I like it here, I like a lot here, almost everything, but I don’t love anything here, and I don’t like a lot at home, but I love it.
- Evgeny Grishkovets
Unexplainable inner love
It’s been 1995. The dark and cold (literally) period for our country. We were exhausted by a strong earthquake in Spitak, the collapse of the Soviet Union, and the war with Azerbaijan.
I’ve been two years, and my sister 6 months old, when my family decided that we need to leave the country, to search for a better life.
I remember nothing about that moving, obviously, but I remember that in 1997, after two years, we came for a vacation, for one month. I was already 4 years old, an active kid who annoyed everyone with many questions. That trip was a discovery of my motherland for me.
My first amazement was, that everyone speaks Armenian, wherever you go, whoever you meet` speaks Armenian. I met my grandparents and my relatives for the first time at my conscious age. Discovery one after another, and when the time to return came, I asked my mom, — “If our country is this beautiful, full of lights, why do we have to leave it?”. Yes, 4 years old me was very impressed with Yerevan nights, which were full of beautiful lights.
For the next 8 years, we have never been to Armenia.
Homecoming
We were moving a lot—city after city, school after school. And after 10 years of constant moving, we decided to return and continue our life here. Again new school, new friends, “new” city, but this time our city. It was hard at first, I had to learn to read and write in our language, gain new friends, and integrate into society, with my “Russian accent”. But I did it.
I have successfully graduated the school, served in the army, and graduated the university.
At the age of 22, after graduating the university, I decided to visit my father in Russia and spend a couple of months with him ( ah yes, he still lives there, we see each other a few months a year, it’s a curse of my generation ). It took me 4 months to understand that I want to return. Life in Russia was so different from what I used to live in, I hated it. I returned home again.
During writing this, I am asking myself, why I was trying to escape the country again and again. :D
Discovery
During the pandemic, in 2020, I got a job at a German startup, which required me to relocate. You can read the details in my other article.
It wasn’t a good idea to move during the pandemic. Rainy and dark December, closed cafes and restaurants, nowhere to go, nothing to do, just a foreign country, where you are alone. Legal alien.
I moved with the idea in my mind that this is temporary. 3 years was the deadline I set for myself.
When the strict rules of pandemics got removed, I started to travel a lot. I loved traveling even before moving, and now, when it became easier, life couldn’t be better.
I was enjoying life in Germany, with a longing for Armenia.
I was visiting Armenia often, every 3–4 months, but it wasn’t enough to fill the emptiness. I was missing my family, friends, and life here a lot.
I gained a lot of friends and amazing colleagues in Germany. I wish I can meet them often.
I liked how law-abiding Germans are. Their amazing public transport, their medicine ( daily visits to the doctor is a different story :D ), their ability to have a law for every aspect of their citizen's life, and when I say “every aspect” I mean it. Their big parks, clean streets ( they really wash the streets with foam ), bike routes, and beer gardens :). Looks ideal from the side, isn’t it? You, as a citizen, are protected in Germany, from your employer, from any kind of health problems, your insurance will cover everything.
One day I asked myself, are all these material things combined can be enough for an exchange of living away from your motherland, family, and friends? Is it the life that I dreamed of? The answer was obvious to me.
So what is that, love to the motherland or Ulysses Syndrom?
They have all these things, but they miss one thing, we say “շունչ չկա մեջները”, which means “there is no life in there, there is no spirit”. I wish one day we can do a lot of things, like Germany, without losing the spirit.
After spending 18 months in Germany, I returned to my lovely country, forever. I will never leave you again, my poor little Armenia.
I liked a lot in Germany, almost everything, but I don’t love anything there, and I don’t like a lot in Armenia, but I love it.
- Sergey Karakhanyan
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