Story About Spitak

As Barseg Demirchyan sites on his rocking chair on his porch he watches the children in the neighborhood run around and live there lives as peaceful as possible. At the age of eighty he has the energy and strength to talk about how life was like living in a small town in Armenia called Spitak. Today, he is looking for a person to talk to and explain how hard it was living in a small time but pleasant with day have. He feels that children now have all the many resources they need but as he grew up he had to work or dig real deep to get what he wanted in life. In his time as a child the people living in Spitak struggled to raise families or even stay alive, especially as they lived through one of the biggest earthquakes in history. As he says he has seen war, he has seen what hunger is, he has survived in a horrible earthquake, but at the same time lived a beautiful and interesting life that only a few lived. 

I am from a village in Armenia called Spitak. It is located in Armenia’s Northern region, in the center of the Lori and Kotayk region. I was born in 1927 and lived in Spitak until 1993, and then I moved to America. Spitak was an agricultural town; we raised goats, pigs, we had ten to fifteen chickens, and besides those many other animals. It was a small village, all of us knew each other, and we were all like relatives. We all helped one another; we would go to each others houses and have a drink or two, eat together, play music, sing, and dance, have fun with one another; plan marriages, we would play backgammon.

Since Armenia was a part of the Soviet Union Russia had some control over Spitak. Everything was connected to one another, we would send milk, eggs to Russia and they would send us machinery and cars. We would get controlled but at the same time we would also help each other.

In those times there were many jobs for people who were involved working in farms, people who produced products that they could sell, the youth would go to Yerevan, Kirovakan, and Lenakan to work. Who ever couldn’t find jobs would go to Russia and work as a contractor to make money. We were able to live, it was good, there were jobs. Before I worked I was going to school, then the war began (WWII), my father and my older brother went to war and I stayed as the old one in the house and I began to help my mother because besides us I had a small brother and sister. After, I went and started working as a farmer until the war was over, then as the war was over I went learned how to be a driver and started working. In the farming industry I was working as a driver, driving around a big truck that loaded up vegetables and fruits that I would take to the caned food factory which would be made into caned food. We would load up grapes and take them to the wine factories which would be made into wine. Just like that I was working as a truck driver; I was the best driver of our town.

People were not able to choose whether or not to go to school, it was a priority. When we would become seven years old we would be forced to go to school. We had the right to dropout of school in eighth grade or stay until tenth grade, but we had to go to school.

In the years of 1988 a big earthquake occurred caused about the entire village to collapse. The big portion of the village collapsed, the buildings got demolished, a lot of people died – we didn’t have light, water, food. Thank god nothing happened to our family, but many people from our relatives passed away.

Everything was destroyed, no schools and no hospitals. The wounded would get surgeries done in the open and in the middle of the streets. Some had medical attention was performed for people; with there legs, hands, head broken. It was a very horrible situation, but we are thankful to the other countries because doctors came from countries all over the world and thank god they helped us a lot. Special groups would be formed with dogs that took the people out from under the collapsed buildings and houses. Overall life was really hard; the first couple of days, the first week was a horrible time, we didn’t have light to see where or who the people were, you could hear noises from under the ground and you know that people are still alive, but you can’t help with anything because there were no machines to dig up the people that were trapped. Who ever was alive would dig with there hands in the dark using flash lights to find people to dig out. There was a daycare that collapsed and forced all the kids to be trapped, we could hear the children’s voices coming from under the ground, but we couldn’t do anything, we would try to dig the children up with our hands or with what ever came under our hands, but we couldn’t save them.

Then, a couple of week’s later help started to arrive; help came from Yerevan such as food, bread, and water. People didn’t have clothes to wear, in the middle of a cold winter they would lit the fire and sit crouched with there blankets; then from other countries people started sending clothes, blankets, and anything for warmth.

People were really helping each other a lot, the people would take out what ever they had and bring it to the table; they would eat and drink with each other, would burry a person with one another. Until help came from other countries, they started bringing small cabins for people to some how live in because for those days people were living on the streets, making a fire and sitting around it with there blankets. Also, they brought medicine which we used that some how cured the wounded. There were a lot of people who were wounded and who became handicap.

Then a command came and said that five days later they had to bring the ground to a surface level because it was already impossible to live in a situation like that, but people still had hope that they would find there relatives. People still had hope, they would sit next to the hills of scrap and would dig with there hands, but they said that it was enough, that the people can’t live for another minute. Many people became insane who ever stayed alive in Spitak became insane, they lost there minds.

All the factories that were there all got destroyed. Spitak was famous for its sugar and flower factories, they were all gone. Until then we were at least famous for that and the town would form an economy off that. When all that was gone everything else was gone with it.

 Many kilometers of radios were all affected. Spitak was the core of the earthquake, but the small, big villages and towns were all destroyed, there was no place that stayed solid. From the towns and villages close to us, people would come to Spitak, we would group up together. From the villages close to us there was absolutely nothing left, at least Spitak had a couple things that were not destroyed. Then, when they brought the cabins to Spitak from the other villages who ever was alive came with there children and elders to stay at Spitak.

Spitak’s economy went back about fifty years if not more. No advancement, no farming, who ever stayed alive from the youth went out to different places; the place had to start back from zero.

In 1991 Soviet collapsed which caused many problems. . we would at least get machines from the Russians and we would give things as well now we started to like close up within our boundaries. Then, again Armenia formed there own military and like if everything was fine Xarabagh’s problem came up.

The war with Xarabagh affected our well being a whole lot. Those people needed to be freed, they were living with hard lives, those cold hearted Turks were always giving them a hard time, but people needed to be taken care of they were, Armenian for god sake.

I have seen many hard days, I have seen war, what hunger is, I have seen an earthquake, but a beautiful and interesting life like how I lived was lived by a few. 

Interviewed by Erick Boiakhtchian