Bulgaria: Mari Firkatian
After spending some time in a refugee camp in Istanbul, the Yahanadjians eventually traveled back to Mets Nor Gyugh, which had been miraculously untouched. They stayed there for some time, until Turkish forces began to cause unrest in Asia Minor, causing the family to again worry for their safety. With fourteen cans of olive oil, they bought passage for the family to a refugee camp in Greece, and from there traveled to Burgas, Bulgaria.
In Bulgaria, the family lived in poverty. Mari’s paternal grandfather, Boghos, did manual labor for a living; his son, Agop, did not own shoes until he was eleven years old.
"The importance of maintaining [Armenian] identity probably increased when I came to [America]. But I don't think it would've been possible without the foundation I got in Bulgaria. And I can say unequivocally that that's 80% due to the efforts of my grandmother and my mother.
--Mari Firkatian
The Armenian community in Burgas was centered around Surb Khach Holy Cross Church. However, Anahid and Agop never took their young daughter to church; in communist Bulgaria, even blue collar workers were in danger of losing their jobs if they displayed religiosity. It was Iskouhi, Mari’s grandmother, who took her to church, spoke to her in Armenian, and served as her primary caregiver due to the inaccessibility of childcare.
There was little sense of an Armenian home in Burgas; though there had been more of an artistic and cultural community when Mari’s parents were growing up, these had disappeared by the post-communist era, and many Bulgarians did not want Armenians integrating into their society. Mari says that her only real sense of the Armenian community was through her grandmother, who would take her to the houses of other genocide survivors: “there’s this bunch of little old ladies sitting around having coffee in little demitasse cups, and they would start talking and crying about [the genocide.]