According to a well-known conspiracy theory, Armenians invented everything in the world. This opinion is also frequently voiced under our videos. And since parliamentary elections recently concluded in Armenia and Yerevan is on everyone’s lips these days, I decided to share an unexpected fact with you. So, make yourself comfortable, open up your piggy bank of Caucasian achievements, and get ready to add a new treasure to it.
“Oh, East is East, and West is West, and never the twain shall meet” — many know this iconic line by Rudyard Kipling. And yet, in the 1910s, the refined Japanese culture and the culinary genius of an Armenian baker met in Tokyo. A former baker to the House of Romanov left a Russia torn apart by revolution and brought the secrets of European pastry to the Land of the Rising Sun. And then, magic happened: Ivan Sagoyan created the ultimate confectionery symbol of modern Japan.
Melonpan, or melon bun, is the ultimate hit of Japanese street food and a part of the Japanese DNA. It constantly pops up in anime, manga, and J-dramas. The pastry is made from soft sweet dough covered with a crispy, cookie-like top layer. The bun got its “melon” name from its grid-like pattern, which resembles the rind of a melon.
Today, you can buy it literally anywhere in Japan, with different prefectures offering their own variations. But if you are a traditionalist and ever find yourself in Tokyo, visit a bakery called Monsieur Ivan in the Tachikawa area. Its current owner is a disciple of a master who, in turn, was a devoted apprentice of Sagoyan.
Born Hovhannes Gavenian, he was originally from Erzurum in Turkey. From an early age, he worked as a baker, then emigrated to the Russian Empire and found employment with the Romanovs, from where he moved to Harbin, China, and began working at one of the local prestigious hotels. It was there that fate brought Gavenian together with the Japanese industrialist and businessman Baron Okura Kihachiro. He helped the talented baker move to Tokyo and get a job at the Imperial Hotel. Thus, Hovhannes Gavenian began a new life under a new name — Ivan Sagoyan.
Soon, Sagoyan married a woman from an ancient samurai family whose ancestors had faithfully served the Date clan for centuries. He combined his work at the Imperial with running his own bakery. It was then that our protagonist came up with the legendary melonpan.
Ivan and his wife had three daughters: Anna, Evgenia, and Lily. In general, the fate of this family would become intricately intertwined with the upheavals of the 20th century. In those years, Japan had a strict law under which a child’s citizenship was determined solely by the father. Since the independent Republic of Armenia fell in 1920 to the Soviet regime, Sagoyan’s international passport lost all validity. As a result, the girls, born in Tokyo to a Japanese mother, found themselves in a legal dead end — they could not inherit their mother’s citizenship, could not obtain citizenship from their father whose country no longer existed, and remained stateless persons for decades.
Nevertheless, the family lived well. During World War II, when many foreigners and even descendants of Armenian diplomats in Japan were sent to camps, the Sagoyans were left untouched. Ivan continued to bake bread at the Imperial Hotel, while the grown-up Lily got a job at Radio Tokyo. She worked there as a typist, translator, and announcer on the “Zero Hour” program. Without knowing it, she became one of the female voices that American soldiers in the Pacific collectively dubbed “Tokyo Rose.” These were English-speaking female announcers who broadcast propaganda. They played popular American jazz, cracked jokes, and, in between, shared fabricated news about US military defeats, unfaithful wives back home, and how their command was sending soldiers to certain death.
In August 1945, Japan signed the instrument of surrender, and the war ended. Allied forces (mostly American) led by General Douglas MacArthur entered the islands; incidentally, Lily Sagoyan would later get a job in his administration.
Ivan, meanwhile, developed a touching tradition: as it turned out, he would invite any American serviceman of Armenian descent to his home and welcome him like a son. Thanks to this tradition, the story of the Sagoyan family would be published in Ararat magazine, albeit two decades after the baker’s death in 1952.
Ivan Sagoyan is buried at the Yokohama Foreign General Cemetery. On his modest headstone, beneath his name, is an epitaph carved in Armenian: “With longing for the Homeland and in the Armenian spirit.” Today, decades later, millions of Japanese people buying melon buns have no idea that the crispy crust of their favorite treat hides the knowledge of how, having lost one home, one can build an entire world.
