A Small Town Life in Iran

Martik Sepanousian drives and walks around Glendale, California where he currently resides in. At the age of 67 he remembers his days as a child in the small town of Khomein, Iran. He now spends most of his days with his family and his friends where as back then he would go to school and play with friends out in the streets. Sepanousian has one child and two grandchildren. He lives with his wife in an apartment. Back in Khomein Sepanousian lived with his three brothers, one sister, and his parents. He has many memories that he can share with his family and he tells them stories about how he was as a kid. He shares his life in a small town and how it felt like to live there. An advice he always gives to try your best and you will get what you want in life.

I lived in Khomein a small town in Kamara, just like Glendale is in Los Angeles. I lived there from the year 1940. Khomein wasnat the only town in Kamara, there were four other towns. We lived in one town and in the others all the Persians lived there. There was only one more town who had some Armenians living in it. I lived with my parents, mom three brothers and my sister. The Persians in the other towns did not bother us an they were all nice. The Persians did not bother us until all the Armenians moved to Tehran. I liked it when we moved to Tehran. We moved to Tehran when I finished school at the age of eleven.

I remember everything in the small town because I lived there until the age of eleven. Our house was two bedrooms and we had a big backyard and there were no apartments in our town. We had many different animals. We had dogs, cats, hens, chickens, and birds. Only 2,000 people lived in Khomein. Half were Muslims and half were Christians.
I went to school for four years from the age of seven to the age of eleven. I went to school with my sister and my brothers. We all walked to school because it was near us and we could walk. There were 300 people in our school. We had students older than us and younger. We all had two days off from school every week. We only had school for six our a day. After school ended I did my homework and then I played out in the streets with my friends. It was safe to play outside because cars never passed by our streets. We would all play basketball and soccer. We had four months off from school in the summer.
During the summer the boys and the fathers would go to place like a beach a

nd swim in the water. The women were not allowed to wear a bathing suit because it was a Muslim country. It was like a Palm Springs but we wouldnat stay over night. We would go to that place until night time and we would return home. During the winter we would stay home and go to each others houses. There was a lot of snow and we had no electricity or gas. We used candles and in the mornings we would make a fire.

In our small town we had many holidays. We celebrated Christmas and Easter like we do here. In Iran we had two New Years one was for us the Christians and one was for the Muslims when the Persians would celebrate the New Year. The Muslims New Year was Ade when the year would change. When it was Christmas and New Years all the Armenians would get happy and there was no school for a week. Everyone would go to each others houses and exchange presents. We did not have Halloween because no one new what it was. There were also holidays like Vartivore where you would wet everyone. Vartivore was an Armenian tradition where you would wet everyone, we have it here two once a year. There was Hambartsom where once a year you would go out with your family to a picnic. We would all walk to the place and stay there all day until night. At night we would come home and sleep there was no place to sleep over there.

We had many famous people in Iran. Andranik peretzi marcos was an Armenian who played in many small films. He also played in shows here in Glendale to. There were a lot of Armenian actors in Tehran. I knew about four or five Armenian actors there. Khomeini was born near my town. From our town to his it was about thirty minutes away. When Khomeini was two his family moved to the city and was raised there.

When something would happen in Kamara only relatives and people who lived near us would find out. Only the relatives would know and people who lived next door to us. If something would happen like birthdays and weddings or special events everyone would come and celebrate with us they would sing and play music. The Armenians had two churches one for the Catholics and one for the Protestants. Whoever wanted to go would go on Sundays. The Muslims would go to the Matched. There were no fights between the Muslims and the Christians. The Muslims live on one side of town and the Christians lived on the other side. The president at that time was Muhammad Reza Shah. When Khomeini became president my family and I moved to Tehran.

All of the Armenians moved to America and other countries because when Khomeini became president the Muslims were all mean to the Christians. All Armenians ran away from Iran.
I would not want to live in a small town here in America. I would like to go back to visit and to see if our house is there . I would like to go to Tehran for fifteen days and to Kamara for fifteen days. I would like to see our old house and church and to see if everything is still there or if they tore it down. But in Kamara there are no Armenians there are only Persians. I like living in a city I donat like small towns. I like living in Los Angeles and in Glendale.