Living Under Stalin’s Rule

Sitting on the couch of my living room in Glendale, my 69 year old grandmother, Alis Topchyan, is awaiting my list of questions. As a child she faced many hardships after moving from Syria to Armenia and then losing a father. She had to get accustomed to the different type of Armenian in the school  and the constant struggle to do the right things Now living in the same apartment as her two songs and their families, she is glad the hard times are over.

I was born in Aleppo, Syria and I lived after Syria in Armenia. We decided to go to our country in 1946. When I went to Armenia, I was ten years old and me, my sister, and my brothers we all went to school. The leader was Stalin when we went in 1946 and it was a difficult time because it was after war time. Everything was under control of Stalin. A lot of people didn’t like or didn’t want Stalin in control because they didn’t have freedom. After Stalin died, we still had communism but it was better. During the time when Armenian was under the Soviet Union, I think there was no vote from the people, but when they picked communist part leader. The leader will stay until he died. So, I think inside the government, they are making choices.

People in that time had the right to own business if they paid for government. They will have their own business but they first paid to the government a couple of percentage. This is because in Soviet Union everybody pays government for people who working in schools, in fabrics, basically everything. When the people are working the government pays the people not the business owners.

My father worked making buildings and everything but he was sick so he died in ’49. My mother started to working kindergarten. As a woman my mother had the same rights as my father because in socialism everybody had the same rights. People were allowed to do everything but bad things that happened everywhere.

If you did government work by yourself you will be punished. Usually the government had good things too. The students can have their three month vacation and the government paid for the students to go to some camps and everywhere for free. The government also gave every worker one month paid vacation and very cheap places to be resting. There were a couple things that the Soviet Union was better, but the other part that you can have business and anything was all governments.

I like America better than Armenia’s non-democracy but when I was in Armenia it was good for us. I was a woman, I had my job as a kindergarten teacher and it was good for me. When I came to America with my family and sons, I was like 60 years old. America government gave me SSI and everything so here the democracy take care of old people’s rights and they give good care of old people and children.

Children were usually treated well. They were sent to camps and children were happy under the Soviet Union. But, when the children weren’t good sometimes they were punished by parents. They were spanked or yelled at. I remember one time that I was spanked. I came home from school I did my every house work and I made dinner. I did everything and my neighbor came by and had coffee. After that I started my homework, when my mom came home she saw everywhere cleaned, I cooked our diner so she felt good. When she saw in the kitchen I didn’t was the plates she yelled at me and she said I can’t do my job in whole and everything. That moment my grandma came and she said that my mom wasn’t doing good but my mom still punished me and spanked me. This punishment wasn’t too cruel. On that time it was normal and it’s not abuse but it was discipline. Every mom in Armenia punish their children but they love their daughters and sons. The government did no do anything to stop the abuse because they felt like it was the parent’s right to teach their children how they wanted. They never said do not hit children but there is no punishment for parents.

 Of course I wished that I didn’t live under Stalin’s rules because it was difficult. When we came from Syria it was very bad times because Stalin said that whoever came from another country, they are not good people. We always thought we couldn’t speak outside the things because they will send the people to Siberia. So inside the house you can talk sometimes, not to other people or outside. I think we were not able to speak outside because sometimes the government hears bad things and they will get mad. I know someone, my father’s friend, he was sent to Siberia because he went and got mad at the government and talking Stalin’s rule. We had very difficult times under Stalin’s rule.

                                                                                                                                                      -By Alice Topchyan