Interview with my Grandfather-Arkadi Gevorgyan
Arkadi Gevorgyan is a man who came from Armenia in 2002 when he was sixty-eight years old. He lived in a country that was not as caught up with the times as the rest of the world was. He lived in a village in Armenia that did not know of television until it was out for a very long time. They did not have the same type of entertainment ass the rest of the world did. They would gather together and be entertained the old fashioned way. They also did not use many of the objects other people used that were newly invented. Stoves were not used by them because they preferred to cook with real fire. After Arkadi moved into the city, he was able to get a television. It was an interesting object and invention for someone who did not know about it. Now he lives in California with a wife and three kids.
My full name is Arkadi Gevorgyan. Name Arkadi was given to me by my father, Karlen Gevorgyan, and the last name Gevorgyan has been with my family and past generations for over 250 years. I have had three kids. Who greatly helped in anything that needed to be done. I was born in Yerevan, capital of Armenia. I lived in Armenia most of my life, and then I came to America. I am sixty-three years old, I was born in 1944. All technology was very new back then so we went through numerous changes in our family. Most of the changes were the way of entertaining people became different. Before, our village would get the kids entertained by telling stories and whatnot. Now old people began to get entertained by radios and other needless inventions that humans could live without. Television was probably the biggest of the changes. The first television I saw was very impressive. I lived in a city then. It was a couple of years after I moved into the city. It was out for a good time already, but our city was not caught up in the times as the rest of the world was. So the television was a pretty new thing for me. I did not know what to expect or how it worked back then. The first television I saw it at my friend’s house, who got it sent from a relative in Russia. This television was called Horizon. It was a color TV but like everyone else it only had like 8 channels. But not everyone had televisions. Most could not afford them.
Well where I lived the televisions were something no one thought of when they were made. Most did not know what it was. But there were some who were lucky to have relatives across the border who were able to send them a TV. I bought my television from Russia. I paid about 300 rubles for that television which averages out to about 120 dollars. It was a reasonable price because the one I bought was pretty old. You would have to get up and change the channels.
I never owned a black and white television. When I was going to get one, the color ones were already available. I was not really planning on getting one in the first place. But when I realized that it was fairly necessary for watching the news or catching up with the rest of the world, I got one. It was the year 1990 when I got it.
When I got the television my life became somewhat easier. The news was right there in front of me without having to go and buy newspaper. My first television was not with a remote. I could not even imagine that such thing would exist. Getting up and changing the channel was absolutely no problem because everyone there was used to human labor. But when I got the television I watched it quite often to know the news and things like that. I saved a lot of time by not going to the store for newspaper. Generally the television helped me a lot. But as every pleasant thing for a human the television had its bad sides. Everything that pleases people is bad for a human. The television would cause eye damage and other things. So watching it wisely was very necessary. You have to watch it only if it does something good for you or gives you valuable information, because then you know that your eyesight was not damaged for no reason.
The television had only eight channels. You did not have to turn a handle to change channels, but each channel had its own button. By the time I got my television all of my friends had televisions. It was not new but I did not feel the need for it until I realized that it was mandatory. It was not vary hard to get my television. Well, it was pretty easy to get one because it was not new. All I did was tell one of my friends to find one at a decent price. After that I had a television.
I was not that interested in my television. It was not something I wanted to enjoy or anything but I already knew how it worked because I had some friends in that field of interest. Most of them were able to get an extra one that was broken, just to take it apart and see how it worked. Soon they all knew how it was functioning and no one was pondering on the subject anymore. They all knew the TV, inside and out. It made it a lot easier to watch because everyone would always wonder if that glowing box in the corner was going to kill them slowly in a long time of watching. I did not watch it too often. I only watched it if I wanted to know something important. Or sometimes when they would show a brand new pirated movie, I would watch that. My view of the media really changed because I did not expect people come up with something like this. Or how the news was viewed.