‘Jesus Walks’, ‘Power’, ‘Touch the Sky’ and ‘All of the Lights’.
His escapade lightened the mood of what could have been a very sombre few days. Despite the excitement her journey to Armenia generated, there was a serious point to it all. Kim wanted to draw attention to what many – and certainly all of the Kardashians – regard as the first modern genocide.
She had flown in just before the one hundredth anniversary, on 24 April, of the slaughter of more than 1.5 million Christian Armenians by Muslim Ottoman Turks. It preceded the Holocaust in Nazi Germany by a generation, but became a footnote in the history of the twentieth century, scarcely covered in school history lessons. Kim was determined to change that. She blogged, ‘Every year, I honour the memory of the martyrs who were killed during the 1915 Armenian Genocide.’
This didn’t sound like the sort of issue that might concern a woman posting selfies to her Instagram followers or sharing information online about her favourite salad or how to bleach your eyebrows. She explained, ‘So many people have come to me and said, “I had no idea there was a genocide.” There aren’t that many Armenians in this business. We have this spotlight to bring attention to it, so why would we just sit back? I will continue to ask the questions and fight for the genocide to be recognised for what it was.’ There are a few household names from Armenia: Cher, Andre Agassi and the popular French singer Charles Aznavour were three of the best known before the Kardashians became so famous.
Not only is their country a fleeting presence in history lessons, it doesn’t feature largely in geography classes either. The Republic of Armenia is a landlocked, mountainous country wedged between the Black Sea and the Caspian Sea. Turkey is to the west, Georgia to the north, Azerbaijan to the east and Iran to the south. Since it achieved independence from the Soviet Union in 1991, Armenia has relied on tourism to the beautiful country to bolster a struggling economy still reliant on Russian gas. An estimated third of the 3 million-strong population live in poverty.
The premier, Hovik Abrahamyan, welcomed Kim and Khloé with open arms, realising they were putting Armenia on the map for millions of people around the world. The sisters were joined by two previously unheralded Armenian cousins, Kourtni and Kara Kardashian, who hadn’t shared the limelight with their famous American relatives until now.
Prime Minister Abrahamyan praised the Kardashian contribution to the ‘international recognition and condemnation of the Armenian genocide’. Kim, in turn, repeated her pledge to campaign for worldwide acknowledgement of the atrocity.
She apologised for not being able to speak Armenian and said she and her sisters were intent on learning the language, which doesn’t feature in the curriculum of the exclusive private schools of Beverly Hills and Bel Air. Even her father, Robert Kardashian, so proud of his heritage, wasn’t a fluent speaker.
Kim’s efforts to reveal a more serious side to her public image received an unexpected boost when Pope Francis condemned the cruelty of the genocide during a service at St Peter’s in Rome. Many commentators acknowledged that the combination of Kim Kardashian and the Pope was a PR disaster for Turkey.
After the family left Armenia, there was one more important stop to make before they flew home. They travelled to Jerusalem for North to be baptised into the Armenian Apostolic Church. The hour-long ceremony at the Cathedral of St James in the Old City was conducted in both Armenian and English, and ended with North being anointed on the head with holy water.
Kim followed the custom of these occasions by wearing a striped wraparound floor-length dress and flat shoes and covering her head with a white shawl. Kanye looked relaxed and happy in white trousers and sweater. North, in a white christening gown, went to sleep. It had been a long trip for a little girl but, as a reward, she was treated to a day out in Disneyland on her second birthday in June.
The ‘state visit’ to Armenia was a triumph for Kim, although her one disappointment came when President Obama failed to use the ‘g word’ (genocide) in a speech marking the anniversary. He couldn’t risk antagonising Turkey, an important ally in the ongoing fight against terrorism. Kim, who doesn’t blame modern-day Turkish people, observed, ‘It’s very disappointing he hasn’t used it as a president. We thought it would happen this year. I feel like we’re close …’
When she had first arrived in Armenia, Kim made a point of saying that her father and his parents, now all dead, would have been hugely proud of the visit and what she was trying to achieve. Like her, they had been born in the United States. It was the previous generation of Kardashians, Kim’s great-grandparents, who preserved the family line by fleeing Armenia just before the mass slaughter of their countrymen.
In leaving the remote village of Karakale, where the family originated, they were heeding an extraordinary warning made by an illiterate and sickly boy who had visions about the future. Efim Klubnikin predicted, ‘Those who believe in this [prophecy] will go to a far land, while the unbelievers will remain in place. Our people will go on a long journey over the great and deep waters.’
Although he made the prophecy first as an 11-year-old boy in the 1850s, he repeated his warning 50 years later, just in time for some 2,000 Armenians to leave before the nation’s holocaust. Kim’s forebears were among the lucky ones. Accounts testify that ‘every soul’ in Karakale was murdered. The village is now an entirely Muslim settlement, near the city of Kars, in the harsh, snow-covered environment of eastern Turkey.
In an extraordinary twist, Klubnikin urged his ‘believers’ not just to flee to the United States, but to settle specifically in Los Angeles. Kim’s great-grandparents sailed independently to a new life, and met and fell in love on the boat from Germany. They were among some of the last to flee, not setting sail until 1913.
At the time of the massacres, Armenia was still in Russia. The First Republic of Armenia was formed in 1918 and became a founding member of the Soviet Union four years later. Strictly speaking, the Kardashian ancestors were of Russian-Armenian stock and the family name was Kardashcoff, which doesn’t trip off the tongue as well as Kardashian, although they could still have called their famous boutique DASH.
By the end of the First World War, the Kardashian family was beginning to establish itself at the centre of the new Armenian community in Los Angeles. Many had settled in a poor, slum-like neighbourhood known as ‘The Flats’ in Boyle Heights, East LA. The area was a gateway to the city for newcomers, and one that they aspired to leave. The Kardashians were no exception.
The displacement of some of a nation’s finest men and women bred great spirit and a desire for achievement. Friendships forged in adverse circumstances would last a lifetime, binding successful Armenian families together. A fierce loyalty was the hallmark of the community.
The rise in fortunes of the Kardashians began with a rubbish collection business and moved on to hog-farming. From there, it was a natural progression to opening a slaughterhouse for meat processing, as an outlet for their livestock concern. The Great Western Meat Packing Company started up in 1933 in the city of Vernon, 5 miles south of downtown LA. It’s a very unprepossessing, almost exclusively industrial area, full of warehouses and plants – and slaughterhouses. Vernon is not a place where you would want to live.
Arthur Kardashian, Kim’s grandfather, was born in Los Angeles in 1918 and married her beautiful grandmother, Helen Arakelian, who was a year older, when he was 20. He took over the family business with his brother Bob when their father retired and built it into one of the most successful Southern Californian enterprises, with a turnover of more than $100 million.
Art and Helen became pillars of a new prosperous Armenian community, settling in the affluent suburb of Baldwin Hills, a million miles away from The Flats. Former California Senator Walter Karabian, a frequent guest, described their home as ‘beautiful’
