Gyumri, ARMENIA – I don’t think I’ll ever understand how to feel truly at home.
Gyumri to me means clove scents, tea pots and colorful dried fruits in every kitchen.
It means icy air and black coats and infinite snow. People driving their old Lada very fast with loud Armenian music playing.
Gyumri is the second biggest city in Armenia, which to some might still seem small. Armenia’s population stands just under 3 million people as of today.
The city is quiet – lively but quiet. You can walk on a Saturday afternoon in the city center, be surrounded by people and still somehow only hear the wind and birds.
Small groups of men always stand on the sidewalks, often near the coffee dispensers all around town and talk about life from their street corner.
After 8 p.m., you stop seeing almost any woman in the street.
The restaurants and coffee shops are almost always completely empty. In winter, I always wondered how restaurant owners make their sales revenue. But I was told the city wakes up in the summer, welcoming many travelers and vacationers.
My favorite place to go is Al-Ahwaz, a Syrian restaurant near the city center. The dining room is big and the large windows allow the sun to come in. It is cozy, the orange blossom ice cream is to die for and concerts sometimes take place there.
The general warm and welcoming attitude of Gyumretsis makes you feel at home, from the start. It’s very hard to leave someone’s house hungry or empty-handed.
People welcome you into their homes and offer you everything in their fridge and then some. They are friendly and authentic, which makes interactions calm and sincere.
The buildings are very dark, built with black stone. It makes you feel like you’re at the heart of a volcano. Some are lighter – sometimes that means they were built after the 1988 earthquake which destroyed part of the town.
I moved here in February and felt welcomed as soon as I set foot in the country.
But what is home to me?
I have a bicultural background and am constantly traveling. I’ve learned to rebuild connections to new places and people each time I move. I am always at home and far away from home, simultaneously.
Part of living in Gyumri is also living in a conflict zone. The conflicts with Azerbaijan and Turkey can be felt in every smile, every word, and every house. You can’t avoid it.
And it is through talking about the war with locals that I’ve suddenly felt the most connected.
Having lived in Israel, it is by feeling this strange bond between the two countries that I have felt the most comfortable.
I haven’t felt this sense of warmth and emotional safety while living in southern France for 16 years.
Oddly enough, I realized that collective trauma makes me feel more at home than stability.
In Gyumri, and in Armenia, the sense of community and of a shared narrative is an essential aspect of individual experience.
The breathtaking landscapes and thousand-year-old architectural history in and around Gyumri will leave you spellbound. But it is the people with their incredible resilience and kindness that make this place so magical.
Eventually I moved again, out of Gyumri to a new place. But for a second there I felt at peace, quiet. And maybe for me, that’s what home will always be about.
Mayalie Cieutat is a Reporter with Youth Journalism International.
