I remember

by Rubina Peroomian

Published: Saturday November 22, 2008 in Earthquake 20 Years On

The central square in Leninakan (Gyumri) in December 1988.. Photolure.

Los Angeles - The Spitak or Leninakan earthquake is not listed among "The Largest Earthquakes in the World since 1900." The earthquake in Armenia measured 6.9 on the Richter scale, nowhere near the magnitude 8.5 and above earthquakes that make that list. It wasn't the largest, but for us Armenians it was the greatest calamity since the Genocide of 1915.

There have been earthquakes of similar magnitude with different ranges of destruction, with different numbers of fatalities both before and after the earthquake in Armenia. They are all forgotten and are only names and numbers in statistical studies today. But we remember. Every year on the seventh day of December we look back and think of what happened. We grieve over our losses just like we do on the 24th day of every April.

One can callously attribute this phenomenon to romanticism, too much sentimentality; that's how Armenians are. But, have you thought deeply as to why the past 20 years were not enough to consign it to the pages of history? We have not yet recovered from its devastating effects just as we have not recovered from and still carry in our hearts and soul the effects of the Genocide.

The traces of the cataclysm are still evident in Gyumri (Leninakan), Spitak, and the surrounding villages. A number of the 500,000 homeless still continue to live in boxes and discarded shells of oil tankers, ironically referred to as "domiks" (Russian for houses with the Armenian diminutive ending). These makeshift houses, next to the still-not-cleared-away rubble since the earthquake, crowd the back streets and are hidden from the sight of ordinary tourists. There are still survivors waiting for prostheses to replace their amputated limbs.

We have not forgotten, but helping to achieve full recovery from this disaster and assisting its survivors have sunken to the bottom of our priority list as a nation.

Peter Jennings reports

I remember. I clearly remember that day - that night, I should say, because we were alerted minutes after it happened: it was after midnight here in Los Angeles. The next day, the earthquake and its devastation made the national news.

The event had taken on a special importance, not because a small nation in a remote Soviet republic was suffering a natural catastrophe, but because Mikhail Gorbachev, the Soviet president, the guest, for the first time ever, of the U.S. government, had to cut short his visit in order to make a stop at the site of the earthquake, to personally oversee the relief efforts. I remember Peter Jennings' comprehensive report on ABC News that evening. We watched and recorded it and watched it again and again with tears, and with anger and frustration. Why did these Soviet-built houses crumble like cardboard? Who were the accomplices stealing the cement and the reinforcing steel, making these buildings - already underdesigned and unfit for an earthquake zone - weaker and so vulnerable?

I remember the 40 days of mourning and how fast the community was mobilized around various organizations to send help, human resources, physicians and psychiatrists, warm clothes, blankets, cans of food, and medicine. The Armenian Relief Society was one of the organizers of relief work and at the forefront of rebuilding efforts. My husband Neshan was in charge of the reconstruction project and traveled four times to Armenia during the next year to oversee the rebuilding of five villages. He always returned saddened and burdened with sights of despair and misery still lingering, and frustrated with the inefficiency of the governmental agencies getting in the way instead of facilitating the efforts of reconstruction.

A momentous year

The year 1988 was a year of both dread and excitement for Armenians all over the world. For the first time the diaspora Armenian was learning about the ecological disaster rampant in Armenia affecting the nature, the water, the air, the soil, and leaving its deadly marks on the health of the population.
The year began with the Sumgait massacres, and the ghastly sights of the tortured survivors fleeing from Azerbaijan and their horrible stories filled the Armenian media.

The Karabakh issue had erupted, and perhaps for the first time the diasporan Armenian was learning about the extent and severity of 70 years of suffering, discrimination, and persecution of Karabakh Armenians under the Azerbaijani yoke.

And now the earthquake. God had indeed forgotten the Armenian people. The Soviet leaders thought that this disaster would make Armenians forget about the Karabakh and environmental issues, at least for a while, and they were flabbergasted to hear an old man, an earthquake survivor, in the crowd surrounding Mr. Gorbachev in Leninakan: "And what are you doing about the Karabakh issue?" No! Armenians could not forget. And indeed calls pressing for international awareness intertwined with the calls for help to revive the disaster-stricken people in that forgotten corner of the world.

The issues were related

The Genocide, the Karabakh issue, and the earthquake, three events totally unrelated and incomparable to the simple eye, began to appear in full magnitude together in analytic articles, in artistic literature, in calls to alert the nation, in political rallies demanding the rights of the Armenian people.

I remember my own words as a commentator on the Glendale-based Armenian Horizon TV. For weeks in a row, I talked about the parallels of the Azerbaijani treatment of Armenians with that in the Ottoman Empire, about the ongoing struggle to reunite Karabakh with Armenia, and about the fact that the earthquake had drawn the diaspora closer to Armenia as an ally in its political aspirations and as an unreserved and unyielding partner in grief and in healing and rebuilding.

I remember protesting against the delays and the indifference of government officials in charge of the relief work and reconstruction. I could not believe the inefficacy. I could not believe the decision to dispatch hundreds of orphans to other Soviet republics. I praised Armenian mothers rallying against this decision in Yerevan. We had lost so many young orphans to the Turkification policy after the Genocide. We could not afford to sacrifice our children's identity and our future to the comfortable life the Russian, Ukrainian, Tajik, or Kirkiz homes would promise.