The literal environment of Yerevan would be very boring without Chilo. He was both an interpreter and a writer, but his friends say he liked to be an interpreter more. The appearance of Chilo was very specific and we can’t say these kinds of things about him.
“This is a case when poesy is a part of a person. In order to understand who Chilo is first of all you have to see him, and then read his poems. You can’t understand who he is only by reading his poems. He just lived his life, and this life seemed to be like the life of a hobo. He often drank and came to the university drunk. He lived at a dormitory and liked to sleep for nights everywhere. He was very special. But when he wasn’t drunk he was very serious and differed from the drunk Chilo much. And this life was full of original and specific ideas and actions”, -says his friend David Hovhannes.
David Hovhannes doesn’t like the appearance of Chilo like a legend: “ One one hand, the legend is a good thing, but on the other hand it is dangerous, it creates a new artificial appearance instead of the real one. And there were people who rejected Chilo before, but now speak about him like a legend. Concerning these kinds of people Chilo had a good sentence: “Don’t believe that I can ever be with you””.
“When I entered the university Chilo was a third year student, and his appearance was already formed: he was always drunk, unshaven and always in the company of his girlfriend Jasmine”, -says writer Hovhannes Grigoryan. Jasmine was the daughter of “Soviet Armenia” newspaper chief editor Khachik Hovakimyan, but she couldn’t stand being with him. All we remember them together, we remember how Jasmine took care of Chilo, how she made clothes for him.
Writer Hovhannes Grigoryan likes his first literature prize very much, because he has memories about this prize and Chilo: “When I was in my first year the writers’ union granted me a price of fifty rubles. I was ashamed to go and take the money, and I didn’t go there for a long time. Chilo was interested in that money more because this was extra money to buy drinks. One day we were out of money and he told me that it was time to take that money. Hamo Sahyan was the person responsible for giving prizes. I don’t know how but he had been informed that Hamo Sahyan was with the education minister then. We went there. I was ashamed to go in, and I stayed near the door to listen to them speaking. Chilo entered the room and said that he was Hovhannes Grigoryan and wanted to receive his prize. At that time Hamo Sahyan was having brandy with the minister of education. Hamo asked him how he could take the prize. Chilo insisted that he was Hovhannes and said that he could also show his passport. They laughed, because Chilo was known well due to his appearance. Hamo gave him fifty rubles from his pocket and they treated him with brandy. But as I didn’t hope that he would give me any money I told him that we would go to drink for ten rubles, and we would use the rest of the money to buy clothes for him. We did just that. We bought everything for him, even a toothbrush. When he cleaned his teeth we were envious of his teeth, because we always cleaned our teeth and didn’t reach the result as Chilo reached by cleaning his teeth only once. Then he shaved, dressed and was so nice-looking, you can’t even imagine, he was a handsome man. But in a couple of days Chilo appeared like a bum again and it turned out that Jasmine was the reason for this. She had told him: “There are a lot of guys in Yerevan that are dressed well, look what you have done with you, you have even sprayed scent on you. I don’t like you in this appearance, I like the other Chilo”. And Jasmine didn’t convince Chilo to return to his old appearance”.
There is another story about Chilo. He had problems with publishing poems and once he wanted to publish “Jesus Christ” oratory in “Soviet Armenia” newspaper. David Hovhannes was surprised to learn the intention of Chilo and said: “How can you publish “Jesus Christ” in this newspaper?”. It was 1969 then. After this Chilo said: “I will do that, look, I will take Jesus Christ out of everywhere and will publish the pictures of Lenin, and everyone will respect me”. And he did so. Concerning this David Hovhannes says: “And he did what was characteristic for the Soviet Union, he replaced all the names with Lenin, he even took out a whole part and replaced it with a story about the funerals of Lenin. And this article was published, because those times if someone wanted to publish any article concerning Lenin, they did it without reading. The chief editor thought the article was about Lenin and signed it and sent it to someone else there to send to the publishing place, the other person saw the signature of the editor and thought that there was no need to read one more time, because it was about Lenin. Then this person sent the article to someone else to publish, this person didn’t read either, because he saw the signatures and thought that there was no need to read, because the article was about Lenin. And the article was published”. But anyway people read that article and understood that it wasn’t about Lenin, because Lenin would never say “Love each other”. D. Hovhannes says that when people saw him they told him that Chilo was a person that had written something wrong about Lenin, because if some people lost their jobs because of an article, this meant that it was against Lenin. Chilo was a revolution-oriented person, but he was not involved in politics. “His poetry was original and concerned the street life. Chilo is more a poet of today, than a poet of yesterday. He is a poet of the future too”, – said David Hovhannes.
Chilo spent his childhood in an orphanage, then a family adopted him, but later he was left alone. He lived his life in the streets, cafes. His poetry was about his life in streets and the cafes. He died thirty years ago and this was a tragedy for a lot of people. They started the funerals just from the place of the tragedy: from “Aragast cafe”. “I don’t remember any funerals where there were so many young people”, -says H. Grigoryan. The money for funerals had been collected by fundraisers. His cemetery is located in the graveyard of Sovetashen. Last year Hovhannes Grigoryan visited the graveyard of his friends, but he didn’t find the Chilo’s grave (Slavik Alexani Chiloyan 1940-1975). David Hovhannes says: “I am afraid that Chilo’s grave may be lost in the numerous cemeteries. People must think about this”. “Arevik” publishing house has published the poems of Chilo and they are planning to publish his poems one more time. The first publication that was published in 1992 was called “We have been human”. The next publication will be called “We don’t speak about how much we know”. According to organizers Chilo was going to publish this book, but he didn’t because he couldn’t.
A memory board about Chilo will be located in the place of the tragedy not far from “Aragast” café. This board will remind people about the appearance of Chilo and about his creations.