Sevgul Uludag
Their energy is so fantastic, so open and refreshing that it takes some time for me to realize this… Perhaps the root of all this is the suffering they have gone through because sometimes going deep down in pain creates wisdom and this wisdom is something you can draw from…
Perhaps the root of all this is the skills they have developed to survive throughout the ages and perhaps, they know more, the value of being alive than others around us… Perhaps this gentle form of energy comes from their being a minority – and through many instances and forms of discrimination, they have learnt to develop their skills of survival… And perhaps this makes them quite different from some of the Armenians you would meet from the diaspora…
But whatever the root of this positive energy is, it is definitely refreshing and I feel pity that I had not had the chance to try to understand them much before… I had known a few Armenian Cypriots and did some interviews with Vartan Malyan and Madam Shirin but when I meet Nouritsa Nadjarian, and Manuk Mangalciyan, it is quite a different story… Nouritsa is the mother of a friend, Puzant (Jean) and she is an amazing woman… For the first time, I start feeling what they must have all gone through… Even though the `Cyprus conflict` was supposed to be between Turkish Cypriots and Greek Cypriots, they too, have suffered and had to pay a dear price to be able to survive on this island. We sit in the garden of Mrs. Nouritsa, her husband Vahan Nadjarian under the carob trees. I have come here together with my friend Murat Kanatli because Murat knows Mrs. Nouritsa and she hugs him and says caring words to him. But the first initial shock for me is her garden…
Imagine in the middle of Acropolis such a garden, below the level of the road that when you step down, you are rendered breathless! No, it is not a garden that is very elaborate. It is simple and natural but it is this caring and refreshing energy that you feel that renders you breathless! `Isn’t there the flower of henna here Mrs. Nouritsa?` `No… But there is another tree that is similar to it – it’s called the Pakistani Nights… At night time, it has such a beautiful smell!` `I know that smell! My sister has that tree…But I wish there was a tree of henna here, it would suit this garden so well…` This is a typical, old Cypriot garden – all the things I used to see as a child are here – old tins used for flowers, bottles turned upside down and lined up to show the conteur of the flower beds… We sit around a round table under the carob trees and as Nouritsa talks, hours pass by – the garden is so magical that we don’t realize how many hours have passed by and that evening has come down gently… Once upon a time, when Armenians came to Cyprus back in the 1920s, they had settled in areas where Turkish Cypriots lived. The reason? They could only speak Turkish and this begun the relationships of Turkish Cypriots with the Armenian Cypriots. The children would play together in Nicosia at the Victoria Street or at the Keushkluchiftlik area or in Kumsal – the different Turkish mahalles of Nicosia…Men would work in the Buyuk Khan or in Arasta or Asmaalti, watchmakers, makers of pastirma, yogurt or goldsmiths… Skilled labor of those times… My friend Puzant whom we call Jean, who is 53 years old now, grew up in one of the streets of Keushkluchiftlik, in a street called Gunduz Tezel Sokagi… Their house was number 18. Puzant, or Jean, as we call him, would walk to school in the yard of the Armenian Church in the Victoria Street, together with his brother Levon, who was three years older than him…
Gunduz Tezel Street was mixed – Jean says, `Maybe 80 per cent were Armenians, the rest Turkish Cypriots. There was also a baker at the end of the street who was a Greek Cypriot…` It was the time of Christmass Nuritza remembers when the fighting between Turkish Cypriots and Greek Cypriots began… And it was at that time that the close family of the Greek Cypriot baker Kurtumbellis was killed by some Turkish Cypriot soldiers. `I heard the shots` Nouritsa says, `and felt afraid! We left soon afterwards, to go to Victoria Street, to where my auntie lived. From there I took my daughter and went to the Armenian church… And then my husband and my two sons came and after some time, we went to Melkonian to stay and work…` Vahan was a very skilled turner (dornadoros) so he found work immediately and Nouritsa was working in the hospital of Melkonian, taking care of the sick and the elderly… Puzant says `Only after I began to live among the Greek Cypriots that I realized, there are other languages in the world! I was nine years old then, back in 1963… Until then, at home, I would speak Turkish with my grandmother Lusia because she only spoke Turkish, she could not speak Armenian. She learnt the Armenian after we began going to school and learning Armenian at school. She would learn it from her angoni! At home we would speak Armenian with my mother and father… If we went to the Greek Cypriot bakkalis Yiannis near the school, unless we told him `Ena gulluri`, he would not give us anything, we knew. So we would say `Ena gulluri..` But only after coming here, I realized that there were also other languages. And at school, then, we started learning Greek and English…` With Nuritza, we speak Turkish – it is such well-spoken Turkish with very old idioms she uses that, I am amazed – it is an Anatolian Turkish she uses. And later, with Manuk Mangalciyan, I would feel this Anatolian Turkish, stronger. Manuk Mangalciyan has so many stories of friendship with Turkish Cypriots, again, time just flies in a magical way and then I realize, I have to rush to work!
