Cement and the Varpet

I slowly make my way out of the courtyard onto the street, making sure not to lose hold of the heavy bucket of cement. I place it beside Usta Hovhannes who’s busy drenching the excavated recess of the wall with water. Stonemason Usta [“master”] Hovhannes is renovating Armenian Birthright Gyumri Office’s outer wall, hammering out the old, decayed stones and carefully fitting in the new ones, while I hover round: learning and dodging the flying splinters.

“Look, Miko – first you must wet the stone or else it won’t stick to the cement,” he informs, making sure I see the wetted slab.

Usta Hovhannes has worked with stone his entire life, sculpting khachkars as well as renovating Gyumri’s old buildings; a spry man in his sixties, he sits on his padded-up knees for hours, carefully whittling away space before adding in the cement and then only slipping in the new block into its slot. He picks up his trowel and begins slapping on the cement, liberally painting the crevice with the thick grey-green mixture.

“Usta Hovhannes, what kind of stone is this?”
“Black Tufa.”
“And these?”
“Basalt.”
“And the rest of the building?”
“Very old and dusty Black Tufa – unrecognizable, no?”

As Usta Hovhannes’s unofficial assistant/volunteer for the past one day and four hours, I’ve so far supplied him his instruments (rubber mallet for hammering into place the stone slab; chisel and hammer to chip away unwanted edges; wet sponge to clean its face), swept clean the sidewalk and prepared the cement mixture – unsuccessfully – four times.

The first time he showed me the steps: showing the line in the bucket –

“Fill the water this much” – then –
“these many scoops of սոսինձ (glue), these many of ցեմենտ (cement) and a bunch of սվաղ (mortar) – mix with the electric cement mixer and there you go.”

The next time the cement bucket was emptied, Usta Hovhannes handed over the bucket with a smile –

“Make cement.”

What came back resembled, in its consistency, paint. He laughed and turned the paint into sludge, instructing –

«Ավելի շա՛տ սվաղ» ("More mortar!")

When again the bucket was emptied, he gave me a thumbs up and sent me off, alone. This time the cement was so thick he had to mix in nearly a liter of water. The third time was too watery yet again, as was the fourth one.

In the shed for the fifth time, alone with the ingredients, I spent nearly ten minutes carefully adding the different powders to the water, gauging the consistency of the mixture after every few whirls of the mixer. Once there wasn’t any more room, I picked up the bucket and headed out into the heat.

Although it’s already April, Gyumri has seen nothing but cold and rain until two days ago when warm weather finally hit the city, allowing Usta Hovhannes to begin his work.

“We have to wait for the cement to dry,” he’d say after every new fitting, taking out a cigarette and contemplating his handiwork.
(I don’t smoke so I’d daydream instead: there I am, manfully layering cement and stone, single-handedly building a house for my (non-existent) wife and children here in Armenia.)

This time, after tapping the stone slab in and making sure it’d hold, Usta Hovhannes suggests an ice cream break while the cement dries.

Contentedly nibbling our Grand Candy ice cream, he tells me about his students (now master stonemasons in their own right), and his past commissions (the latest one was a khachkar for a church in Las Vegas).

“Usta Hovhannes, this stonework is hard work on the body though, no?”
“Of course, Miko jan.”
“Do you know who are the three craftsmen with the hardest craft? I’ll tell you:
քարտաշը (stonemason), դարբինը (blacksmith), and հացթուխը (baker).”

I nod my head — thanks to Armenian Birthright, I’ve experienced both stonemasonry and lavash baking, and can personally attest to their labor-intensive nature. (All that remains is to have a “havak” with a blacksmith.)

Usta Hovhannes sits back and begins work on the next stone as I go and throw away the leftover wrappers.

“Miko!”
I turn to find Usta Hovhannes proudly pointing at the cement bucket.
“Այ սիկ ցեմե՛նտ է” (“Now this is cement”).