Tag: Armenians in Turkey

Four-year-old Arpine was born in Istanbul where her parents from Gyumri live and work now. On the wall in a narrow and damp house where she lives there is a picture of Mt. Ararat, a reminder of where her home, Armenia, is.
The little girl’s father works to maintain his four-member family in Turkey and also his elderly parents back in Gyumri and the family of his brother who was killed in the 1988 earthquake in the Armenian town.

 

“The only way was to go to Russia, but there was no work there for several months, so I had to go back to Gyumri, and then I moved to Turkey,” says the middle-aged man.

Like many other Armenians their family also settled down in Istanbul’s Kumkapi district, which is cheaper, besides it is there or in the nearby Beyazit and Laleli districts that there are quite a few markets, leather items producing factories, jewelers’ workshops and fish processing mills.

This district with raggedy buildings and dirty, rundown streets is a different Istanbul. In contrast to downtown Istanbul that is full of tourists and has a modern look this district stands out by its misery and the only sign of continuing life here are flags that have been placed on the facades of buildings here ahead of upcoming elections.

Immigrants from Armenia do not particularly mingle with the community of Istanbul Armenians as both have created their own isolated reality, with their own memories and nostalgia.

“We have come here to maintain our families. We often hear words that shame us for coming to Turkey. But it is not us, but the state that should feel ashamed for driving us into such an extreme condition that we left everything and came here to keep our elderly,” says 57-year-old Hamest Hakobyan, who used to work as a teacher at one of Gyumri’s school, but became a “victim” of redundancy after the so-called optimization plan of the government several years ago and had to go to Istanbul to find a job.

According to the data of the only research conducted on illegal migrants living in Turkey (by the Eurasia Partnership Foundation), the number of migrants from Armenia is approximately 15,000, the vast majority of them, 96 percent, are women. Most of them find work as housemaids or babysitters, while men are engaged in shoemaking or jewelry-related work.

In the initial period of their stay in Turkey Armenians from Armenia prefer working for local Armenians, but as soon as they become fluent in Turkish almost all choose to work for Turks.

“It is strange but it is a fact. Ask anyone, they would be more pleased with a Turkish landlord than with an ethnic Armenian. After giving it a long thought I figured out that this is our national character – we seek to dominate, suppress [our fellow Armenians],” says teacher Heriknaz Avagyan, one of immigrants from Armenia.

Heriknaz came to Turkey in 2001 when she was 32, leaving a teacher’s job in Yerevan. But in Istanbul she also found an important mission.

In 2003 Heriknaz realized that the children of illegal migrants from Armenia were growing up illiterate, without education, because they were not eligible to attend any school (even Armenian schools, which are also state-funded). And then she initiated the establishment of a school now attended by 72 Armenian children.

But hers is a small, basement-floor illegal school, which provides a five-year education to the smaller part of children of illegal migrants from Armenia.

According to the data of the Eurasia Partnership Foundation’s survey, in Turkey there are about 600-800 such children most of whom grow up without receiving any education.

“In fact the authorities know about our school, but they turn a blind eye to it. As you know, beginning in September the government of Turkey will allow children to attend Armenian schools, but only as ‘free listeners’, without the right to be issued certificates, which actually does not solve the problem of their receiving and continuing education,” says Heriknaz.

The teacher says with regret that many children who have exceptional abilities after leaving her school at age 13-14 start working in markets or engage in jewelry business as they cannot continue their studies. And before the establishment of this “underground” school a whole generation grew up without learning to read and write in Armenian.

The school operates in the basement floor of an Armenian evangelical church in Istanbul’s Getikpasha district. Children of different grades study side by side in a small three-room space.

On the other side of the wall are kindergarten age children, who sleep in a small room on three-tier beds, or in shifts, with the most tired and youngest ones of two-five-year-olds taking their shifts first.

“Unfortunately, we don’t have better conditions, but the number of children keeps growing. If the Armenian Patriarchate of Istanbul wanted, it surely could provide a more convenient space, but they turned down our request, perhaps they don’t want to have problems with the state,” says Heriknaz, the school’s principal.

