Dziapan knew Armenian history well and was the only person in the mountains who felt his Armenianness. The others knew that they were born and raised, they were reapers, milkers, shearers, that they would go down to the valley, Tsmakut, with the cold, and the mountains would come out with the coolness from the heat. It didn't seem that much to Dziapan, and he was telling Armenian history, which he knew very well. If he had a listener, he was a bit ingenuous, he considered what he told yesterday a lie today, he dragged the beginning of Armenian history to a depth of four thousand years, he just sprouted it from yesterday, considering what attitude he had to our neighbor on that day.
- Armenians were invented by Leo. It is a lie, there were no Armenians before Leo. That was the time of Leo, again, I turned the man like a mountain in front of my eyes, and there was no one to take him out. Was there an Armenian who would take out milk for an Armenian - milk, sheep, I don't know what else? Meran dropped Leo. How do they make yogurt? They put milk in the milk and it turns yogurt, Leo invented this way for the Armenians. Hovhannes Tumanyan's "Dog and Cat" - neither the cat was a craftsman nor the dog without a hat, why does a dog need a hat? Hovhannes Tumanyan sat down and invented it for a child. they read. Leo sat at the other table and invented stories about our Armenians. Amazing patriarch, no, amazing patriarch!
The Sarvors were sheepish, beefy people, they didn't argue, theirs was shearing and milking, they sheared and milked. All those things, Leo, Zarmayr, before the birth of Christ, Hovhannes Tumanyanr, were all the vessels of the horseman's house.
— Wolf Shield. They came and broke it. they came, broke it, they came again. He crushed the one who came, they counted, they counted - Persia was wiped out, and there were no people left in Persia. Even now there is no Persia in Ashkhark, our Armenian gel has been wiped out. Gail Vahan, don't, brave Nazar!
Another one said the opposite. So we were men, that we endured the Turks for a thousand years sitting on our backs. - It is something to be proud of, - he said, - we should be proud.
They were neither happy nor saddened by what he said. They were just doing their job - they were milking, shearing, getting wet and dry, talking to them in Turkish and what they said and a couple of things from what they said, they would tell you in Turkish and translate it into Armenian, and it was beautiful, they laughed at those who didn't speak Turkish well, they got a day job, they got money - they lived. And the impression was this, a fifty-five-fifty-eight-year-old man named Ghazaryan Mesrop, speaking for himself, wanders among herds, herds and clouds in the green mountains, only a part of a part of Gugark can be seen from this infinitely big world. He did not speak Turkish, nor did he want them to speak Armenian. He called them Turks so that they would be offended, but they were not offended because they were not Turks at all. their occupation was not that, Turkishness was not their occupation but, like ours, sheep, keeping, shearing, getting wet, drying, cursing the rain and the world. And our elders used to say to Mesrop. - Well, cut your hair again.
But there was a place when Mesrop seemed to reach the goal. They came to the mountains from their distant yellow valleys, and the nearest to the mountains was our village and the mountains were our mountains, they were ours almost all year round, in autumn, winter and spring. In the summer, they came with their caravans, and our house became someone else's house. Artin of the Artians used to throw the spring's cowl, and their sheep used to lean on the cowl. Yes, a hundred years ago, Avet of Lazar used to bury salt stones to give salt to the sheep in the pastures, and their sheep used to come one after another on the salt stones. We used to write our name on our beech trees in the valley and thinking that the tree will keep our name for a long time after us, and once we wrote on that tree, the shepherd would give it to them with a buffalo knife and, ho ha ho, pull our name on that tree.
"The Turks came!" said the horseman. "They weren't there, they weren't." They were created in the twenties. "Sergey Mironovich Kirov," said the horseman. "What a nation they have become in thirty years." Don't die of socialism, then don't say socialism. Their socialism created, they didn't exist, they didn't exist, they created, drove away the Artin spring: drink water brotherly. Come on, Artin, even if you hadn't been there, where would their sheep be watered? I say let's write a complaint to Moscow and give us our money, eh?
Our herd would brush against their pasture, or their herd would graze our pasture, and the place would break out into a frenzy. A head was pierced, an arm was broken, a shirt was torn, they cursed us in Armenian to make our heart stir, and we cursed them in Turkish, the dogs reached each other and there was a dogfight, etc. Then they sat down to eat. They drank a toast and happily wondered why the other person's head was wrapped, his shirt was torn, and his arm was hanging from his neck. There was no mention of a fight, and it was as if the bones had been broken while eating. The horseman was spitting in the evening and tying our shoulders.
- Did you miss him, did you go to speak some Farsi? hey, you were speaking Greek, your head got pierced by force, huh? You're full, you're full, you're full, you don't have to say no to the one who reaches out.
The Sarvors were silent.
"Hr!" the horseman was straining.
It left an impression, the mountaineers said.
— Soyuz ESSER, then?
— We propose to remove the Turks from our grasslands.
They were terribly silent.
"Huh!" shouted the horse.
"It's a shame," the mountaineers complained, "the rest of us were just sitting on bread."
- May that bread come from your nose, - cursed the horseman, - may the bread you ate come from your nose, that you will not have children to eat.
Then someone said carelessly.
- Well, again, Mesrop, they are mountains, again, we will live, again, why should we worry unnecessarily?
"Hey," the horse was furious, "You need something sharp, the field is theirs, they are taking your mountains too, hey!" A sheep has no pasture, you have given them your mountain.
The Sarvors were laughing at themselves.
- Well, wouldn't we have left the sheep in that hot field in this hot heat?
The horseman was going crazy.
- To, to, to, to, to, to, well, the field is hot, so let them break your house shlink.
They used to say from among the nettles.
"Well, since you're such a good person and you don't want them to break my shilling, don't leave your horse on their lawn...
It is partially flattened. You can download the full version (pdf)