I'm kidding, of course.
Much of what I read was soon forgotten. I read philosophy for fun; I didn't read it to study it. But I am sure it wasn't a waste of time: it gave my brain a good workout, and left a lasting impact on my personality. I felt a strong need to develop intellectually, to learn something new. Perhaps I subconsciously satiated my thirst for knowledge with intensive self-education while I wasn't attending college.
I didn't manage to make many friends in Moscow. I wasn't friends with anyone at work, and in reality, I couldn't be friends with them. They were good guys, but almost all of them loved to drink. They ran to the nearest bar or liquor store to buy a bottle as soon as they got their paychecks. That lifestyle was foreign to my habits and my understanding of life. However, I became friends with a neighbor from the apartment complex next to mine. His name was David Voronov. He was intelligent and cultured a lot older than me and at that time, he was already divorced. He was passionate about dogs and equally passionate about postage stamps. David constantly bought, sold, and traded stamps "speculated" as they said back then. It was considered semi-legal, and one could end up in jail for speculating. He tried recruiting me, and I even learned a little about stamps, but it didn't go beyond curiosity. I wasn't attracted to buying and selling.
I spent my free time with David and another guy, Valera. What was there to do for fun? Not much trips to cafés or dance clubs on weekends. We would get out of town to pick mushrooms, swim in the lake, or simply stroll through the woods in the summer sometimes with friends, sometimes with family, with Kim. Since none of us had cars, we relied on the commuter train. While doing this, I discovered unbelievably beautiful places near Moscow, especially in the direction of Gorky. Friends visited from Stepanakert occasionally. Once, an army friend from Riga came to see me, and I visited him too. These were the only events outside of the regular routine during the year.
After one year, I concluded that it was time for me to go home to Stepanakert. I didn't want to spend any more time in a job that I didn't like, live in a setting that didn't appeal to me, or keep filling my life with a monotonous and mind-numbing routine that didn't offer any prospects. They tried to keep me at the plant, recognizing that I was very proficient at my job. And in general, I always took everything that I did seriously be it my studies, work, or workouts. The plant manager called me to his office and tried to make me stay. "We can transition you to a welder's position. It's an easier job, and there are opportunities for growth there," he said. I replied, refusing, "Nah, I am not leaving because it's hard. It's simply not my thing."
Jolt
Of course, my parents were happy that I returned, but I knew that I wasn't meeting their expectations. They couldn't imagine that their kids would end up without a college degree. Higher education was something essential and mandatory for my parents. My mom had a hard time accepting that my brother and I didn't study music when we were kids. But it was inconceivable to her that her son wouldn't be graduating from college.
Nonetheless, I told my parents bluntly that I wasn't ready to continue my studies, and they left me alone. Although it upset my father, he didn't say a word. He had learned long ago that it was impossible to force me to do things.
And for the time being I was finally home. After chaotic and neurotic Moscow, where the commute took up a big part of my life, everything in Stepanakert was familiar, native, calm, and most importantly nearby. Family, good old childhood friends. I got a job as an electrician at the Silk Factory, Karabakh's most prominent business enterprise. I lived as any man my age would: I actively worked out, which I always enjoyed, continued to read a lot, and spent time with friends. We were a good team: my childhood friend Yura, with whom I shared a desk since grade school, my brother's classmate Albert an intellectual with a brilliant mind and I. We enjoyed each other's company, and we were happy hanging out together. We spent almost every weekend outdoors. I hunted a lot, but with a different group of friends or my brother. I had always enjoyed hunting, and I knew our mountains well since early childhood.
I think it was the most tranquil and happiest period of my life. Happiness is when you live in peace with yourself instead of searching within to find purpose or the meaning of life. Just like when you don't think about your internal organs until they start causing you pain, you don't analyze the reason for your spiritual balance when you have it.
Three years went by quietly.
