Interview with my Aunt - Yeghisabet Gasparyan

As the sixty-two year old grandmother and aunt sits on the porch of her one-bedroom Glendale house, she affectionately welcomes her nephews to her house for some tea. Once a conversation starts, she quickly starts to remember the old times when she was a child in the Soviet Union. She remembers the times when she couldn’t do many of the stuff she does now. She tells her nephews and brother many stories on how she can’t believe how she escaped from the Soviet Union. Now, she’s really excited that the Soviet Union has finally collapsed…

I was born in Armenia, in the city of Yerevan, in 1945 on October 20. We lived in the Kond Section of Yerevan. We have moved to many places, from Kond to Noraresh on 14^th street in my father’s uncle’s house to Kayaran where my father purchased a two-bedroom house. Overt here, my two brothers were born and my sister. After this we moved from this house as well to Cheremushka. I attended Kayaran’s school. My favorite subjects were Armenian Language, Armenian Grammar and Astronomy.

In my life, I have gone through many changes, good and bad, but the biggest change was when the Soviet Union collapsed and we became independent. Soviet-Armenia got freedom. This change affected me greatly because during those times, Armenia was independent, but we were cut out from everything. The roads were closed; there was no water, no electricity. Many factories didn’t operate since during the Soviet’s times, all the republic’s factories worked together. After this, the Atomic Nuclear Power Plant didn’t work. The Atomic Nuclear power Plant were stopped and the people were left without light. As winter came closer, people didn’t have anything to burn, they didn’t have light. The people were in a very heavy position. People that lived in high floor apartments didn’t have water because the water moved because of pipes and if there was no electricity, the pumps couldn’t take the waters in high levels. If there was no electricity, there was no water.

During the Soviet Union, the bad things were that job salaries were very low. Many people took an item with them to work to sell to someone to have money leftover. During the Soviet Union, you might have a lot of money but there weren’t a lot of good quality items u could buy. People had money in there hands ready to buy something but couldn’t since there weren’t many things to buy. If someone wanted to buy furniture, they had to go to Moscow, wait in Moscow for a few days, even months until they could buy something and ship it back to where they wanted it so there house could look nicer. And whatever was available was mostly for the rich people or the government workers. For middle class people, it was very hard to buy something that you wanted.

My sister wanted to- my sister could- we wanted to, together, open a sewing place and work like this, But the Soviet Union would never let us do this. Opening a business like this was unheard of. If the government knew we opened a business like this, they would arrest us, they would handcuff us. During the Soviet Union, you couldn’t do something like this, but if someone at there own house made some shoes or clothing and then sold it, this would be called “Speculation”. For this, the government could arrest you. You didn’t have any right to make something at home and then sell it to someone or to a store. For this, they would arrest you. The government had the right to arrest you.

During the Soviet Union, if you were rich, the government would start asking you questions. They would ask you where you got the money from. They would say where you brought the money from or how come you have two automobiles. The police… the mayor would start to get interested in how or why you have two cars and how and with what did you make your house so beautiful. That’s why people became afraid and didn’t keep a lot of money in the bank so the government wouldn’t know. You couldn’t be rich. You couldn’t be a millionaire. You couldn’t be a millionaire

The police were corrupt. Umm… you couldn’t do anything. For example, whenever we lived in Noraresh, my father’s house, my father wanted to make a small place for our, a small kitchen for us. My father made it two times and the police came and they broke it. They didn’t let anyone make anything, not even a storage place to store wood for the winter. There were no rights to making improvements to your house. No rights, but government workers had these rights. Government officials had these rights, but middle class people had no rights. Middle class people had no rights. Other reasons on why police officers were corrupt were because they took money from people. If someone did something while they were driving a car, they would just pay the police money and get it over with and continue with their driving. All police officers, maybe ninety percent of them, were working by getting money like this.

After this change, first of all, the people got excited, they got very excited that whatever the Armenian people wanted finally happened and that the people were now free. This was several decades worth of challenge and stress. The Armenian people were now free. We were very excited. I myself was very excited that Armenia was finally an independent country. We became an independent country. Especially because during the war (for freedom and independence), our country won and succeeded. One month later, though, there was no electricity. Again, there was no electricity, no gas and life continued like this for a few years. It took about five to six years for the people to take a stand because Armenia was in a war with Azerbaijan. We were in a very heavy place. Many dead bodies would enter Armenian, Yerevan, young people’s dead bodies. It was a very bad place to be in. This was a very bad thing to see. Every day, many young people’s dead bodies came. One year later, it was in about the same position. The same old, we didn’t have water or electricity and sometimes we didn’t have bread. There was a long line at the bread stands. Whatever products we had leftover from the Soviet Union would be at the stores for sale. There was nothing to buy or eat. Whatever food Armenia got was from Iran because the road from Turkey to Armenia was closed.

During those years, Soviet currency was nothing. All the people that had worked for many years and collected a lot of money and put it in the bank were all nothing now. All that money collected during many decades and many drops of sweat was all nothing now. Until this day, the government still hasn’t paid back all the money the people had before this change.

Interviewed and Translated by Varuzhan Gasparyan