75 years of marriage and still holding hands.

This is a heartwarming story about an Armenian couple. They married on September 3, 1939 and still are holding hands. 

Joseph and Sarah Hrachian have been married for 75 years, and they have the mighty old pipe organ at the former St. Peter Armenian Apostolic Church on Fifth Avenue in Troy to thank for bringing them together.

You could say it was a match made in heaven, or at least the celestial upper register of ecclesiastical music.

In 1935, Adrena Hrachian, Joseph's older sister, was the organist at the church and 15-year-old Sarah Kenosian was her assistant who turned the sheet music pages during Sunday services.

"My sister told me there was this pretty young girl working with her, but I said she was too young," recalled Joseph Hrachian, 98.

His sister countered: "But she's growing up, she's beautiful, and she's from a good family."

Hrachian finally relented and went to meet Sarah. "My sister was right," he recalled. "She was beautiful and utterly wonderful. I was hooked."

And was it love at first sight for the future bride?

"I liked him because he had a car," recalled Sarah Hrachian, 94. "Anyone who had a car in Watervliet in those days was special."

They got married on Sept. 3, 1939. He was 23 and she was 19. Theirs was a chaste four-year courtship. He bought her a gold cross necklace for her 17th birthday.

"But our first child was born nine months and 20 minutes after the wedding," he said with a roar of laughter.

These days, she's hard of hearing and he has to shout across the room and often repeat his punch lines for her. He does not seem to mind.

On the couch, posing for a photographer, he needed no prodding to caress her hands and give her a loving kiss on the lips.

Times were tough in 1939 for both families — working-class Armenian immigrants who fled persecution from the Turks and settled in Watervliet — and they held a double wedding with Hrachian's sister, Vergin, to reduce costs. The groom's mother made all the food for the reception, including the Armenian delicacies and desserts.

But when the wedding flowers arrived and the florist demanded pay for the $25 bill before he would release the arrangements, nobody had the cash.

"I was so sad when I saw him taking the flowers away," Sarah recalled. Just then, the best man, Ernie Kershaw, stepped forward, pulled out his wallet and paid the florist without saying a word or making the family feel ashamed.

"Ernie was a wonderful guy and my friend for life," Hrachian said.

The Hrachians sat together in their Guilderland home recently and reflected on the remarkable longevity of their union that has produced three children, five grandchildren and eight great-grandchildren and a tight-knit family that still centers around their church, St. Peter's, which moved from Troy to Watervliet. Joseph Hrachian, whose given first name is Suren, was a longtime trustee of the church and assisted its construction.

The couple graduated from Watervliet High School, he in 1934 and she in 1938.

He is a gregarious fellow possessed of a sharp wit and deadpan humor. He owned dry cleaning businesses: Master Cleaners in Albany and Guilderland and later Executive Cleaners at Stuyvesant Plaza. His wife raised their kids and worked part time on bookkeeping for the business.

Both are in relatively good health and are still in their home, with daily visits from their children. They are considering moving into an assisted-living center early next year because their large yard is a challenge to maintain and his doctor advised him to stop chopping firewood a few years ago.

"We look great and nothing hurts," he said. He added that his stylish cravat is less a fashion statement and more to keep the chill off a stiff neck.

"Oh, c'mon, that's a little much," said his wife, who uses a walker and has been diagnosed with Parkinson's disease.

She is the great leveler to his emotions, which he wears on his dress-shirt sleeve.

He gave a speech for the 100 or so guests at their 75th wedding anniversary party on a recent Sunday, which was held at their church. His basement is filled with an archives of his speeches, which he gave at every birthday and special family function.

"He missed his calling. He should have been a minister with all his sermons," joked their daughter, Lucille. "In all seriousness, they've been wonderful parents."

"They've been so supportive to everyone in the family," said their daughter, Barbara. "They held us all up and they've been the hub. Everyone gathers at their house for every big event."

For more than 50 years, their mother made a large family supper each Sunday with spaghetti and meatballs and the sweet, sugary scent of katah, an Armenian coffee cake.

"After 50 years I quit and I never made spaghetti and meatballs again," she said with a satisfied shrug.

