From
Ochamchira to Glendale
Paul
Bagdassarian is an elderly man that is currently living in Glendale, California,
where he enjoys living a couple of blocks away from his family. At least once a
week he visits his grandchildren and tells them stories of his childhood in
Ochamchira , Georgia . Just like his grandchildren in Glendale , Paul grew up in
a diverse community where everyone got along despite their cultural differences.
He misses participating in the city’s many cultural festivals, where he often
played the accordion with a band for the crowd. Though he is already used to the
typical American cuisine, he will always love his mother’s recipes that were
typical of Georgia . He will never forget the many summers he spent going to the
Black Sea , playing sports and constantly being outdoors with his friends. To
this day he remembers the memories he made with his friends and how lucky he is
to have had such a great childhood experience.
When school
began I did the same things before school, and after school I would go to the
cinemas with my pals. Of course movies were very entertaining in Ochamchira
since there wasn’t much to do, so we would go to the outdoor movie theater
during spring-summer looking out under the skies. My friends and I would climb
trees by the outside movie area and watch from there when we didn’t want to
buy tickets.
During summer I spent most of the time with my
school friends at the Black Sea , city parks and playing different types of
sports like tennis and soccer. In the evening we would turn up the radio, and
dance to popular dances like tango, fox trot, waltz and general European
favorites. The love the Black Sea so much because I can remember the hours and
hours we would spent in the healthy water. We would spend time swimming with
friends, girlfriends, everybody was happy, and the view was beautiful. Until
this day I love the Black Sea , and a couple of years ago I got to visit
Ochamchira and swim, I felt all the memories come rushing back to me.
Where I
lived, people got along and had friends in this multicultural city with
Mongrels, Greeks, Georgians, Russians, Armenians and Jewish people. Even the
whole town was diverse ethnicities, for example; Armenians, Russians, Georgians,
who are mainly Christian, there were Jewish people, and Greeks which were
Orthodox Christians, and Abkhazians which were Muslim. Most of the people that
lived there were Mongrels and Georgians, and all of them were Christians, but
they absolutely never treated each other differently, and they didn’t even
care what ethnicity or religion you believed in.
Communication
with the different cultures was not difficult because everyone who lived in our
region was bilingual, one of which was their native language. For example,
Armenians speak Armenian, Abkhaz spoke Abkhaz, Georgians spoke Georgian, but
they always knew a second language very well. When people were home they would
speak a different language, but Russian was used in public, the government used
it, and it was a priority for schools in Ochamchira to teach it. I liked my
Russian language teacher very much. He was very nice, and he explained and
taught about a large amount of Russian poets and writers very well.
The
most popular crop they used was corn, and we were making many different dishes
from this crop. One of the dishes is called mama leega, which we would
consume with a very interesting sauce called ajika, tgemali, or
they would just cook the corn and put a type of cheese called suluguni
over it so it would melt. The mandarin is also a very popular fruit in
Ochamchira, and people were making syrups, which were used to make different
types of drinks like lemonade, using this fruit in their dishes and eating it as
well. There was a separate factory making lemonade, and my aunt was even working
there.
During
major events the townspeople would start preparing, training and planning a week
before, and the entire town would be either at, or involved in these parades and
festivals. I remembered that my uncle would do theater during their events and
he would sing and dance on the streets as the different heroes during the
communist movement back in the 1920s. I played the accordion since the age
of twelve, so I was very active at parades and parties especially where I was
always invited and welcome to play this music and people would European dances.
Since
Ochamchira was such a small town rumors and gossip was flying very fast. People
were communicating with each other on a daily basis, informing each other when
something extraordinary were happening in the town. There was not much
technological communication at the time, especially in small towns, so the only
way of communication was by word; whether it is good news or bad news it drew
people closer to each other as the shared everything with each other.
After living in Ochamchira for fifteen years, I moved to Sukhumi , the capital of Abkhazia which had the population of a half a million, movie theaters, hotels and colleges, so it was an urbanized city with many things included. I moved because my family relocated, and I liked it better in Sukhumi because it was a big town with a lot of interesting sport activities like basketball, volleyball, gymnastics and a huge gym. Basically, the life in Sukhumi was much more interesting because there were many concerts and places to go.
World
War two was taking place during the time I lived in Ochamchira, but my father
could not fight because he had problems with his legs, so he didn’t take part
in the war directly in battle with the Nazis, but he was part of the town’s
guards or protection.. Although both my uncles, my mother’s two brothers were
actively fighting in World War two, and luckily them came back alive and
healthy. I remember that Ochamchira was not even bombarded at all, but there was
a city named Crim, where there were ships full of people who were evacuating,
while enemy planes were bombarding these ships killing many people.
We were fortunate because the German army was stopped 20 kilometers from our city, and there was very little bombarding, but after the war very life was very slowly getting back to what it use to be. There were big shortages of food supplies, yet no starvation. There were water shortages, and there were people as well as my family that were suffering as well. We were able to manage because the government would give us certified papers, like food stamps, so we would be able to get food. The only reason people were happy was because they were slowly recovering, and the war was finally over.
Interviewed by Rosalin Bagdassarian