Quite coincidentally, I was contacted yesterday via email by Michael Karakashian - Roland's younger brother. Michael - an Aiglon alumni (1986) - had obtained my email address from the school.I had previously been told that Roland was deceased, but had no further information about the circumstances. I had come up with a reference that looked like it related to Roland's estate (but I could not be sure).
The reference was in the web site e-Family. The entry was here:
ROLAND KRIKOR (GREGORY). ESTATE NO: 5771/01. * 26 DECEMBER 1947. ID: 471226 5093 100. LAST ADDRESS: 36 HOUGHTON DRIVE, HOUGHTON ESTATE, JOHANNESBURG. + 14 OCTOBER 2000. (THE STAR - 25/01/2002).Anyway, Michael K confirmed that the entry was indeed about Roland. Apparently, Roland had been killed in his house when he had confronted a burglar or burglars. The killer(s) was/were not found.
I remembered Roland as a friend. We were classmates, we were both in the football team, and we shared an interest in music. Roland was into pop music and was pretty hot on the electric guitar and had formed a rock band - of sorts - at school.
9 comments:
I met Roland some time in 1970 via our common interest in Textiles. After that and since Roland Was a very special person we became closer friends and up to his demise. It took no long to find that Roland was a music fun, not only of Pop but classical and especial Russian and Gregorian music. It was only couple of days ago that i got the feeling of running an advert in t he news paper for all that knew Roland to have a get together evening where music of his collection (I do have some) could be heard so as to live his memory again.
That would be nice - to hear some of Roland K's music. Could it be made available in MP3 format?
Is that "Peter" Prebatch by any chance? Could you provide an email contact please?
Roland was in Cambridge UK 1966-8, where he had many friends who will never forget him and his 1933 Alvis (cost 700 pounds from Murketts on the corner of Huntingdon Road!)and his favourite guitar, both of which became a big chunk of our lives, as did the George and Dragon pub where he worked part-time. Truly a fun person to have known. To this day I am ashamed that I made up false call-up papers for Vietnam (he had a US passport as well as SA). When he received them he refused to believe it was a joke, walked out into the pub garden, and we all thought he was going to jump into the river. He got his own back, though.
@ebcrutchley
Thanks for your comment. Yes, I too have some interesting tales involving Roland.
I am an Armenian, who was born and raised in South Africa from 1982 to 2001. I had the great honor to grow up, having Roland being like an Uncle figure to me. I remember many things about Roland. All of them are how he loved to help others, always worked hard and never gave up on the things that he really wanted in life. Losing Roland to something so horrific and undeserving just does not seem fair. The reason why I say this is that he would refuse to kill insects in the house saying that they also have the right to live. Someone like that should not have died the way he did.
Never the less, I am sure that Roland will remain in all our hearts as the kind man that we all knew him for. Roland, may you rest in peace.
@Antranig Paroian
That's interesting. I wonder, was Roland K a buddhist? I do not recall what his religious convictions were.
My name is Gregory Karakashian, I am Rolands Nephew, unfortunaly he passed when I was only 8 years old and my recolection of his time with me was short, I moved to California.
When I moved to California, my mother (Rolands sister) developed cancer, Roland immidiatly flew from South Africa to my home in California where I was home with my single sick mother.
He is as close as I will have had to a father during my rough times, and if anyone can help me find more information about him it would truly put me over the moon.
Many thanks,
Gregory
gregkash24@gmail.com
My name is Julie Zander Karakashian and I am Roland's eldest daughter. My father always told us so many happy stories from Aiglon and often reminded us how cool he was in his band :-) which we believed as he was always one of the coolest fathers around. He took my sister and I to Aiglon in the mid 80's to show us around his school, which was truly beautiful. This Saturday it will be 17 years since we lost him and a great loss it is. I have had to walk a different walk without him by my side, but he is missed deeply and I feel honoured to had such an noble, kind, caring, inspiring and expansive thinker as my father. As Gregory above, I'd love to hear any stories you may have. Many thanks, Julie ( julie@ulr.co.za)
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