The Last Tonir

For our last episode of this season, we visit Vahandukht Melkonyan, the last resident of Kharkov – a village in the buffer zone between Armenia and Turkey. At 88, she lives alone here and spends her days tending to her animals. This border carries the weight of millennia of history – empires have come crashing against it. But in Vahandukht’s yard, that all feels like scratches on ancient stones.

Transcript

Vanahdukht Melkonyan is 88.

She lives in Kharkov village with her rabbits, sheep, chickens. She spends her days taking care of them and her house.

It wasn’t easy to visit her. In part - because we had to drive half-an-hour down a bumpy dirt road. But mainly because we needed special documents.

We’re not crossing over any international borders, but we are getting very close to one. Vahandukht’s village is just a few hundred meters away from Turkey, so close that it’s in a restricted area. The border between the two countries is closed and this is the buffer zone. We needed special permission from the Armenian National Security Service just to come here.

We pull up to the checkpoint.

Armenia has an agreement with Russia that they provide security along the border. The Soviets built a base here when Armenia was part of the Soviet Union. Now Russian and Armenian soldiers guard the border. 

All our documents check out, and we head on. To meet the last resident of Kharkov village.

“Barev dzez! We made it to your place!” we say, “How are you?”

“Good, how are you?” says Vahandukht, “You came to this ruined village. How do we live here?”

“You tell us," we say. 

It used to be filled with families, but now it’s just Vahandukht. She’s alone here with her animals. Just past her garden is the border, and then Turkey.

I ask, “Have you ever thought of leaving the village?” and before I finish - she interrupts. 

“Leave the village?” she says “Never.” She laughs, “I have never thought about leaving.”

Her children have tried to get her to leave many times.

“Oh yes,” she says, “Many times. But I don’t agree.”

But she isn’t budging. 

She says, “I’m carrying the village on my shoulders.”

This border carries weight for so many reasons - but what is it like for Vahandukht – the last resident of Kharkov village?

Welcome to Country of Dust, stories of a changing Armenia

This episode: The Last Tonir

I’m Nyree Abrahamian

COMING TO VILLAGE

After we sit down for coffee. Vahandukht tells us she wasn’t born here. She didn’t even see the village until her wedding day in 1962. And she hadn’t met her husband until the day they got engaged. 

“They came to see me,” she says, “They liked me. They said, ‘This is a good girl. Let’s go ask for her hand, she’s a good girl.” 

She thought they were taking her to the city of Kharkiv in Ukraine. Not a small, isolated village.

She was very disappointed. But she says “I was already married. What could I do!” 

When she arrived, it was autumn and the whole village was harvesting grain. They stopped working to come to the wedding.

“When I got here, I saw that the wheat was already stacked, the barley and grain fields were golden. I was amazed.” She thought it was beautiful. 

Kuchi, one of her three dogs, wanders over. Then one of her cats too.

“Pstl! Come here, Pstl,” she says. Her name is Pstl. She used to be better. She had her eye, now it’s gone.”

You can tell she’s a cat who’s lived a full life, wandering all over these meadows. When she walks over to the military base in the winter, the soldiers tuck her inside their coats to keep her warm.

The village was founded by survivors of the Armenian Genocide. After fleeing their homes in Mush, Van and Erzurum, they came here in the 1920s. 

Back then, when Soviet Armenia was founded, the border here was the edge of the Soviet Union. Turkey was on the other side of the Iron Curtain. So even back then the border was closed. As long as Vahandukht has lived here, the border has never been open. 

The village used to have the Turkish name Yenikëy. During soviet times the name was changed to Kharkov. Once Armenia became independent it changed again, to Norshen. But Vanhandukht keeps calling it what she knows. Kharkov.

ANI

But just past her garden is a place whose name hasn’t changed in a millennium. 

We walk over, past another cat - a tiny, insistent kitten. Past a rusty fence that keeps her animals in.

And then we see Ani. The city that was once the capital of Ancient Armenia. It’s just over there, on the other side of the gorge that separates Armenia from Turkey. So close that you can hear people talking. It looks as if there is no border, as if this is all the same land.

When Vahandukht’s children were young, they would say “Good Morning Ani!” when they woke up, and “Good night Ani!” before they went to sleep.

At its height, Ani was known as “The City of a Thousand and One Churches.” Now, it’s in ruins. We can see the enormous cathedral, built around 1000AD. Its dome has collapsed, as have some of its stone walls. 

Looking out at the rolling green countryside and the huge sky, we can almost see ancient armies clashing. This land has changed rulers too many times to count. Almost a thousand years ago, there was a battle so ferocious here, it’s said that the Akhurian river that flows through the gorge was dyed red with blood. 

But on this summer day, it is so calm. Politically, this border can be electric with tension. But for Vahandukht, living on the border is peaceful. For visitors like us, that’s surreal. 

One day Vahandukht was in her garden. She got a call from a man who grew up in the village. 

“It was Gevor,” says Vahandukht. 

He said “I’m in the ruins of Ani.” She looked over and there he was waving back at her. “I can see your calf too!” He said “It’s tied to a post.” 

He had traveled the long way around - up through Georgia, west into Turkey, and then south to Ani. Many Armenians do this, as a pilgrimage.

After the Soviet Union fell, this border could have opened. But it was the early nineties, during the First Nagorno-Karabakh war. Turkey kept it closed as a way to support Azerbaijan, and has continued to keep it closed since then. 

