My father first came to Yerevan for the Communist Party. Our shaikhs were against the kolkhoz--collective farms. People had always depended on them for everything and they didn't want their role to be replaced. My father thought that the kolkhoz was a good idea. He opened schools, wrote books for children, began a college, and then started the newspaper Riya Taze. My father wanted his people to become educated and make progress.

Interview with Zina Shamilova, daughter of Kurdish novelist Arabe Shamo,
living in Yerevan, Armenia, July 1996

The main policy was the Russification of all other peoples. They often clearly told us that Riya Taze was not a Kurdish newspaper but a paper of the Soviet Union in the Kurdish language. We were not allowed to mention the word "Kurdistan."
The radio was an instrument for the foreign policy of the Soviet Union, but it was very important. It permitted us to preserve our Kurdish songs.

Interview with Temure Xelil, Yezidi journalist for Riya Taze, a Kurdish journal, December 1992
One day [in Turkey] someone called, "Come, come, come!" When we got there, he was listening to the radio very carefully. It was the Kurdish language on the radio! It was Radio Yerevan.
And then people started to listen. Because of the Turkish state's propaganda, many didn't believe that it was possible to write and read in Kurdish and to use it on the radio.

Interview with Munzur Cem, Kurdish writer living in Sweden, September 1993

From the book, Kurdistan, In the Shadow of History.