard or even arrest the development of culture and pluralistic political expression.

The current republican incarnation of Armenia is still in its infancy. A mere 20 years after independence the country is just learning to walk and it is for this reason that the time is ripe for real change. Armenian society in the Third Republic, its government, and even its economy are still relatively plastic, still being formed. Therefore, the national discussion about the current course of Armenian society needs to ask one crucial question: where do we want our country to go? Should the spring of our country be our rich history, our art, culture, and language? Or, as is the current trend, should all of this be subsumed under the faceless and utterly vacuous Moloch of consumerism? Armenia, as I see it, is at a crossroads and the paths are clear and distinct. It is my hope that the people of Armenia, however, and not the elites choose which path the country should pursue, and that the people, free of delusions, choose the right path for them.

Zachary Goldsmith is a recent graduate of the University of Michigan, where he earned a BA in political science. He is currently a Fulbright Fellow based in Yerevan, Armenia. These views are solely those of the author and in no way reflect those of the Fulbright program or any other entity.

Thank you to all who contributed, read and positively propelled the badly needed dialogue when it comes to women’s issues, especially in the South Caucasus and all over the world.

Armenian writer Zabel Yesayan/ Illustration © ianyanmag

• Nancy Agabian on Growing up Queer, Feminism and Armenia , by Nora Kayserian.  ”Growing up in a predominantly white town in the 70s and 80s, I held a lot of shame and self-hatred for being Armenian,” writer Nancy Agabian tells Nora Kayserian. “Writing helped me through this. In particular, writing among a multicultural group of people made me realize how much Armenians’ history of oppression was important – that it told an important human truth that others could relate to and learn from.”

• In Armenia, Gender Discrimination Just a Scratch Beneath the Surface, by Victoria Rovira Infante. ” When I want to understand the problems caused by sexual inequality in Armenia,” writes Armenia resident Victoria Rovira Infante, “there’s no longer any need for me to read shocking stories about bride-napping, red apple ceremonies, and sex-selective abortions in remote villages, or about the miserable state of sex education in schools, employer discrimination against married and pregnant women, and the low visibility of women in politics right here in the capital. I already know. As an outsider looking in, even I am not completely safe from the far-reaching claws of bigotry in my everyday life. I know it when men, thinking they are being polite, treat me as weak or inferior.”

• Documenting the Lives of Women in Armenia, by Emily Haas, Paige Prince and Henni Alpermann. Three volunteers in Armenia embark on a fascinating project to document the lives of the women around them through photography. One of them is Emma. “When she tells us about her son’s death at the age of 30, she has still tears in her eyes, 18 years later,” they write. “She cannot see very well, she says, ‘The world is cloudy to me.’  With patience is she sitting on her bed and waiting until we have the right picture. She smiles and tells us openly about their life. She is originally from Getap village, married a man from the same village and has stayed there her whole life. Everybody in the village knows her and appreciates her open-minded, friendly character.”

Armenian writer Zabel Yesayan/ Illustration © ianyanmag

• A Look Back at Soviet-Era International Posters Our slideshow of Soviet propaganda posters featuring those created in honor of International Women’s Day.

• Op-Ed: In Armenian Nation, Men Must Take On Gender Equality , Guest Author, Saro. “Just like women, men are prisoners of their own complex,” writes Saro, commenting on gender inequality in Armenia and advocating for men to step up to enhance the discussion around it. “This power imbalance has created an unequal system where women have been regulated as cogs in a machine.”

• Exclusive: Shushanik Kurghinian’s “The Workers,” by Shushan Avagyan. Literary translator, who is working on her PhD on comparative literature at Illinois State University sent in an never-before-published English translation of Shushanik Kurghinian’s poem, “The Workers.”

Armenian poet Shushanik Kurghinian/ Illustration © ianyanmag

• The View from Zabel Yesayan’s The Gardens of Silihdar, Part I, by Jennifer Manoukian. “She said that Armenian society as it is now is not yet ready for a woman for make a name and place for herself. To overcome these obstacles, you must overcome mediocrity: a man can be mediocre, a woman cannot.” Our women’s series continues with an exploration into the obstacles French and Armenian writers faced in the 19th century through the eyes of Zabel Yesayan.  Check out Part II here.

• Op-Ed: For Women, the Work Behind the Beauty, by Nathalie Nourian. “As a people of the mountainous Caucasus region, we are a hairy bunch,” writes Nathalie Nourian on the routines women must endure to look socially presentable. “Unfortunately, evolution has not yet caught up with us and we’ve still got a generous pelt of protective hair to help against the elements, since, you know, clothes just aren’t enough.”