Vahandukht has spent a lifetime looking at Ani, but has never been there. Occasionally, there are rumors that the border might open.

If it did, would she go?

“Why wouldn’t I?” she says.

But she doubts it will open before she dies. 

Vahandukht cooked a huge lunch for us, and her children, who were visiting. They slaughtered one of her lambs for the stew. 

“When we’re having good visitors, we slaughter one,” she says “We heard you were coming so we slaughtered one. I said, ‘Let them come and enjoy it.’”

And she cooked it with mallow from her garden. On the table, there’s salad, potatoes, cheese, lavash, pickled vegetables, and she makes sure we drink her homemade compote. 

“Heghnar go get the compote!” Vahandukht yells, “I hate the store bought juices.”

The chickens wander over -  they’re hungry too.

“Oh my god, my chickens are here,” she says, “They must be hungry.” 

For dessert Vahandukht serves honey she collected from her bees.

She says that during Soviet times, they used to serve this honey with yogurt to tourists. People would come to picnic and look out at Ani, on the other side of the border they couldn’t cross. 

VILLAGE DECLINE

When Vahandukht first came here in the 1960s, there were still 30 or 40 households. But the village was already past its peak. It isn’t an easy place to live. Since it is behind a checkpoint, it’s inaccessible. 

So even back then, people were slowly leaving. Eventually, there were so few children left that the village school closed.

“Because of the children,” she says, “Because of the roads. Everyone took their children away for education. It was difficult here.”

After that, many families had no choice but to move. The remaining children, like Vahandukht’s kids, then had to walk 14 kilometers every day to get to the closest school and back. During the winter there were long periods when they couldn’t walk to school at all.

Vahadukht says, “There were so many good people who left. Smart, educated people. I remember each and every one of them, those who left from each house. I know their houses and how many people lived there. Every house had at least five or six kids. I had five children. I raised them, they grew up, got married, and left.”

As villagers moved away, the houses were dismantled. People took whatever materials they needed.

She told them “Don’t tear them down. Leave the walls. Why tear them down?”

After the Soviet Union collapsed, the water main was ripped out. So now water has to be trucked in. Slowly all the houses disappeared. Now, besides her home, almost no buildings remain. There is just a field with crumbling stone walls.

She and her husband stayed though. Eventually, it was just the two of them.

He said “I won’t go. This is my birthplace, I will stay here”

The last time Vahandukht left the village was a year ago, for a celebration after the birth of one of her great-grandchildren. She has 5 children, 9 grandchildren and 11 great-grandchildren. Her children try to get her to stay at their homes, for at least a few days. But Vahandukht refuses. She says that whenever she’s in a city, she feels like she’s trapped, like she’s in a cage.

She’s never thought of leaving the village.

She says, “Why would I leave this good village?”

She also has a promise to keep.

Her mother-in-law used to tell her, “Don’t leave. Even if you have no flour, light your tonir, and let the smoke rise - so the Turks know that there are still people in this village”

After her husband died in 2010, he was buried here. She lights incense at his grave. 

She says “If I left, who would visit him?” “

Vahandukht will be buried next to him. After that she says, “Whatever happens, happens.”

LIFE NOW

For now though, she says she never has free time. She’s either cooking, cleaning, tending to her animals, her bees, gardening. She grows peppers, tomatoes, cucumbers, apricots

“I have good sheep,” she says, “I have lambs. Did you see my sheep? My little lambs?”

She has six sheep now. She used to have more, but a wolf took them. Every year, four or five lambs are born. They sacrifice one of them on the anniversary of her husband’s death.

She used to do everything herself. But at 88, she can do less and less. When she is gardening it’s getting hard to stoop over. Her kids come and help her now. 

And she has plenty of other visitors, like tourists who come for a view of Ani. It’s so close, you can even hear the call to prayer from across the gorge. Vahandukht hears it every morning, noon and night. You can just hear it, behind the barking dogs, behind the wind, echoing in the valley.  

Kharkov village has been the frontier of so much history, Borders of empires have crashed against the place. We came, imagining we would be able to feel those momentous shifts. But talking to Vahadukht, those changes feel small. Just scratches on ancient stones.

We ask her, “What advice do you have for Armenia?”

“Let there be peace,” she says, “Let people be healthy and everything will be good. The most important thing is peace. That’s what I wish for. What else is there?

“I’ve lived, my life has not been bad. I’ve had five good children. I’ve had grandchildren. I had a good husband. I lost a good husband. What more could I ask for?”

CREDITS

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

We hope you enjoyed our second season.

It was made possible with generous support from the H. Hovnanian Family Foundation, the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation and the Hrant Dink Foundation. And by the supporters of our crowdfunding campaign: Thanks so much backing us - we couldn’t have made this season without you. A special thank you to Harout Manougian.

Thank you Dana Ballout and Alex Atack for your editorial support and helping shape this season.

Thanks to the Media Initiatives Center for the use of their recording space. 

We’re grateful to Maria Chekhanovich Nerssesian for her wonderful photography. 

And we’re always grateful to Areg Maghakian for his support, encouragement and humor.  

To help us keep making the show, you can donate at CountryOfDust.com, you can also help by telling your friends and family about the podcast. 

Thank you so much for listening. Minch handipum.