The interview with actor Razmik Aroyan took four hours. He was talking
a lot because he had not talked for eight years. He talks about his sad
story for the first time and each episode of that story is painful. The
actor was born in Tehran. During his childhood, when one of the kids
from the yard had beaten him during a fight, he had covered up in a
corner and persuaded himself that he would go to his homeland and
nobody would treat him like that there. It was more miserable in the
homeland: “Here they leave the beaten man on the ground. Nobody lend
out a lending hand. My destiny did not lead me the right way.” Who
could imagine that the actor from the film “The Mulberry Tree”, the big
actor named Razmik would be sitting alone, crying in a dark and humid
room in a convalescence home and tell the story which seems absurd
nowadays.
It all started when….
Razmik Aroyan had invited Tigran Keosayan to be filmed in the film
entitled “Mkhitar the Commander-in-chief of the Armenian Army.”
Obviously Kamo, the assistant director, was the one involved in
administrative work. Years after the film had been completed, in 1976
R. Aroyan meets Kamo in Yerevan. Kamo offers Razmik a ride home. He
finds out where Razmik lives and the next day he comes to Razmik’s
house with two bottles of vodka under his arm. Razmik was living alone.
He had divorced from his wife and his wife kept on telling her children
to stay away from their father. Kamo asks Razmik to let him stay at his
house that night and Razmik does not object. In the evening, Kamo,
drinks a lot and lies down on Razmik’s bed. “He literally got naked”,
says Razmik, “I thought that he was asleep. I covered him with a
blanket a couple of times. I thought that he was drunk and had lost
consciousness. He had purposely gotten naked, but I had no idea of what
was going on. But when I did, I immediately kicked him out of my house.
It was a very hard night for me. I could not sleep and I spent the
night just sitting. I don’t accept those kinds of men, they disgust me.
The night passed and the next morning I see him again. This time he
literally talked openly using the persuasions that homosexuals use: “At
least one time, at least let me do it in another way, something else…”
I am ashamed to say how pathetic those words sounded to me. It was very
disgusting. When I saw that he did not get the picture, I quickly
grabbed a knife with which one can slaughter a cow and stabbed him with
my eyes closed. He fell to the floor. I picked him up and he stood. I
got happy and then I kicked him out again. He ran out all bloody. I
thought that maybe the knife had gone into his side, but the only part
hurt was his arm. I went outside and saw that there was an ambulance
parked. I did not understand what was going on. I had a good friend of
mine living in the district, so I went to his house to talk to him and
try to understand what had happened. I am not a murderer. I could not
picture what had happened. I wasn’t able to share the story with my
friends, so I just went home. One hour later, a group of gunned men
appeared at my doorstep. They said that I had killed someone and that I
was arrested. I felt very bad. They calmed me down by saying that he
hadn’t died. I would have liked for him to be dead but then I found out
that he had only injured his arm. They sentenced me to six years in
jail for attacking him and the 109 major injuries on the body. The
judge at the court was a woman and I was treating her as if she was my
mom. She felt really bad about what had happened and I felt ashamed of
telling her the details. I could not defend myself, I was ashamed. I
just told them to read about it in the statement and not ask me.”
In 1984, Razmik went to jail in the Sovetashen district. His mother
used to visit and he had no news about his wife and children. He says
that everyone at the jailhouse treated him with respect and that the
brutality at jail is nothing compared to the streets. “In jail,
everyone lives knowing the truth for himself and there is no brutality.
Brutality is outside. The people in jail are honest people. I got
heartfelt there again (he wipes his tears-L.S.)”. Through the efforts
of Hrachya Ghaplanyan, Razmik was bailed. In spite of getting freed
from jail, they sent him to work in the city of Angerosujensk in
Siberia making it seem like he was out of jail. That city is the
highest city up in the north of Siberia. For three continuous months,
they took him with the Stolipinyan wagons. Razmik did not know where he
was going. Being the physically strong man that he is, they gave Razmik
the hardest work. He worked as a mine digger for six months. He got
sick and his temperature went up to 40 degrees Celsius. So, they took
him to the hospital and he stayed in bed for a month and a half. The
doctor liked the Armenians there and he did not reject Razmik’s request
for easier work. The doctor presented a document stating that Razmik’s
health was in danger and that he could not do heavy duty work. He
worked as a superintendent for six months, but when he left he owed 18
rubles to the government. He had no money to return to Armenia. After
searching long and hard, he finally encountered a store called
“Koksos”. His fellow compatriot working at the store refused to lend
him money. Then, Razmik found a shoe factory and the owner was
Armenian. He asked for a job: “He told me that I know nothing about
shoes and that he can not give me a job. I told him to let me work as a
janitor and he said that he could not fire the woman already working
there. He finally found something I could do. The material which I was
working with was poisonous. Thank God I did not get sick with
tuberculosis.” Razmik worked for one month and got enough money to come
back to Armenia.