Perhaps the root of all this is the skills they have developed to survive throughout the ages and perhaps, they know more, the value of being alive than others around us… Perhaps this gentle form of energy comes from their being a minority – and through many instances and forms of discrimination, they have learnt to develop their skills of survival… And perhaps this makes them quite different from some of the Armenians you would meet from the diaspora…
But whatever the root of this positive energy is, it is definitely refreshing and I feel pity that I had not had the chance to try to understand them much before… I had known a few Armenian Cypriots and did some interviews with Vartan Malyan and Madam Shirin but when I meet Nouritsa Nadjarian, and Manuk Mangalciyan, it is quite a different story… Nouritsa is the mother of a friend, Puzant (Jean) and she is an amazing woman… For the first time, I start feeling what they must have all gone through… Even though the `Cyprus conflict` was supposed to be between Turkish Cypriots and Greek Cypriots, they too, have suffered and had to pay a dear price to be able to survive on this island. We sit in the garden of Mrs. Nouritsa, her husband Vahan Nadjarian under the carob trees. I have come here together with my friend Murat Kanatli because Murat knows Mrs. Nouritsa and she hugs him and says caring words to him. But the first initial shock for me is her garden…
Imagine in the middle of Acropolis such a garden, below the level of the road that when you step down, you are rendered breathless! No, it is not a garden that is very elaborate. It is simple and natural but it is this caring and refreshing energy that you feel that renders you breathless! `Isn’t there the flower of henna here Mrs. Nouritsa?` `No… But there is another tree that is similar to it – it’s called the Pakistani Nights… At night time, it has such a beautiful smell!` `I know that smell! My sister has that tree…But I wish there was a tree of henna here, it would suit this garden so well…` This is a typical, old Cypriot garden – all the things I used to see as a child are here – old tins used for flowers, bottles turned upside down and lined up to show the conteur of the flower beds… We sit around a round table under the carob trees and as Nouritsa talks, hours pass by – the garden is so magical that we don’t realize how many hours have passed by and that evening has come down gently… Once upon a time, when Armenians came to Cyprus back in the 1920s, they had settled in areas where Turkish Cypriots lived. The reason? They could only speak Turkish and this begun the relationships of Turkish Cypriots with the Armenian Cypriots. The children would play together in Nicosia at the Victoria Street or at the Keushkluchiftlik area or in Kumsal – the different Turkish mahalles of Nicosia…Men would work in the Buyuk Khan or in Arasta or Asmaalti, watchmakers, makers of pastirma, yogurt or goldsmiths… Skilled labor of those times… My friend Puzant whom we call Jean, who is 53 years old now, grew up in one of the streets of Keushkluchiftlik, in a street called Gunduz Tezel Sokagi… Their house was number 18. Puzant, or Jean, as we call him, would walk to school in the yard of the Armenian Church in the Victoria Street, together with his brother Levon, who was three years older than him…
Gunduz Tezel Street was mixed – Jean says, `Maybe 80 per cent were Armenians, the rest Turkish Cypriots. There was also a baker at the end of the street who was a Greek Cypriot…` It was the time of Christmass Nuritza remembers when the fighting between Turkish Cypriots and Greek Cypriots began… And it was at that time that the close family of the Greek Cypriot baker Kurtumbellis was killed by some Turkish Cypriot soldiers. `I heard the shots` Nouritsa says, `and felt afraid! We left soon afterwards, to go to Victoria Street, to where my auntie lived. From there I took my daughter and went to the Armenian church… And then my husband and my two sons came and after some time, we went to Melkonian to stay and work…` Vahan was a very skilled turner (dornadoros) so he found work immediately and Nouritsa was working in the hospital of Melkonian, taking care of the sick and the elderly… Puzant says `Only after I began to live among the Greek Cypriots that I realized, there are other languages in the world! I was nine years old then, back in 1963… Until then, at home, I would speak Turkish with my grandmother Lusia because she only spoke Turkish, she could not speak Armenian. She learnt the Armenian after we began going to school and learning Armenian at school. She would learn it from her angoni! At home we would speak Armenian with my mother and father… If we went to the Greek Cypriot bakkalis Yiannis near the school, unless we told him `Ena gulluri`, he would not give us anything, we knew. So we would say `Ena gulluri..` But only after coming here, I realized that there were also other languages. And at school, then, we started learning Greek and English…` With Nuritza, we speak Turkish – it is such well-spoken Turkish with very old idioms she uses that, I am amazed – it is an Anatolian Turkish she uses. And later, with Manuk Mangalciyan, I would feel this Anatolian Turkish, stronger. Manuk Mangalciyan has so many stories of friendship with Turkish Cypriots, again, time just flies in a magical way and then I realize, I have to rush to work!
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