A Career Of ‘cheers’!: Art Of Being Tamada Is A Professional Task

[MosJan]

A Career of ‘Cheers’!: Art of being tamada is a professional task

By Gayane Mkrtchyan

ArmeniaNow reporter

Gurgen Stepanyan is preparing for a wedding party on January 22, but not as a guest but as a worker. There is much work before that, of which the most important is the meeting with the future bride and groom. They will introduce Gurgen into their love story, will tell him of their preferences and other surprises that they would like to see at their wedding party.

 

“Only after all this will I start writing a wedding party scenario. We draft the sequence of toasts with the main characters, and also what games there will be, what prizes will be awarded to the winners,” says Gurgen.

 

Thirty-three-year-old Gurgen is a manager by training, but he goes to feasts by the call of his second specialty. He is one of the tamadas (head of table) of the “Zhpit” (“Smile”) Club, and also the head scenario writer. The club has operated since 1990, officially since 1997.

 

“We have studied traditions typical of Armenia’s regions, and wherever we go to manage the feast we are guided by that. We also do innovations, preserving the traditional image of a tamada,” says Gurgen.

 

A tamada means the head of the table, more professionally – an Armenian priest, manager, coordinator. According to traditional ways, his main work is to regulate the feast table, to make it interesting and rich in content by means of toasts.

 

Gurgen says that “Zhpit” currently employs ten tamadas. The price of their services starts at $150.

 

“A tamada must be very frank, be able to easily adapt to a surrounding he is not familiar with. He must drink very little preserving his sobriety. We hardly ever use cups, as we have a microphone in one hand and notes in the other,” Gurgen explains.

 

Ethnographer Karl Seghbosyan says that tamada-ing should be done in an environment with which a given tamada is well familiar.

 

“In that case he feels like fish in water. It is not without reason that our forefathers chose the best known and most respected person of a given town or village as a tamada.”

 

Seghbosyan is also a well-known tamada. Unlike “Zhpit” tamadas where all are young, he is older and mentions the well-known tamadas of his generation – Onik Amasyan from Gyumri, Suren Chplakhyan, Ruben Ghazaryan, Khoren Palyan. According to Seghbosyan, the “real tamada” must be “a mustache and a beard”, married, and someone with a rich life experience.

 

“Sing, recite poetry, have a talent of beautiful rhetoric, this is what a tamada must be rich with. And finally, it is good if the head of the table does not repeat old things all the time,” he says.

 

Gurgen shares this opinion. “For example, people are tired of the toasts like ‘Grow Old on One Pillow’, we try to do new things. We offer a toast to the best ‘eater and drinker’, the best ‘troublemaker’ or the best ‘sneezer’. And we award prizes in the end. We set up a jury from the main persons of the feast.”

 

Gurgen says that they have many orders. During the period from August to October they even have a shortage of tamadas. They have orders from Armenia’s regions and Russia. They like tamada-ing in villages where wedding parties last for three days.

 

“National traditions in villages are well preserved. We commence on a Friday, when they slaughter cattle, a Saturday is the day for the wedding party proper, and a Sunday is the day for the khash ritual,” the tamada says.

 

Clinking glasses is an adored part of Armenian feasts

Those at “Zhpit” give assurances that unlike the previous years, they now have more orders, without considering the reason being a social one.

 

“The public gradually learns to use similar services. As for money, Armenians are used to spending their last penny for their children’s wedding ceremony.”

 

Seghbosyan says that a tamada is a strictly oriental character. Arabs, Indians, Kazakhs, Persians have tamadas, but they are more temperamental among Caucasian peoples.

 

Gurgen is convinced that a professional tamada can be found only in Armenia. Masters of ceremonies conduct similar feasts in Europe and Russia who are more like showmen. For example in France am emcee charges up to 5,000 euros to conduct such a feast, in Russia – $2,000-3,000. And if tamadas from Armenia leave for Russia, they receive $1,000-1,500.

 

Nevertheless, tamadas confess that this job requires great responsibility. They need to be attentive throughout the gathering, as they are at the helm of the feast.

 

Seghbosyan says that in the past a tamada also had an educational importance. He did not allow young people to use alcoholic beverages. And generally, the more prestige a tamada enjoys, the more prestigious a given feast becomes.

 

And Armenia’s got their first heads of the table at the time when they became to toast each other first, or drink ‘kenatsner’, which translated from Armenian literally means “to your life”.

 

“I think that when Hayk Nahapet defeated Bel and organized a feast with his grandchildren and great grandchildren, they already had a tamada,” Gurgen concludes.