Haig Boyadjian left Los Angeles and moved to Armenia one and a half years ago. The young man says he has no regrets.

“I just love it when I’m walking in the streets and I turn around after hearing someone call out the name Haig. They weren’t calling me but that doesn’t matter. It’s my land and people. I feel at home. We were born in another country but were always guests. I love being here, whatever happens, because it’s mine,” says Haig, who left his parents and brother behind in Los Angeles.

Haig said that when he announced his intentions of moving to Armenia, everyone back home thought he was nuts.

“My friends from Armenia told me that I’d get eaten alive in Armenia. Others told me Armenia was one big village with no progress. They were amazed, as if I was moving to the deep jungles of Africa.”

Finding work in Armenia isn’t tough if you look hard and are educated

When Haig first arrived he lived at a friend’s house and started an aggressive search for work. Three weeks later he got a job as a marketing manager at a Yerevan restaurant chain.

Nine months later, Haig left that job and found work at the Children of Armenia Fund (COAF), also as a marketing manager. I could have done marketing back home. The objective of my being here was to work and make a difference. I’m glad that I have reached my dream.

Haig has a college degree in marketing and international relations from Los Angeles. At the COAF he’s busy establishing connections between diaspora Armenian investors and local businesspeople. When his friends ask him the same tiring question, “Why did you leave the U.S. and come to this forsaken country”, Haig points to his job and says, “This is why”.

Haig says this question both perplexes him and saddens him.

“I can’t blame people who want to emigrate from Armenia. The conditions here, sadly, are pretty tough. But it’s hard for me to understand why people are so amazed as to why a young person like myself with an education has come to the homeland to make a contribution,: Haig says, adding that he’s not a naive diaspora Armenian and knows about the bribery and deceit in Armenia. He says these problems are normal for all socially depressed countries.

It’s tough making friends with local Armenians

Haig says that when it comes to forming social relations, the situation is complex and time consuming.

“I don’t know if people are embarrassed or maybe it’s the Russian or Soviet influence at play. But once that wall crumbles, Armenians are an accessible people.”

Haig says he observes that Soviet influence when it comes to forming social relations because he’s come from the outside and never experienced it.

“When you ask someone how they are, they answer voch inch (nothing). It’s terrible. You’re either good or bad. What does voch inch actually mean? When you answer voch inch, it means you are neither bad nor good. In other words, you yourself don’t know what you are. Some people have told me that during the Soviet era people would respond by saying voch inch because if they said ‘I am well’ it would raise eyebrows; i.e. but why are you so well (Haig laughs – MM).”

We aren’t born just to get married

I ask Haig how old he is. He answered but said that he doesn’t like it when people ask his age.

“I always conceal my age because I come across as strange here. That’s to say I’m still unmarried at my age.”

Haig’s work takes him to various parts of Armenia. He says that in some villages kids are married off at the age of sixteen.

“I amazed when the parents of a boy say they will marry him off. That young boy knows nothing of the world. He doesn’t have an education or a job. And now he is forming a family. We weren’t born just to get married,” Haig argues.

Hayk and his brother in Armenia

He’s seen that establishing a family is the main objective of young Armenians pressured by relatives. It’s different in America, Haig notes. He likes the new young generation of Armenia because their mindset is quite different. “I’d really like to see how they turn out in ten or so years,” he says.

Recently, through the COAF, Haig took some Armenian kids to New York. He saw they were happy but didn’t know how to express themselves.

“They wouldn’t smile and they couldn’t react. It’s because they raise kids in Armenia to think it’s a shame, don’t show this, and do that, don’t talk, sit there. It’s not right. Kids are growing up with crooked necks. That’s not how we were raised in America. Sure we were taught respect and to act correctly, but we were free. There’s a lot of pressure here and it starts at an early age,” says Haig.

He sees the same inhibitions in adults as well. They measure their every step thinking what will the neighbors say, the in-laws, and the co-workers. “They are spending their entire lives according to the expectations of others and at their behest. Sure there should be a moral compass but people should do as they please.”

P.S. – Haig also finds the time to market Armenia via his Facebook page. He says that that when he travels to this or that district of Armenia the first thing he does is to take pictures. He then downloads the photos so that Armenians overseas will want to visit Armenia. Haig has been to almost all the regions of Armenia. Last month, he brought his mother and brother to Armenia for the first time. Haig is now waiting for his friends.