Hrachian noted that the couple was married on the same day that Britain and France declared war on Germany in response to Hitler's invasion of Poland.

"Our marriage was a glorious battle ever since, which she usually won," the groom said with a laugh.

Much like life itself, his stories are full of asides and detours and digressions, anything but linear.

"I could talk and talk and talk," he said. And one is inclined to believe him.

Rediscovering "Hayastan" ARMENIA

When I was growing up in Iran, Armenia was a Republic of the Soviet Union and a forbidden travel destination.  By the 1980s, a small wedge had been created inside the “Iron Curtain.”  The tightly closed doors of the Republics were opened, we Armenians could visit our homeland, and we could experience what our literature and the verses of our poets had praised about its beauty.

My love affair with Armenia began on my first visit in 2001.  It was love at first sight.  They say, “Beauty is in the eyes of the beholder.”  Well, I “beheld” and I fell in love.  The allure of connecting to my ancestral roots was so great, I was not affected by the dilapidated condition of the buildings, the vestiges of the Soviet era, or the rampant poverty of the whole country.

Like so many other visitors from the far-flung diaspora, Armenia got under my skin.  I went back home to Glendale, but my heart stayed in Armenia.  I decided: “Given a choice, Armenia is where I’m going to retire.”  During the following years, I visited Armenia several times, but always for short stays.

Goshavank

When my mother died a few months ago, I decided to look into a more extended stay in Armenia.  I packed my belongings and planned a trip which I embarked upon in June.  In mid-July, I had just arrived in Yerevan when my friend Sonna asked me if I’d like to join her family for a three-day trip to Lake Sevan, the verdant Dilijan, and the neighboring cities and villages in the northwestern part of the country.  It was a great offer.  I was ready at the drop of a dime to join them.  I knew I’d be in for a treat, and I was right.

Our driver and guide was the director of Pan-Armenian League of Cultural Workers; on the side he was moonlighting as a tour guide. He had arranged a very well-thought-out itinerary.

We left Yerevan on the first day of our trip at 9:30 in the morning, heading towards Lake Sevan to the north.  Our excellent guide gave us detailed background information all along our route.

Father Asbed

As we exited Yerevan, he pointed to our right to a city called Abovian. I had heard the name of that city since I was young.  In the 1930s, the Republic of Armenia allowed Armenians around the world to move to Soviet Armenia.  In 1963, the city of Abovian was established to house all the “hayrena-dartdz,” or repatriates.  My family knew people who were assigned to Abovian, which is considered a satellite city to Yerevan.

I remember very well that until the 1970s, Armenian families from Iran were packing their belongings, saying goodby forever to their loved ones, and moving to a land where they had no idea what living conditions to expect.  Since everything was under surveillance; they communicated with their families with codes.  For instance, to describe their current conditions, they would send snapshots of themselves either standing, sitting or lying down.  Standing meant that they were very happy, sitting meant things were okay, but lying down meant that the situation was bad.

We had a housekeeper whose relatives moved to Armenia.  To communicate how bad things were, they wrote back that Lucik should get married before she moved to Armenia.  And who was Lucik?  She was a spinster in her fifties and blind.  That particular coded message meant the situation was not good: “Don’t come.”

After Abovian, we passed a city called Hrazdan on our left.  Our driver told us a very interesting fact.   During the Soviet era, Hrazdan used to produce hot water for export to the surrounding cities. (I’m not sure about the technical procedure but this sounds incredible.)  In the 1990s, when Armenia was cut off from Russia after the fall of the Soviet Union and was enduring critical times because of the war with Azerbaijan, Hrazdan still had the privilege of having hot water.

Haghpat

During those “dark years” as they are known in Armenia, the country almost collapsed without water, electricity and gas.  There are many stories of how the population survived those years. I may write about that in later essays.

Back to our trip: It took us about an hour to reach Lake Sevan, which is 60 km north of Yerevan. We climbed all 250 steps up to the monasteries that were built around 1000 years ago. And we marveled again over our phenomenal past history.  We enjoyed the beautiful and exquisite scene of Lake Sevan, which epitomizes deep nationalistic sentiments for Armenians. The first time I visited Lake Sevan, I was almost in tears.