• Pineapples & Lezhankas: Memories of my Grandmother, by Janet Kljyan. “One of her suitcases carried five huge pineapples – a fruit most Soviet Caucasians had never seen. The day after she got back to Meghri, my grandma peeled and chopped all five pineapples. One by one, all of the neighbors came to examine the prickly skin and enjoy the tart, yellow flesh of the exotic fruit.” Janet Kljyan recounts her grandmother in this heartwarming piece.

• Armenian Writer Aksel Bakunts: In Akar, Part I , by Nairi Hakhverdi. A translation of Aksel Bakunts’ “In Akar” by Nairi Hakhverdi, translator and professor at Yerevan State Linguistic University. The story follows a poor young girl who is forced into marriage, gets pregnant and then initiates a miscarriage. Check out Part II here.

• Op-Ed: Deciphering Armenian Narratives in History, Film , by Maral Bavakan. Using narrative in film, writer Maral Bavakan says that a lot of Armenians she has met “believe that somehow the oppression of the ethnic group that has historically oppressed us will cancel our oppression, that by dictating people to recognize the Armenian Genocide we will suddenly find ourselves living in a more just world. What we don’t realize is that we are merely a tool used to further more powerful countries’ narratives of oppression and socio-economic interests.”

A handkerchief hangs on a tree near Geghard Monastery in Armenia. Legend says that a wish will come true after the handkerchief is tied to a tree branch/ © ianyanmag

The next day, Ghazakh’s Ohan sent his wife to examine the girl. Shahan bathed Sandukht and carefully braided her blond hair. Ohan’s wife approved of Sandukht. Before coming into the house, she had taken a look at the threshing floor and hayloft.

It was Saturday when Ghazakh’s Ohan, his son, Shahan, and Sandukht went to the civil registration office to register. The documents for selling the threshing floor and hayloft had been prepared the day before.

Sandukht was wearing a new dress. Whenever the wind fluttered the flaps of her dress, her heart grew wider. But as soon as she saw Ohan’s son, her joy would instantly subside; she would pull back and draw into her coat like a snail’s tentacles. There was a dark and uncertain doubt in her heart, but with that doubt there was also happiness at having come all this way holding on to her mother’s dress, leaving Akar behind the forest. How big the world seemed to her, and how close the mountains in front of her!

Then the unexpected happened. A doctor called Shahan and Sandukht into his office. The young girl timidly removed her dress. Through his spectacles, the doctor saw the girl’s emaciated shoulders, her flat chest, and her snow-white body. Shahan attempted to lie by telling the doctor that her daughter was full-grown, that the priest had gotten it all wrong, that Sandukht had been ill, and that that was the reason why her body was not developed yet, but the doctor was speaking in the name of the law and tried to persuade her that it would be bad for the girl.

Sandukht understood, and when she buttoned up her dress, put on her sandals, and walked out holding on to her mother’s dress, she saw how the doctor shook his head. At the door, Shahan got angry with her daughter for clinging on to her dress like a suckling.

Ghazakh’s Ohan learned about the law, raised his eyebrows, then suddenly squinted. And, in that same second, he decided to break the law, to jump over it as if it were a narrow stream, and to put a lock on Hanes’s daughter’s hayloft.

On the road, Sandukht was walking ahead, Shahan and Ohan were walking together, and Ohan’s son was trailing behind them all. Ohan’s son was sluggish and dull and had heavy bones. When he spoke, his lip drooped, forming a gutter in one corner of his mouth from which drool dripped down. Whenever he looked at Sandukht, at her striped dress, the drool dripped faster from the lip’s gutter.

On the road, Shahan told Ohan what the doctor had said about waiting. But Ohan curtly announced that he did not want to wait. Poor girls and ruined threshing floors and lofts were a dime a dozen in Akar.

“Have them live together, and when she’s grown, we’ll register them. How’s the law to find out? You sign the agreement…”

And that’s exactly what they did. Sandukht was deceptively brought to Ohan’s house with tears in her eyes. Her mother stayed with her until morning, promised to visit her every day and threatened to beat her, and then the mother cried, too. At dawn, Sandukht broke her promise and looked with fear at Ohan’s son, who was lying by the wheat sack, snoring.

