Homecoming

Hasmik Varderesyan was born in Armenia, but moved to Turkey when she was two years old. Now she’s a teenager, she's moving back, and she's on TikTok. But is Armenia ready to welcome her home?

Click here to check out Hasmik's Instagram. 

Transcript

Hasmik Varderesyan is strong willed, she was even when she was a little kid.

“I was born in Armenia, 2008. When I was two years old, I moved to Turkey with my mom.”

Hasmik’s mom took the two of them to Istanbul so she could get a better paying job. That’s where Hasmik grew up. They occasionally came back to visit Armenia. Once, she was here when she was 10.

“I was speaking Turkish sometimes. And people, they were hearing it and were like ‘Why you speak Turkish?’ or ‘Why you live there?’ All the time they ask same question, maybe thousands of  times.”

Her stepdad was with her. He’s an Armenian from Turkey, and didn’t grow up speaking Armenian. So the two of them talk to each other in Turkish. One day they were at a grocery store. Her stepfather told her he was going to grab an orange or apple juice and told her to wait.

“And there was - I don't know - a manager or a worker. This woman approached me and said ‘Are you a Turk?’ And I was like ‘What?’ Like I didn't do anything. I'm standing here. And I said, ‘No, I'm not Turkish. My father is not Turkish. We just came from Turkey. We're Armenians from Turkey.’ So I explained, for five minutes, this situation to a stranger. But that kind of thing happened a lot.”

This was one of her first times back home, but it is typical of how people treat her.

Hasmik always stands her ground like this: she won’t back down when someone is rude. And she is never afraid to express her opinion.

In our last episode, we talked all about Hrant Dink School - a small, underground school in Istanbul. It’s for the children of migrant families from Armenia who went to Turkey for work. There’s nowhere else in Turkey like it. They prepare students to return to Armenia for high school, and then make their life back here at home.

But what happens next? What is it like for a young Armenian who went to Turkey when she was a toddler, and then returned to Armenia as a teenager?

That’s Hasmik.

“I'm between Istanbul and Yerevan. I don't have a certain place where I want to live forever because I love both places.”

When she graduated from Hrant Dink School in 2023 she left her family and moved back to Armenia. It should have been a homecoming, but things didn’t go as expected.

During that short visit to Armenia when she was 10 - she wanted to post online about her trip. But she was so young. Her mom said “No.” But now - she’s a teenager, and she has been posting online a lot. Much of it is about her relationship with Armenia and Turkey.

Hasmik has this rare trait - a deep connection to both countries. She believes that’s an asset for Armenia. But some people don’t like to hear what she has to say. Because even though Hasmik was prepared for Armenia, Armenia was not prepared for her.

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

This episode: Homecoming

I’m Gohar Khachatryan


ARRIVING BACK IN ARMENIA

When Hasmik first moved to Armenia, she was anxious. She was a teenager, staying with her extended family, living without her parents for the first time.

But she and her mom stayed very closely in touch.

“I always tell my mother where I'm going, what I'm doing. You know ‘I'm going to meet my friends or I'm going to this mall.’”

Even though she’s in another country, she’s messaging her mom regularly

But she was really excited to be back. This is where she saw her future. Even though she felt like she didn’t quite fit in.

There was one question everyone would ask her:

“‘Aren't you afraid of Turks?’ and I said ‘No.’ And they were all surprised because I said ‘Do you know why you are scared? Because you don't know them, and you didn't talk to them. I have lived there for 12 years, and I had a conversation with them every single day.’ And I started to realize that Armenians don't know anything about Turks. Some of them said that they don't even want to go to Turkey, because as an Armenian, if you go to Turkey ‘It's a shame,’ they said.”


NEW SCHOOL

Her first day at her new school - everyone was asking her questions about Turkey. Not just the students, but the teachers, and even the principal. It started as people being curious, but then it turned hostile.

“When people know you came from Turkey, some people treat you very bad.”

She says, before she arrived, students at the school knew she was coming. They heard that there was a girl who had grown up in Turkey. They had a group chat where they made plans to bully her once she arrived.

“The students were acting like a child. Like a 4 or 5 year old kid. It was so bad.”

And it wasn’t just the students.

“My Armenian language teacher made a mistake during the class, and I said ‘You know, I think this should be this way. I don't know, but can you explain this to me?’ The teacher said ‘How would you dare to correct my mistake. You are from Turkey. How can you know our language?’”

