If you're a man living in Armenia you have to go to the army. It is every mans
responsibility to defend their own country proudly. Also, the Armenian land is
surrounded by other types of religion that might want the Armenians land, so that is you
Armenian forces men to go to the army so they can be prepared to go to war for then-
country.
Could you imagine if you forced to go to the army, or how about have to pay the
police officers so that they just can't let u go, you might imagine but Masis Yegnanyan
lived through it and he and now he live in Glendale, California, where there is no worries
about being forced to go to war or pay the police officer. He was born in Iran then he
moved with his family to Armenia. Was hard know your vote doesn 't really count. As I
was talking to him I noticed that he was proud of the army rule when you had to go to the
army, "first or all that was all mans responsibility to defend their own country and they
should be proud."
During December of 1981 went from Iran to Armenia. I went to Armenia with my mother and father because Iran was a Muslim type of country and we want to be part of the Christian culture because Armenian is all Christian. We wanted to be people that had Christian beliefs. During that time period uhhhh... the president in Armenia was ...... I think Mr. Dimergian. At that time uhhh... ..not the... people could have voted but the.. .government was the real reason how the leader of the country became. They forced to vote and they would tell us who to vote for. I wasn't really interested who was the leader or the president; I just cared about living, eating, and making money so my parents and I could live without any disruptions. You had to be a citizen and be an Armenian resident to vote and ifu choose to vote u had to be at least 16 years of age to vote.... Or was it 18? But I'm sure it was 16.
It was very... very easy to find a job there were a lot of job openings cuz like there weren't many responsible people to get up and works so yeah uhhh.. .it was easy. My job was. I did construction for the city when like a road will be broken I will go and fix it. My father he worked in the bread factory and my mother uhhh... she worked in many different jobs so I didn't really know what she did.... And that was enough to bring food on the table not the best living family but enough to get us through. There was minimum wage... like around 1 to 2 dollars an hour if we compare to American money.. .and the male and female got the same amount of money didn't matter ifu had different jobs uhhh... I think that wasn't fair because man had harder jobs so they should have gotten more money.
The police in Armenia had a lot of respect because if you did something wrong they wouldn't give u a ticket they would just ask for the money and they would pocket it and not give any to the government. If we were disobeying the police they would just take you somewhere and beat you until you give them money or they would frame another crime on you and torture you till you agree with them.
Yeah the government did own many thing like the TV Channels that would play, and the government would show what they felt like was useful to show. There were about uhh....3 channels to choose out of to watch; sports, local news, and world news and they were all controlled by the government. The basic language that every radio station TV station spoke was Armenian or Russian. When I would always turn on my car my radio was station option was limited, there were like.... 2 to 3 stations. Pretty much a communist country.
Interviewed by Arman Y.