Back in 2006 Anahit Hayrapetyan had applied for a President Youth Prize presenting both a series of poems and photos, while she won the prize for her series of photos, even though she would have wanted to be awarded for the first one. She spent the monetary award to climb on top of Mount Ararat. Now that the given pandemic has forced everybody “to stay at home” her preferences are for writing again.
“I write from time to time. I would love to write something in great volume, but I do not manage to. It happens that I go out with a camera, I shoot my family members. I am in such a situation that I do really want to take a risk and shoot at heated points, but at the same time I have no orders, while taking risks for nothing, given that I have a large family, has left me restless. I had better take care of my children, I will still have time to take photos. I had launched a project shooting Armenians in Germany, and I thought I would end up having awesome photos, but no, neither can I take risks, nor can I put them at stake. Now I am thinking more about not harming people, than I would think in the past.”
Anahit, a mother of 4 living in Germany together with her husband, has no spare time, “should I have time I would rather have another child” (her elder children were born in Armenia while the younger ones in Germany).
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“ We wake up in the morning and the chaos starts. I am happy, if I manage to take a break and have a cup of coffee. I prepared coffee for me this morning, and breakfast for the rest of the family, but I haven’t managed to drink my coffee yet… This isolation opened our neighbourhood and the Germans to me. During common days I would only meet the elderly and some parents of young children in our neighbourhood. During isolation caused by current pandemic, the neighbourhood in Frankfurt does not vary from that in Abovyan at all. Children play outdoors, adults work-out and do sports, they do shopping and all these is being done with headphones on, they are probably combining all these with working simultaneously. What concerns us we do online classes started early morning, then cook and bake something and go out for a walk, then the cycle repeats again – classes, playtime, fighting… I go made because of the mess in the rooms, but before I would manage to go form one room to the other, I only get to declutter… I wish I had time to read, draw, ponder. My husband works at the room in the corner. My daughter is more of a creative type, the boys like math, and the youngest one is only 4 months old. Comparatively I shoot less now, I write less, travel less, I will still have time for that, but in the meanwhile I am growing four bright and complacent creatures”.
Anahit misses her father’s home village Khtsaberd the most. Her grandmother lives there. As she describes the village it is a large family, houses are close to each other, almost bending one onto the other, and every neighbour can hear what the others speak next doors.
“ The once large village is now left with forty houses. New houses are now being built not far from the village, and people are starting to isolate from each other. I think that the former image of the village will no longer be in the future, or at least if we resettle there with our grandchildren, and build a new village for our grandchildren. But the question rises now if we shall do it one day. I went from Artsakh to Abovyan, then to Yerevan and Frankfurt, I do not know my future route. I would have missed my mother’s home village Pletants, unless the war had taken it away, the village has been burned and there is nothing left from old houses and the new ones do not give the recollections from the old ones. Fire has taken away my recollections on my mother’s village too. I only remember what I was told later, I remember my mom’s aunt Arega, who was the last guardian angel of the village, one of the strongest and wisest women there. She passed away and took the village away with her ”.
Anahit Hayrapetyan has published 3 collections of poems – “Poems” (2002), “Taboo” (2005) and “Sirun” (Beautiful, 2015) and “From Princess to Slave” photo album. Her photo album has been published in the New York Times, BBC and the Guardian.
Ruzan Khachatryan
The President Prize to the Republic of Armenia is initiated and funded by the Boghossian Foundation (Belgium-Switzerland). The Award Ceremony is organized by “Hayastan” All-Armenian Fund. The prizes are conferred by the RA President and the representatives of the Boghossian Foundation annually.
“Aravot” daily
02.04.2019