She says that not one person at the school was nice to her. She would come home every day crying. She told her mom that she wanted to transfer to another school.

“When I was going to Hrant Dink school in Turkey I always promised myself: when I go back to Armenia, I'm going to live there. It gives me happiness when I live in Armenia.”

She was able to switch schools, and right away it was better.

“There were so many amazing people and everyday I woke up early because it was so much fun and interesting. And I had very good friends. So. Yeah.”

She was excited to go to school.


THE FIRST VIDEO

But the harassment wasn’t just at her school.

Back when she was 10 her mom hadn’t let her post videos. But now she was 15.

“She said  ‘Okay, if you want to do that, do that, but be careful.’”

Hasmik started posting. Things like hanging out with her friends.

“I was always posting them. I was so excited.”

Then, in the summer, she was taking a trip away from Armenia to visit her mom and family back in Istanbul.

“I was going to the airport, and I was flying by myself for the first time.”

There was a trend going around on TikTok where people would post about their travels by combining two videos: one video shot before they left and one at their destination.

“Half of it I filmed in Yerevan and half of it in Turkey.”

When she got to Istanbul she recorded a Turkish flag to show where she was.

“When I came out from the airport, there was a flag. I just made a video. And the last clip was that flag.”

Hasmik’s page was “open”, which means anyone online could see her videos. And one unique thing about TikTok is that it is really easy for an unknown person to have their post get extremely popular. If your video starts gaining momentum, TikTok will show it to people who don’t know you, and that can snowball into an avalanche of views.

“The next day when I woke up, I saw that it got 500,000 views.”

Half a million views. It had exploded overnight.

“It was really shocking for me. I just made videos for myself. I didn't know that people would watch my videos that much. And the comments of that video - 70%, 80% were negative”

The flag was unremarkable to her: she grew up seeing it everywhere around Istanbul. But in Armenia, you never see the Turkish flag. It triggers people. People were calling her a traitor.

People said “‘Why are you going to Turkey? You're Armenian. What are you doing there? Why are you going to the enemy country?’”

Hasmik saw a lot of questions in the comment section.

“And I said, you know what? I'm gonna make a video answering all these questions. Not to convince people to believe in something they don't want to know, but to show them what our life looks like in Turkey. What's different. How Armenians live here. Because they do not know anything about it.”


SECOND VIDEO

She talked it over with her mom. She decided to make a second video. It would be a list: 5 facts about Armenians in Turkey.

In that video, she talked about the Armenian community in Istanbul.

“Many people didn't know. I talked about the Armenian schools.” Hasmik says, “After the Armenian Genocide, we are the Armenians who keep Armenian culture and traditions in Istanbul alive”

Since Hasmik hadn’t spent much time in Armenia, there are parts of the culture here that she was still learning about. Her mom wanted to help her understand how people would feel about the video - so she explained how viscerally many Armenians react to anything about Turkey. Especially after the 2020 Artsakh war.

Her mom said “‘So even if you are going to talk or make videos about that - think ten times and after make a video.”

Hasmik shot the video, and posted it.

“It was 12 a.m. I was holding my phone, and I was like ‘Mom, I'm posting it.’ My mom said, ‘Hasmik. I'm nervous. Are you sure you want to do that? Because people are gonna criticize you about that.’ And I said, ‘No, I'm posting.’ And the next day I woke up and so many people watched my videos. And it was insane. My video got over 500,000 views. And it was shocking for me.”

Hundreds of people had commented on it saying things like “Armenians shouldn’t live in Turkey.” They said that Hasmik wasn’t Armenian, or that she was spreading propaganda.

“And I remember I read all the comments on that video. And I never thought that there would be so much negative comments. So I read all of them and responded. But my mom told me ‘Hasmik, you're not gonna respond to 700 people!’”


WHY SHE KEPT POSTING

Back in Armenia, as she continued posting, people kept messaging her. There were hundreds of messages. She could only respond to a few, but she found even in the angry ones meaningful.

“When I read negative messages, they were usually people who lost their brother, father or their relatives in the war. Telling their stories, but in a negative way. But I was trying to understand them.”

Hasmik’s own grandfather fought in the 2020 war and lost his home. She cared about what these people were telling her. But she still felt like her posts were important.