Caged doves, Kotayk Province, Armenia/ © ianyanmag

Sandukht cried again on the following night, but bowed her head to Ohan’s son on the same pillow. In the morning, pale and teary-eyed, she ran to her mother’s and wrapped herself around her, but her mother took her back to Ohan’s and tried to persuade her once again.

Meanwhile, Ghazakh’s Ohan fixed the broken beams of the hayloft and poured stones near Hanes’s daughter’s threshing floor.

Four months passed, but for Akar’s history the four months felt like four seconds. The villagers still ate lentils and the renovated hayloft had not altered the overall sight of the village one bit.

Sandukht had come to terms with her situation. She remained silent. When someone asked her a question, she replied by nodding or shaking her head. It seemed as if she neither had thoughts, nor desires. She was like a squeezed-out lemon—an object without life. She had retreated into herself and no longer went to her parental home.

And then one day, she felt something move under her bosom. She got scared, pressed her hand against her heart, and calmed down. The feeling under her breast disappeared like a ripple. A few days later, however, it moved again, and this time she suspected something.

Sandukht was to become a mother. Her body contracted all her muscles and collected all her water to adapt itself to her new condition. She resembled a small apple hanging from the branch of an apple tree which the sun had given a red color, but the thin branch had not been able to provide with any water for it to grow and ripen.

On her way to the well one day Sandukht met another young bride who taught her how to have a miscarriage. Sandukht was afraid at first, but later, when she bent over to put the pitcher on the ground and felt the movement under her bosom again, a resoluteness came over her.

She did as the young bride had explained. She did not eat for two days and on the third day she drank the juice of a yellow flower. When she started feeling unbearable pains in her belly, she pressed her lips together, clenched her tiny fists, ran to the barn without being seen, and closed the door. She now had to hit her belly with a stone to make the pain go away…

The cattle were driven back to the barn in the evening. When Ghazakh’s Ohan opened the barn door, he saw blood by the door and an unconscious daughter-in-law.

He carried Sandukht home. At dawn, however, Sandukht’s final drop of blood flowed out her body with her last breath.

Shahan cried at her grave and at home.

That night, one of her hair-locks turned gray.

1926

This translation is part of a series written in honor of International Women’s Day and Month.

Bakunts, real name Alexander Stepani Tevosyan was born in Goris in Russian Armenia in 1899. After studying agriculture in Ukraine, he became an agronomist who traveled through the Armenia, providing help and knowledge to farmers and villages while working as a journalist and a village school teacher.

He wrote prolifically between 1926 and 1937, with his first bundle of short stories appearing under the title “Mtnadzor” or “Dark Valley,” chronicling rural Armenian life just before and after the Communist Revolution. In 1937 he was arrested by the Stalinist regime on charges including nationalism and estrangement of socialist values. He was executed by firing squad after a twenty-five-minute trial. His works were banned in Soviet Armenia until the 1960s.

Nairi Hakhverdi was born in the Netherlands and currently lives in Armenia. She translates Armenian literature into English and teaches literary translation at Yerevan State Linguistic University after V. Brusov.

The film did neither of these. Instead, it was a story I had heard of before about Armenian women being taken as wives and concubines into Kurdish and Turkish households. But much in the same way that the director of the film suddenly realizes that this story is actually about her own grandmother, so does the viewer begin to find herself involved in a particular story that destroys the distance between the past and the present, the foreign and the familiar.

Suzanne Khardalian takes us on a journey into the grave-sites and literally shows us the bones of the perished in the deserts of Syria, particularly in Margadeh. In an attempt to put together the pieces, the fragmented stories of how her grandmother arrived in Syria become indicators of the sexual harassment, rape and abuse she was subject to as a refugee. As always, the burden of war, genocide and violence falls on the shoulders of the women as they have to endure surviving even after having already survived. What is left after the erasure of this history is a deeper, internalized shame that continues to live in women’s bodies for generations after their foremothers were raped and forced to become wives of men they would otherwise not choose to marry.

Interestingly, this film came about at a time when the French Genocide Bill criminalizing the denial of any recognized genocide, including the Armenian genocide, was passed in France. As someone who believes in free speech, I stand with those who oppose this law as one that is racist, with a particular aim to criminalize the Turkish communities who live in France and who may not always be aware of this particular history of their home-country. We must recognize first and foremost the politics behind France as a Western power involved in the “war against terrorism”. And for Armenians who grew up being told of the bad things the Turks did to us, learning to associate Turkish people with Islam, we must become better aware of the strategies used to separate the so called good Christians from the so called bad Muslims as it plays out in the West.