Thoughts of going back to college visited me periodically. Still, they didn't take root as they didn't go well with my eventful and pleasant life. I was always busy. We would either go hunting for a couple of days with friends or do some other activity, and I couldn't force myself to switch gears to do other things. "I have to go to college I must. I will, but not now, later. Definitely"
And then, one day, sometime in the spring, I got a summons from the military commissariat. I was to report for duty the next day for some kind of training. It alarmed me. I called a friend at the commissariat asking about it. He told me that we were to be shipped to Kazakhstan to either harvest or plant something or do some other work of similar nature. In other words reclamation of tselina (a Soviet state development and resettlement campaign to turn underdeveloped, scarcely populated, highly-fertile lands mostly located in the steppes of the Volga region, Northern Kazakhstan, and Southern Siberia into a major agriculture producing region). "For how long?" I asked him. "For three to four months," he answered. Wow! I had planned to go to the Black Sea for the summer, definitely not Kazakhstan. I had absolutely no desire to reclaim tselina. Tselina? Really? The steppes again? I had already honorably served in the Mongolian steppes!
All my textbooks were ready at home, as I had always intended to start studying for the college entrance exams, but I couldn't find the time to do so. I had procrastinated, thinking that I had enough time ahead of me. But now
In short, I didn't go to the commissariat. I quit my job within a day, gathered my belongings, and put all the necessary textbooks in a suitcase. I called my brother (he served in Georgia at the time, near Tskhaltubo). "Hi," I told him. "That's it, I decided to go to college! I am coming to stay with you to study for the exams." "I will not be here for almost a month," my brother replied. "You can stay here, no problem." I was in Georgia the next day. My brother's apartment was in a secluded and very picturesque location. I didn't know anybody there, not a single person. All I had was a suitcase full of books and a month to prepare for the entrance exams.
Oh, how I studied for those exams! And with such intensity and passion! It was simply unbelievable. I didn't know that I could mobilize to such a degree. In a couple of days, I had immersed myself in it completely, taking breaks only to eat and sleep. And even my dreams were mathematical. The setting was perfect for this kind of concentration: no one around, only the military base, the jail, and the tea plantation where the prisoners harvested tea under a convoy. I caught fish in the nearby river, rode my brother's small motorcycle to the local grocery store, and cooked for myself. The month passed. I knew that I was ready to take the entrance exams to any technical institute. All I had to do was to go there and get it.
I chose Yerevan Polytechnic University. I went to Yerevan straight from Georgia without making a stop in Stepanakert. I submitted my application to the Department of Electrical Engineering. I had to take two math tests: one written and one oral. In reality, two more exams were required physics and a supervised essay but applicants with a high school GPA of 4.5 and above (out of 5) were allowed to skip them. To be admitted, applicants had to get a combined score of 9 points (out of 10) on the two math exams.
First, I took the written test. I felt very confident: I finished it effortlessly and quickly and got out of the room. But, surprisingly, I only got a 4 (out of 5). Imagine my frustration! I had rushed and made a careless mistake, which I failed to catch before turning the test papers in. This meant that I had to get a perfect score on the oral math test. I answered all the questions and said to the proctor, "I need to get a 5 on this." "Why?" he asked. "I have a high GPA, and I was planning to take only the math tests. The next exam is physics, and I didn't study for it," I explained. Of course, I had studied for it, but not as well. "Ask me anything I need a 5!" I insisted. The examiner wrote five math problems and said, "You solve these you got your 5." It took me only about 20 minutes to solve the problems, one after another, quickly. The examiner glanced at the sheet and said, "Well done, 5!"
And I got in.
It was all thanks to that military commissariat summons. To this day, I remember the last name of our commissar Kurochkin. And I am grateful to that Kurochkin for giving me a jolt. It sometimes happens in life when an unpleasant event shakes you up and makes you take decisive action. The commissariat summons sobered me up. It hit me that I had to change my life.
A Student Again
I didn't know Yerevan too well. It was strange, but despite being Armenian, I had only visited Yerevan twice before. Perhaps this was because I had few relatives there. My grandmother's brother a very charming and incredibly modest retired colonel lived in Yerevan. While attending college, I decided to visit him once. The old man didn't feel well and believed that he wouldn't last long. When I entered his room, he was lying in bed, sorting through the little boxes of his war medals. I was surprised and asked him, "What are these?" I began looking through the medals: Order of the Red Banner of Military Valor, Order of Lenin, one for Victory in Khalkhin Gol[5] a very rare medal medals from the Russian Empire period, including an honor cross "To the Participant of the Military Parade in Odessa," the only parade in which the Russian Emperor took part. I don't remember all of the medals; there were many. In a separate box, there was a handgun, a small beautiful Walther with an inscription, "To Major Karapetian from the People's Commissar of Defense Klim Voroshilov." I didn't know that my grandfather had participated in all the wars from WWI to WWII. It turned out that I didn't know anything about him. In the 1920s, he was the first communications signalman in Armenia. And I found this out incidentally, simply because I came to visit him that day.