There were many positive messages too. People said they didn’t know much about Turkey and wanted to learn more. And there were Turkish people who told her stories about how their families had Armenian roots that they had kept hidden for decades.

“All these stories are like a book for me.”

These conversations are what make it worth it for her.

“It gives me good energy and I feel better. You communicate with people. If you post videos and you do communicate with people, it's not like you're not completing your mission.”

Because she does have a mission. There is a reason she keeps posting, despite all the offensive comments.

“My mom asked me a question that I thought about a lot. She said ‘Hasmik, why are you doing this? What will it give to yourself?’ And I thought about that. I want to do a good thing for my country.”

She is hoping that she can help Armenians understand their neighbor better.

“I'm not saying that we should have a good relationship with Turkey.  But I'm trying to show Armenian people the other side. Because they always heard that Turkey is enemy country. Like, they're not human and that's it. I'm just trying to show the other side and let people know about what's going on in the other side. I really enjoy doing that.”

Hasmik wants to complicate the narrative. But how do you do that? She started posting language videos, it felt like a neutral way in.

For example, in one of Hasmik’s posts she talks about the 5 languages she speaks - Armenian, Turkish, Russian, English … and Azerbaijani - which she learned after the 2020 war.

In the video, she says, in Turkish “I know Turkish because I have been living in Turkey for 14 years and the language I can speak most fluently after my mother tongue is Turkish because I live and grew up here.”

Hasmik said to us, “People always told me ‘Can you teach us Turkish?’ And my mom told me, ‘You know if you teach language, I think people will not hate you as much as they do now.’ Because in Armenia there is a phrase that you should know your enemy's language”

She started with Turkish - and eventually taught Azerbaijani too.

And people really liked it. And said ‘Hasmik, can you please continue with this content?’ And I said, ‘Okay.’”

Her followers told Hasmik that they were getting information they couldn’t get anywhere else.


SNAKE’S TONGUE

She had built this audience that she was interacting with. And she was getting well known enough that she would get recognized around Yerevan.

“I was walking in the street and I didn't expect that people would know me. ‘Are you Hasmik Varteresyan,’ ‘Are you Hasmik Varteresyan?’ ‘Can I take a picture with you?’ I said, ‘Guys, I'm not famous. I'm just making videos!’”

But she was also well-known enough that celebrities started to react to her. And the backlash started to get a lot worse.

There is a YouTube program called Odzi Lezu. It translates to Snake’s Tongue. The show discusses current events in Armenia. It’s hosted by two TV personalities who are known for interviewing famous singers and actors. On one of their episodes they brought up Hasmik and her videos.

In the video, the hosts of Odzi Lezu say “I think that first of all, you should hand over the girl named Hasmik Varderesyan and find out whether there is Turkish blood in her blood.”

Hasmik says “And they called me Turk that I should take a DNA test, that my father and mother didn't raise me right.”

They accused her of doing propaganda for Turkey.

Hasmik thought, “‘Are you insane?’ And I wrote him and said, ‘Do you know that you did this? Your followers came to my page and they were writing bad comments.’ And I said ‘Why would you do this?’”

She says their response was to send her a message of laughing emojis. Hasmik told them that if they aren’t interested in her videos, then they should just ignore her.

“They felt happy that they talk bad about someone they don't even know. It's useless to argue with this kind of people.”

Things were getting overwhelming. Each post continued to get six or seven hundred comments. On Tik Tok, people often respond to a popular video by posting a video of their own, a reaction video. Hasmik was getting dozens of them.

Then one man, who looked like he could be in his 50s, posted a few reaction videos.

He said ‘“We will find this girl and we'll kill her.’”

He said her school address. Hasmik’s mom saw the video in Istanbul.

“My mother really got overwhelmed and was panicking.”

She contacted Hasmik.

“She said ‘Did you see this video?’ and I was like ‘No, I have a class. I can't watch videos in my telephone.’ Mom said ‘No get out of the class and watch it.’”

Hasmik’s aunt came to the school and she took Hasmik to the police.

The police said they couldn’t do anything.

“He said to me, ‘What do you expect from me to do? I can't do anything.’ And I was really shocked. So even though I went to the police, they did nothing.”

They told her that this man had already been arrested multiple times, so it was better if she just avoided him.

This happened months ago, but it still affects her.

“When I go out I look: who is walking behind me? Or next to me? To feel, I don't know, safe maybe? Or make sure that this person doesn't follow me.”