In 1919, when “Ravished Armenia,” a film about the experiences of an Armenian woman during the genocide was released in the U.S.,  the poster advertising the film depicted an overly masculine man with dark skin, holding a young, very thin and very pale woman under one arm, while also holding a bloody sword in the other hand.  The poster read: “The frank story of Aurora Mardiganian who survived while four millions perished in Ravished Armenia.” Besides exaggerating the number of deaths, the text sensationalized the survival story of one woman during a time in the United States when the expression “starving Armenians” was commonly used to coax children to eat all of the food on their plates. Furthermore, the image appropriated the history of the Armenian genocide to fit the racist narrative of the West.

A large portion of  Armenians I have come into contact with both in Armenia and the Diaspora accept this narrative. They believe that somehow the oppression of the ethnic group that has historically oppressed us will cancel our oppression, that by dictating people to recognize the Armenian Genocide we will suddenly find ourselves living in a more just world. What we don’t realize is that we are merely a tool used to further more powerful countries’ narratives of oppression and socio-economic interests.

“My Grandmother’s Tattoos” is not attempting to advocate for such racism and discrimination. But in the minds of less conscious viewers, the lines between Turkish and Kurdish may become interchangeable, as the majority of both practice Islam and both are associated with the state of Turkey then and now. Therefore, we must always be mindful of how the story is presented, especially when taking into consideration that many of the viewers are Diaspora Armenians who often believe in the idea of an enemy, reunification of historic lands, and war as the rightful method of protecting and obtaining those borders.

The film ends with the beautiful mountains and apricot filled trees of Armenia where the filmmaker and her family are enjoying a feast. Khardalian confides in her audience that this is where she feels most at home, that she feels in Armenia as she’s never felt before anywhere else, and that this land belongs to her. She refers to Armenia as a paradise.

As someone who emigrated from Armenia with her family 15 years ago, I am well aware of the different issues that plagued Armenia then. And as someone with deep ties to many of the Armenian citizens who still live and struggle in Armenia, I can attest to the fact that this land, with all of its beauty, power and allure is the opposite of paradise to many who do not always have the choice or the option to reside elsewhere. As much as Kharadalian has a right to feel at home in Armenia and truly feel herself in paradise there, so do all of Armenia’s citizens have the right to feel at home and find a little bit of that same paradise on that very same land.

I believe that “My Grandmother’s Tattoos” will only be the beginning of an attempt to expose the unknown histories of ethnic/historic Armenians, Armenian citizens, Kurds, Turkish people, Assyrians, Greeks, Lebanese, as well as the many other peoples of our shared world. And I truly hope that through this gained knowledge we will be better equipped to deal with one another’s differences in order to make space for all citizens of the world to live in peace, including Armenians and Turks.

Maral is a passionate artist and writer who is in the throes of creating a world in which she and others like herself can live in peace and abundance. When she is in love she believes that this is more and more possible. She is currently attempting to find a room of her own in which to write and complete a memoir/poetry book. Check out her blog at http://www.maralbavakan.blogspot.com

Areni, Armenia, 2010/ © ianyanmag

The village of Akar is picturesque, surrounded by forests. In the forests there are ancient oak trees and age-old ruins of monasteries. A clear stream flows under the trees and passes through the village streets where it turns muddier and muddier until it reaches the pastures where it becomes a bog. In the morning a fresh breeze from the forests descends on the village and brings with it a healthy waft redolent of cedar and linden. But when the sun begins to warm up and the garbage heaps in the streets begin to flow, the fragrance that came down from the forests is replaced by the smell that comes out of opened barns.

In the garbage heaps, the heads of worms heat up—worms that harmoniously turn their eyeless heads to the left and to the right, as if they were weaving silk.

In Akar there is scabies, which is aggravated by the sun, and causes those who are infected to scratch their backs against walls or thresholds, and itch themselves with their hands until they bleed. In Akar there is also pink eye, and children walk around blinded by the sun with bloodshed eyes and a dirty cloth over their foreheads. The cows get infected with foot-and-mouth disease and limp as tiny white maggots suck on the blood vessels between their hooves, and the milk in the cows’ udders dries, and the cows lick their hooves in pain, spitting out the maggots with their tongues.

Akar is old, from time immemorial. And from that time it has been a habit to sow wheat in sandy soil, to dig plots of lentils with picks and hunch over them from morning to evening plucking the short pods with bare hands, and then to beat the lentils to have enough to make lentil meals twice a day in the winter or to turn the wheat into buckwheat and eat it with yoghurt.

