Journey Before America

 Arcen Yesaian now lives with his wife in a small apartment in Glendale, California but he was born in Tehran, Iran in 1937. Arcen began his life working as a welder in Iran and later moved to Armenia to continue his career and live his life under the control of Soviet Union. Under harsh conditions he was not capable of finishing his education and dropped out of school to take care of his family. As Arcen reminisces he says that knowledge is the greatest form of power. In 1991 when the Soviet broke up he experienced the greatest change of his life and struggled to take care of his family so later he moved to the U.S. Arcen enjoys playing cards with his friends at the park and watching the news, he says that his journey has been a very tough one, but giving his children and grandchildren the opportunities they have today is success in his eyes.

I was born in Iran and later moved to Armenia. I grew up with the hope of a great education, but dropped out of school to help my family. At the age of thirty-five I worked for one of the biggest Armenian companies. When I moved to Armenia in 1971 Brezhnev ruled the Soviet Union it was the first time I lived part of a communist country and it had a lot of advantages and disadvantages. One of the advantages was that when we moved to Armenia we got our first house for free and paid very little rent.  Living in Soviet there were many job opportunities and with jobs came economic wealth so we had food to take care of the family.

During communism education and medication were free, everyone was forced to complete a certain level of education and in all of Soviet everyone was educated. In some ways the government was very corrupt and they did not appreciate the working class, they gave workers their word for rewards, but the problem was they never kept their word and they took advantage of us. The system was very disloyal.  The country of Armenia was economically behind compared to other countries so everything was very cheap, we did not earn a lot of money but we didn’t need it, the money that I earned was enough to take care of my family.

Around 1987 the Soviet had some conflicts and a war broke out between Azerbaijan and Armenia. Azerbaijan was attacking us from their borders and all the Armenians living in Azerbaijan were forced to move back to Armenia, which increased the population and caused a lot of problems. As the country of Armenia overcrowded, Armenians wanted their land ‘Karabak’ back from Turkey and the demand that Armenia made was one of the causes of the war. There was shortage of food and water and there were no lights. That period of time between late 80’s and early 90’s was just a hard time for the people in Armenia as there was a massive earthquake in 1988 that destroyed the country and at that time people started to migrate around the world to countries such as Germany, France, and the United States. The main cause of all the problems was that when the Soviet split everyone was on their own. No longer were Armenians working in Georgia or Russia it was everyone for their country. Another problem for me was that as this time of hardship occurred I was no longer able to work so I had to take care of my family with the very little welfare money I received.

After we gained Independence life in Armenia did become hard, but this hardship was also an opportunity for people to move to other countries and become successful. Another cause for the break up of the Soviet can be Gorbachev’s demands towards the countries. He was a very harsh ruler, he sent Armenians to Siberia where they made Armenians work for them and treated us like slaves, some of those people were fortunate enough to return to Armenia in 1991, but others died in Siberia. Since 1991 life in Armenia has changed significantly, at first it was very hard, but slowly it is improving.  Most of the help is coming from other countries, but Armenia itself has not improved. The budget of Armenia has not changed and most of the money is coming from out of country businesses. Some of the businesses that were available before in Armenia have closed down and nobody has enough money to afford making new ones. In a way you can say that life was better before 1991 because even though we were not wealthy we still had enough money to take care of our families and ourselves. 

We also helped Russia in World War 2; Hovannes Bagramyan was a famous general who was later known as a war hero, he got awarded by the Soviet government. Even though we affected Russia in such positive ways Stalin closed down our churches and did not let Armenians practice their religion, he closed down all the churches and made them into basements and storage rooms. Russia did not have a god, they believed in Lenin so they were jealous of Armenia’s unity in their beliefs.  Russia was the central power in the Soviet so all decisions were made in Russia and they were treated better then other countries. To most people the word independence means a better life, but being controlled by the Soviet was easier for us. We are a minority and a small country so it’s hard to compete with other world powers.

Interviewed by Narek Yesayan