ENDING TIK TOK

It had all gotten to be too much. Hasmik deleted Tik Tok.

“I didn't tell my mother, my aunt, nobody. And I just, for myself, deleted that account. Maybe in the future, when I feel safe, I will do it again. But not for now, I'm just doing Instagram. In Instagram, people - even if they don't agree with you - they will not talk bad about you.”

So she continued her same posts, but just on Instagram. Though the last time we talked with Hasmik her Instagram account had been disabled. She believes someone hacked it.

We asked her if she regrets doing Tik Tok videos. 

“No. Not even once. Because I know what I'm doing. And when you are sure what you're doing, I think nothing will stop you.”

Why have people gotten so upset at her? Obviously - Armenians have a lot of problems with Turkey. But what has gotten people so worked up that a man would threaten to come to her school and kill her?

Turkey has always been a painful topic for Armenians. But after the 2020 war and the loss of Artsakh, emotions are especially raw.

“We've been through a lot and psychologically, it affected us. And my mom told me that when you make videos about Turkey, there are some people who don't even want to hear that name. Even if you are just giving information, they don't want to hear anything.”

The whole point of Hasmik spending 12 years going to Hrant Dink school in Istanbul was so that she could move back to Armenia. But when she returned home, there were Armenians who hated her simply because she had grown up in Turkey.

Would she have preferred to just stay in Istanbul?

“When I came, I think yeah, it was hard. But I really enjoyed being here in Armenia. And if there was like an opportunity to stay in Istanbul - to continue my education there - I don't know, I think I wouldn't have stayed.”

Even after everything she’s been through, she doesn’t regret having come back to Armenia.


RETURNING

But right now, Hasmik is leaving.

After 15 months of trying to make a life here, she is moving back to Turkey.

There are a lot of reasons.

It started when she was talking with one of her friends who she went to school with in Istanbul. That friend had been accepted to study at Istanbul University.

“'And she said, ‘Hasmik, don't you see how people in Armenia react to your opinions or thoughts?’”

Hasmik wants to study political science. And she started to feel like she couldn’t stay in Armenia and learn what she wanted to learn.

“I am sure that I don't want to continue my education in any University of Armenia”

So she wants to finish school in Turkey and then transition to university there.

She says the decision to leave is mostly about going to the right school, not about the harassment.

“It's not like the biggest part of my decisions.”

But she also just misses living with her mom, her stepdad, and her brother.

All of these reasons add up. Hasmik was taught that her homeland is her home but it might not be that simple.

Because Armenia hasn’t exactly given her a warm welcome.

And she isn’t the only one who has had these difficulties. So have her classmates who she went to school with in Istanbul.

“When I visit them and I ask them ‘How was your school? When people knew you were from Turkey, what were they doing?’ And most of the time, they were telling me that the teachers were acting rude and disrespectful or students were bullying them and the school didn't do anything about that.”

The same as what happened to her.

Even though she is leaving, Hasmik is far from done with Armenia. There’s a reason why she wants to study political science.

“I want to be the president of the Republic of Armenia”

She says it sounds like a silly dream, but she is serious about it. She wants to lead Armenia - either as president or as Prime Minister. She already has her political platform ready

“I think that people should vote for me because, first of all, I want to develop the economy of Armenia. And also it's very important to solve conflicts with the neighbors. For some people, it seems unbelievable to solve problems with Azerbaijan and Turkey. But I don't say that they have to be good or peaceful. No. But the most important thing for me is relationships with our neighbors.”

She of course knows it’s complicated, but she thinks that it is essential to have a diplomatic relationship with Turkey and Azerbaijan. Which we don’t have right now.

She wants Armenia to do basically what she has been doing - trying to figure out some way to communicate across the divide.

She wants to do this even though, or maybe because, she has been harassed by so many people here:

At a supermarket when she was 10. By her classmates and teachers in high school. And online by celebrities and by people who said they wanted to kill her.

We ask her - do you feel like Armenia failed you?

“No. Actually when I first came to Armenia - I thought like that. But why should I stop loving my country just because there are some bad people? That's what I think.”


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.

A big thank you to all the supporters of our crowdfunding campaign: we couldn’t have made this season without your help.

And thank you for tuning in. We’d love it if you could spread the word about the show, and to support us - go to CountryOfDust.com