“I ring my doorbell,” says the actor, “and I see some stranger opening
the door. I then found out that my ex-wife had sold the house, property
and moved to Germany with my children. During the years of
imprisonment, my mother had come to ask me what she should do with the
house. I had told her to leave it for the children. Since my mother had
died, they had transferred the house to the government. That’s how it
had happened….. During imprisonment, I lost my family. My father,
mother, two brothers and sister all died young. Maybe that’s just in
our genes. Sometimes as a joke I say to myself that I am the next one.
I did not know where to go. I spent one or two nights at my friends’
house and as soon as I realized that they were feeling kind of
stressed, I moved out. Again, I was left with no home. Many times
strangers were inviting me to their homes and telling the children:
“See, it is the man from the “Mulberry Tree” film”. Well, I could not
stay there for more than two days, could I? I was all alone with no
relatives. I only had friends by my side. From 1993-1994, I lived in
the Zeytun hostel for a while thanks to a friend of mine. Then the
hostel demanded that I pay 60 dollars rent, but I did not have that
much. So, I moved out. Once again, I was left out in the middle of
nowhere. I was wandering the streets with my bag of clothes. I was
spending the nights hungry and thirsty. I kept thinking to myself that
this was the end. One day, I went to Yervand Ghazanchyan and I asked
him to give me a job so I could work, rent a home and live. He told me
that there were 40 musicians in the orchestra and that he had fired all
of them in order to keep the theatre. I told him to give me a job as an
actor, the role of a “fireman”. He said that he had four “firemen” and
that he had fired two of them. With no alternative, I went to the
Sundukyan theatre, even though I did not want to go there because I
knew Vahe Shahverdyan pretty well. He is a Flober (low-class), it is a
pity to use the name Vahe. He did not like the look on my face and the
rumors spreading around. I went in to his office and saw him lying on
the chair as if he was the owner of the theatre. He asked me why I had
come and I told him that I had returned to my family. He responded that
he was busy with firing people. I said to him ‘Hey you Flober
(low-class), since when did you become Vahe?’ Next thing I heard were a
couple of rings and then saw some superintendents at the door. As they
took me out, I heard Vahe telling them to never let me in the theatre
again. If the owner was Atchemyan or Ghaplanyan, things would not go
that way. I started to live the life of a homeless. I was sleeping on
the bench at the Vernisazh. The passer-bys already knew that I was
sleeping there. I lived on the Vernisazh bench for three months. A
woman who used to go by there every morning on the way to work, left a
bag for me one morning and left. The bag was full of fruit and other
food. The next day I got a call from the social security department.
She gave me a piece of paper. It was a document with which I could go
and get a check-up at the Zeytun hospital. I went to the hospital and
got checked-up on. It turned out that I had serious health
problems-inflammation of nerves, frostbite, back pains, etc. I was in a
terrible situation. They prepared everything and sent me to the
convalescence home in the fourth village. I thought to myself: How
could I go to a convalescence home at the age of 53, and if I go how
will I stand the winter cold? It was December. Why go anyway? I had
lived outside for one year and I could not take it any longer.”
Razmik Aroyan lives with an old man in a room at the convalescence
home. He gives speech classes near the convalescence home. Razmik says:
“I have a lot to say. If I were an artist, then I would turn these
walls into canvases. If only someone gave me a role to play, I would
jump for joy and play it like I have never played it before.” Everyone
at the convalescence home loves Razmik. Every day the elders ask him to
recite poems or play on the piano. He says that he sings for the
elderly with pleasure, recites, but it is very hard for him to be with
the elders because he does not feel that old. He wants to be with
people his age. According to Razmik, “Every day someone dies here and
that is very hard on us. I witness how they bury someone every day and
keep thinking that I am next. Before seeing a funeral always made me
heartfelt. Now I see that every day. I don’t know why my life turned
out this way.” Svetlana, the housewife of the convalescence home, is
amazed that nobody visits this talented man, not even his friends. She
thinks that he is a very good man. A couple of days ago, they had
invited him to a restaurant in honor of the day for elders. They had
asked him to recite. Everyone present was crying, even the
administration. According to Svetlana, Razmik was very depressed and
dispirited in the beginning, but now he is much better. “He goes out
often and tours the city. You know what, all this man needs to do is
act. If someone invites him to act, he will really feel like a man. His
purpose in life is to be involved in art,” says Svetlana.