Interview with my dad's uncle - Thomas Aghazaryan

As I look at my father’s 73-year-old uncle, I can see how much he has grown in his heart. He lives in Glendale, California and was born in Iran, then moved and lived in Armenia for more than 25 years. During the 25 years, he witnessed the hardship of the Soviet Union and had to face an undemocratic, in specific, communist country. He worked as an auto-mechanic in Hrazdan, Armenia during the Soviet Union when he was still able to work. Now he is just an old tired man surrounded by his son and grandchildren and living as happily as he can. He enjoys going to the park where he remembers the old days back in Armenia with all his friends and they chatter about the struggles in Armenia right now. “Son it is time to enjoy my last years” says Thomas uncle when I begin my interview.

During the 80’s time period, the leader of Armenia was Demirchyan. Karen Seropi Demirchyan who was Armenia’s first secretary of the Communist Party.  He was a communist and he wanted to have a communist government. You were supposed to be 18 years old to vote. Special kind of voting freedom was fifty fifty, where in times government forced you to go to a voting and vote for a person that they wanted.

During 70’s the leader of Soviet Union was Leonid Ilyich Brezhnev. He wasn’t a bad person, but he wasn’t very good either. He was in power for I think 18 years. He helped Armenia a lot because Armenia lived very well during his time. A lot of new things were built…. for example the Metropolitan of Armenia was build in the 70’s. Also Hrazdan Stadium was build during that time, and Zvartnots Airport was build during that time. After him it was Yuri Vladimirovich Andropov, he was a great leader because he was very smart. He was in politics for a long time. He had experience that is why he was a great leader. Also very good in law, but he didn’t last for long time, because he was in power for only 1 year. He died because he was old and sick. Then, it was Konstantin Chernenko. He was a bad leader; he was dead “laughs”.  He wasn’t in power for long. During 80’s it was Mikhail Sergeyevich Gorbachev. I wouldn’t say he was that of a good person but he was the one that started the freedom, it was because of him. The freedom came in 1990, the Armenian Independence.

During the Communist times the thing that bothered me was that you were not free to go to countries outside the Soviet Union. Lets say to a Capitalist country, it was closed it was illegal. Soviet Union…. there was no freedom, to go to countries, lets say to European countries for vacation. In job manner, communist system was great because everyone got a job and you had holidays. In the law manner it was bad. There was no law and order. There were things that weren’t well, there were a lot of good things but there were bad things also.

During Soviet Union you didn’t have the 100% right to say anything that you wanted. The Communist system didn’t let you say everything openly. They didn’t care about what I had to say and they wouldn’t count what I had to say. There was no freedom. The Communist government didn’t let whatever the person wanted to write in the newspapers. Ahh…Most of the time they forced the people to write whatever the government wanted for the good of the government.

During Soviet Union, Armenia was a Christian country. Its religion was Armenian Apostolic Religion. The people worshipped Christianity. Soviet, most of the time was a Communist system and said equality, but there were no equality, most of the people were poor, and there were rich people and they were small amount, but there were, it wasn’t equal. The rich people didn’t help the poor and you stayed poor.

There was no hardship of working, but you might not have found the job you wanted, where you wanted to work. I was an auto-mechanic; I worked 8 hours a day 5 days per week. The conditions were good. There was no personal property. Only way was that if you were a peasant, your harvest might have been produced and taken to a marketplace to be sold. It was your personal that was your business you had that right. Factories and all other things was the governments you didn’t have the right, there was no personal. I wouldn’t say you would easily go into jobs, but if you had that career path and you graduated with that career knowledge, lets say you were an engineer or anything else, you could have applied for the job and they would accept you if there was an open spot and if there wasn’t then they wouldn’t accept you. Jobs in one word wasn’t that bad. I didn’t have the right at all times to strike. Maybe if it was a big factory, all together the people stood up, some question may have been solved, but one, two or three people, no one would pay attention to what they say.

Difference between men and woman, I wouldn’t say there was a lot, but few percent there was a difference, they weren’t equal. For Armenia’s situation, men worked more than woman. Woman usually took care of home. There were workplaces for woman. I wouldn’t say that there wasn’t. Some sowing factories there were. In the matter of voting woman had the same rights as the men did. The woman had part in voting. I wouldn’t say Armenia was a democratic country we weren’t that free to vote that easily, but few percent maybe. 

The schools were well. I wouldn’t say it was that bad. Sigh, if you had the knowledge, you could learn in a high level. Governmental education. The teachers didn’t have the right to hit…but students had to listen to the teacher. Say the lesson in a right way; it wasn’t bad in that manner. There was difference, but not between rich and poor, but someone whose parent had official rank, for example, got accepted in a high level education or the place they wanted or some place they needed to learn. Old people couldn’t go learn in a high-level place.

Overall Soviet Union was average. Some things were great and some things…umm… not so great. So it was average.

Interviewed by Davit Aghazaryan