Akar is poor. And if no one tilled the soil for two years, the forests would swallow up Akar, the winds would scatter the linden’s fruits, the birds would carry acorns to the roofs, and the acorns would dig their roots in extinguished tonirs.1 And if there weren’t forests, a flood from the mountains would wipe out Akar in one night, destroy churns and jugs with stones, and throw an entire house, with hayloft and all, upside down. On the surface of the flood, together with the diseased cows, white maggots would swim like thin slivers.

But there are neither floods in Akar, nor are the forests in the process of engulfing it. As soon as a sprout appears on the plots of lentils, the inhabitants of Akar dig it up with their picks to keep the soil as parched as an emaciated and dehydrated cow.

Of the forty households in Akar, one of them is that of Hanes’s daughter, Shahan. Even though Shahan is aging and has been a widow for eight years, people in the village still call her Hanes’s daughter. This is probably why Shahan’s husband, who was a coal miner, lived in the depths of the forest all year round and only came home at night once in a while, washed the soot off his face, shared a pillow with Shahan until sunrise, and left a few silver coins with Shahan in the morning until his next return. And from that relationship, three girls were born in four years. Their blondness reminded Shahan of her husband and his youth when he was not yet a coal miner and had hair on his head that felt like lamb’s wool.

Flowers in Geghard, Armenia, 2010/ © ianyanmag

And then one week her husband did not return, and when Shahan went to the forest to find him, she saw her husband’s thunderstruck corpse lying by the coalmine, scorched and charred like a large sheet of coal. He was buried on the same spot. Shahan carried home his clothes, cried over them, and after her tears subsided, she found three twenty-cent coins in her husband’s trousers.

There was neither love nor hate between them. They had lived under the same roof for eight years and in those years they had become as inured to each other as a horse does to a stable. A winter passed, the leaves of oaks turned green, and when Shahan was planting seeds for someone else, she saw smoke rise out of the depths of the forest from the top of a hillock and, of course, it reminded her of her husband, but she neither missed him, nor had sweet memories.

At night, she locked the doors, put the girls to sleep, and pressed her suckling to her breast and warmed her up. She turned into a brood hen, spread her wings, and under the warmth of her wings, Shahan’s three blond daughters grew up. They had to grow and wait for a winged young man to take the eldest first, then the middle one, and finally the little one, because no bird should bring a sprout under Shahan’s roof.

Eight years passed. Hanes’s daughter was a baker and a weeder and a carrier of firewood. For eight years, the hot tonir had scorched her face. That is why her face glowed like a brass plowshare. She would walk away from the tonir carrying a few sheets of lavash2 under her arm, which she would divide among the girls. The starling feeds her chicks worms from her beak and her feathers also glow even though she has never seen a tonir.

For eight years, Shahan’s threshing floor did not see any chaff. The rain had perforated small holes in the roof of the hayloft causing water to drip on the beams. A spider had spun its web there, and one winter two of the hayloft’s beams collapsed under the weight of the snow and fell to the floor.

Sometimes Shahan would look attentively at her oldest daughter, Sandukht. She wanted to know whether her daughter was growing, or rising like kneaded dough. She wanted to know why her body was developing late, her movements were still childish, and her questions innocent and naïve. Shahan would fish for news in different bakeries, and whenever there was talk of giving and taking girls, she would bring Sandukht to mind. If only she could find a place for her, get her to settle there, so that her load would lighten and she could think about the other two. What if no one wanted her daughters and they turned yellow like seedy cucumbers and remain seedless. But Sandukht had manners, didn’t she? Modest and obedient, with eyes like pale-blue flowers.

And then one day, on the street, when Ghazakh’s Ohan wanted Sandukht from Shahan for his son, without saying anything of her eyes being the color of pale-blue flowers, he asked if Hanes’s daughter would also give him her threshing floor and collapsed hayloft together with Sandukht.

Shahan thought about it that evening and went to ask her brother for advice. Her brother thought it a good idea.

“What do you need the loft for?”

She returned from her father’s house and thought about it again. Sandukht did not understand why her mother stroked her hair, then bent over and kissed her forehead. The scent of fresh lavash emanated from her mother’s bosom, and when Sandukht half-opened her eyes and saw her mother, she was surprised at how much money she had. The moon’s milky ray shone through the skylight and flickered on the silver coins in Shahan’s hand. There was enough to buy cloth for a dress for Sandukht and something more.

This translation is part of a series written in honor of International Women’s Day and Month. Stay tuned for Part II.

