I’m going to be living in Gyumri, the second biggest city in Armenia, for the next two months. Gyumri was one of the cities hit hardest by the 1988 earthquake, and it still hasn’t completely recovered. Also, fun fact, I felt an earthquake today! I was alone in a room and thought that I was losing my mind, but it went on long enough that I knew it HAD to be an actual earthquake. Apparently tremors are not uncommon here. Eek.
Anyway, like I was saying, Gyumri still hasn’t recovered from the 1988 earthquake. There are buildings around the city that are completely collapsed, and it doesn’t look like anyone has even thought about trying to clear the rubble. Of course, though, a ton has been done to clean things up and rebuild. It’s just crazy to me how a couple minutes can ruin centuries of work and lead to decades of recovery.
I think I’m going to like it here though. Yerevan is awesome, but it’s basically like being in a city in Europe. There, signs are written in Armenian and English. Here, signs are written in Armenian and Russian. There is a Russian military base here with about 3,000 soldiers. I don’t know a lot about military bases, but to me, that seems pretty big. So as you might imagine, there are a decent number of Russian people here, plus all of the older Armenians speak Russian.
Sorry, got sidetracked again. Like I was saying, being here is going to be a challenge, and I’m determined to feel like I belong here. That means step 1 – learn Armenian. Step 2 – make local friends. Step 3 – force local friends to hang out with me.
On the topic of learning Armenian… I’m living with a woman, Anjela, who is really nice, but she doesn’t speak any English (yes, she does speak Russian), and I don’t speak any Armenian. It’s been interesting so far. Luckily, she’s very patient and has had volunteers stay with her before, so she’s used to having to use hand motions more than most people. I think that she probably hasn’t had many people who are basically mute like I am, but we’re figuring it out. I usually try to speak and then within 1 second realize that literally zero words are coming into my head (or if there are words, they’re all in Spanish), so I just stand there with my mouth open.
The biggest struggle is when it comes to food. When I got here, they asked if I have any dietary restrictions. Well… that’s a complicated question. The answer is that there’s pretty much nothing I CAN’T eat, but there are plenty of things that I WON’T eat. It’s impossible to give a list because it’s so long, so I usually just say that I don’t eat fish and that’s it. It probably seems like it doesn’t make sense to say that I’ll eat anything when I basically eat nothing, but what other option do I have? Then, when something comes up that I really will absolutely not eat, I can say, “I don’t like ___.” The problem with that? I don’t know how to say that in Armenian. So instead, there’s just a lot of me saying no and shaking my head and her giving food to me anyway. I know it seems like this is a problem easily solved. I could just look up how to say, “I don’t like”. The bigger issue is getting myself to the point where I don’t completely panic and forget everything I’ve ever known when it’s time for me to say something. We’ll work on that.
Next step is remembering how to say, “I’m full,” because the stereotypes are true. If you don’t refuse forcefully, you will be fed until you explode.
Armenia was part of the Soviet Union from 1920-1991. For much of that time, Armenia was very loyal and managed to do quite well under Soviet rule. This is also how Armenia got its current borders; they were determined by the Soviet Union. In 1988, things started to go downhill, and Armenians become disillusioned with the Soviet government. This was mostly due to the territories of Nagorno-Karabakh and Nakhichevan, both historically Armenian territories. Nakhichevan was populated by a majority Azerbaijanis, and it was declared an autonomous region under Azerbaijani jurisdiction by the Soviet Union. The Azerbaijanis then forced out most of the Armenian population in the area. Nagorno-Karabakh, on the other hand, was about 94% Armenian when the Soviets made it part of Azerbaijan. That percentage began reducing, and Armenia petitioned the government to make it officially part of Armenia to protect the Armenian population there and claim the land that was considered rightfully Armenia’s. The government failed to act, and with the crisis escalating, Armenia lost faith in Soviet rule.
A vote was held in Armenia with 99% of voters electing to leave the Soviet Union, and Armenia declared its independence in September of 1991. This didn’t become internationally recognized until December of that year when the Soviet Union dissolved. So, from the very beginning of independence, Armenia was already involved in a war with Azerbaijan and had to figure out how to build an army without having any money. That was challenge #1. Thousands of Armenians fled into Nagorno-Karabakh from other parts of Azerbaijan, and thousands of Azerbaijanis fled from Armenia. It was like a population swap.
Challenge #3 was earthquake recovery. There was an earthquake in 1988 that hit the northern part of the country pretty hard. 25,000 people were killed, many were injured, and there was a lot of property damage. There was another massive emigration out of the country due to this and the inability of the government to handle all of the people who were now homeless and the kids who were orphaned.
Finally, challenge #4 was directly related to the war with Azerbaijan. Azerbaijan closed down the eastern border of Armenia which led to a huge energy crisis. For 3-4 years, people lived with only 1-2 hours of electricity per day, 90% of the natural gas supply was cut off, and on top of all that, there were food shortages everywhere. Turkey closed the western border of Armenia as well, trying to strengthen their relationship with Azerbaijan. These years became known as the “dark and cold years”, and even more people left the country.
All of these challenges have now been kind of resolved. The war with Azerbaijan is at a bit of a standstill. The Armenian army occupies the region, and Nagorno-Karabakh has declared its independence, but nothing is internationally recognized. A ceasefire was signed in 1994 and has been somewhat followed (there have been a few breaches), but no one has been able to negotiate a peace treaty.
The economy is much improved but obviously still has a long way to go. It’s past the point of trying to survive though, and now the next step is progress and development. There are a lot of initiatives geared towards trying to educate people into IT and engineering-related fields because those are seen as the future.
The earthquake situation also has a long way to go. Gyumri, the city I’m going to be in for rest of the summer, is one of the cities that was affected the most. It’s in waaay better shape than it was, of course, but there are still half-collapsed buildings and random rubble scattered about, especially on the outskirts of town.
The energy crisis improved after the reopening of a previously shut-down nuclear power plant. Now, the energy supply is about evenly split between nuclear, thermal, and hydroelectric power, and natural gas is supplied from Russia in a pipeline that runs through Georgia. The borders with Turkey and Azerbaijan are still closed.
