Life in Armenia during the Soviet Union - Greta Amerjanian

At an age of sixty-eight, Greta Amerjanian lives in Glendale, California. She was born in the city of Yerevan in Armenian. Around the 1960s, she was at the age of twenty-two, deeply involved in education in Armenia. It was difficult to learn during those harsh times where Greta experienced many social and political changes that had negative influences. Now, Greta lives peacefully with her husband in an apartment and enjoys her tranquil days.

I lived in Armenia starting 1959 and left 1994, when I was fifty-three years old. In the early years that I lived in Armenia, the president was Karen Demirdjian. Although, towards 1990 there was a new government established and he was no longer president.

During those times, the Soviet Union was in power and it lasted for more than seventy years. Every country which begins to build a new life, along with hardships contains positivity. A Union to which different nationalities and citizens began gradually joining merged from fifteen republics. They all lived in peace and agreement, helped each other in building large structures and assisted each other during difficult times even after years of war and after many earthquakes throughout the fifteen republics. All the way from the beginning after 1917, after the Revolution of October, those who became the new government, the working class who were also known as the Bolsheviks, didn’t want to use the knowledge of Scientists and specialists of high qualification in Czarskoy Russia, and had its own negative consequences.

The development in politics and economy grew very slowly and besides that, during the existence of the Union, everything was decided upon in the center of the government, exactly in Kreml, Moscow. None of the fifteen republics could single-handedly make a decision by themselves without the consent of Moscow. Also, things such as freedom of speech or press did not exist. This was because every single aspect of press, media, art and science was censored. The censorship had the right to change, reduce and deny everything that it disliked. If someone could somehow accomplish what they wanted and not do what the censorship demanded, they would spend the majority of their life in confinement.

It was well-known that films, television and press were also controlled by the censorship, and the censorship was controlled by the government. Films were very popular. I personally loved to watch films, my friends and I would watch a new film almost every other day. That was one of the few entertainments we had in that time to relieve all the stress of school. The producers created the themes for films which specifically interested the people at large. Those themes were about collective ferns, factory, family, people’s problems and their success. Everything that was shown in those films were edited by the censorship and the dialogue between heroes and villains in films was censored so there would be nothing said against the existing government.

Artist and sculptors were influenced by the government also. They had to prepare paintings and sculptured of the people in government. Those works were put on exhibition. The same thing was happening with writers and poets alike, same themes, same censorship and same conflicts. When writers and poets wrote their works and pieces, they gave them to the editor-in-chief, who afterwards would edit and change many things that were against the government or anything that was not supposed to be revealed. Afterwards, the work was sent to the censorship for further procedures. After, the censorship could completely deny the written pieces or censor it more. There were many popular writers during my time that disagreed with the censorship and would simply print their completed works at home or in basements which they afterwards spread throughout the community. When caught, these people would sadly be deported out of the country, especially two of the most popular writers, Pasternak and Soljenitsin.

One thing we had plenty were scientists around the whole Soviet Union, especially in Armenia. They weren’t in a very bad position but there were many problems that tired with laboratories and apparatus they needed for their work. Scientists who were into physics and astronomers were in the best position and benefited the most because the government showed more attention towards them. Medicine, pharmacists and scientists in biology had many problems because of the lack in apparatus and equipment. Whatever had to do with pedagogies, psychology and economy was connected with politics. The government decided all-together how these sciences would develop, grow and change. I was taught in science for some part of my education because I was pursuing sciences as work. Later on in my life, I realized that that was not what I really wanted and I changed my path in education just in time.

Eventually, the Soviet Union fell apart which was very tragic for most people. In my belief, the cause of this downfall was due to the laws of nature. Politics is not nature, although they resemble each other greatly. For example, when there is too much water, it will break out; when there is too much energy underground there will be an earthquake; therefore, when people face too many problems and conflicts their consciousness gets affected. The same resistance begins to take actions within human nature and people no longer want to submit or obey and they begin to take on paths that change their life.

The first republic that took a stand and began the destruction of the Union was indeed the Armenian republic. All of the other republics began to strike as well after Armenia took the lead.

After the Soviet Union collapsed, Armenia acquired a new president, Levon Ter-Petrosyan who was the leader of the opposition. I remember that in those times there were many, many tragic events but the most was the earthquake of 1988. It was a very horrible earthquake which took thousands of lives and many towns were wiped off the face of the earth. When I try to remember I can feel the tremble inside me of the time, even though I was fifty-four years old during the earthquake, I was just as frightened as anyone else. Nearly every lost a close friend or family member and that was the only thing people could think about for a while after the earthquake.

Eventually, getting over the tragedy, the people believed that it would be better if they created a new government. The people supported the opposition and finally in 1990, the current president Karen Demirdjian, was overthrown. Thus, in October of 1991, a new government formed and Armenia returned their original flag which was three-colored, red, blue and orange. This was the day Armenia gained independence and freedom. Afterwards, the rest of the republics became independent also. Armenia had a new parliament and the new president, Levon Ter-Petrosyan, took charge. Armenia could not become fully independent because it was short on needed resources such as oil or gas. It was not available to them so Armenia had to trade and buy those significant resources from neighboring countries.

New problems occurred from then on. During the four years when there was a new parliament and president, the people did not have electricity and gas. I was very frightened everyday of what was to happen and I was afraid for my children. My son and daughter both lived through healthy and educated although with great fear each day. Life was miserable for the whole family and other families too. We couldn’t take a shower whenever we wanted, warm water was rare, we had to use candles to light up the rooms everyday at night and the sun was our only light source in the day. Armenia was blocked from all sides by neighboring countries and all the roads were blocked too which left Armenia with the little resources it had to live with.

The only roads that existed out of Armenia were going through Azerbaijan and Georgia. These roads were the only way into Europe or the other existing republics. The people were affected very negatively due to this; many were in panic because they couldn’t get out of these horrible living conditions.

In these hard and cold conditions and political changes, education was severely affected negatively. Languages were all changed around the universities and high-class schools. The programs in schools were modified and the students were very displeased. Besides, it was very difficult to send my children to school in the cold, especially when there was little food. Armenia eventually survived all of these hardships they were faced with and it was all possible because the Armenian people always valued education and staying at a high level.

Life shortly began to get a little better; time had healed some deep wounds that Armenia was inflicted with. New books and equipment were created for schools and education rose, people adjusted to some of the bad conditions and it didn’t seem so horrible anymore. I believed that my and children and I would be better off if we moved to a different country where we could live in better conditions. Armenia had taught my children and me to deal with hardships and tough situations and we live each of our days to the fullest now.

Interviewed by Areg Zeytnaghyan