Armenia: Return to Ferik
As mentioned in a previous post, yesterday saw a return visit to Ferik, a small Yezidi-inhabited village in the Armavir region of Armenia. According to the locals, Ferik was a predominantly Azerbaijani village until they fled persecution in Turkey a year before the 1915 Armenian Genocide. The village was then named after Ferik Polatbekov, son of a Kurdish chieftain deported to Siberia.
This young revolutionary poet, who became the main leader of the Red Army in Siberia and was finally killed by the Whites, remained totally unknown in Kurdistan. The same applies to a number of Kurdish writers and poets who achieved fame in the Soviet Union.
A People Without a Country, Gérard Chaliand, Abdul Rahman Ghassemlou, Marco Pallis
The Caucasian Knot has researched and covered the Yezidis in Armenia since 1998 so there’s no point in going over the issue of their Kurdish identity and the division which exists in the community here. That’s already been detailed in my articles here, here, and here as well as on my previous blog here. Instead, the visit was just a welcome excuse to accompany Nahro Zagros, a PhD student from the University of York, researching their musical tradition.
Indeed, the first time I visited Ferik was with Zagros in 2006.
Nahro Zagros, Ferik, Armavir Region, Republic of Armenia © Onnik Krikorian / Oneworld Multimedia 2008
Interestingly, despite the lack of a real showing of support for the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) in Turkey, many of the villagers — including children — sang songs or recited poems dedicated to Kurdistan and Abdullah Ocalan, the PKK’s imprisoned founder. Of more pressing concern in the village, however, is the depopulation experienced since the collapse of the former Soviet Union. The number of families living there now stands at about 35 — a third of what it used to be. The number of children enrolled at school has also declined to just 46 pupils instead of 160 at the turn of the 1990s.
Problems with the provision of minority-language textbooks still appears to exist as does the general problem with Yezidi children not knowing Armenian when they enter school. This unfortunately holds back their development and although the girls are married off quickly and the boys expected to tend the land or find work in Russia, none have the opportunity to go on to higher education even if they wanted to. All but one of the 15 teachers at Ferik’s school were Armenian from surrounding villages or Etchmiadzin. Armenian Higher Education and Science recently touched upon this issue as well.
It would be interesting to know, for instance, the post-secondary participation rate (upper vocational and higher education programs) among the minorities; particularly among Yezidis and Kurds. Based on my personal impressions and taking into account the socially disadvantageous situation that most Yezidis and Kurds have, plus the language problems peculiar to them, I would confidently claim that Yezidis and Kurds have much lower rate of participation than what the national average is. I would even guess that their rate of secondary school completion is much lower than the national average. So I am sure there is a need for programs in support of these groups.
School, Ferik, Armavir Region, Republic of Armenia © Onnik Krikorian / Oneworld Multimedia 2008
A real pity, because it’s a lovely village and national minorities in such a mono-ethnic country really need to be supported. Anyway, another return visit to the Yezidi village of Alagyaz is planned for Saturday along with an update on Nahro Zagros’ work which I wrote about for Geographical in January. Until then, however, some photos from yesterday’s visit to Ferik, nestled as it is in the shadow of the Medzamor nuclear reactor.
Ferik, Armavir Region, Republic of Armenia © Onnik Krikorian / Oneworld Multimedia 2008
- Published:
- 09.18.08 / 4pm by Onnik
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