Diary of a Con Artist (Armenian)

About the Book

The book depicts the life of a young boy who lives in an obscure village of Salmand in late 1800. The village was known for its dark side as home of con artists. The population of the village consisted mainly of youth, elderly and woman. Most of able man spent their lives abroad. Young hero tries to avoid becoming a con artist by becoming a metalsmith. His carrier was cut short when one day he was accused of forging a key that was used in robbery. He became fugitive and joined master con artist unknowingly becoming his apprentice. The con artists from the village were smart, brave, daring people who had deep knowledge of culture, religion and languages of whole continent. One day they would pretend being a Muslim monk and next day Jewelry traders. They were so fluent that they could easily act as monks and recite religious texts from multiple religions and in a tong spoken locally. Frequently, they would collect donations in such artistic way that victims were glad to “help” them and might end up living their entire lives without knowing they ware conned. They were incredibly strong and resilient. Most of their cons were high profile and they would readily get financing from Rich individuals and banks. They were very honest paying their debts and would never con their friends. They had their cod of honor and would follow it fanatically. They were territorial and deadly individuals usually working in pairs. This was the phenomena local to this region and while there were legends in many cultures about “Khachagock”, this book is the only source describing their day to day lives. In one incident, the master con artist Petros helped starving village in Siberia and ended up spending the entire loot they gathered several months.

About the Author

The Author RAFFI (Hakob Melic Hakobyan) was one of the giants in Armenian literature. He was born in 1835 at Payanguk village. He was born in rich family and his father invests in his education. Most of his life he spend traveling and writing poems, satire, historic and other novels. His dies in poverty while suffering from pneumonia in 1885. His works become jewels of classic Armenian literature and secure his place in the history. This book was digitized and formatted by Vardan Antonyan and his company. Special thanks to Andranik Haroyan and everyone else contributing to the preservation effort and publishing of this Armenian classic book.