BIRDMAN OF ZEYTUN: A LIFE AMONG HIS ANIMALS
- It’s almost half a century 80-year-old Martin Adamyan supervises the panther and the deer, the stork and the mouse, the bug and the butterfly peacefully sharing the space in just one room. This room of about just a dozen of square meters is the zoological museum located in the premise of the Research Center for Zoology and Hydroecology of the National Academy of Sciences in the Zeytun district of Yerevan.
“This is my life; the life of these animals is my life,” says ornithologist Martin Adamyan showing the exhibition of animal species with admiration and telling about them in detail. The exhibition comprises more than 2,000 species that have been collected beginning in the 1920s on the initiative of retired General Shelkovnikov, an ethnic Armenian, who served in the Tsarist Army.
“Shelkovnikov, a big animal-lover, had always been thinking of creating such a museum. Early in 1910s he organized nature studies, starting large-scale studies of the flora and the fauna,” says Adamyan, who has been heading the museum since the late 1960s. Adamyan joined the museum in 1957 as an associate researcher and tied up his life with it.
“I was born in one of the wagons of the Yerevan-Tbilisi train. I have seen nature outside the window as soon as I opened my eyes: this was not occasional either, I suppose. Nature would later become my home, wouldn’t it?” smiles Adamyan.
The life of this ornithologist with his family roots in the town of Igdir, Surmalu province of Western Armenia has not been easy.
“My father was a military man and our family used to travel across the Transcaucasus for many years. I was hardly 13, when I left school and began to work: there was nothing to eat, I had to work. I went back to school in 4-5 years,” recalls Adamyan, who managed to get higher education despite the hardships at the Veterinary Institute and get a doctoral degree in zoology.
He is author of 300 studies and articles and 3 books. His first book about the birds of Armenia was published in the 1980s, the next two in 1997-2000.
“A renowned American Armenian industrialist/manufacturer Sargis Hakobyan found me in 1993 and offered for me to prepare a book about the bird species of Armenia. I formed a task group of 15-20 and we began the field studies,” says Doctor Adamyan. The books he authored are unique guides for those who are interested in bird species and their lifestyle. “But what’s the use? No one is interested with the books today, no one wants to read my articles,” he says and quickly passing from the stories of his life continues to present the life of the museum.
By the Second World War the museum already had a large collection. The exhibits were kept in the zoological park, but, being moved in damaged storage boxes, some 20-30 percent of the collection was lost before the museum settled in its current place.
“We somehow managed to convince [them] to make new showcases. Now they are old and need to be replaced. But what means do we have for that? The museum does not have a budget, the money should be allotted by the Institute for Zoology, but it does not have it either,” says Adamyan and points to the show windows that were broken when the neighboring building was deconstructed with explosives.
“It seemed like there were earthquakes in the museum every day. Even the windows used to break. We kicked up a fuss and somehow managed to stop the blasts. But no one knows who will compensate for the damage,” says Adamyan.
The museum that lives without a budget and a sponsorship still has the caring eyes of an animal-lover that notice every single displacement of exhibits after schoolchildren visits. Adamyan caringly fixes the damaged cases, involving his grandchildren when needed, who repair the damaged things according to their grandfather’s demand and means.
“I am so old: I am 80 and will leave this world sooner or later. My major concern is to find someone I can hand all these over to, because I don’t have a successor. Of course, my grandchildren help me willingly, but they belong to another world,” says Adamyan, smiling and continuing his stories about birds.
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