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BETWEEN TWO STONES
By Nazik Armenakyan
ArmeniaNow
09.09.11 | 16:25
Upon returning to their dreamed-of homeland it was far from the minds
of many Iraqi Armenians that they would encounter so many problems
on arrival. Living as a small, separate community, mainly in Baghdad,
they had decided to return after the US-led invasion of their adopted
country in 2004.
Instead of the open-armed heartfelt welcome they had expected, they
were struck by difficulties in language, relationships with locals and
simply making a living. All utilities and basic food supplies were
free in Saddam Hussein's Iraq and they now needed to pay for gas,
electricity and other bills.
About 16 Iraqi Armenian families live in Darbnik, a village 8km from
the capital Yerevan where the population is 90 percent refugees. The
village has a history of housing displaced people. In Soviet times
it was populated by Azerbaijanis, who then left at the start of
the Armenian-Azeri conflict in the 1980s, leaving their village to
Armenians who under the same circumstances had fled Azerbaijan.
The families have been living in Darbnik's former agricultural college,
renovated by the UN. There are no churches, drug stores, markets or
normal transportation.
Iraqi Armenians have created a small Baghdad in their apartments,
saving memories with photographs and other items brought from their
former homes in Iraq. They often spend their time watching news or
soaps from their native land on cable TV.
They continue to live in a closed community as they did before,
neither Iraqi nor Armenian, living, as they say in Armenia, "a life
between the stones". But unlike in their previous lives, there is
now no more idealized motherland to yearn for.
By Nazik Armenakyan
ArmeniaNow
09.09.11 | 16:25
Upon returning to their dreamed-of homeland it was far from the minds
of many Iraqi Armenians that they would encounter so many problems
on arrival. Living as a small, separate community, mainly in Baghdad,
they had decided to return after the US-led invasion of their adopted
country in 2004.
Instead of the open-armed heartfelt welcome they had expected, they
were struck by difficulties in language, relationships with locals and
simply making a living. All utilities and basic food supplies were
free in Saddam Hussein's Iraq and they now needed to pay for gas,
electricity and other bills.
About 16 Iraqi Armenian families live in Darbnik, a village 8km from
the capital Yerevan where the population is 90 percent refugees. The
village has a history of housing displaced people. In Soviet times
it was populated by Azerbaijanis, who then left at the start of
the Armenian-Azeri conflict in the 1980s, leaving their village to
Armenians who under the same circumstances had fled Azerbaijan.
The families have been living in Darbnik's former agricultural college,
renovated by the UN. There are no churches, drug stores, markets or
normal transportation.
Iraqi Armenians have created a small Baghdad in their apartments,
saving memories with photographs and other items brought from their
former homes in Iraq. They often spend their time watching news or
soaps from their native land on cable TV.
They continue to live in a closed community as they did before,
neither Iraqi nor Armenian, living, as they say in Armenia, "a life
between the stones". But unlike in their previous lives, there is
now no more idealized motherland to yearn for.