By ANUSH NERSISYAN
Aleen Maranian first visited her relatives in Armenia in 1995 when she was 14 years old and couldn’t assume that twenty years later she would be a citizen of Armenia and would be living and working in her homeland with her Assyrian husband Mansur Hilib due to circumstances.
“They say something good comes out of all evil. The Syrian war became the reason for us to settle in Armenia. Our friend from Armenia invited us here this August. We lived at his house for a while and went on to rent an apartment. We found jobs and adapted to the lifestyle,” Aleen said in an interview with womennet.am.
Aleen’s ancestors, who were saved during the Armenian Genocide and had escaped from the Oril village of Aintab to Aleppo, could never imagine that one of their descendants would settle in Armenia, but this is the reality.
Aleen and her husband say the news from their parents in Aleppo isn’t assuring. They don’t know when the war will end. “My parents haven’t been living in their house for the past three years. They moved to a safer district, but there are still bombings.”
During their years in Syria, the young couple worked by their profession. Mansour was a barber, and Aleen was a cosmetologist/manicurist. They have given their barber shop to someone for rent, and are now working at the cozy and exotic MS Beauty Salon located in the 1st Mass of Nor Nork District in Yerevan. If it weren’t for the advice and heartfelt attitude of their friends, neighbors and hairdresser Angelina, it would have been hard for the young couple to adapt to the new environment.
“There are Syrian-Armenians who can’t find jobs for months. We were lucky to meet good people and find jobs with their support. We are grateful to them for their great support. Through them my husband got to know the Armenians, and now he loves Armenia and the Armenians so much that he’s even urging his relatives to visit Armenia,” Aleen says.
There are beauty salons at every step in Yerevan, but that didn’t bother Aleen and her husband. After all, each person is successful, and they are too. Today, they have their own clients. True, they don’t have as many clients as they did in Aleppo, but they are content.
Aleen and her husband don’t work like the local barbers, though there are many Armenians who prefer Oriental-style hairdos. Nevertheless, Aleen and her husband try to please their customers with their variety of styles. They say it’s too early to talk about future plans, and if they have problems, they will start looking for jobs in Dubai with the help of Mansur’s friends. Mansur dreams of having a home in Armenia.
For the lively and smiling Aleen, in addition to her knowledge of Armenian, Arabic and English, she wouldn’t mind learning Russian, which would help her communicate with her Russian customers. Since she has free time during the day, she also cooks. Aleen’s Ishli-Kufta dish is already in demand in the stores nearby.
“Aleppo is my birthplace, but Yerevan is my home,” says Aleen, who has so many dreams.