I did well in college; I took it a lot more seriously than the first time around. The dean's office made me the class leader, given my good grades and my service in the armed forces. I provided for myself financially. As а straight-A student, I was getting a higher stipend, and in addition, I had taken a part-time job at our department lab. Later, I also got a second part-time job as a security guard at the wood carving museum. I ended up there thanks to my friend who already worked at the museum and got me in as his shift reliever.
The museum turned out to be a very interesting place, a bohemian club of sorts where the artistic elite got together over a cup of coffee. I met a great deal of fascinating and charming individuals there. Sometimes, we organized dinner parties at night, right there at the museum, which the director, Henrik Solakhian, knew nothing about. A few times, we made kabobs on the mangal exhibited at the museum. Once, we forgot to clean it before putting it back on display, and the director caught us after he accidentally rubbed against it and his clothes got smeared with soot. Of course, he made a scene, but he didn't fire us. After that, we bought a regular mangal, and the director gladly joined us for our evening cookouts.
Working at the museum was perfect for a student. It provided an income and human interaction and the right conditions to study. I needed the income badly: in December of my freshman year, my father passed away unexpectedly from a heart attack. He never complained about his heart, was in good physical shape, and rarely got sick. I loved and deeply respected my father. His good name helped me in my life for a long time afterward people's attitude towards him was projected onto his sons. This meant a lot in tiny Karabakh, where everybody knew each other. I am glad that he saw me go to college again
Return to Karabakh
I finished my third year in Electrical Engineering at the Yerevan Polytechnic Institute with straight A's and, to everyone's surprise, transferred to the distance learning program. I passed my fourth year finals ahead of schedule and went to Karabakh. The department head, the dean, and some of my professors begged me not to do it. They couldn't understand why a bright student with great potential to stay at the department and pursue his doctoral degree would drop everything and leave for Karabakh. They wanted to hear a compelling argument. But there was no specific reason, even though there was a combination of factors behind that deliberate and rational decision. By that time, I had already completed the basic course in fundamental sciences, and the next two years were meant to acquire a narrow specialization in electrical machines. There were no jobs for that in Karabakh. It meant that I would either have to stay and work at the Electrical Engineering Department or at some factory in Armenia. I didn't like either option, as I didn't plan to move to Armenia for good. Besides, I realized that I learn quickly and have a lot of spare time on my hands. My personal pace was faster than the one laid out in the academic curriculum. I figured that I could accomplish a lot more in those two years in addition to the academic program.
I continued my college education remotely: I self-studied in Karabakh, then traveled to Yerevan for a month. I took all my exams for the year most of them ahead of schedule and then returned home again. I graduated with honors, but not without a single B in Thermal Engineering. I remember the Yerevan Polytechnic Institute of the 1970s as a top university with a solid teaching staff. To this day, the head of our department, who couldn't convince me to stay, believes that I left to organize the Karabakh movement. I wasn't able to convince him otherwise
Moving back to Stepanakert very quickly led to another important event in my life: marriage.
I had attended the same preschool with my future spouse. After that, we went to the same grade school, where we were in the same group for four years. Then we split up for a while but ended up at the same school again, this time in parallel groups. I had always liked her, but there was no tender teenage connection between us Bella hardly noticed me. I was overly quiet and didn't get involved in school activities. She, on the contrary, was very active and an exemplary straight-A student. After graduation, I lost sight of her, but fate brought us back together when I came home for my college break with a firm decision to enroll in distance learning. We met in town accidentally. I was driving my car and noticed her going up the street. I was happy to see her, so I stopped and offered her a ride home. We hadn't seen each other for a long time, and I didn't know anything about her life or what she had done after graduating from school. We talked for a while and decided to stay in touch, exchanging phone numbers.