Life in Soviet Armenia for Oganes Minasyan

Oganes Minasyan, a fifty-year citizen of Armenia, now resides in his Burbank apartment enjoying his life and reminisces back to his old days. Oganes was born in Bucharest, Romania and moved to Yerevan, Armenia at age eighteen as an orphan looking to start his new life. He now sits in his one-bedroom apartment awaiting an interview about his young and fascinating life in the country he grew up to know and love as Soviet Armenia. Nowadays Oganes has various hobbies such as doing jigsaw puzzles and participating in weekly bingo sessions. Even though he enjoys his life here in America very much, the one thing that he misses the most from his former life in Armenia is his sense of security; for example the fact that he could have let his children play outside even after dark without having to worry a bit.

The leader of Armenia was the secretary of the communist party, which belonged to the communist party of the Soviet Union. Since the leader of Armenia was an Armenian, he wanted to treat the Armenians very well and do good things for them. He helped the citizens every chance he got within the range of his power and the citizens liked and respected the Armenian leader. This person was appointed from Moscow, but before being appointed, had to work his way up from lower positions of government.

The government of Armenia was a Communist government, which was included in the Soviet Union and like all other Soviet countries the leader up until the 1950’s was Joseph Stalin. Stalin was a very strict man that tortured many innocent people and put them in jails and because of fear that had formed in citizens; no one ever talked anything bad or tried to do anything against Stalin. Anytime anybody said or did something that was against Stalin, the government always found a way to punish that person. For example they sometimes sent that person to Siberia as a punishment. Until the death of Stalin, his pictures and statues were everywhere around the city. After the death of Stalin, all of his pictures and statues were removed. The reason for there being pictures and statues of Stalin was because the people had to show that they liked Stalin and that he was the best leader.

In Armenia, all of the newspapers were run by the government and not everything was allowed to be published and the truth was not always published. Also, everything written in newspapers was written from the point of view of the government. In the newspapers people could have been criticized but only by the government. If the person being criticized had money and power, that person could go against the people who were criticizing him and prevent his criticism from being published in the newspapers.

I was not at all scared of the police at any time of my life, except one incident that occurred when I was on my way to work one morning. A police officer was beating down a man that had just robbed an old woman. The man was resisting arrest and the officer had no choice but to use physical force on the man. The residents of Armenia had no reason to be scared of the police because they only protected the people from harm. For example, at night a person could roam freely around the city without having to face any consequences. Also, I could have let my children play outside even after dark without having to worry a bit. No body could come up to you and bother you for no reason and the only people that were scared of the police were those who did things to break the law because they knew that they would eventually get caught.

Armenia did not have its own military. Since Armenia was part of the Soviet Union, there was no need to have its own military because there was one big army, which consisted of soldiers from all of the Soviet. For example, when a man became eighteen years old, it was mandatory for him to go into the military. You first got a letter in the mail saying that you had to go and get a physical examination before you could serve. After the examination, you received another letter telling you to be at the zborne punkd, which is the meeting place you must go before being sent to the army. The men were then put on trains and sent to different republics of the Soviet Union to serve a two-year military service.

The most common way for a man to avoid serving in the military was if he didn’t pass the physical examination. This would mean that the man has some kind of health condition. The second most common way to avoid serving in the military was if a man was enrolled in a university or other higher education. The military did not call them to serve because in university the men got military education and only had to serve three months after they graduated from university or other higher education. I never considered avoiding serving in the military because I was worried the government might catch on to my plan. I did have one friend that paid off his doctor to fill out all of the necessary paperwork to show that he was not able to pass the physical examination.

In Armenia, like all other countries, elections were held, but it didn’t really matter if the citizens went to vote or if they didn’t because the leaders were appointed by the highest leaders in Moscow. The elections were always fixed. The leaders were always chosen in advance and those were the people that were elected during elections. In the elections, citizens who were older than the legal voting age, which was 18, could vote.

In Armenia, there was absolutely no unemployment because the government provided everybody with a job, whether the job was low paying, high paying, everybody had a job. The salaries received by all of the employees were enough to satisfy all of the minimum life expenses because everybody also had a house to live in.

Employees could not ask for higher wages because every type of job had a pre-set salary. If the employer wanted to raise the salaries, he would have to give the employees a promotion in order for them to get higher wages. I have never asked my employer for a higher wage because my salary was pre-set and there was no way for me to get a higher salary. If I wanted to get a higher salary, I would have to have a higher position, which by the way was very hard to get because like in America, higher positions are most of the time achieved through connections. Everybody was able to support their families with the salary they received because everybody had a house no matter what, which was given to them by the government free of charge. A worker’s salary was enough for every type of expense whether it was food or vacations. In an Armenian household, the income was shared by the family; the budget was all combined into one and all expenses were paid for from the money from this family budget. For example, families could have gone on a vacation for months at a time, eat great meals, and still have enough to spend for everyday expenses such as going to the movies or to theatre.

I enjoyed every single day that I’ve lived in Soviet Armenia. Those years were the happiest of my life, and I would do anything to a re-live them. In my opinion, no matter what anybody says, there is no comparison of life in the Soviet Union to life in America today.

      Interviewed by Tigran Minasyan