Anton Geissler

How do you remember a summer? Does it fade until the people you meet, their faces, and your conversations blend into a vague feeling of happiness or nostalgia, bleached by their own light. Is all that you are left with the knowledge that you were happy, or do some images, days, and faces remain clear? 

I hope I keep something more than a feeling. The green Hetq sign, illuminated next to the murky corridor into our office, where my colleagues are smoking and drinking coffee. The crowded elevator that only goes to select floors. Lake Sevan on a weekend, getting burned in the sun, and waiting for the horovats to be ready. 

I´ve only been in Armenia for two months, working for Hetq and CivilNet through a TAP Armenia internship, but already I know that I want to return. 

As Hetq slowly opened itself to me, I gained a home in Yerevan. At first, I was a bit scared of Edik Baghdasaryan, the managing editor. I thought that he didn´t smile much and only slowly noticed his slight lift to the corner of his mouth. Maybe this is the time it took me to realise that my colleagues called him by his surname, not Edik.

With my colleague Hayk the opening came through music. I was surprised when he invited me to the office to play together on Saturday. The strict eight hour working day is foreign to Hetq and I soon realised that the office was more than just a workplace. We continued to practice together and at our final concert, the “Armenain-Norwegian friendship concert”, he captured our relationship, saying that we didn´t have to talk, as we could understand each other when playing together. 

With my other colleagues, like Tirayr, who did not understand much English, we communicated through smiles and the occasional Armenian word. 

But the trip to Sevan with my colleagues will remain one of the brighter memories, baked in the sun of our drive over and drenched in the thunder storm on our way back. Through swims, Armenia dances, horovats, and the help of some Norwegian spirit I felt like I had arrived after this day. 

Working for Hetq you feel a part of Armenian society. Taxi drivers start chatting when you mention the newspaper, and when renting a car I got a discount as, according to the owner, there was no way a journalist could have much money. We drove for a week with the yellow Hetq badge dangling from the dashboard to scare off the police if we were stopped.

I caught myself telling a friend back home that I was on holiday in Armenia. It felt like a holiday from the boredom of university in England, but I’m also proud of what I have managed.

Hayk seemed surprised when I told him how much I had learned at Hetq, but I did my first interview, found my first piece of data, and wrote my first article there. Baghdasaryan’s first question to me was what I wanted to write about and the rest of the summer, with Liana, Nare, and all the other’s help, unfolded along the same free lines. 

In my interview I answered a question about whether I wanted to be a journalist with my usual inconclusive evasion. Now I can say yes; two months at Hetq will probably change where I am in ten years. 

Hetq has shown me a trace of the future, but me and Hayk’s joint improvisations might be how I remember the summer. Fleeting moments, always shifting, and without the possibility of repetition. I´d rather not remember some of the other pieces we tried in our early practices, which Frunz in the neighbouring room had to endure. 

But what about the fruit from Armen’s garden, Anya’s cooking, or Alyona and Aren’s laugh. 

The summer has given me so many images, imprinted, like light burned into a filmrole. Taking the train to Gyumri. Being squeezed into the commuter bus into Kentron every day. Meeting other TAP interns after a day at work. A summer rhythm that will keep me going through the winter.