The Underground School

Underneath an Armenian church in Istanbul, there’s a school that isn’t like any other. It’s a little slice of home for a group of migrant families from Armenia – a minority within a minority.

Click here for more information about Hrant Dink School

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We walk into what seems like a typical school in Armenia.

There are posters of the Armenian alphabet, the cook is preparing spas and grechka for lunch. You can even hear the kids singing. The school serves kids from kindergarten to 9th grade. When we meet the principal Heriknaz Avagyan, we of course get offered coffee. 

So why are we in this school? What is special about it? There’s a clue…We’re not meeting the principal in her office - she doesn’t have one. Her desk is in the hallway -  because this school barely has enough space.

“I am probably the only school principal in the world who gets happy when the number of children decreases,” says Heriknaz. 

That’s because she wants these students to return home to Armenia - because … we aren’t in Armenia. 

We’re in a country that many Armenians avoid: Turkey. We’re in the middle of Istanbul, just a 5-minute walk from the Grand Bazaar. 

This school is called Hrant Dink School. It is specifically for migrant families from the Republic of Armenia: people who moved here for work. They’ve built a slice of Armenia over a thousand kilometers away from home. 

One of the teachers here is Lilit Poghosyan. “When we call this school Little Armenia year after year,” she says” “I assure you, it is not an exaggeration.”

Along with our coffee, principal Heriknaz offers us chocolates from Armenia. It’s one of the many things that feels so natural here, but is in fact so odd. If you were suddenly teleported here, you would have no idea that you weren’t in Armenia - there’s probably no other place in Turkey where you can say that. 

This is an underground school, underground in two different ways: First, it’s not an official school in Turkey - meaning it is not recognized by the government. 

But also, it is literally underground - we’re in the basement of a 200-year-old Armenian church. The only natural light is from these tiny windows high on the wall that look up onto the street.

Heriknaz, and the families who attend this school, are part of this specific community of Armenians who moved to Turkey from Armenia. They aren’t well known - even to other Armenians. But their story really gets at what it means to be an Armenian living in Turkey. A country that so many Armenians are indigenous to, but where they are literally pushed underground. 

Welcome to Country of Dust, stories of a changing Armenia.

This episode “The underground school”

I am Gohar Khachatryan.

COMING TO TURKEY

Heriknaz says “I would never have imagined that one day I would move to Turkey.” Back in 2002, she was a teacher in Yerevan. She wanted to buy an apartment and was considering working outside of Armenia, as many do, to earn a higher income. She heard from a friend about an opportunity to come and work as a nanny for an Istanbul Armenian family.

But the thought of living in Turkey was unbearable. “In my head,” she says, “Turks were these villains with sabers from Armenian textbooks.”

Heriknaz hadn’t even realized that there was an Armenian community in Istanbul, but when she found out, she decided to give it a try.

She boarded the bus from Yerevan to Istanbul - it took 2 days. During the trip, at rest stops, she was surprised to see that the Turkish men serving people tea were being kind to her and everyone else. Even when they knew this was a bus of Armenians.

In Istanbul, she worked as a nanny for a year and saved what she thought was enough money for an apartment in Yerevan. But, by then, prices had increased drastically. So she decided to stay a little longer.

Then, she was approached by a few Armenian migrant parents. They learned that she had been a teacher back in Yerevan, and they wanted her to tutor their kids in Eastern Armenian.

“I gradually brought the children together, became involved with the school, and decided to stay.”

That’s how Hrant Dink School began.


WHY A SCHOOL?

But why couldn’t those families send their kids to a local school?

First - a bit of background:

After the Genocide, most of the Armenians that remained in Turkey ended up in Istanbul. People in that community are called Bolsahay - which literally translates to Istanbul Armenians. Today the Bolsahay community is around 70,000 people. They have their own newspapers, churches… and 16 official schools.

