My dede (grandpa) Dikran hated being called an akhpar. The word comes from the Western Armenian colloquial word for yeghpayr (brother), akhpar, and was used to demean the repatriates from the Middle East.
My family knew little about Dikran’s repatriation, but we knew enough: where they repatriated from, around what year, and to what city.
While in Armenia this year, I made it a goal to find a record of my paternal sides repatriation, and retrace their steps of migration. It was an arduous process that involved relying on family oral history, sifting through records at the National Archives of Armenia, and visiting the places they migrated to.
Since I was about 18 I’ve been obsessed with obtaining and preserving family documents, and I realize this obsession isn’t shared with many people – and this is understandable. As mentioned it’s an arduous process, and most of the time you fall short of finding what they want due to the lack of preservation – be it through written or oral history.
The lack of documentation is precisely why I’ve been a khent (insane, mad, foolish) about my family’s past.
To whoever is reading this: I hope this piece can inspire you to find and preserve your family’s history as well. Again, whether it be through oral or written history.
The first step to understand my family’s story was to ask questions and see what oral history was passed down. In an oral history interview I did with my dad, he said that his grandfather Sarkis repatriated with his family from Beirut to Vanadzor in 1947. He also mentioned that his dad Dikran said that they lived in the Lager district of Vanadzor, where many of the repatriates were given homes or apartments.
So with these names, dates and locations and I went to the National Archives of Armenia.
After work on July 20, I headed to the National Archives located on 5, 2 Hrachya Kochar Street. This was my first time at the archives so I was naturally confused about the process. I told the security guard what I was looking for and he directed me to the machine that would give me a ticket to hold my place in line.
The citizen requests desk is open on the weekdays starting from 2 p.m., and I got there about 30 minutes early so I waited until the doors opened.
My ticket was called so I approached the window designated to my number. I told the clerk I was looking for repatriation records of Armenians who came from Lebanon in 1947. The clerk handed me a paper and told me to write down my request and sign at the bottom of the paper.
After I gave the application to the clerks she told me to go to the reading room on the second floor to show them my request.
The reading room was nearly empty – only filled with what looked like researchers or students, or they could have been another fool willing to spend hours sifting through records hoping to find something they weren’t even sure existed.
“Who was the head of the household at the time?” one of the clerks asked.
“My great grandpa Sarkis. His last name was formerly Baylayan but was changed to Balayan,” I said.
The clerk went to look for records in the other room while I waited. The process was moving much faster than I expected given the levels of bureaucracy normally dealt with in any government building. They brought back a name from a list: Sarkis Balayan, son of Hakob.
“This could be him but I’m not certain,” I said.
“Ok. If you’d still like to look at the list it was from, you can submit a request and come in tomorrow at 10 a.m.,” the worker said.
Other than the one list where this man was found, there were 10 other books of repatriates from Lebanon and Syria – I had to submit those two requests separately. Since they had already given me a name from that first list, I first submitted my request for that one.
I went in the next day, but had no luck. The person on the list was not my great grandfather. I knew this because the names of his family members did not match ours. They told me I cannot access those 10 books the same day, so I would have to come back on Monday.
On Monday July 24, I went in to find my great grandfather again. My doubt rose on the way to the archives. What if I do not find what I’ve been obsessing over? I had to be comfortable in the fact that I could very well not find any documents, and I would look more like a խենթ as a result.
I entered the reading room and waited for bit for them to bring the books, and when they did I was met with disappointment yet again.
On the front of the books were written Iran, America, Palestine, China, but not Lebanon or Syria. They had filed the books incorrectly and received the wrong lists as a result.
Frustrated, I told the clerk what was wrong and she went to recheck the lists.
“I’m sorry but it seems like we had the lists mixed up, and to look at the correct ones you are going have to resubmit your request and come back tomorrow,” the worker said.
“I’m sorry but this won’t be possible. It’s just because I have work and my time here is limited so I’m not sure when I’ll be able to come back,” I said. I could have tried to come back the next day, but I was already sick of the little bureaucracy I had encountered and was not leaving the building until I sifted through the right records.
“Let me see what I can do,” she said.
About 15 minutes later she brought back a stack of 10 books – hundreds of pages of repatriates from Lebanon and Syria.
As daunting as it seemed, in reality I was just going to be flipping through pages – a task not nearly as daunting as leaving one’s life in their respective country and repatriating to Armenia. So I got to “work.”
Luckily, many of the books were in alphabetical order by last name. So I was looking for “Balayan” and “Beirut” under where the repatriates immigrated from.
I am flipping through the third book of the pile when I see a man by the name of Balyan, Sarkis, son of Toros. Except the last name was spelled in the Western Armenian phonetic variation of “B” (Պ instead of Բ). Then I carefully scanned the names of his family members, and I just about started to cry.
I found my great grandfather Sarkis and his family. I will write the translations and Western Armenian transliterations below.
| Members of the Family (last name, name, father’s name) | Relation to Head of Household | Age | Workplace/Profession |
| Balyan Sarkis, Toros | – | 50 | Chef |
| Siranush, Vartan | Wife | 47 | Homemaker |
| Azaduhi, Sarkis | Daughter | 19 | “” |
| Dikran, “” | Son | 10 | student (?) |
| Astghig, “” | Daughter | 2 | |
| Hagop, Toros | Brother | 33 | Guard |
3. Place of departure: Beirut
4. New place of Residence: Allahverdi
6. Filled out: August 11, 1947
There are a few discoveries that this document brought forward. First, it was not clear to my family when Sarkis was born. However, now that we have his age and date of which this document was filled out, we know that he was born in 1897. Second, we did not know that Sarkis had a younger brother, let alone siblings. So this can mean we have relatives somewhere we do not know about. Finally, the initial place of residence after repatriation was thought to be Lager, Vanadzor, but in reality it was Allahverdi, now spelled Alaverdi – which is in the northern most part of the Lori province.
Now that I know where and when my family repatriated, it was time to visit these places.