Kumash Sarkisovna

Kumash Sarkisovna – before marriage had lived in v.Lower Aza located next to Upper Aza, the village Aram Khachaturian’s father came from. The composer’s parents were engaged before knowing each other, when Kumash was 9 and Ilia was 19. This distant engagement happened to be lucky. Having married the 16-year-old Kumash, Ilia took her to Tbilisi where all their 5 children were born: the eldest daughter Ashkhen (died at the age of 1.5) and 4 sons – Vaghinak, Suren, Levon and Aram. “My Mom, – recalls Aram Khachaturian, – was a very beautiful woman: tall, with a lovely figure. Till the end of her life, she was a careful keeper of the family hearth and enjoyed my father’s deep respect – a thing rarely occuring in the East at that time.” Aram’s mother became blind when she was rather young. She passed away in 1956 in Yerevan in Vaghinak Ilich’s home where she had been living for the last 10 years of her life. She was buried beside her husband whose remains were transported to Yerevan from Novodevichye Cemetery of Moscow.