The Hayern Aysor electronic newspaper of the RA Ministry of Diaspora regularly covers the activities of organizations preserving the Armenian identity abroad. Upon the request of Hayern Aysor, homeroom teacher of the “Armat” (Root) Armenian Sunday School of the Diocese of the Armenian Apostolic Church in Southern Russia, teacher of the “Tsentralni” State Creative Center Yerazik Harutyunyan presented the activities that the Center has carried out.

Yerazik Harutyunyan: The “Armat” (Root) Armenian Sunday School (formerly “Khachkar”) of the Diocese of the Armenian Apostolic Church in Southern Russia was founded in 2007 with the blessing of His Grace, Bishop Movses Movsesyan, through the assistance of benefactors Andrey Amosov and Karen Grigoryan and is based on the curriculum developed by Yerazik Harutyunyan. The school used to be based in a building with two small and luminescent rooms located in the bushy yard of the St. John the Evangelist Church. In 2014, it was moved to the suitable building of the newly built Vardanyan Center.

Although this school is referred to as a Sunday school, it is open throughout the week. New groups of students are admitted three times throughout the year (September, January and April). Every year, the school enrolls nearly fifty new students, and there are about 300-350 students. In the 2016-17 School Year, the school obtained a state certificate stating that it is an additional education center. In addition to Armenian language/literature and native studies clubs, the school also has painting, song, dance and English language clubs and teaches the students how to play Armenian national instruments.  Students between the ages of 4 and 50 study contemporary Armenian language and literature, Armenian history, the basics of culture and ethnography, as well as the history of Armenian religion and the Armenian Church. Each group attends two or three 40-minute classes once or twice a week. The school organizes concerts dedicated to all Armenian church and national holidays and on remembrance days. the groups are composed of 10-16 students and have their names. The Pokr Mher, Sasuntsi Davit, Mesrop Mashtots, Mets Mher, Urartu and Khachkar basic classes, and the Aivazovsky, Komitas, Arno Babajanyan and Vakhtangov art studios are furnished in line with modern standards, and one can feel the Armenian environment there. The students complete various tasks and meet deadlines. The students and young members of the Haik, Ara Geghetsik, Narekatsi, Komitas, Ararat, Mets Mher, Garegin Nzhdeh, Andranik and other senior groups become the axis of the youth organization of the Diocese and carry out activities aimed at preserving the Armenian identity in their respective cities and in the region.

“Armat” Armenian School is in close collaboration with the RA Ministry of Education and Science and the RA Ministry of Diaspora and participates in all pan-Armenian events. The four Armenian language teachers of the school, including Yerazik Harutyunyan, Meksida Hovhannisyan, Arshaluys Yeremyan and Karine Katanyan have received the first prize in the “Defender of the Mother Language” category of the Pan-Armenian Awards, and recently, the school’s homeroom teacher Yerazik Harutyunyan received the Commemorative Medal of the RA Prime Minister “For notable contribution to the preservation and development of Armenian language and literature”. The students have participated in the “We Have Existed, We Exist, We Will Exist” pan-Armenian essay contest four times and won the grand prize. They have also received certificates of participation in the annual contest for young painters organized by the Aesthetic Center of Yerevan. They always participate in the pan-Armenian Olympiads for various subjects.

“Armat” has also received the award of the Ministry of Diaspora twice.

After its establishment, it didn’t take the school long to understand that Russian-speaking Armenian children can’t learn Armenian with Armenian textbooks and by attending only one or two classes a week. The textbooks for the Russian-speaking students were either outdated or complicated and uninteresting. Armenian schools have ancient traditions, but Armenian schools in the Diaspora have been teaching the native language for only a century. It seems as though there is no need or opportunity to say something new. However, there are peculiarities in every period and environment, and there can’t be stereotypes in education and teaching methodologies. At the Armenian Sunday school, Armenian is taught as a foreign language, and every student wants to achieve tangible results in a short amount of time without making much effort. The main emphasis is on conversational language. Textbooks meeting these requirements were in high demand.

We launched new educational programs that helped establish the “Armat” five-part educational complex, which has been approved by the National Institute of Education of the Republic of Armenia and recommended by the RA Ministries of Education and Science and Diaspora.

The complex covers the Haik, Pokr Mher, Sasuntsi Davit and Mets Mher textbooks, a dictionary, DVDs and interactive materials.

The school is under the direction of young expert Alexander Barseghyan and is always in the focus of Director of Vardanyan Center, Fr. Sargis Tashjian.

We always renew the principle that children need to come to school and have to be in a place where people love and understand them and are always ready to help them. Linguistic thinking is a national phenomenon and an asset. Even the most superficial contact with the Armenian language needs to make children feel spiritually satisfied and harmonious. For the Armenians of Krasnodar, “Armat” has become the warmest home where they can feely enter in any mood, with any thoughts, requests and suggestions. The school makes everyone feel good, starting from 5-year-old learning his first words in Armenian through pictures and videos and ending with a 50-year-old woman who has become a grandmother and has just realized what is standing in her way of feeling spiritually satisfied and a 20-year-old boy who wants to correct his parents’ mistake and seek the widest circles of interests…And this is the only place where they can dream about Armenia being strong and about returning to Armenia, dream, aspire, seek paths, make proposals and sometimes even undertake pro-national initiatives.

Yerazik Harutyunyan

Krasnodar

P.S.: On 28-29 November, Advisor to the RA Minister of Diaspora Stepan Petrosyan granted the Commemorative Medal of the RA Prime Minister to Yerazik Harutyunyan to Yerazik Harutyunyan during the regional conference on “Issues of Armenian Language Teaching within the Armenian Communities of the Russian Federation”, which was hosted at the Vardanyan Center of the Prelacy of the Armenian Diocese of Krasnodar and organized by the RA Ministry of Diaspora, the Diocese of the Armenian Holy Apostolic Church in Southern Russia and the regional division of the Union of Armenians of Russia in Krasnodar region.