Arctic Armenians

(From left to right) Armenian diamond cutters Matevos Harutyunyan, Seyran Hayrapetyan, Zakar Hovhannisyan and Galust Khachatryan still regularly get together. Photo Levon Sevunts
(From left to right) Armenian diamond cutters Matevos Harutyunyan, Seyran Hayrapetyan, Zakar Hovhannisyan and Galust Khachatryan still regularly get together. Photo Levon Sevunts

Tuesday, March 13

Yellowknife, 62° 27′ 0″ N / 114° 21′ 0″ W, the capital of Canada’s Northwest Territories, is not a place one would expect to have a shot of Armenian mulberry vodka over a delicious homemade Armenian dinner.

But that’s exactly what I had on Sunday. And my hosts, Matevos and Rouzanna Harutunyans, also introduced me to a new way of drinking our world famous brandy – at least we, Armenians, think it’s world famous – with slices of peaches to bring out the flavour. I had to come to Yellowknife to find that out!

They came here from Armenia almost 10 years ago. Matevos is a master diamond cutter and polisher. He and about 50 other Armenian diamond cutters were brought to Yellowknife to work at the newly opened diamond cutting factories.

Today, as the hopes of an Arctic Canadian diamond cutting industry have mostly turned to dust, only about 20 Armenian diamond cutters and their families remain in Yellowknife, about 50 souls in all. Not a single one works in the diamond industry anymore.

They’ve all found other jobs but remain fiercely proud of their craftsmanship, as they should be. Everyone I’ve talked to says these Armenian diamond cutters were world class craftsmen.

So what happened? How come these world class diamond cutters are driving taxis, working odd construction jobs or have gone into other trades when Canada is still the world’s third largest producer of raw diamonds?

That’s one of the stories I’m working on here and I’m hoping to get the answers for.

Levon Sevunts, Radio Canada International

Born and raised in Armenia, Levon started his journalistic career in 1990, covering wars and civil strife in the Caucasus and Central Asia. In 1992, after the government in Armenia shut down the TV program he was working for, Levon immigrated to Canada. He learned English and eventually went back to journalism, working first in print and then in broadcasting. Levon’s journalistic assignments have taken him from the High Arctic to Sahara and the killing fields of Darfur, from the streets of Montreal to the snow-capped mountaintops of Hindu Kush in Afghanistan. He says, “But best of all, I’ve been privileged to tell the stories of hundreds of people who’ve generously opened up their homes, refugee tents and their hearts to me.”

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