Biography Corner

 

I was unable to sleep as there were so many things on my mind last night. I had a dream of my former mother in law Asli Soleimani (Simonian). I was deep down somewhere; she came and held my hand and led me to some stairs up to a house that I cannot recognise, she is showing me all different rooms, my former husband arrives and then I wake up.

After talking about refugee's over recent days, it got me thinking of her life. Her family fled Armenia to Iran after the Genocide of 1915 and landed in a village in Iran. 

 

She was a young girl when her own mother passed away and the responsibilities landed on her young shoulders to care for her father and siblings until she married and also her father remarried. She was quite young when she married Raphael Soleimani. At that time the Persian government permitted that they stay in the country only if they were given Muslim names as their name was Simonian. So the story began for her, Asli's father was very big built with Russian features and blue eyes. I saw pictures of him and he was a strong man who held respect. They had a house built by his own hands similar to a wattle and daub house that I actually went to when I lived there as his second wife was still alive. To own your own house in those days was big. Anyway Raphael and Asli got married and had a family but she lost son after son and was so fearful that all her sons would die she dressed her son my former husband as a girl. It worked and he survived and she went on to have six other children. 

Living in a Muslim country in Majidiyeh - مجیدیه in those times was very hard indeed but they did allow for the building of Armenian churches and I got married in one, a orthodox wedding and I had to be blessed to be allowed in the family home, where at 18yrs old I had to learn a complete new way of life. I found the heat unbearable and the fear was incredible as it was at the time of the Iranian revolution, I was a foreigner in another country, It was so frightening and firearms were kept incase someone tried to force their way in such as the revolutionary guards. Can you imagine it for me growing up on a council estate in the west midlands ending up in Tehran, where by I could not speak farsy or Amenian and my husband was the sole earner working for an American telecommunications firm. So we had to be very careful indeed. 

 

The worst thing was life was raw, you saw animals slaughtered in the street and when I arrived they sacrificed a sheep , I was horrified. My passport was handed in to the Embassy where It stayed and that was it. Life was extreamly harsh, with tv was sensored, no western music, guards in the street and food was rationed also, but we never went without food. My inventive mother in law could make the most delicious food from lentils, stuffed cabbage leaves and rice [garmia pluff or red rice]. which was delicious. Our wedding had hundreds of people and it was so busy , we smashed plates, walked over the threshold and I cooked and cleaned for the whole family. 

 

I was given so much gold and jewellery but in the bleak times it was sold to keep the family fed and to get back home. My mother in law made the most beautiful knitted clothes for me and bed throws that we used to use to sleep on the roof in the summer under the stars . If you hung your washing out by the time you put the last clothing it was time to collect the first. You could not walk outside because it burnt the skin off your feet. They taught me the tenaciousness of life how they made a life from nothing and how important community was. Whilst there ayatollah Khomeini*, came into power and things got so bad that we had to vote for him to make it seem we were supporting the regime and get approval for the Armenian people. 

Everything got so bad all the western firms left my husband lost his job and the only way to make money was to make vodka moonshine, my father in law would of been shot if found out, I used to walk behind him with a scarf and covered up and he would hide the vodka under his jacket it was nerve wracking. I came back very poorly and pregnant and the story continued. It got worse for my husbands family in Iran and they finally left to come here and make another life. Some went to America, Germany, Sweden all spread but one thing for sure the tea machine would go where ever they went. A life of having to leave your birth place and making new homes in homes not of your birth. There is so much of this story that I can never post to raw even now. We were kind to them and helped them so much and the story continues. Rest in peace Asli and thank you for the lessons. 

With thanks to Corrinne Hall.