"Back in early 1920-s there were a lot of Azeri villages in the Eastern part of Armenia, I will be mainly talking about Alaverdi (Lori) and its surroundings where my mother comes from. Armenian and Azeri people lived in neighborhood quite in peace together, as I figure (I assume, it looked something like Armenians and Yazidis for e.g. living next to each other)
Anyways, one day Armenian and Azeri villages located in Lori started to fight. An Azeri guys took a knife to stab my great grandfather also involved in the fight when all of the sudden another Azeri guy jumped out, grabbed the hand of the guy with the knife and didn't let him hit my great grandfather, in other words saved his life. From then on, Ghazar, my great grandfather and Yolchi, the Azeri guy, who'd saved his life, swore to each other to be brothers (QUIVA (Քիրվա) - the traditional word for it) and take care of each other no matter what (back then probably there was a tradition of brotherhood). Their Quivahood was perfect, the 2 families were very close, until my great grandfather Ghazar died in the World War the 2nd and Yolchi pass away too.
When the two QUIRVAS died, Yolchi's son Ismail visited my grandfather John Ghararich to continue the Quirvahood their fathers had made. Grandfather was OK with continuing the Quirvahood... OK but not enthusiastic (he was a head of former trade unions of the regions also was the director of the Alaverdi beer company and the Ismail was a simple shepherd... I guess this could also be a reason of the lack of enthusiasm of keeping the Quirvahood... yeah, granny acted snobbish ;)) and Ismail could feel it, but it didn't matter to him. Ismail went on carrying out Quiva's responsibilities to the fullest in the memory of their fathers' perfect Quirvahood: you know, sending huge parcels of presents, baskets of almonds, pomegranates, sweets, etc-etc, every new year.
In early 1980-s my younger ancle came back from his military service and got into good relationships with Ismail, and Ismail, wisely enough, decided to shift his Quirvahood from my grandfather to my uncle and it all went all over again perfectly well.
1990-ies, Karabagh issue raised and actually war started between the two nations... Azeris were removed from the Armenian territory to Azerbaijan. Ismail had to leave his home in Armenia... My mom tells the goodbye scene was heartbreaking, they didn't want to leave, we didn't want them to leave, but the country was in war state so there was pretty much nothing we could do about it, besides probably it wouldn't be safe for them to stay. My uncle drove them to the Azerbaijan territory passing the border of Ghazakh to make sure they were safe in their territory and came back home...
Everyone was OK except for my grandmother Siranush (her real name is actually Tamara, I have no idea why everybody calls her Siranush:)) who couldn't find her place after they departed... she was very worried whether they were safe home, all settled or not. So 2 day later my grand mother together with my uncle decided to go to Azerbaijan to make sure that Ismail's family was safe... they crossed the border late at night, found a local Azeri policemen who helped them find Ismail's family...Their meeting, my mom tells, was very emotional, tears and laughter... Ismail couldn't believe they actually made the whole way to see whether they were safe or not... Tables were all laid and a big party was organized that night for the guests...
That was actually the last time the two families ever met..."
P.S. John Ghazarich, my grand father, is 88 now and my grand mother is 84 :)
P.P.S. does it really mean I theoretically might have an Azeri Quirva sister and/or brother now... ?!
