Interview with my friends grandmother Jullittea Poghosyan

I have interviewed Jullittea Poghosyan, the interview took place at her house. Mr. Poghosyan lived in a small city in Leninakan called Andar for most of her life. Andar was very small it had a population of 800 people living there. It was a quite and nice town to live in. She remembers going to parades, and plays, also movies when she was a young girl. She was living at the time of the Soviet Union this maid life a lot harder, they had very little rights, Church going was not allowed for most people. The Soviet had control over everything, they had only one radio stations that only had one channel about the war. Her mom had to raise seven other kids, it was very hard for her mother because her dad and oldest brother were at war fighting, and things got even worse when one day they got a letter saying we are not sure if your son is dead or alive, reading this letter her dad got a hearth attack and died.

Jullittea Poghosyan was born on the 1935 in a small city in Leninakan called Andar. She has lived there for most of her life, and she now lives in California. She is 72 years old.

I was a young girl in Andar there was a draft, so all the men were at World War II, and the women they held each others hands and kept there heads up.

My oldest brother was drafted in to, he was into the military before the war had started and because he was in the military he was taken to war. My brother was not found during the war, they had given us a letter saying that your son was missing, and we have no information whether he is still dead or alive or how his position is, so after we got the letter, my dad got a hearth attack and died.

There were many famous people living in Leninakan like Hovanesh Shenazyan, and Avedeze ezaryan, they were poetry writers and they were known all around, all over Armenia. Arakse Kulazyan, She was a great singer and she known all over Armenia and all of Armenian older people will now her. Grexhic Mkertyan, was one of the most famous actors, and he was knows world wide not only in Armenia, he played in many Russian Movies. There was a lot that I don’t remember now but there was a lot.

The way we got our news was, we had a newspaper that was called the “Banvor Tert.” Church going was not allowed there in the Soviet Union time. But all though there was some believers some religious people they did go.

At first it was only one radio station with one channel, but as the technology increased the channels increased and then later on, there was the television that was invented, and we would get the news from Moscow and the community of Armenia and Leninakan.

Sports was very important, we had very good boxers, and weight lifting, for who could lift the heaviest weight and it was measured in kilograms not in pounds.

The population it was mainly Lenakancies, who are the people of Leninakan, but there was Russians, Russian people and Russian schools.

The schools were divided but not between people between languages, and Armenians were like able to go to Russian schools and learn Russian, and to grow up with the Russian, language and knowledge, and Russians were aloud to go to Armenian schools and grow up with Armenian teachings. It was on who wanted what but the schools were not like one school wouldn’t teach both.

In my opinion Life is better here, in a way that, its free, and people have their own rights and people have freedom of speech, freedom of religion, and were as in The Soviet union time were I was a young girl it was different, the Soviet had control over basically who you are, and what rights you have.

(Laughter) There was a lot of brides back then, that was the biggest thing going on then, people were arrested if they have money they would just pay the officer, whatever they did they could get away with almost murder. If they had enough money they would just pay the police officer and the cop would just close his eyes.

My father had went to jail, I haven’t been told the details but, I was told by my mother that, during 1937, how my dad was arrested and how hard life was during prison, basically it was like torture.

My family had seven, kid’s four sisters’ three brothers, but back in the 1940s, they were trying to expand their culture, it was almost after the Genocide, so they were trying to make the culture bigger. It was basically like how it is now people have mainly two kids or maybe three kids, over there it was accepted to have a lot of kids.

From what I remember it was very difficult to raise kids back then, I had a single mother who was by her self keeping six children because my oldest brother was in the war, and my dad had past away. Because it was during the war time my mother didn’t have an outside job, she would sow carpets and make home made and hand made carpets, also rugs with very unique designs on them to be able to keep the kids, and the oldest sibling during that time was my sister who was eighteen years old.

The earthquake in Leninakan it was awful, it killed twenty-five thousand people, just from Leninakan, not only from Leninakan but the main point of the earthquake was from Leninakan, it killed about twenty-five thousand people from Armenia, there was practically no building standing. Until now people are living in, something like a garage, storage unit small things like that.

This has happened a long time ago buy the government did not put any money to fix this, at first the Russians helped, they helped with financial wise work, with labors, but then when Levon Ter-Pedrosyan, was president, he said we have to build our own houses, and he basically cut all the supply out from the modern places but he didn’t succeed to his word, he didn’t complete his word he just didn’t pay for anything.

I am not sure how Andar is now because I moved from Andar at 2003 to 2004, I came here to America, it started when Levon got out of president, it sort of started to rebuilt, right now there is a big conflict going on in the politicians, because Levon is trying to go back into president, and its basically war between the public and between the citizens of Armenia, just half the country doesn’t want him, the other half wants him. So there bribed basically.

Interviewed by Gor Galstian