Interview with my Grandmother- Matlen Ignatosian

Matlen Ignatosian is a 71-year-old woman who lives with her family in Glendale, California. She never forgot where she was born and raised in the beautiful city of Sevan, Armenia. Unlike Glendale, Sevan, was a very small town and had a very low population. Right now Sevan has a population of 20, 510. She has never forgotten where she came from. Now she shares her stories about Sevan to her grandchildren. By telling her grandchildren how life was like in Sevan and how hard it was living there. It was very hard living there especially in those years where there were wars going on. The war had a big affect on them, not only them but whoever was part of the Soviet Union. People were starving a lot. She was glad of getting out of Sevan and coming to a bigger city like Glendale.

My name is Matlen Ignatosian. We had big events in Sevan like Easter was a big event. We first went to church, prayed, and then we went home and had a big party. We were eating, dancing and singing. We all went to Lake Sevan. With our families and friends we brought food, we ate, danced and sang. It all ways went great. We had a lot of happy times. Sevan was a very beautiful city. Especially the churches, they were verybeautiful. Lake Sevan was big. A lot of people called it an ocean because of its size.

I spent my time after school by eating, relaxing, doing my homework and after I did my homework I helped my parents with the farming like making plants and vegetables. Because who ever lived in Sevan Farmed. They would plant and grow plants and vegetables. I did other stuff too like go to relative’s houses and go to concerts there because we loved going to concerts there. If there were shows we would go to that too.

Whenever the concerts came to our city we enjoyed them a lot. We went to Lake Sevan with friends. We went there swam, lay down on the sand and played. We did not go there everyday because we couldn’t we had to help our parents, but we went there once or twice a week.

Our leader at that time was Joseph Stalin. He was born in Georgia. He led since the late 1920’s and died in 1953. I’m not sure that Stalin did any good things but he did a lot of bad like when World War II was happening there was a lot of starvation going on. In those years people starved a lot. I was at a young age then but my parents were scared. Everyone was scared we could have been under attack at any time. It was very dark. There were no lights. All the lights were shut off; the windows and doors were locked so no one will know that anyone was there. When the war was over then I went to school because in Armenia you started school at age 8. No one went outside during the war it was dangerous.

 He put a lot of people in Jail. In that time Armenia was part of the Soviet Union. A lot of men from Armenia went to the army for Stalin. He only didn’t take people that were disabled or crippled. Only the women were left in the countries. Some of the women had to watch the borders so no one will invade the country. A lot of Armenians died in the war. Twenty- Seven million people died from the Soviet Union. The people were very happy that Stalin died, but we acted sad. There were some people that liked him and believed whatever he said, but most of us were happy that he was gone. Everything got better when he died because he was very strict. When Stalin died the economy and the jobs were better. There was one Newspaper in those times. We were very happy that we got a new leader. When he died it was like we could breathe again because if you said one wrong thing they would take you straight to jail.

The leader after Stalin was among Khruschev, Malencov, Brezhnev and Andropov. I’m not sure it was in that order. They came from different parts of the Soviet Union like Georgia, Ukraine and etc… Most of the leaders were good. Under Molegnov it was O.K, under Andrepov it was bad, under Khrushev it was good, under Brezhnev it was good and under Cherenko was O.k. I can’t think of any more leaders after Stalin. Most of these leaders sat only for a 1 year (actually it was 2). Brezhnez was leader for 16 years (actually he lead for 11). The people were very happy with Brezhnev because everyone had jobs. Armenia split up from the Soviet Union on September 28, 1991.

I moved out of Sevan and went to Yerevan in 1955. I moved to Yerevan because it was a much better, bigger and more beautiful city. It had everything. My family and I missed Sevan, but every summer we always went back for a month. We had 2 houses. We went relaxed in Sevan for a month and then came back to Yerevan. We went to Lake Sevan a lot. You can’t go to Sevan without going to Lake Sevan. That’s why went.

 I had 2 siblings, a brother and a sister. I was the youngest. It was first my brother then my sister then me. My mom and dad passed away before I was at the age of 21. I was 8 years old when my father died and 18 years old when my mom died. I was in a lot of grief when my parents passed away. My mom took care of my dad in the hospital. My brother and sister took care of me when my parents were in the hospital.

We felt worse when our mom passed away because there’s more of a bond with a mother and a child then with the father. At the end I felt bad that I had no parents left. At the end it was only my brother, sister and I. My brother was the one who was taking care of us. I could of token care of myself but its better when someone older takes care of you. I still went to school but when my mother passed away I stopped school.

                                Interview by Ilyans Ignatosian