After many exclamations over the beauty of the landscape and the surroundings, we left the lake and headed to our next stop: another monastery called Hagharsin, built in the 1200s.

I won’t go into the details all the architectural aspects of the monasteries and churches we visited, but I just want to say that it boggles the mind that my people have built so many of them. Our driver/guide says there are more than 3000, mostly built around fifth to thirteenth century.

After Haghartsin, we visited Gosha vank, another monastery and then we drove into the city of Dilijan and stopped at its history museum. Dilijan has a rich collection of art and unearthed tools and vases dating back to 4000 years ago.  I should add that I was pretty impressed to see all that antiquity.

We finished our first day in Haghpat, a city known for its monastery, arriving at around 8 p.m.  The father superior in charge of the monastery was waiting for us.  We were served dinner and slept there at the monastery.

The next morning, the father gave us a personalized tour of the churches.  I got the chance to climb the bell tower and ring the bells.  From there we headed to another monastery, Sana-Hin, then to the village of Dsegh, where our most beloved poet and writer Hovanes Toumanian was born.

After having an early dinner at a restaurant along the banks of the Debed river, we journeyed further to Gyumri and stayed at Berlin Art Hotel, a nice boutique hotel in the center of town.

We managed to fit in a visit to Gyumri’s history museum the next morning before heading back to Yerevan.  The young docent at the museum impressed us with the detailed history of the town explaining everything through the artifacts.

In the 19th century Gyumri was the cultural hub for the South Caucasus.  It was called Alexandrapol and was home to all the wealthy Armenian families who had direct ties to Russia.

And at last, our three day tour came to an end.  I enjoyed it fully and wish I could write even more.  I should add that the roads were well constructed and the landscape was so beautiful that I wanted to take a picture on every turn.

I rediscovered my homeland.

You can also find this story on Asbarez.com.

French Senate Passes a Bill Criminalizing Armenian Genocide Denial

Today is a happy day for us Armenians because the French Senate yesterday on Monday 1/23/12 passed the bill to criminalize any public denial of the Armenian Genocide.  This is a great occasion for us Armenians to celebrate. Despite threats and bullying from the Turkish state, the bill was passed by 127 votes against 86.

Thousands of French-Armenians gathered in front of the French Senate building in Paris to express support for the bill. The Armenian crowd on the other hand, was singing Armenian national and revolutionary songs and celebrating  

Turkish Protesters demonstrate over the Armenian issue outside the French embassy in Ankara in December 2011. (CNN news)

Friction over Armenia genocide issue

(CNN) – "Politicization of the understanding of justice and history through other people's past and damaging freedom of expression in a tactless manner are first and foremost a loss for France," the statement added, "Turkey is determined to take every step required against this unjust action, which disregards basic human values and public conscience."

The Turkish-Armenian controversy over the killings that took place last century has reverberated wherever Diaspora communities representing both groups exist. Armenian groups and many scholars argue that Turks committed genocide starting in 1915, when more than a million ethnic Armenians were massacred in the waning days of the Ottoman Empire.

Turkey officially denies that a genocide took place, saying hundreds of thousands of Armenian Christians and Turkish Muslims died in intercommunal violence around the bloody battlefields of World War I.

Before the vote, Sen. Herve Marseille, one of the bill's supporters, argued that since France already recognizes the Ottoman-era killings as genocide, the same standard that applies to Holocaust denial should apply to the Armenian case.

"When we contest the Jewish genocide, we can be punished," Marseille said. "And up until now, when we contest the Armenian genocide, there is no punishment. So we can't have a legal punishment for one and not for the other. Everyone is equal in front of the law."

But Sen. Jacques Mézard, who opposed the legislation, said freedom of expression was at stake."It calls into question historical and scientific research. Tomorrow will there be a question of a Vendée genocide?" he asked, referring to a revolt against the French revolutionary government in 1793. "Will we put the Spanish and the United States in the stocks for the massacre of Native Americans? We must reject this text and consign it to history books."