Still, this is the only Armenian school where all subjects are taught in Armenian, where instead of the picture of Mustafa Kemal Ataturk children see the images of the president of Armenia and the Armenian catholicos and the Armenian tricolor.

“The books and curricula here are the same as in Armenia. As far as books are concerned, I’ve received support only from the Diaspora Department of the [Armenian] Ministry of Education and Science where there are some people who care,” says Heriknaz, noting with regret that no official from Armenia visiting Istanbul has ever visited the school.

All immigrants from Armenian in Istanbul speak about difficulties and indifference towards them.

“But the greatest attention should be paid to immigrants here. True, the Turks treat us well, but we fear that we will become the first victims should their policy change. We have this fear every time we see police, but they know well who lives where,” says tearful Hamest Hakobyan as she shows a copybook with her verses that she says were born out of nostalgia.

“We have turned poets out of homesickness,” she says, reading in a trembling voice: “I am an Armenian emigrant, I live in tears…”

Gayane Abrahamyan is reporting from Turkey with the support of the Global Political Trends Center (GPoT) and Internews Armenia

Vahe Sarukhanyan

During the past few days, I have discovered a new Istanbul. It’s not the modern district of Beyoglu or the tourist-traversed pedestrian boulevard of Istiklal leading to Taksim Square.

It even isn’t the “old city” with its Byzantine and Ottoman period relics and monuments. What I have discovered is the Istanbul of Armenians; more correctly the city experienced by Armenians from the Republic of Armenia.

It’s the southern stretch of what is described in the tourist maps as the “old city”. But these neighbourhoods – Kum Kapi, Yenikapi, Gedik Pasha, and Beyazit – are given short shrift in the tourist brochures.

The Istanbul Armenian Patriarchate is located here along with other Armenian and Greek churches.

We take the tramway to the Beyazit station and get off, slowly descending the cobblestone streets that wind their way down to GedikPasha and the Sea of Marmara in the distance.

A woman approaches from the other direction. She’s a typical Armenian from the RA – her face, gait, gaze… dyed hair. A second woman approaches. “Luso jan, hello, how are you, how’s your girl…” is the conversation we hear as we pass by.

As we make our way down the narrow streets, the foul smell of garbage piercing our nostrils, we hear the locals conversing in Turkish, Kurdish and Armenian. Kids are playing in the streets, men are pushing carts full of goods back and forth, owners of vegetable and fruit stalls are hawking their wares at prices four times less than you’ll find back in Istiklal. In a word, these are neighbourhoods where people eke out a living somehow and where life is out in the open; warts and all.

It might be a scene taken from one of Hagop Baronian’s Istanbul travels except for the new cars and satellite dishes.

But the one thing that has changed, and in a big way, is that today you hear eastern Armenian on the streets of KumKapi and adjacent neighbourhoods.

I say to myself – so what? People are speaking their mother tongue. But to hear the Yerevan, Lori and Gyumri dialects here in Istanbul…What the hell happened? Why?

The open air market in KumKapi takes place every Thursday. It’s a good place to check out if you want to get an idea who lives in the area. For readers back in Armenia, just imagine a giant ‘Ferdus” market that also sells agricultural produce. You’ll find some local resident Armenians here as well. They’re all from Armenia. They still retain RA citizenship but have winded up here, whether legally or by “bending” the rules, living and working alongside Turks and Kurds. The Armenians have learnt enough Turkish to get by and the Turks in the market have picked up a few Armenian words.

The old houses that line the narrow streets look the same. Most are in need of repair and the wash is hanging outside. The sidewalks are a noisy jumble of kids, pushcarts and people.

Thus, it’s hard to point to the Armenian houses. All you have to do to locate an Armenian is walk down one of streets and pay attention to the faces of the passersby. Raising your voice a bit when you’re talking Armenian wouldn’t hurt. You’ll elicit a reaction if there are other Armenians around.

This is another world and these aren’t your traditional “Bolsahay’s”. These are “Stambulahay’s” that have practically no contact with Armenians born in Bolis or who have come here from other Turkish towns and villages.

