Interview with a friend - Mr. Nersesian

Mr. Nersesian, a very adventurous and outgoing person. At the age of 60 he still looks for something new to do, often going mountain climbing and he is active in many activities around the community, organizing Armenian schools' for children on the weekends. He even has his own television show on Armenian television where he shares his views, opinions, and thoughts on many of the topics going on in the world today. He is involved in realistate and has had many experiences throughout his life, some of which he shares in this report about his time spent in Armenia under the rule of the Soviet Union.

Well I was born in Armenia a long time ago in. I was 26 years old when I came to the United States, so if you want to know anything about my youth that was spent in Armenia between 1947 and 1973, I had lived there for 26 years. I went to elementary school then high school in Armenia, in Yerevan, graduated from Armenia State University then a couple of years later, a few years later I moved over to the United states. So if you want to know about what I have down in Armenia that's different.

School was excellent, to tell you the truth it was a very good system although it was set up by communists, but it was a pretty good system and us kids were studying very well. When I graduated from the university I wanted to work as a teacher but it didn't work out that way. I was very active in sports, I was just 26 when I came to this country.

Just because the school was good, it doesn't make everything right in every country. There are good things, there are bad things, there are wrong things, there right things. The reason why I left Soviet Union in 1973 was completely and totally political. Financially I was very well set, I had everything anyone could dream about but that did not interest me at all, I was after something that I didn't have in Armenia. Would you guess what it could be, can you guess what that could be? Freedom, Freedom. Well, naturally, when I decided to come to this country I thought that will...the United States is the country that is the most free, and has freedom of religion, freedom of speech, and freedom of movement, freedom of work and everything else. So it proved to be right and that's why many other people from other countries are fighting their way over to come to the United States. That's the thing that is pulling everyone over this way, you know otherwise they would have of ended up going to Turkey or to China you know but they come over this way.

My first job was at a gas station in New York City. Well financially I started from washing the toilets. Yea, but that was my choice and I didn't feel bad about it at all. Then I started...I got a promotion I started pumping gas in the gas station, then I got even higher promotion, started fixing cars, so after that I went up and I ended up fixing cars in an auto body shop, so I got a lot of promotions.

After 15 years living in New York I decided that I wanted to live in Los Angeles. Because There are more Armenians here, I like it here, the weather is better, and the working environment is much easier and calmer. There is not as much animosity as it is in New York.

Freedom is a very intangible concept, for a criminal freedom is freedom to kill, for a good man freedom is to create, to help others, to do something. Freedom is a very interesting concept it is all up in your head, it all depends how you understand, what you understand with that word freedom. Freedom doesn't mean that you are free to come and do all kinds of criminal stuff. No. Freedom means you are free to create, to help others, to learn to study, to get promotions. During communism in any republic in Soviet Union there was no such a thing as freedom of press or freedom of speech. It was mandated from the top from the government, they would decide what could be said and what you can say what you are aloud to say, and uh you just couldn't uh say what you wanted or you could not print a journalist could not print anything he wanted in any newspaper or uh or speak loudly publicly. There was no freedom of religion there is one semi oppressed religion which was Christianity of course. People did it like under table you know, but it was not completely open.

We had no voting system, there was one man elected out of one candidate. There was one candidate and there was an election to elect that one candidate, so there was no election. Election means to elect from at least two candidates right? And you elect one out of two, but when you elect one out of one that's not election, so that's how it was. And if someone were to speak against the government he would end up in jail for sure that's, that's the first thing he would do. It would run between one year up to fifteen years. There was torture also.

Look there was no police system like you understand it here, in this country, in soviet union there was a police state, the whole thing was run from the top from the Polit Buero top all the way down and police was just punishing arm of the government they were not after justice, they were after people who didn't obey, didn't do what they were supposed to do, like in any dictatorship. So in other words the police were corrupt. Absolutely, just like they are today in Baghdad just like they are in 99% of the war today, everywhere police are always corrupt.

The first time I voted for a president was in 1980. That was for Mr.Regon, I voted for him twice, in 80 and 84. Yea, so since then I have bin voting in practically all of the elections and I'm pretty happy about it, that I can vote and that my vote does count.

All it was a socialist economy, its as good as it...as bad as it gets. (Sighs) Socialism is a trap, you know it only offers good words but can not offer good free enterprise, if there is no free enterprise then if there's no free competition then the they can not be no progress. Everybody worked for the government, everybody and naturally they government allow certain people to have certain small businesses, but that was illegal but everybody knew it was illegal, but they acted illegally and they paid off the higher officials. Look let me tell you one phrase that is ah very popular in Soviet Union at that time, it was way before you were born. It used to say "Government, makes believe that they pay and people make believe that they work". Everybody was cheating everybody else.

Everything was black market, everything from Polit Buero all the way down was a black market. Even the Polit Buero itself was a black market, they were crooks 13 old men, they were all crooks. You know how they called each other? 13 Equal Men. But the number one Brezhnev, was called number one among equals. Number one among the equals. So everybody was equal but he was number one.

They were as bad as men's you know, didn't make any difference, men women didn't really make any difference.

There was a very smart guy in 18th century in 19th century in 19 in uhhh in 18, 1888 a Frenchman his name I keep forgetting Avery or something Avery I think it was, he said and this was repeated several times by other people that "All power tends to corrupt absolute power corrupts absolutely". You understand what that means? As long as you give power to somebody they take advantage of it. They get corrupt, that's human being, that's human nature. There have bin only a couple of people that had a lot of power, they never got corrupted, they always...they went all the way down to helping people. Do you know their names? Buddha, Jesus Christ, Mother Teresa, these people...worked for people they served people although they had a lot of power. So that's how it works. You can only find three, four, five names in the world history of the human kind.

I accomplished the American Dream yes but not the Armenian dream. The Armenian dream is still floating up there in the universe. We'll get it, we'll get it some day we'll accomplish our Armenian dream too. Which is have a Armenia free as we have free United States. We would like to have a free Armenia for every other Armenian who wants to live there. We not going to bring all the Armenians over to the United States, we're going to have a free independent republic of Armenia for the rest of the Armenians, and that's been our dream for several thousands of years. And we will accomplish that too.

Interviewed by Hakop Sahakian