The students in those schools are ethnically Armenian but they’re Turkish citizens. And the schools follow the curriculum of the Republic of Turkey. But they also have Armenian language and religion classes.

Unlike Bolsahay students, the children of migrants from Armenia can’t go to those official Armenian schools. Turkey doesn’t allow non-citizens to attend them.

But even if they could go, these kids need a different education. Their families plan to eventually return home to Armenia. So they need their kids to be ready to continue school back in their home country.

Hrant Dink school follows the curriculum taught in Armenia. All the teachers are from Armenia, and everything is taught in Eastern Armenian, the language spoken in Armenia. As a second language they learn Russian - not Turkish. And they learn Armenian history, including about the Genocide - something they can’t teach at the Bolsahay schools. You could get in legal trouble for even saying the word genocide.

Hrant Dink School educates students until they’re 15, after which most return to Armenia to go to high school.

So, for Armenian migrant parents who want their children to finish their education back home, there is only one school in Turkey that does that - Hrant Dink School.


HOW HRANT DINK SCHOOL STARTED

In those early days, Heriknaz had students, but she needed a space. The pastor of the local Armenian Protestant Church offered her a room in the basement. 

Heriknaz went to check it out. She expected to see a classroom, but “when I opened the door,” she said, she “saw a bed, a TV, and a table.” It was a living room. 

She asked “Where is the school?” and the pastor said “You have to create it!”

She wired money to her brother in Armenia and asked him to send 10 copies of Armenian language and math textbooks. 

At first - there were 7 kids in that one room. The year after, it was 17. Soon more students came, Heriknaz hired teachers and they gradually took over every room in the church basement. 

They named the school after Hrant Dink, who is one of the most famous Bolsahays. Dink was an outspoken journalist and human rights activist whose main focus was on improving the relationship between Armenian and Turkish people. He was assassinated in broad daylight on the streets of Istanbul in 2007. 

LIFE AT THE SCHOOL

Now, they have half a dozen tiny classrooms. At its height in 2017 the school had around 160 students, so the kids can be really crammed in.

And the lack of space isn’t their only difficulty.

For example, years ago Heriknaz took the children to the doctor and “they all had iron and vitamin D deficiencies.” Since they are underground all day. 

When she went to the pastor and said, “We want sun.”

'Heriknaz,” he replied, “I've given you everything I can. How am I supposed to give you sunlight?”

The families who send their kids here came to Turkey for the same reason that Heriknaz initially did: to make money. Women often work as nannies. Or maids: cleaning the homes of Bolsahay or Turkish families. And many migrants work in factories making bags or clothing. 

It’s hard to know the exact number of Armenian migrants in Istanbul but estimates are around 10,000 to 30,000.

Many of the students at Hrant Dink School were either born in Istanbul, or came when they were very young. For them, Armenia is a country that they only know from afar. But the school makes sure the students understand that it is their homeland, and they encourage them to return to Armenia and contribute to their country.

BEING AN ARMENIAN SCHOOL IN TURKEY

But right now they are here, and Heriknaz and everyone else involved with the school have to deal with running an underground, Armenian school inside of Turkey.

While the government doesn’t officially acknowledge the school - they definitely know about it. There was one moment when a lot of people in Turkey took notice of the school.

Over a decade ago Erdoğan, who was Prime Minister at the time, was on a trip in London. He said he could send all the Armenian migrants home if he wanted.

This caused a stir. Several TV stations, who knew about the school, came by and asked Heriknaz to comment.

She was reluctant to talk, but she told them that she didn’t think Erdoğan would actually do it, “I told them that in my opinion he just spoke harshly in the moment.”

After her statement aired, she got word that Erdoğan wanted to come to the school and meet with her and the teachers, on camera.

She didn’t want a televised visit. It felt like a political stunt, and it could have gone wrong in so many ways. The whole thing made her feel uncomfortable. But she felt she couldn’t refuse, so she responded - saying that she would meet with Erdoğan, but that she didn’t want any media there. No cameras, no quotes.

