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SPRINGFIELD –”Amazing” Armenian food including baked goods and fun with family and friends are the highlights of an upcoming Armenian Bazaar.
St. Gregory Armenian Apostolic Church will sponsor an Armenian Bazaar on Saturday, Oct. 15, from 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. at 135 Goodwin St., Indian Orchard.
Armenian dinners, baked goods, pickled vegetables, Armenian cookbooks, activities for children and Armenian music are part of the event.
Leo Vartanian, a church member, Board of Trustees member and choir director, helped to make nearly 90 quarts of tourshi, a pickled mixture of cauliflower, carrots, celery and green peppers with a brine of garlic and hot pepper flakes. “It’s got a little bit of zing,” he said.
Tourshi is popular at the bazaar; it makes a good hors d’oeuvre or can be eaten with stew.
Homemade Armenian food and pastries will include shish kebab and chicken kebab dinners. Take out will be available. Call ahead: 543-4763.
The food is “amazing,” said Claudia Muradian-Brubach, a Board of Trustees member
and parishioner. “The event is timed so that our parishioners and friends can stock up on Armenian baked goods and other items in time for the holiday season.”
“We live in a multi-cultural area,” Vartanian said. “People are exhibiting their culture, and we do the same. We like to perpetuate that culture.”
The families of many local Armenians came to the area following what has been called the Armenian Genocide. In 1915, leaders of the Turkish government activated a plan to expel and massacre Armenians living in the Ottoman Empire. By the early 1920s, when the massacres and deportations ended, some 1.5 million of Turkey’s Armenians had been killed; others were forced to leave the country.
Those who came to the Springfield area banded together, Vartanian said. “They brought with them the recipes and culture they grew up with and passed on to their families. All this culture is good to perpetuate because it is part of our roots.”
Born in the United States, he is Armenian on both his mother’s and father’s side. “We are proud of our heritage and like to tell it to the public in different ways, and one is this bazaar,” he said.
Muradian-Brubach grew up in the church and spent each bazaar with her parents and siblings eating and visiting with their Armenian friends. Now she enjoys spending the day with her children there.
“I spend a lot of time working at the bazaar like many of our other church members, but it is very gratifying knowing we can hold such an enjoyable event for the Armenian community and the community around us and be able to raise funds to continue promoting programs at the church,” Muradian-Brubach said. “This event allows the community to experience our Armenian culture that has been preserved for decades by picnics and bazaars at our church.”
This is one of the church’s two annual fundraising events. The other event is the annual Father’s Day picnic in June.
Proceeds from the bazaar are used for programming, other events, maintenance of the church and other needs.
Admission and parking for the bazaar are free.