True tales of the Armenian Genocide

AMENIA — For decades, it was denied. Only in recent years have governments begun to concede that, in the early 20th century, the Ottoman Empire was responsible for the deaths of more than 1.5 million Armenians who had been living in what is modern-day Turkey.

“It’s international politics,” said Serge Madikians, owner of Serevan Restaurant in Amenia, N.Y. “I think the reason no one talks about it is politics.”

When Russia turned Communist and became the Soviet Union,  Turkey became an important ally, geopolitically, of the United States. 

“Had Turkey’s value not increased, the Armenian Genocide would have been more out in the open,” Madikians said. 

Madikians studied history and philosophy as an undergraduate in college and wrote his senior thesis on the causes of the Armenian Genocide. There are many conflicting stories about what happened in those years and to those people. Madikians has his own tales: His grandfather survived the Armenian genocide — though only thanks to a fluke. And his own survival came at a great cost: Everyone else in his family was lost. 

This year marks the 100th anniversary of the genocide, and it is being observed in different places and different ways around the world. Here in Connecticut, the Kent Memorial Library and the United Nations Association of Connecticut are hosting “Armenian Genocide 100 Years Later: A Journey Beyond Hate” on Saturday, April 25, at 3 p.m. at Kent Town Hall. The talk is free and open to the public.

Madikians (whose popular restaurant celebrates its 10th anniversary in May) will provide Armenian snack foods. The menu isn’t set yet; as always, he’ll rely to some degree on what looks fresh at the markets that day. 

“Possibly I will make some nazook, an Armenian pastry,” he said. Maybe there will be some hummus, with labne, olives and the preserved meat basturma. 

Unless there is an emergency at the restaurant, “I will definitely be there; I’m happy to be a part of it.”

An epic tale of survival

Some stories are told again and again as they are handed down through the generations. As Madikians recites his family’s tragedy, it’s clear that he has told it before. It’s also apparent that he has heard the story himself, many times and that the words and even the rhythms of the tale are ingrained in his memory.

“My grandfather was Khachik Madikians,” he begins. “He was born around 1890 and died in 1989, at the age of 95 or 98, I’m not sure which.

“He was born in eastern Turkey, near Lake Van. His father was a traveling businessman, but my grandfather and the other young people in the village were sheep herders.”

 He recalls his grandfather often saying that they herded the sheep on the outskirts of Mount Ararat.

“When he was about 13 years old, his father took him to Moscow to be an apprentice to a baker. The hope or the expectation was that he would make some money and send it back to the family in Turkey. 

“While they were in Moscow, the killing of the Armenians, who were a Christian minority in an Islamic nation, began. Everyone in my grandfather’s family died except for himself, his father and a cousin who had come along with them.”

It’s almost impossible to imagine the impact that could have had on the survivors.

“From that point on, my grandfather took care of his father. I think they were both very damaged by it. He never gave up looking for the rest of his family, he never gave up hope that he might find someone who survived.”

Living under a lucky star

In the years to come, Khachik Madikians himself survived a literally incredible number of mass killings and conflagrations.  

Among other thing, he escaped the Bolshevik revolution in Russia and made it out to Ukraine. There he started a small baking business, met his future wife, married her and had two sons. He was imprisoned during the Stalinist purges and managed to escape, with another Armenian man and with a cook from the tsar’s court. 

“They remained friends, those three men, until the end of their lives.”

Madikians went into hiding and contacted his wife, telling her to “get the children, get the gold and get your father’s travel papers.”

Those two children were the father and the uncle of Serge Madikians and his twin brother, Rouben, who also lives here in Amenia. 

The papers had to be forged so that Khachik Madikians could use them to get out of the country. He met up with his family, and as they prepared to board a boat that would take them to Iran, via Baku, Azerbaijan (and safety), the papers came under heavy scrutiny. 

For Madikians, this part of the story has to be told just as he remembers hearing it from his grandmother. He recalls her saying that the gold had been hidden in her own and her two sons’ body cavities. 

“The official looked at my grandfather. And he looked at the papers. And he looked at my grandfather. And he looked at the papers.”

The children were crying. The parents were sweating.

“The gold was beginning to slip out of its hiding places.”

Finally they were allowed to go through. 

“And that’s how my family ended up in Iran,” Madikians concludes. 

It’s not hard to understand why Khachik Madikians was a dour and serious man all his life. 

“He didn’t talk much and he was very stern,” his grandson recalls. 

Keep calm and make pastry

But, curiously, he went on to create a social hub in Tehran, Cafe Naderi, which still exists today and was declared a landmark eight years ago. His partner in the business was an Iranian Jew; neither spoke the other’s language, but together they built a successful business.

“It was done on the strength of a handshake between gentlemen,” Madikians said. “For me, that is very touching. You connect, you respect and a hundred years later that cafe is still there.”

When Madikians’ father died in 1988, the children and grandchildren of the grandfather’s business partner traveled  to California for the memorial service. 

A review of the restaurant on PBS.org posted in 2013 says, “It is one harbor in this gargantuan city that despite odds has survived revolution, war, demolition and pollution to offer respite within its archaic walls.

“The café and restaurant, adjacent to the Naderi Hotel, is nearly a century old and situated downtown near the notorious British embassy, a short walk to Istanbul Square, in the heart of Tehran’s shopping district.

“The café was established by the Armenian Khachik Madikiyans in 1928, originally as a confectionery. Many of Tehran’s greatest cafés and confectioneries were run by Armenians. Some still are, like Tala Confectionary and Lord.”

Madikians said that his grandfather was the first person to bring a European-style café to Tehran, and he introduced Armenian, Russian and European-style baked goods there.

The café survived the revolutions of the 1950s and the 1970s. It survived a major fire. It is a miracle of stability in an unstable world. 

Perhaps it was this culinary heritage that led the outgoing and sociable Serge Madikians to open his own social and culinary hub. To learn more about his fusion Iranian/Armenian/Hudson River Valley menu, go to www.serevan.com.

To reserve a seat for “Armenian Genocide 100 Years Later: A Journey Beyond Hate,” call 860-927-3761 or email kmlinfo@biblio.org. The guest speakers will be Mary Papazian, president of Southern Connecticut State University in New Haven, and Ambassador Armen Baibourtian, who is now a visiting professor at the University of Massachusetts and has been the Armenian ambassador to India, Nepal, Sri Lanka and Indonesia.

Armenian crafts, music and dance will be showcased, and of course there will be food from Serevan.