Bakunts, real name Alexander Stepani Tevosyan was born in Goris in Russian Armenia in 1899. After studying agriculture in Ukraine, he became an agronomist who traveled through the Armenia, providing help and knowledge to farmers and villages while working as a journalist and a village school teacher.

He wrote proflifically between 1926 and 1937, with his first bundle of short stories appearing under the title “Mtnadzor” or “Dark Valley,” chronicling rural Armenian life just before and after the Communist Revolution. In 1937 he was arrested by the Stalinist regime on charges including nationalism and estrangement of socialist values. He was executed by firing squad after a twenty-five-minute trial. His works were banned in Soviet Armenia until the 1960s.

Nairi Hakhverdi was born in the Netherlands and currently lives in Armenia. She translates Armenian literature into English and teaches literary translation at Yerevan State Linguistic University after V. Brusov.

My grandmother, Arusyak Balasanyan, in 1940 in Tbilisi

My grandmother, Arus, was born in 1930 in a poor village in Meghri, Armenia. She was only four years old when her wealthy uncle from Tbilisi came to visit. The uncle, Grikor, saw that his brother was struggling to support his wife and four young children. Grikor and his wife had three sons but wanted a daughter. Grikor asked his brother whether he could take one of his daughters and raise her as his ward. They decided he would take Emma, who was three years older than my grandmother and the oldest daughter, and announced it to the family.

Don’t take Emma! She’s a dummy! Take me instead!

So my grandma moved from the squalor of her hometown to the home of her uncle, a jeweler. I remember her telling me how much she loved her uncle and his wife and their three sons, whom she loved like brothers. The oldest son was the only one who followed the rules, becoming a colonel during World War II. The middle son speculated on the black market, and gave my grandmother her first pair of tights, a luxury item worn only by the well-connected Russian women in Moscow. The youngest brother ran an underground bookshop, buying and selling forbidden books. It’s not surprising, then, that my uncle did not tell his sons where he had hidden his stash of precious jewels. He did not even tell his wife. He only revealed the hiding spot to my grandmother when she was 11 or 12 years old. After his death, his wife and sons upturned every tile searching for the jewels. Arus, think hard now – did Uncle ever tell you where he hid his jewels? My grandma finally remembered that, yes, her uncle had said something about hidden jewels. But she did not remember what exactly he had said. Quick-witted she may have been, but she was too innocent to think it would do her any good to remember where “x” marked the spot.

Meghri, 1985

***
The weak-willed and the lazy did not do well in the Soviet Union. The best things went to the richest people by default, and the leftovers were few and far between, so you had to hustle. My grandma never did an illegal thing in her life but she was a hustler nonetheless.

It was 1978, and my uncle was a young man just starting to serve his mandatory two years in the military. He was in Irkutsk, and his novice training there was about to end. He called my grandmother.

If you don’t come here and take care of these officers, they’re going to send me to Chita, or some other godforsaken city where soldiers go and don’t come back.

He was her first-born; she would do all she could. She would “take care” of these officers with bottles of expensive Armenian cognac, and basturma, soujoukh, sweet walnut soujoukh, dried figs, dried persimmons, dried apricots, and jars of fig murabba. All this she made with her own hands, somehow finding time between raising her children and working full-time. She packed these in a luggage or two, and left Meghri for Irkutsk.

What she brought to Irkutsk worked: my uncle was sent to Novosibirsk, the “Moscow” of Siberia, for the remainder of his training. But what my grandmother bought back from Irkutsk ended up being more special. One of her suitcases carried five huge pineapples – a fruit most Soviet Caucasians had never seen. The day after she got back to Meghri, my grandma peeled and chopped all five pineapples. One by one, all of the neighbors came to examine the prickly skin and enjoy the tart, yellow flesh of the exotic fruit.

Yerevan, 1951. Long braids are a symbol of feminine beauty in Armenia and the Caucasus. Folk songs, old and new, reference a woman’s “մետաքս հյուս” (silken braid) to tell of her beauty. The braids here are merely attached for the sake of the photograph

***
I was too busy soaking in the faces of my aunt and cousin that first night to think about any practical matters. We had reunited in my grandmother’s apartment in Meghri, though it was no true reunion because I had never met my aunt and cousin before that day. My brother and I were in Meghri for the second time, and my aunt and cousin had come from Moscow, where they had moved after the Soviet Union collapsed and life in Meghri had become unbearable for a young family.

But evening did fall, and the summer cool set in, and my mother called from New York. I told her the trip had been fine and we were at home.

