Sevgul Uludag 

caramel_cy@yahoo.com 

Mrs. Nouritza picks me up from the Ledra Palace checkpoint and as always she is driving as though in a rally! She is an old woman, very determined when she has something on her mind and speaks Turkish perfectly – a kind of Turkish from old times that our mothers and grandmothers used to speak… It is so delightful hearing her speak this Turkish, so we chat in the car, going towards the Armenian cemetery at Ayios Demedios. Our aim is to find the grave of Haysmig Mangoian, the woman who was killed in her house…

The cemetery is in the `buffer zone` so we have to wait for the UN to come… Finally they are here so we can enter – the Armenian Cypriots have `permission` once a week on Sundays, between 11.30-12.30 to enter this cemetery…

We start searching for the grave of Haysmig but we cannot find it – we have to wait for the priest to come and show us… But first, we visit the grave of Levon, the son of Mrs. Nouritza… He had died young, at 45, at a car accident and she has flowers for him… She cries at his grave – no matter how many years have gone by, he is still her small son whom she has lost…

Father Momik Habeshian finally comes and in five minutes we are at the grave of Haysmig. Apparently she was born in 1895 and was killed in 1970 – she must have been 75 when she died… We speak with Father Momik who says she had been a rich woman and had left all her land to the Armenian Church. Unfortunately I could not find even a photo of her… I tell Father Momik, `She was a close friend of Mustafa Kemal Ataturk’s wife, Mrs. Latife… They were both from Izmir (Smyrna) and I am trying to find her surname before her marriage so that we can trace her family from Smyrna…`

`The church has no records like that` he tells me… And the Mangoian family proved not so helpful for me…

But Father Momik has another idea:

`You know what? There is a man whom Mustafa Kemal Ataturk used to take in his arms when he was a child…`

`But who is he? Is he alive?`

`Sure! He is 94 now… His name is Sirun Yenovkian… He lives in Nicosia…`

`Mrs. Nouritza! Do you hear what he says?`

She comes to listen…

`But of course I know him! He just lost his wife… Let’s go to visit him, after this…`

So again we get in Mrs. Nouritza’s car and go to where Mr. Sirun Yenovkian lives…

We knock on the door but no answer. There is a phone number on the door so we call the number and he answers… He was lying down but he gets up to open the door for us…

There he is: Mr. Sirun Yenovkian, 94 years old, living alone and not needing anyone to take care of him! He cooks for himself, cleans for himself, takes care of himself and does not even need glasses to read!

`What’s your secret?` I ask him…

`I never ate meat in my life! I never drank alchohol! I stopped smoking years ago! I always take cold showers – I never take warm showers! If you ate what I cook, you would stop eating meat! No oil except very little olive oil!`

He is a musician – he was a child prodigy, playing his violin at a very early age… His family, he tells us, has a history of 1,000 years in Istanbul (Constantinopolis). His grandfather was the cook of the Saray (The sultan’s palace) and had died in 1853. His name was Nubar Enovk. The Sultan had given them the house at Ortakeuy, Istanbul as a gift with his own seal.

`We still own this house – you see on the wall, there is a picture…`

I can see that… There are also other photographs…

He selects some cassettes to play and we listen to his music… Not only did he play the violin but also the piano… He had an orchestra once… His father, Vahram Yenovk was a professor of music, who had studied in Paris. He brings me the brochure from December 1924 where he had played with his father and his sisters in Cyprus at the `Grande Salle de Cleopatra`…

He remembers Mustafa Kemal Ataturk from 1917-1918:

`He was our neighbour… He was a bodyguard at the Saray (Palace). He would come and take me in his arms… I was a beautiful kid then and he would take me to the Saray (Palace) for the `Hala Sultan` (maybe the Sultan’s mother or auntie) to see me… She would give me these wonderful Napoleon chocolates wrapped in golden paper… Kemal was a very handsome young man… Later he had gone to Germany for military studies…`

I search on the internet later to find out that in fact, Mustafa Kemal was the personal bodyguard (yaver) of the Prince Vahdettin and that he had gone to Germany with him back in December 1917. Prince Vahdettin would later become the `Sultan` - the last Sultan of the Ottoman Empire.

Mr. Sirun has hundreds of songs he has composed – he keeps them in a carton box, on cassettes… He has `written` a book about his life and his memories:

`My granddaughter is now putting it on the computer… Soon my autobiographical book will be printed…`

He is an amazing person at 94… If we had not gone to look for the grave of Haysmig, who was a friend of Ataturk’s wife, we would not have found out the existence of Mr. Sirun, whom Ataturk used to take in his arms…

But now I must leave to go to work – later, we would come again with Mrs. Nouritza for a detailed interview… I am sure, he has thousands of things to tell me about his life in Istanbul and in Cyprus…