Robert Shanazaryan was a newspaper photographer in a small town in Armenia known as Taron. He loved taking photos for the newspaper. He always has a camera in his hand and is ready to take pictures. When he looks at my brother or me, sometimes tears roll down his eyes because he remembers the memories and the youth back in Taron. He is 67 years old and smokes cigarettes but at the same time he wakes up in the mornings and goes for a run. When he talks about his times with his friends back in Taron, his eyes have a spark. Robert Shanazaryan lives with his son and his son’s family in Glendale, California.
The good thing about a small town is everyone knows everyone. They don’t do bad things to each other since they are relatives, neighbors, or friends.
Another advantage of living in a small town is that there is no surprises. People have their place to go. Its like a big family in a small town. If you don’t know someone, you at least know their brother, or friend. When we were little we would make our own toys. We would make bows and arrows. We would target practice. There was other games. Mostly we would make it from wood or we would find bicycle parts and make a bicycle and then ride it. When we were in our teens the majority would do sports, not counting school. One part would go to music school, piano, violin. From this side it was very good because since we didn’t have computers or television a lot they would spend their days like that. And the people who did sports, when they would go from one place to another and didn’t know someone, they would know them through the sport. Then they would be friends and know each other. For music every person who would play got to know each other through concerts, and other schools would come to our school and give a concert together.
The behavior was that the kids had to respect the adults. If the adult told or corrected a kid, the kid, even if he was right he has no right to talk back because he is speaking to someone who is older. This was a sign of respect. They would say that the little ones have to respect the older ones because they too are going to get older and if he doesn’t respect the people who are older than him when he’s little, then when he’s older the little ones wont respect him. The little kid was everyone kid like everyone would take care of them no questions asked. If something would happen to the little kid, everyone’s heart would hurt and everyone wanted to do something to help. Elder people always needed help and there was always someone to help them. The people would think that if something like that happened to them that they would want help and not be left by themselves.
The religion was Christianity but the Communists try to make people forget about Christianity during 70 years because they didn’t believe in Christianity and didn’t want anyone to. The Communists didn’t have a belief it was only communism but people from the old times, especially Armenians, kept the belief. There were church goers. They celebrated Easter, New Years. It was done in a weaker manor but it was still celebrated. Most people would defend religion. They would baptize their kids, some little early, some little late. During weddings a priest would come and bless. Same with funerals. The Christianity part was kept. No matter what your belief was there were some things that everyone did. During Baptism, Weddings, Funerals, Easter, were the times that they went to church. They would defend those rules and keep them as close to them as possible.
The living condition was 99 percent would live the same and the other 1 percent who had higher privileges, and its simple that the more and higher privileges you have the better you live. But the socialist part stayed that weather you were rich or poor you still went to the same movie theater, same lake. They might see each other in the same restaurant. The working conditions were very good because no one would ever think that you would stay jobless. There was always a place to work. Maybe it would pay less but no one was left without a job for more than 2-3 days. There was always work somewhere, never was there no work. People didn’t have that fear in them that they would stay jobless.
There were newspapers. There was Federal and Local newspapers. The Local newspaper had like 2 to 3 papers. It had Humor, and there were other but it was under government control. In the papers, they would write what they wanted to put and not what was actual going on.. The government was like that. There is gossip everywhere. The main thing that they would talk about was sport, soccer, the World Cup when Ararat was playing. The women would talk about silverware, clothes like everywhere else. The people would also talk about work and if someone would cook something people would ask how to make and the cook would ask how it tasted. When work would change they would ask what needs to be done. Not a lot of people had cars because it was expensive and it was a luxury to have a car. A lot of people would use the city transportation like buses, and small taxi cabs.
There was great friends. In every case they were willing to stand together. From helping from house work to someone being in the hospital and them going to help and support. And when everyone was like this everyone’s workload would get lighter. Every person would feel good to have friends. My dad, when you asked him what is this person like, he would say he has no friends and this answers the whole question because that means he’s not a good person. They would decide like that. If the person had a lot of friends, he was known as a good person.
At 17 people would graduate school. The guys, if they were in good shape like not mentally challenged, or handicapped, would be taken to work in the army or navy. If it was the army it was two years but the navy was three. The navy was on a ship or in a submarine. When they came out of the army they were equal just that they saw life in a different way. Also they had to it wasn’t their choice. It wasn’t for privileges. The people would be happy that their son came from the army and that he served his country.
There was events. There was one on May 1 and that was the workers day. The people would go to the parade with balloons and their kids. For the kids it was fun. Another was November 7, was the day the Russian Revolution happened. Easter, a lot of people would go to church and color eggs. Those traditions were defended.
Interviewed by Robert Arsenyan