Interview With My
Grandfather-Petros Petrosyan
Petros Petrosyan, my grandfather, now 71 and as healthy
as he could be lives in a one bedroom apartment with his wife, my grandmother,
Anitsa Petrosyan. He and his wife live in Glendale, California just a few
blocks away from there son and grandchildren. Their daughter lives a few cities
away with her children and husband. My grandfather has always been a man of
great respect and honor, but I haven’t had many times where I’ve sat down and
had a conversation. This time, I learned more about my grandfather after I asked
him about his life in Russia when it was still a communist country. He had gone
to Russia when he was 10 years old with his family from Armenia. He had lived in
the communist country almost all of his life and had gone through many
hardships. He had to raise his children and help his three brothers with their
lives. Now that he’s here in America, he can start to relax and enjoy the
remainder of his life.
Petros Petrosyan
Well,
the system, you know what system is, there’s a free country and there’s a
controlled country. Well, Russia’s system and the system here in the USA have a
very big difference. The Russian system was communist, there was total control.
Nobody had rights to do anything, or think of new ideas. Everything was in one
system. Whatever they told you to do you had to do (referring to the
government). That was the law. As in, everyone… well you could call it anarchy
if you wanted. Spreading out, as in spreading away from the country and acting
individually, wasn’t allowed.
No one was aloud to be individual. If you want to learn, go
ahead and learn. But, if you graduated, what was going to happen? Nobody
appreciated knowledge. If you learned and got a degree, you made less money then
the average worker. Knowledge wasn’t appreciated by the people.
With nothing else to do, if you wanted to live well, you
had to involve yourself in different ways. You had to involve yourself in ways
against or opposite the government, so then you’d be able to live normally. You
had to be by yourself, you had to decide for yourself, buy/sell, and things like
that. If you stayed on the government’s way you, wouldn’t be able to own
anything. Everything was done illegally, that’s it, and it all had to be done
illegally because the legal way, you’d only be able to eat a piece of bread. You
couldn’t even eat that with doing legal things.
Ninety-nine percent of the people were all living illegally
because the legal didn’t help you with anything. They said that by law,
everything was done for the people of the country, but it was the exact
opposite. There was nothing in the hands of the people. Nobody even said
anything against them, with communism; you don’t have the right to speak. If you
said anything, or spoke anything against the government, they’d get you; put you
on trial and so on.
There were no human rights at all. The system was such a
type of system that, if now, anyone that lived there knows what it was like,
it’s not easy to explain. Whatever I lived, I lived, what can I say. We would
make different things, we’d do different things, sell what we made, and we just
lived that way. We made everything for people. Just stuff that the people needed
and bought. Whatever was possible. We just built anything, and made anything to
sell it. Everything was made by us.
Here, the government has left everything to the people.
There’s certain laws put down, and if you do not break any of these laws, you
can continue working as much as you want. You’ll get rich and live, because
you’re free here. Whatever you want to do, do it, just give the government the
tax, and that’s it! You’re already free, in the limits of the law. Don’t use
narcotics, don’t commit murder, don’t get involved with things like that, and
just get involved with work. Think, create, design, you’re free here.
Over here, you’re relaxed, you don think of much. Over
there, you were doing everything illegally, all against the country. When I came
here, everything that I learned to build and sell helped me start a life over
here. Everything you were doing there was all with fright. Over here, there is
no fright. There’s that big difference in the lifestyle and everything. There’s
law here and everything. Over there, you could buy the law with money. Bribe the
right people and you can do anything you want. Bribery, without it, you won’t be
able to do anything. You do all the illegal work, make some money and then pay
them off. If you didn’t pay them, you wouldn’t be able to do what you were
doing. You made what was not allowed to be made, you sold it.
Basically, the whole thing, when you were there, you were
like a slave, you didn’t have the right to anything. You had to work for your
self. The police and everyone had to be bribed so you would be able to do
anything and live your life.
As I said, ninety-nine percent of the people in the country
were all acting illegally. The law was that, whoever was communist, who ever was
in government, had every right. They could get cars, everything. But if you
weren’t one of those people, you had to use other methods to get those things.
My life was just how it was for everyone. Now, my life is longer. I’ve watched
my children grow up. Now I’m watching my grandchildren grow up. We worked, made
money. This time by law instead of illegally. There was no risk, we were paid
well, and we got to live life.
The government supported us. And when you learn something,
it actually gets appreciated and amounts to something you’re free. If you don’t
like a job, change it, try something else, but by law. Because there is every
type of thing in this country.
The only thing that came hard for us was learning the
language. Slowly, here you can rise and amount to something. And now, actually,
in 1990, since Russia has also changed into a democracy, it will be a lot like
here. It will be a lot better. Life will be better all on its own.
Interviewed by
Petros Petrosyan