After December's vote in the National Assembly, Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan accused France of committing its own "genocide" during its war against Algerian independence in the 1950s and 1960s. Erdogan announced that Turkey was reviewing its ties with France. Ankara recalled its ambassador to Paris for consultations, canceled bilateral visits and wouldn't cooperate with France in joint projects within the European Union.

The French Foreign Ministry shot back at Erdogan's comments, saying France "assumes with clarity and transparency its duty to remember the tragedies that have marked its history." And Sarkozy has said that his country doesn't need an OK from another nation to develop its policies.

The genocide debate is also a source of tension between Turkey and the United States. The White House, for example, annually beats back efforts in Congress to pass a resolution that would formally recognize the 1915 massacre of Armenians as genocide.

The bill’s passage did not come as a surprise, as both the Left and the Right in France had expressed support for it.

France had adopted a bill officially recognizing the Armenian genocide in 2001.

Memories on Back-to-school

I know we still have a few weeks of summer on the calender, but Labor Day says back-to-school.  Here is my memories on Back-to-school: 

This year, Glendale Unified students will return to classrooms on Monday, August 29.  In our neighboring city of Burbank,  classes started even earlier.  Although California schools seem much more appealing to me than my own back in Tehran, I still think it's unfair to send kids back to school in August.  I am glad I'm not a kid that has to say goodbye to summer fun so early.  When my children were kids, they returned to school after Labor Day. In Iran, the school years started on the first day of fall, usually September 23.

When I think about summer vacation, I still feel the joy of being free: there are few better times and seasons in life than childhood during summer vacations.  But the second best thing to summer vacation, at least for me, was buying back-to-school supplies.  I still sense the joy of arriving at home from store with all the new books that smelled so fresh, and the process of covering them with special brown paper.  During my school days in Iran, the government didn't supply our books, so we had to buy them when we received the lists from our teachers on the first day of school.

Tehran did not have huge stores like Office Depots or Staples for school supplies.  Instead, there were independent  stationery stores, which on the first day of school were incredibly crowded.  Imagine: stores with dimensions of about 20 by 15 feet, with about 100 people squeezed inside, each having in their hands lists of supplies and pushing past others to get to the counter.

One of the best stationery stores in Tehran was Erros, it was a store that my uncle had opened it but later when he moved to the United States in 1953 his friend Edik Gozozian became the proprietor.  Erros had special lined notebooks which Armenian elementary schools required.  The notebooks were in pastel colors: pink, blue and green.  On the front side they had a white label where you could put your name. At the side of the label there was an emblem of Cupid with his arrow.  We were very privileged to know the owner of Erros and we got special treatment when we entered from the back door to avoid the crowd and buy school necessities at the first day of school.

Here in America, everything is planned ahead of time, not at all like the way we rushed to the stores in Tehran as soon as the first school day was over to buy our supplies.  Here, back-to-school sales start early and there are great deals. In recent years I've seen incredible prices, like pencil boxes for 10¢ each. I've taken advantage of such sales, buying extra to send to Armenian students in Armenia. 

I always enjoyed visiting stationery stores. One of my pastimes is to wander in the store aisles and buy things that I may need later.  This morning I visited the Staples store on Glendale Ave, to see both the back-to-school specials and the customers. I love watching parents and kids buying armful of colorful folders, binders, new pens and pencils, and other necessities.

The store had few customers.  I asked assistant manager Gustavo Luna about the best bargains.  He pointed out that with a $5 purchase, I could buy six wired notebooks for 10¢ each and see-through plastic pencil boxes (4"x6") for 50¢.  I didn't have any use for those, but I bought a few notebooks with bright and colorful hard-covers for 99¢.  They were so attractive I couldn't help myself! Gustavo mentioned that the majority of their clients are Armenians and if I want to see families buying school supplies I should return in the evening.

My best memory of a stationery item is when I was 9 or 10 (5th grade) and for my birthday I received a brown leather pencil case from my mother. I had seen and admired that pencil case in the window of Erros store.  I treasured that pencil case; I was so careful not to spoil the leather and used it very attentively, but one day on the way home from school it slipped out of my bag and it got lost.  It was a sad day for me!