Did you figure out the sleeping arrangements?

I hadn’t even thought about where we would sleep in my grandma’s small one-bedroom apartment. The bedroom had separate single beds, in the old tradition, where my grandma and grandpa normally slept. My grandpa was already asleep in his bed. There was a futon in the living room that could fit two, and my grandma had opened a lezhanka (Russian for “cot”) in the living room that would fit one. I turned to see that my grandma had laid out a thin little mattress on the bare floor in the bedroom.

Don’t you let Grandma sleep on the floor! I know her – she is going to want to be the one who has to sleep on the floor, but don’t you let her.

My grandma would have me sleep in her bed, and my brother, who was the youngest and lightest, would sleep on the lezhanka. And she would, as my mom predicted, sleep on the floor. I hesitated to argue with my grandmother – I was so inclined to obey her. But it would be “amot” or shameful to let her sleep on the floor, especially after my mother had directed me not to let it happen. So I refused.

Grandma, you should sleep in your own bed, and I’ll sleep on the floor. No, no, that won’t work. You’re almost a woman grown – you’re not sleeping on the floor. Alright, I’ll sleep on the lezhanka. I love lezhankas. Remember when you came to New York and I slept on the lezhanka for an entire month and loved it? And my brother will sleep on the floor – he’s young, it won’t make a difference to him.

I said no!  No grandchild of mine is going to sleep on the floor in my home.

I grabbed her shoulders gently – even as a petite 16 year old, I was several inches taller than she was. Grandma, please, it will be better this way. You need your rest in your own bed. My aunt came in to see what the fuss was all about and lent me some support. My grandma finally agreed, and I fell asleep feeling proud that I had managed to convince her.

I woke in the morning to smells of breakfast. My grandmother was already up and working in the kitchen. I went into the bedroom to find my brother sleeping comfortably in my grandma’s bed. What’s this! I marched into the kitchen and confronted my grandmother.

Did you sleep on the floor?

Yes. I asked him if he wouldn’t rather sleep on the bed and of course he preferred it, so we switched.

I almost had a mind to shout at my brother, but decided he was too young to understand anything about amot, or respect, or sacrifice. And I dreaded the next time my mother would call because I would have to tell her that my grandma had gotten her way.

***
From this time of year and on until the end of summer I think about my grandma a lot. I remember her often, but the memories and longing rise from a simmer to a boil in the warm months, probably because it was always in the summer that I saw her. Did I tell you she taught me to read and write in Russian? It was a funny thing learning to read and write in a language I hardly knew. She was a Russian Language and Literature teacher in Meghri for many years, and had private students even after she retired. I remember when we would go walking outside and she was like the mayor – former students of hers, already grown adults, would greet her respectfully by addressing her with a teacher’s title.

She came to New York the summer of my fourteenth birthday and she wanted to teach me Russian (she had taught me to read and write in Armenian that last time she had come to New York, when I was five or six years old). I’ll never say no to learning a language. So we would sit at the kitchen table everyday, weekends too, with a букварь (children’s alphabet book) she had brought with her and a green spiral տետր (notebook/pad). The above photograph is the first page of the տետր. The words on the top line are written in her own hand – they are my name in Georgian (which my grandma was also fluent in) and Russian. The Armenian I wrote myself to show her I still remembered.

***
In memory of my grandmother. Thank you to my mother, who has never refused to re-tell a story about her.

This essay is part of a series written in honor of International Women’s Day and Month.

Janet was born of the mountains, and was raised on the island of Queens, New York, where she now studies and lives. She loves folk songs, fantasy fiction, and the law. Also television.

artwork from Hovhannes Ishkhanyan's Day of Discharge, which is under threat from censorship in Armenia

As Armenia prepares to celebrate its status as World Book Capital of 2012, officials in the South Caucasus country are in the middle of censoring and pressing charges against the work of a young Armenian author  whose book was deemed defamatory to the Armenian Army.

Hovhannes Ishkanyan’s fictional book of short stories, “The Day of Discharge,” was pulled from the shelves of a few bookstores in the capital of Yerevan, including from one that initially celebrated its release, following pressure from Military Police who initially called him in for questioning on Feb.27. Authorities told him that the book needed to be corrected, he said.

“I asked what would need to be corrected if this is a work of art; they told me when you come we’ll explain it to you,” Ishkhanyan said in an online interview with ianyanmag. “I went and explained that the theme of the book has nothing to do with reality, that the characters are made up.”