You can safely say that most “Bolsahay’s” live comfortable lives – they have a home, a job and Turkish citizenship.

I liken the “Stambulahay’s” to the Armenian traders and merchants of old who set out for Russia, India and other virgin lands farther still. They are like the average Armenians who left the homeland for the factories in America and France during the 19th and early 20th century, in search of a better life. Many pulled themselves up from the factory floor and went on to manage factories of their own.

Many of these new Armenians in Istanbul have passport problems. None have the legal right to work, but in order to survive they find a way

via Istanbul Diary: The “Old” City’s “New” Armenians (video) | Hetq online.

Arus Yumul, an Armenian sociologist who lectures at the Bilgi University in Istanbul, says that if the dominance of Muslims over non-Muslims during the Ottoman Empire was a hierarchical division, after the founding of the Republic in Turkey that difference theoretically disappeared, but that this phenomenon still exists today in Turkey but not in an overt way.

Yozge Genc, another expert with the Turkish Economic and Social Studies Foundation (TESEV), told me that the main problem of Armenians today in Turkey is that they are not regarded as full citizens of the Turkish state.

“Armenians are still identified by their religion and ethnic affiliation,” says Genc, adding that the other minorities in Turkey have the same problem but that in the case of Armenians such a thing is expressed in a slightly different way.

Pakrat Estukyan, the Armenian edition editor at Agos weekly expressed the same thought, noting that at one time Armenians in Turkey constituted a nationality, a people, but that they had been reduced to a mere “community” today; and a religious one at that.

For years the number of Armenians living in Turkey has hovered between 60,000 – 70,000 and that’s not counting the number of crypto-Armenians living in Anatolia and western Armenia. Experts say their number is quite large.

Estukyan said that even though only a citizen’s religion is noted in passports, government agencies have a good handle on nationality data as well.

As the largest non-Muslim minority in Turkey, Armenians are not represented in political or social sectors and do not hold state office. Yozge Genc said that the employment process for state office is quite complicated for Armenians, especially when national security issues come up.

Armenians serve on the Sisli Municipal Council, but it’s one district in Istanbul where most of the city’s non-Muslims reside.

Ozge Genc says that an Armenian was recently assigned to the government’s Central Secretariat for EU Affairs, but this was a singular event. Mensur Akgun, Director of the Global Political Trends Center (GPOT) says that a lot has to do with personal and practical contacts and not just a person being Armenian.

Silvia Tiryaki, his deputy, says that the Turkish “deep-state” avoided assigning Armenians to top posts after the operations of ASALA in the 1970s and 1980s.

Pakrat Estukyan disagrees with this belief and stresses that the divide was created not because of ASALA but the 1915 Genocide; something the Turks don’t talk about.

Sociologist Yumul says that for the worldwide Armenian diaspora, the Istanbul-Armenian community is akin to a “lost lamb”, an “outsider”. She says that other Armenians have taken them to task for being non-active in Armenian affairs and for cow-towing to the government in Ankara. Yumul says she agrees with these assessments when it comes to the Ottoman period, but that after Turkish independence Armenians not only didn’t get involved in Armenian politics but also Turkish affairs. It was kind of a survival strategy she noted.

Yumul added that the community is slowly integrating into the larger Turkish society and that mixed marriages are paving the way.

“At one time Armenian parents resisted but this too has faded. The next generation will be more like a hybrid, free to chose whether they are Armenian, Turk…”

She was quick to add that this doesn’t mean that Armenians will disappear in Turkey.

However, the use of Armenian as a daily language of communication is also on the decline; the number of Armenians who can’t speak the mother tongue is growing. Parents send their kids to Armenian elementary schools but afterwards many go to private or foreign high schools so that they won’t have problems with the Turkish language in college.

The 1990s were a turning point for the community in many ways. Armenians, like the other minority communities, began to voice their concerns, speak about the discrimination they faced, and even raise the taboo subject of the 1915 Armenian Genocide

Twenty years ago, all this was unthinkable. What the next twenty will bring for the community remains a big question mark.

via Istanbul Armenians: The Diaspora’s “Outsiders”? | Hetq online.