One of the final – and also unplanned – house visits I made
before leaving Lehvaz was to my friend Slavik’s place. During my goodbye barbeque
with the village teachers, as we were packing things up, he told me I should
come over to his house in a couple hours, after he was finished taxiing people
around in his forest green Lada for the evening (he works primarily as a
driver). I said I’d come over for sure, and just to call me when he was done
working. I went home and chipped away at packing for a couple hours. Finally,
around 10pm, Slavik gave me a call saying “ari!” (come!). Slavik lives directly
across the valley from me, and we can see each other’s balconies, which makes
it particularly entertaining to talk to him on the phone sometimes. Both of us
can stand looking at each other, able to barely hear our muffled voices from
that far away and at the same time hearing our voices crystal clear through our
phones. I said I’d be over in a minute,
waved to him, and got on my way.
At Slavik’s, I was also greeted by his wife, Natasha, their
daughter, and their two grandchildren, Artur and Ani. I sat at a small coffee
table facing Slavik, which was already set with some cold salads (salatner),
cakes (tkhvatskner), and bread and cheese (hats u panir). Before we started
eating, Natasha and Slavik asked their grandson Artur, who is not even in the first
grade yet, to sing “that American song” to me to see what I thought. He started
without an ounce of shyness, and at first I had no idea what the song was.
About half way in, I realized he was singing the old folk song “Oh Susana,”
which I don’t even know most of the words to, but recognized the melody. The
little boy was singing it pretty much perfectly, pronouncing words like “banjo”
and “Alabama” without hesitation. The fact that he can recite so many words with
near perfect pronunciation without having the slightest idea as to what any of
them mean is a testament to both how impressive and how absurd the soviet-style
rote learning system can be. He’s clearly a really smart boy, but I can’t help
thinking that his time would be better spent doing something more creative than
just memorizing words that to him and his grandparents are mostly pure
nonsense. Anyway, Artur was on a roll now, and I was probably boosting his
confidence by giving him a “maladyetz!” (bravo!) or two after “Oh Susana.” He
started singing more songs, some of them in Russian and some in Armenian, until
Slavik told him that was enough and it was time for bed.
Slavik asked if I wanted any vodka, but I thought I’d better
not after the horrendous stuff we’d drank at my goodbye barbeque. He seemed to
be on the same page, and actually looked relieved that I didn’t ask for any. I
think Natasha was too. We ate our salads and fresh baked bread and cheese, and
Natasha brought out some tea and coffee. We chatted for a while, and at one
point Slavik started proudly pointing to different things on the table, like
the vegetables and bread, and saying “sepakan, sepakan, sepakan,” (meaning
roughly “my own, my own, my own”). He was making a point that none of this
stuff was bought in a store, that it all came from his garden and he and his
family’s hard work. I asked him if he knew how to do any of those things, like
grow a garden and make your own food, before he came to Armenia. He said he
didn’t, and so maybe for him it’s particularly a point of pride, or at least
more of novelty, that he can live off of the work of his own hands like this.
It’s a lifestyle he’s adopted well, but not by choice. Slavik and his family,
like many people now living in Lehvaz, actually grew up in Baku and had to flee
as refugees once the war started. Having lived in the city of Baku their whole
lives, they had to start over and learn the ways of rural life. Because of this
he often likes to tell me jokingly that he too is a “kaghakatsi,”
(city-dweller) now living in a “gyugh” (village), just like me.
The conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan, like many
conflicts, displaced a lot of people. Azeris fled lands they had lived in for
ages that were suddenly considered to be strictly Armenian territory. Armenians
in turn also had to flee the areas around Baku and Nakhijevan where they had
lived for perhaps countless generations, surrounded by a predominantly Azeri
population that was suddenly threatening to harm them or worse if they didn’t
leave. The result was a sort of separation and re-homogenization of these two
peoples that had lived peacefully with each other during the Soviet Union and
maybe before then as well. Before the war, Lehvaz and many other villages in
the far southern region of Armenia had had a considerable Azeri population. When
the Soviet Union collapsed and war broke out soon after, they fled and were
replaced by refugee Armenians. The fleeing Armenians moved into the now empty
Azeri homes in Armenia, and fleeing Azeris moved into empty Armenian homes in Azerbaijan.
People like Slavik arrived in Lehvaz through some system of correspondence with
distant relatives and friends (the way he tells it doesn’t sound like the
house-swapping was very organized at all), and suddenly Lehvaz consisted of
Armenians who had lived there for generations, and refugee Armenians from foreign
territory, most of whom had never lived in such a rural place and didn’t speak
Armenian that well either.
On this last night I’d spend with Slavik, he and Natasha
told me a piece of their story I hadn’t heard before. When the conflict was
starting to escalate over 20 years ago, his Armenian friends were starting to
leave left and right and the situation was getting dangerous. “I told him every
day that we needed to leave now,” said Natasha. Finally, Natasha and their two
daughters did leave, while Slavik stayed to make a little more money and tie up
some loose ends. He remained in Baku until they stopped letting him come to
work. Seeing that as a definite sign, he gathered all of his money and got on
the old soviet train that used to connect Baku to Nakhijevan, another territory
of what is now Azerbaijan. Slavik’s plan was to hop off in Meghri, in southern
Armenia, which was also a stop on the train. The way Slavik tells it, after the
train started moving, he noticed Azeri guards coming around asking questions to
people who looked Armenian, and “removing” them from their seats to some other
location. They approached Slavik, questioned him thoroughly, and he told them
that he was Azeri. His spoken Azeri was perfect, since he was from Baku, and
apparently he didn’t look all that Armenian to them, so they moved on. The
train eventually stopped in Meghri, and Slavik suddenly got up and got off.
From the train, the guards started yelling at him and asking why he was getting
off in Meghri if he was Azeri. Slavik claims that he then gave them a good
cussing-out in multiple languages and then turned away. He was on Armenian
soil. He was safe. The train pulled away.
I’m not sure what
would have happened if Slavik had been “discovered,” on that train, but he
claims that they would have killed him. I can’t imagine what it must have been
like for Slavik and the countless refugees like him on both sides that suddenly
found themselves in a very dangerous and unwelcoming environment, an
environment that they had grown up in and called home. I don’t think there’s
really words to describe what that must have felt like. Slavik told me that he
misses Baku and his friends from there, some of which moved to Russia and he
still keeps in touch with. He doesn’t hold a grudge against all Azeris, and
remembers the ones who were his friends. “With every race there are good people
and bad people,” he said.
We changed the topic off of politics, I finished my third or
fourth cup of tea, and then said I’d better get going. It was past midnight. I
gave Natasha a hug and a kiss on the cheek, and Slavik jokingly said “don’t
kiss my wife!” I responded by giving him a big kiss on the cheek as well,
causing him to let out his characteristic wheezy laugh. We wished each other health
and good luck and I headed back across the valley to my house.
