A Young Girl Growing up in a Communist Land

In the late 1950’s and early 60’s, when Araxie Kotikian was growing up in Sofia Bulgaria, her life was less than many would consider “glamorous.” Under the rule of the communist leader, Todor Jivkov, Bulgaria was one of the many countries that were ruled under the iron curtain. Eventually, her family left for America. First they sailed to Lebanon, after a year, they took a plane to New York City, by car, they arrived in Massachusetts. After two years of considering themselves, “people without a country”, she and her family received something many would give anything for, an American citizenship. Today, at sixty-two years old, Araxie is a mother of two, and a soon to be grandmother, and considers her life in America “glamorous.”

Until 1964, when I left Bulgaria, the country was under the communist regime and everybody was employed. Since it was mandatory for everybody to go to high school, teenagers could not work. Plus, there were hardly any jobs for the adults, and if they worked the salaries were very very low.

 In Bulgaria, women were always allowed to vote, and at that time, they took women’s point of views seriously. Not only do you have to be born in Bulgaria, you have to be Bulgarian by nationality to become president. The presidential elections were not fair, it was a set-up election. While you went to vote for the next president, the communists would tell you who you had to chose, and it was always the same president re-elected for twenty-five years, his name was Todor Jivkov. Even though they said there were different candidates, somehow he was always elected because um the way the system was set, it wasn’t right.

Everything was owned by the government, all the schools and everything belonged to the government. At school, we had specific uniforms; it had to be a black skirt and a white shirt and a special hat, and short, clean hair. If a girl came to school with long hair, the teacher would take a scissor and cut it all off. When we were young, there were children’s books, but when we were older, we had to read a lot of communist and anti-capitalist books. If a journalist wrote what he thought about the communist regime, the next day he would be on a plane straight for Siberia. There was no freedom of speech or freedom of press or anything like that. It was very difficult, many died in Siberia.

One of the most important rules in Bulgaria was that every male that graduates from high school had to attend the army before they attended a university. Let’s say they wanted to go straight to school and become a doctor or lawyer, they first had to go to the army for two years, and then they could attend school again.

The communists were people that did not believe in religion or God. They used to teach us in school that there is no God and that the human being was created from monkeys, and that’s why they prohibited for the school children, especially, to go to church. At home, my parents did not like to talk about it too much, but they did tell us that there was a God. My parents knew that if we were to talk about God outside, the communists could use it against us, it was very dangerous. It was the communist regime, people were afraid of everything they were doing. We even had to celebrate Christmas secretly.  Since the communists did not believe in religion, we could not celebrate it very openly; we kind of celebrated a little bit at home.

Bulgaria is a very um small country, to the poor side, a very agricultural country. Well of course always some people live good, but some people not that well, so, I can not say that the economy was good. When we were growing up, it was after the Second World War and we had nothing, we hardly could get hold of one pen or one pencil or just one book, there were no toys and it was just very difficult.

If someone committed a small crime, the punishment was very big; they would be put in jail. I’ve never visited one but I heard from other people, that it was very, very, very difficult to be in the jails. It was not like here in America, in Bulgaria a jail was a jail, here you can work out and relax. They used to tell us that America is a capitalist country and um anything capitalist is not good. And there is a lot of discrimination in America and all bad things. Because of that, we really wanted to come to America because we knew that what they were telling us was really not true.

We were very afraid to talk about the communists, even at home. We felt like the walls even had ears, it was very scary to talk. Of course, between my family we talked. Even though we obviously did not like communism, we had no other choice, we had to live with it.

Coming from Bulgaria, when I arrived in America, it was very different and very nice and I really liked it. Even though I was young when I left Bulgaria, you notice communism from a very young age. The reason is because they would continuously talk about communism at my school, they used to brainwash the children, and um it’s very obvious everywhere you go. Oh my parents, they um, well they, they cared about the communists, they were afraid. They were just afraid every minute to just say something or do something wrong.

Bulgaria was the complete opposite of America. There was nothing in the stores, and that was very difficult. The store workers would bring some food and everybody would rush and stay in big lines to be able to buy something, and they would just sell it to you, maybe half a kilo, or one kilo per person, per buyer. And um, that’s all you’re going to cook tonight, whatever you find today, that’s all you’re going to cook. Today in America, I see all the children have so many different clothes, and they’re not as grateful as we would have been if we had half of their belongings. We did not have more than one or two pieces of clothing, one for school and one for just going out on Sundays.

Television wise, we honestly didn’t have anything at the time. Of course don’t forget I’m talking about forty years ago, now it’s different. At that time, we didn’t even have a telephone or a television, or computers. Or cell phones, of course nothing like that. As a pass time, we played with other children, on the streets or at home, and I remember that we read a lot of books. We also tried drawing some pictures to waste time, and just keep busy or try to help our parents with some chores. It was very difficult, but since we didn’t know any better, we did not know that we were so far behind technologically, it was our lives. All I remember was that the days were very long because there was nothing to do.

As far as transportation goes, we walked a lot; there was a lot of public transportation like streets cars and buses, and taxis, but that’s about it. I hear that now it has changed, the people own automobiles and it’s a different life, a different time.

In Bulgaria, we had an apartment just for our family, it wasn’t a big apartment, and it was at the heart of Sofia. I had friends that had to share the apartment with three or four families, each one had one room. And then they shared the bathroom and the kitchen. It’s not something you would see today in America.

In Bulgaria, we were behind an iron curtain, we couldn’t go anywhere without permission, and that permission was never given to us. So, a lot of people wanted to escape the iron curtain. We left somehow, 1964, we were very lucky. At that time, no one could come to America, it was almost impossible.

I always thought about going back to Bulgaria, and maybe I will go back to visit, but I will never go back to live there, because I am very happy that I moved here, and I raised my children here, and I have a nice family and a very good life.

Interviewed by Tiara Tahmizian