“Hello Armenia”: Syrian-Armenian Viken left Armenia for Netherlands and realized that there is no better place than Yerevan

YEREVAN, FEBRUARY 22, ARMENPRESS. If 4 years ago Viken Piliposyan was told that he will leave Aleppo for Yerevan and will start cooking in Armenia, create a small café and think of new dishes, it would seem real neither for him, nor for his family. Viken, who possessed a sewing workshop and two huge markets in the central streets of Aleppo, was considered a successful businessman in Syria, but in Yerevan everything changed: he had to start from the beginning again.

Four years ago he arrived in Armenia for just two weeks, leaving everything in Aleppo. But now the huge workshop and the markets are plundered and lay in ashes.

“We could not even assume that the war in Syria would take this form and would not end for so long. We arrived in Yerevan and the airport shut down. It was impossible to return to Aleppo and we remained here”, Viken says.

For nearly one year Viken worked in different places in Yerevan, tried to establish a business but failed. Like many others, he was also disappointed and soon decided to try searching luck in Europe. He left for the Netherlands with his family. But living there for 3 months they realized that there is no better place than Yerevan. “Three months later, when we were waiting for residency documents, we understood that we prefer living in Yerevan rather than being a refugee in Europe”, Viken says, adding that his trip to Europe is a life experience and states that one must take lessons from his mistakes. “If we had not gone, we would always think that it is better abroad, but now we know that there is no better place than Yerevan”, Viken says and states that his second attempt to start a new life in Yerevan was more successful.

It is said a businessman is a businessman irrespective of where he is, while a professional businessman can establish a business in any situation and under any circumstances. In Yerevan Viken remembers his maternal grandfather who was serving as a cook for the Syrian army. Viken’s military service passed with his grandfather, in a military canteen. He leaned cooking there.

Viken sets a small café in Yerevan called “Tauk”. The main dish of the café is also called “Tauk”. The recipe of the dish prepared from chicken was invented by Viken. The visitors of the café, the number of whom grows day by day, confess that “Tauk” is a serious rival for shaurma.

Viken states that it is a requisite to “invest” love, struggle, believe and work hard in order to achieve something. Now Viken works 14 hours a day: he is the director, cook, waiter and cleaner of the café. He says he tried to make “Tauk” a bright place where people will prefer to have a lunch, spend time in the evenings and enjoy Syrian dishes.

“Every dish must be prepared with love. I am often asked if it is not hard to “invest” so much love, as I prepare hundreds of dishes every day. My answer is “no”. Love is fed with love. The more you give love, the more you get back”, Viken says.

He tells that the war and permanent movement from country to country have quite changed the characters of his family members. The most important of them is “living for today”. “None of us thinks of the future. No one knows what will happen tomorrow, next week, and we do not think of what we will do tomorrow, where we will live”, Viken says, adding that the Syrian war proved that a blast of one mine can wreck any dream and goal.

HASMIK HARUTYUNYAN