There are many huts like this in Armenia, and they are often half under ground, with the earth that has been dug out piled up around them. A village of such dwellings looks a good deal like a village of huge ant-hills.
There is only one door for the people and animals. Animals? Yes, animals. For in winter the poor people let the animals come into the room with them, and almost every family has at least a few goats.
There is a fireplace in the middle of the earth floor for cooking, but there is no chimney, and the room is very smoky.
The mother makes big thin sheets of blanket bread and bakes it before the fire. Sometimes she makes little cakes of the bread and spreads them with thick cream.
The children drink goats’ milk with their bread, and once in a long while they have a few raisins.
There are no windows in the hut, instead there are a few holes for light; and there are no tables, no chairs, no beds, no bureaus. In fact there is no furniture except some mats and blankets. Hagop’s mother weaves the mats and blankets herself. The children like to watch the patterns grow on the rugs as the mother weaves the colored threads back and forth.
The people sit on the mats in the daytime and at night they roll themselves in the blankets and sleep on these same mats.
Of course the rich people in the towns and cities have much more comfortable houses, and they often have beautiful carved furniture and handsome rugs. But these houses have flat roofs, too, and in summer every one, rich or poor, lives on the roofs.
There all the work is done; the women weave rugs or make beautiful lace; the little girls play with their dolls; and at night the mats are spread and the family sleep under the stars.