When they began to question him about the style of language he had chosen to write it in, he knew they were preparing charges against him, he said.

Ishkhanyan could be charged with Article 263 of the Criminal Code of Armenia (the illegal dissemination of pornographic materials or items).

Ishkhanyan, a 24-year-old engineer who wrote the stories last year, says that his book has caused a fury among officials because its context is unlike those found in other literature that might deal with the same subject matter.

“This new difference throws people into shock, and for things that are written in that style concerning the military, it becomes reason for punishment,” he said. “They read the book and take it personally, take it on themselves and want vengeance, in the book they discover an army which isn’t to their liking.”

The Armenian army has been suffering from a spell of bad PR in the last few years as news of non-combat deaths have plagued the institution. Activists, who regularly protest the deaths, accuse the military of  failing to properly investigate them as well as portraying murders as suicides.  In September 2010, an amateur video that was posted on YouTube alleging abuse in the Armenian army made headlines in and outside the country.

Of the 16 fictional stories in the “The Day of Discharge” three concern themes related to the army. One of those, titled “Military March,” about 100 marching soldiers, who, dragging their military identification cards, begin to relay their experiences of their life in the army,  has angered authorities the most, according to Ishkhanyan.

“With this, I wanted to put the emphasis on each individual soldier,” he said. “That no matter how much of a soldier one is, every one has their own individual stories. A soldier isn’t just defined by a service record.”

In addition to defaming the army, Military Police attorney Anahit Yesayan told  Yerevan-based ArmeniaNow.com that Ishkhanyan’s book is offensive to religion and Armenian mothers, both of which he refutes.

“Literature is wholly an environment where reality can be distorted – should we blame Kafka for turning Gregor Samsa into a cockroach, or Goethe for Faust? Perhaps we should ban Armenian and Greek mythology or turn “David of Sasun” into non-fiction, or blame Samvel Mkrtchyan for translating “Ulysses?”

As for his own experiences during his 2-year mandatory service, Ishkhanyan says they were pleasant.

“When I look back at those years, I only have good memories,” he said. “Even the unpleasant incidents that I’ve had, I remember them with a smile. The next best thing to friendships that I gained from being in the army is the perspective into absurdity, nothing surprises me now, even this saga is not surprising to me, it’s unpleasant yes, but I’m not surprised.”

The censorship and charges against Ishkanyan and his book have riled both writers in Armenia and its far reaching diaspora, with some seeing it as a reversion to its Soviet past.

“Unbelievable. What ages are we living in?!” wrote Unzipped. “Say your firm NO to attempts of taking back Armenia into dark ages of Stalinism.”

Diasporan Armenian author and translator Ara Baliozian blasted authorities for their actions.

“In a democracy the Military Police, the Ministry of Culture or any branch of the bureaucracy is in no position to tell a writer what to write and how to write it,” he told ianyanmag. “Anyone who says otherwise belongs to the irrevocable past. I have always maintained that where commissars of culture enter, culture exits.”

In an effort to spread awareness, Armenian-American author Nancy Agabian has prepared and circulated a Facebook event page with a link to the petition asking that any prosecution against Ishkhanyan be dropped.

“As writers, artists, intellectuals, and concerned members of the Armenian diaspora (and beyond), we add our names to this petition to express our outrage over the censorship of Hovhannes Ishkhanyan’s novel Demob Day by the Military Police in Armenia and by various bookstores in Yerevan,” the statement said. “Freedom of expression is the bedrock of any democracy; the interrogation of an author and the removal of literature from bookshelves harkens back to the primitive, brutal, unenlightened, and fearful days of Stalinism and Fascism.”

The petition currently has 239 signatures in support of Ishkhanyan and warns that this type of censorship will set  ”a precedent in World Book Capital Yerevan to censure the publishing houses and book stores were worldwide famous books are sold which are not appropriate to the taste of some Armenian officials.”

Though censorship in Armenia fares well when compared to post-Soviet Belarus or neighboring Iran, the country has drawn international criticism from the likes of the Committee to Protect Journalists for “maintaining a tight grip on the country’s broadcast media”  including independent TV station A1+, which has been off the air for a decade and continuously refused a broadcast license.

A 2009 report on the “Freedom of Expression and Censorship in Armenia” by the Eurasia Partnership Foundation found that where traditional and political characters are concerned, freedom of expression is regulated in art and literature as a means to preserve ‘the Armenian’ character, considered the “guarantee of the survival of the nation” and whose “deviation is regarded as the basis for the destruction of the nation.”