Life of Hamlet Nersisyan

My grandfather Hamlet Nersisyan lives in Glendale, California with his daughter and her family. Glendale is far from being a small town and is very different from the town that he grew up in. I had not had time to actually converse with my grandfather, now sixty-nine, who had experienced so much, and who is wise in many different subjects that I still have not gained an understanding of. Hamlet Nersisyan who lived most of his life in Armenia, sat with me one day and recalled his life in a small agricultural town called Sovkhoz. He spoke of the challenges and hardships he had faced growing up there his entire adolescent life. Although there were many difficulties his friends and family had to encounter under the harsh rule of Stalin and his economic plans, my grandfather is still fond of his roots and proud to say he comes from Sovkhoz. Now in America, he is happy to see his children and family doing well and that times have improved since then.

I was born in 1939 in Armenia, in the region of Hoktemberyan, which is now considered Armavir. I was born in Sixth Sovkhoz and I spent my childhood there. Sovkhoz was an agricultural town and it differed from Kolkhoz, which was private. Sovkhoz was open to the public for whoever wanted to live there.

In Sovkhoz, everyone was Armenian and Christian.. Sovkhoz was one big family. It had around 200 households, and in those 200 homes the people, small and old, knew each other. For example, my neighbor knew what I did and I knew what my neighbor did for a living. And when one saw another they always greeted each other and showed their respects.

In terms of money, everyone was equal. But obviously if in one household there was one person working, they would have less of an income than those that had four people working. But then those families had more people to care for. We were a family of ten children.

This was during the time of the war (WWII). I first realized what the war was in the year 1945. From my friend’s parents who had not returned, they explained to us that they had went to war, and did not return. So they had no fathers anymore.

We went to a normal school. We were required to go to school. There was also the option of night classes. For example, I took night classes and completed 8^th, 9^th and 10^th through night school. We worked in the mornings, and went to class at night.

In our spare time, we helped at home. All of us did what are parents told us and took care of our responsibilities. In the mean time, we all played together or with the neighbors children near our house. The parents felt safe with their children playing outside with others because we all knew each other, there was nothing to worry about. Also, in our town, the most played sport was soccer. In our entire Hoktemberyan region we were the champions. Starting from little kids to adult teams, we would win everyone. When there were competitions from different towns, the whole town would come out and watch. People would sit on the roofs of barns and building to watch, they knew that we would win no matter who we played. There were parks and fields for us to play in as well. Once the fruits would be picked from the trees, all those parks were open for us to play, filled with green grass and trees. Just like here where there is open fields of grass. The kids played whatever game or activity you can think of. Hide and seek, climbing trees every sort of childish game you could think of.

Yerevan would sometimes send actors to present plays for us. We would watch plays for like 30 cents. (laughing) That’s how it was that time so everyone could be able to watch; tickets weren’t 50 dollars like they are now. The actors didn’t complain about the little pay. They were sent to entertain the farming people and encourage us to work harder so the crops didn’t remain unpicked in the fields. That’s how it was

I worked up until 16 years old on the field, but not as a full time job just by helping my parents collect the crops. We were allowed to help our parents after class on the field so that the crops wouldn’t remain uncollected and rot. It was required that the schools close down during the harvest time. The crops had to be harvested before schools would reopen.

People would come from other towns, where fruits did not grow, with automobiles to trade with our town. For our work we got fruits; for the winter we dried the fruits or preserved them. As for the things that we didn’t grow in our own town in the winter like potatoes, we got from the other towns. We would take our products like preserved fruit, onions and vodka, which they didn’t have, and trade it for things our town needed for the winter.

Other than trading our crops, we got an income working on the fields as well. Our job was to collect the crops. The government paid us for this work. The crops weren’t anyone’s personal property; the government owned the land, the trees, the parks, everything. Around our own houses we had small land to ourselves where we had our own crops. But the fields that we collected crops from were owned by the government.

When I became 16, the Director of Sovkhoz offered me an internship at the bee farm. There I was a student for six months, and then they gave my own beehives to look after. Well the youth was always proud to be from agricultural towns. For me a good memory was working in the bee farm. My job was relatively light. It was a trained profession different from working with the soil. For three years I worked as a bee farmer. We would give the honey to the government and they would pay us money for it. Then the government would sell it to the rest of the town.

Whatever we produced we sold to the government, who bought the product in exchange for other products. Everything was done with exchanging because Sovkhoz was an agricultural town. When they would tell us that Moscow needs grapes, we would collect the best of our grapes for weeks to send to Moscow. Peaches and apricots also. Whatever was left than was left for our own capital Yerevan.

In the year 1959, they recruited me into the military. I served 11 months in Democratic Germany, which was under the rule of the Soviet Union. After serving for 11 months, I returned home, and than went to the capital, Yerevan.

The jobs had changed in Sovkhoz and most of the agricultural work was done with machines. Not everyone could get a tractor. The towns weren’t rich like the city to provide a tractor for each person. There was no more jobs, the young people had to move to the city to find work. They would leave and not come back. They would stay in the city, rent a home, and work in the factories. Every week they would come home to their parents; until they would enlist for permanent housing, and eventually receive a free home.

When considering where I would rather live, I would prefer living in Yerevan again since Sovkhoz’s agricultural jobs were harder than working in a factory. In the factory you worked 8 hours and wouldn’t get as tired as working with the dirt. Working with the dirt you wouldn’t get as much pay as you would working in the factory. That’s why most of the youth would move to the city. But in Yerevan, our neighbors from the building next to us would not greet us. I would wake up in the morning to go to work and greet people outside. They would be surprised and think “Why is this unfamiliar person saying hello?” I then realized that this wasn’t like the small town I came from where everyone knew each other and showed each other respect.