Small Town Child Life

The room is unadorned. It feels awkward because it is usually filled with the noise of the TV, the smell of Armenian food cooking, and many people coming and going, but not at this moment. Today, an 81 year-old man sits on the couch across from me; anxiously waiting to tell me about the period of his life spent in the small town of Bandar Gaz. Bandar Gaz is a small town in Iran that is near a harbor. Leon Bartirosof begins to talk about his life, and how it was living in this small town, near the harbor. He tells stories about what he remembers from his childhood. He did not work in Bandar Gaz till his last years there. Because since he was born their and only stayed till the age of 7 he was to young to work. Leon Bartirosof’s stories of Bandar Gaz are unique because, his life style was the activities a child would experience. Leon Bartirosof says that at this time he was a little boy, he would go to school in the morning, in the afternoon he would come home… 

In Bandar Gaz there were no Persian school, there was a Russian school that we went to. The Russian school went up to the sixth grade. I myself went up to preschool. But my siblings went to grade school and learned Russian, Armenian, until the sixth grade. Once I finished preschool my family decided to move to Tehran and I didn’t live in Bandar Gaz anymore to go to school.  There when I was in Preschool, when we would go into the preschool classroom, in the morning, every kid had a toothpaste and toothbrush. First we had to go brush our teeth, then we would wash our hands very clean, and show the teacher our hands, the teacher would check our hands one spot at a time to make sure it was clean or not. Then when they would finish checking we would go to this box filled with toys, the toys were of animals, they would teach us the names of the animals, one by one. They would say “this is a roster, this is a cat, they call this a dog, they call that a mouse.” One by one, every animal toy, in the box, they would teach us the names. And there were cars made of wood and they would tell us that they were called cars; they called it automobile in Russian. Then when it was about ten o’clock we would go to the field and play, we would play tag, we would sit on the swings, and they had swings in the school field, there was everything. There were all kinds of toys. It was preschool. It was good. We would play till twelve then at twelve we would go home. Kindergarten was from eight to twelve at twelve we would come home and not go back till the next day. The grade school kids were in the same yard but were older, so because they were in grade school, the kids would stay till four.

In the school yard there weren’t any animals, but there was a forest near by and in the forest were we would go, were my father would go hunting he would take me and my brother along. He had 2 dogs as well, two hunting dogs. He would also take the dogs and we would go hunting. There were many bears there, but the bears were dangerous so my father wouldn’t hit them. My father would go and hit birds; he would go to the beach and hit birds. They were, they were like crows they were black with white dots. My father had two guns. We would hit the birds and bring them home and give them to our workers. We had workers in the house, we had workers in the kitchen, they would work for us, we would give the birds to them, and they would boil them in water, puck of the feathers, and give them to us to eat. My father also had many pigs, about 400 pigs. He had a big field, a private field. We had about ten to twelve horses, all of us, the kids, and my uncles, used to ride the horses. We had workers who would look after the horses. We had cows, we had about forty cows, 400 pigs, and we had a good life.

At that time there were no radios, or things for us to get information. There wasn’t news, there were no papers, and there weren’t any televisions, there was nothing. Back then kids didn’t have TV, and there weren’t radios. Kids would play would real things, like running around, sitting on swings; they would run after each other, and just play. At night when we came home, we didn’t have a radio, but my dad did have a gramophone, the gramophone did not have kid songs for kids, it was Old Russian songs, we kids didn’t find joy from that, but the adults did listen to it, they listened to the gramophone. But we would come home, draw pictures, practice the ABC, do homework - I was in preschool - after we spend our time like that we would sleep early to be able to go to preschool the next morning.

Main things that I remember from Bandar Gaz was that it had fish, we would go and catch fish, we would go and sit on the dock - me and my brother - and throw down a line and catch fish, and we would bring them home and our mother would cook them for us and we could eat them, we could catch little fish from the sea. My papa would sometimes put us into a boat, in a motorboats, he would put us into a motorboat, and take us into the big importing ships, and we would get to walk around in them, then when the importing ships would want to go we would get off and return to the motorboat that would bring us back to the dock. 

At the age of 7 I became an orphan, my aunt came and took me, me and my sister to an orphanage. We stayed at the orphanage for one year. It was a Persian orphanage. After that one year we came out they sent my little sister to another orphanage. But I stayed here and went to a barber shop and started to work there. Aram was the name of the barber shop owner, yes, but after a few years we left to Tehran . I had given up my parents but I was being taken care of by my older sister. My litter sisters and I were being taken care of by my older sister. She would work, and we would live together. I went and worked at the barber shop, and made money. And from that barber I started to learn Armenian, from the barber. He taught me. I learned Armenian from there. And on top of that, I started to go to grade school I went and started to also learn Persian; I learned Persian, Armenia and also went to work. Then I went to Tehran .

Interviewed by: Arkady Hovssepian