But that wasn’t what the Prime Minister wanted. The meeting never happened.

There have been some even more tense moments. The church that houses the school has been fined because of them, and once the school got briefly closed. But even talking about those things publicly can be risky. Heriknaz and the staff are ready for the worst, any day they could get shut down at the whim of the Turkish Government.


DURING THE ARTSAKH WAR

It isn’t just hard to run an Armenian school in Turkey - it’s also hard to be away from home. Especially when Armenia is struggling.

“When the 2020 Artsakh war started, it was very hard,” says Heriknaz.

She used to have hopes that the relationship between Turkey and Armenia could improve. But then the 2020 Artsakh war broke that. Turkey was heavily supporting Azerbaijan. Meanwhile, her brother and nephew were on the front lines.

When we asked her: “How did she feel being in Turkey during the war?”

She paused for a long time. Then she said “You know Armenians always blame us for living in Turkey. But when war broke out, now even I started questioning what I was doing here.”

She wasn’t the only one who felt that way. In the first few days of the war, over 30 students returned to Armenia with their families - a huge part of the student body.

Turkey was supplying weapons to Azerbaijan, and those weapons were being used against their own family members. It was unbearable. There were even alumni from Hrant Dink school who were now fighting in Artsakh. Some of them died, others went missing.

“I am not a very emotional person,” she says, “but I couldn’t even teach or face the kids.”

The school canceled regular classes. Instead, they spent their school days talking about Artsakh and what they could do to help.

Since 2020, the number of students at the school has continued to go down - as of 2024, there were 54. It’s not just the war. The economy in Turkey is bad, and the country has been deporting more foreign workers.


NOW

Heriknaz has lived in Turkey for over two decades. She has built a life here: she married an Istanbul Armenian, and together they have two boys. But, right after the war, she felt like she couldn't be here.

She went back to Armenia, and after 20 years, she finally did what she had originally gone to Turkey to do: she bought an apartment in Yerevan.

For now, she still lives in Istanbul and runs the school. But just having that home is a comfort.

She hopes they’ll move back when her youngest son graduates from high school. He’s considering going to university in Armenia.

Heriknas told us that Hrant Dink School is like oxygen for her. But also the pull towards Armenia is really strong. “I prepare myself for going back, to be honest, and I try not to get too attached to the school.”

Her heart is in Armenia, but she has made a life here. This school has been her calling - preparing these students to return to a homeland that Heriknaz left years ago, a homeland they barely know. They’ve grown up hidden in this basement, surrounded by pieces of Armenia, looking eastward towards home.


NEXT EPISODE

In our next episode, we’re going to follow one of the students from Hrant Dink school. Hasmik moved to Istanbul when she was just 2 years old.

Here is a recording from back when Hasmik was 5, with her mom asking her if she wants to go back to Armenia, if she remembers it.

Hasmik says “I don’t remember anything.”

At 15, she left her family in Turkey and moved back to Armenia - to a country she had almost no memory of. It should have been a homecoming, but a lot of people were angry at her just because of where she grew up. Hasmik has this unique perspective on both Armenia and Turkey - but she is caught between the two.

That’s on our next episode.


CREDITS

Country of Dust is created and produced by Nyree Abrahamian, Jeremy Dalmas and Gohar Khachatrian. Sound engineering and music by Jeremy Dalmas. 

This episode was made possible with generous support from the H. Hovnanian Family Foundation, the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation, and the Hrant Dink Foundation.

Thank you Hrag Papazian, David Khachatryan, Deanna Cachoian-Schanz and Varduhi Balyan for your insights and knowledge. 

Thanks to Rena Lusin Bitmez for providing audio from her documentary film  “Do You Think God Loves Immigrant Kids, Mom?”

To the supporters of our crowdfunding campaign: you really made this season happen. Thank you!

And thanks to everyone for tuning in. We’d love it if you could spread the word about the show, it really is a huge help.