Sosé Thomassian & Allen Yekikian their lives were cut short but their spirit will stay alive...

Sosé Thomassian & Allen Yekikian

I read the following story on line and couldn't help myself not to post it on my blog. In a previous post I've told the story of Sosse and Allen's tragic  accident. 

Last year during my stay in Armenia, I visited Proshyan village and was present at the opening of the day camp in that village.  Later I learned that the camp was organized for the endeavors of Sosé and Allen. After reading their story read my story.

The AYF Youth Corps program has a long and distinguished story that began in 1994, following the Bishkek protocol that set up a ceasefire in Artsakh.  The purpose was to take direct aid to the newly liberated villages and help repair the damage of years of war.  The program took young volunteers from abroad to rural regions to do rebuilding work hand-in-hand with locals…brick by brick.

The generation of AYF members that had the vision and foresight to create the Youth Corps program in 1994 understood the need to overcome the Iron Curtain and tangibly reconnect with our homeland.

Years later, the program was completely renovated with a renewed purpose.  In 2008, Youth Corps established its first day camp in Gyumri.  The purpose was to give kids in Armenia a fun, educational, and exciting summer, and at the same time introduce diasporan youth to more than just a superficial picture of Armenia.  The new concept has since grown to 7 cities, bringing dozens of volunteers to Armenia each summer, interacting with thousands of kids.

Among those who led the way in the establishment of Youth Corps 2.0 were Sosé Thomassian & Allen Yekikian.  Sosé & Allen wanted to engage young diasporans in Armenia’s future development, but first wanted them to understand Armenia’s realities.  They envisioned having young people from the diaspora teach and learn from youngsters in different regions of Armenia and Artsakh in order to build ties, build understanding and truly build a bridge home.

Sosé served as the Chairperson of the Youth Corps committee for several years beginning in 2008, and Allen served as the Youth Corps group leader in 2010.  The couple continued to be involved in the planning of the program even after they moved to Armenia earlier this year.  They Skyped into meetings each week, provided logistical support on the ground in Yerevan, and were ready to welcome our 2013 group with open arms.  They are sadly unable to greet this year’s group at Zvartnots because their lives were tragically cut short following a car accident on May 10th.

Sosé & Allen, you are not here, but your spirit remains with us.  So, with your spirit we continue.

With your spirit that views Armenia as a home to be explored, rather than a tourist destination, we continue.

With your spirit that sees opportunity where others see despair, we continue.

With your spirit that believes in connecting young people from the diaspora to young people in Armenia, we continue.

With your spirit that believes in thoughtful solutions, rather than blind criticism, we continue.

With your spirit that that knows that real results come from real effort, we continue.

With your spirit that has love for your people and love for your country, we continue.

You put your hearts in this program because you believe in our nation’s future.  Thank you for your guidance and we promise you our generation will continue.

With Love,

A day camp at Proshyan village

Last year I had the pleasure of being at the opening ceremony of a day-camp at Proshyan village about 12 km outside of Yerevan. We arrived at around 11:30 a.m. at the village. Our driver took us directly to the Armenian Youth Federation (AYF) center where boys and girls were playing in front of the two story building.

This was the second year that AYF Youth Corps had put together a week-long day-camp for kids ages 6 to 15 at the village. The camp was in the memory of Karot Mkrtchian, a Proshyan son, who had sacrificed his life in the war 20 years ago.

Kevork Parseghian, the director of the center, welcomed us and told us we were right on time. They were just about to start the opening ceremony by taking the kids to the main square of the village where Karot’s bust was erected.

The leaders and counselors of the camp gathered the kids in rows according to their heights and together we all proceeded on foot towards the square which was right at the corner.

Just before entering the square, I had a chance to chat with Nareh Kupelian, one of the camp counselors.  She explained that all 14 counselors, between the ages of 20 to 27, were college graduates from the United States and had come to Armenia as volunteers for AYF youth corps program to help coordinate day camps in villages throughout Armenia and Artsakh.

The group had arrived a month earlier from the US and had already organized two-week long day camps in four different villages.  This was the last camp that they were going to coordinate.  Before assembling all in Proshyan they worked  in groups of seven.

As we entered the square I was pleasantly surprised to see how tastefully it was landscaped, with a lawn in the center and white rose bushes surrounding it.  Karot’s bust was visibly placed in the middle

With the kids lining up in front of Karot’s bust, the counselors began to recite patriotic passages to heighten the energy level and encourage the kids to respond.  Watching the scene, with the colorful flags waving in the background and kids chanting, stirred up my patriotic emotions.

The kids each received a long-stemmed white carnation, to place at the foot of Karot’s monument.  But before flower dedication, they sang the Armenian National anthem, which integrates the theme of sacrificing one’s life to free the homeland.

We all grew up with the reverberation of the words of our national anthem, but the meaning of the words had never been so striking to me than at that moment when I stood there in Proshyan square at the foot of Karot’s bust, and listened to the kids sing in Armenian: “Everywhere death is the same.  Everyone dies only ones.  But lucky is the one who is sacrificed for his nation.”

Karot is one of an estimated 4000 soldiers missing in action.  The last time Karot was seen was June 13, 1992, when he was fighting in mountains of Artsakh at the age of 28.  Karot was the commander of his troop and his friends and subordinates remember that he refused to retreat in that intense fight in the mountains…  Nobody has heard from him since then.

Every year on June 13, Proshyan village comes together to remember him and to make sure he is not forgotten, hoping that one day he will return.  He, alongside other Karots, sacrificed his life to fulfill our dream of a unified Armenia and Artsakh.

I should admit that I was very impressed by the whole affair.  I had not expected to see such an orderly procession and such neat buildings and landscaping in a village.  Later, I learned that Armenians from the Diaspora have been responsible for rejuvenating the village.

The building that houses AYF has been there since the Soviet time.  The two-story center was renovated recently and has a gym/recreation room with showers.  The center provides weight lifting, boxing and marshal arts training as well as a folk dance classes.

It was gratifying to see how the Proshyan AYF center, under the tutelage of Parseghian, is working hard to build future leaders with strong patriotic dispositions.  Parseghian has moved from Pasadena, California to live in Armenia to fulfill his father’s dream who was an Armenian Genocide survivor.

I’m so glad I had the pleasure of being there and meeting the leaders, who work day and night for the Armenian cause.  This was another layer of our homeland that I was not aware.

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.