“I sing for them, and they blossom by love” …

“When the man selling seedlings to me saw the harvest, he asked in surprise:

– What have you done?

I answered: “I sing for them, and they blossom by love.” – tells Satenik Ghazaryan – a farmer from Aramus village- remembering her very first heavy crop.

Mrs. Satenik carefully cut the “Dal” – a dish made with foremilk – and served her guests. In the meantime, the tonir (a big jar dug in the earth in which fire is made) became hot in which fresh and warm lavash bread was to be baked. Her sister rolled out the dough into thin sheets and then Mrs. Satenik patted the sheets of lavash from one hand to the other twirling them in a circular motion.

Memories followed one another… “In my childhood my mother used to teach us how to roll out the dough. The edges should be thin. They become more even and the middle of lavash is not burnt when rolling the dough by hands”,- Mrs. Satenik says.

In order to make the scene more colourfull, the baking process is accompanied by folksongs.

Time runs fast with Mrs. Satenik’s hospitable family, and for a moment you forget about the way back.

Satenik Ghazaryan is not only one of the farmers of Aramus village but she has also been a librarian in the Cultural Centre for 25 years.

“In 1987 when I got married I started to work in the library. While taking care of my baby I was parallely studying and, however, managed to combine everything.

Once trainings on crops launched in our village. I started to attend the trainings… As a result, we decided to build a greenhouse using polyethylene techniques. The only condition was to make it public in order that everyone could easily enter there and get familiar with the greenhouse works.”

It has been five years since they have got the greenhouse. Mrs. Satenik grows tomatoes and cucumbers.

“Throughout these years I used to grow various crops in the open field but cultivation in a greenhouse is quite different. You seem to live with it; you witness the growing day by day. I’ve yielded heavy crop in the first year.”- Mrs. Satenik tells and remembers when once the man selling seedlings to her saw the harvest and asked in surprise:

“What have you done?”

“I sing for them, and they blossom by love”, – I answered.

There is not much work to do in winter for Mrs. Satenik. Yet it changes in spring during sowing time and also in autumn when it’s time to harvest.

“Usually a day starts with cooking and then I go to the cowshed, market and also to the library.”

On top of this, Mrs. Satenik is also a good beekeeper.

“Seven years ago we saw a beautiful cluster in our tree. We took it and put in a box. Then my husband had to leave the country and told me to keep it in case if I was able to take care of it alone. I had never seen people beekeeping before. Father said there was a beekeeper in our village. But when I applied him for help he did the work himself and when I asked him to explain how or why he did something, he used to answer: “You are not going to be a bee-keeper, aren’t you?”

Mrs. Satenik, however, stood firm on her decision. Soon she finds a way out. Thanks to the books in the library she starts to study beekeeping and the result was not slow to arrive.

Today Mrs. Satenik has 45 beehives.

“We have more spare boxes; hence I am planning to increase the number of beehives.”

The hospitable hostess then shares the yield with everyone.

Lilit Kochinyan

Yerevan- Aramus

See also other materials by this theme:

”It’s happiness when one does what he likes”…