The Family

Our Origins

Sarvarians are an Armenian family that settled in Tehran, Iran as early as mid 1800's. The family tree goes as far back as Karapet (Mkrdich) Sarvarian about whom not much information is yet available. His son Tatevos is buried at Tehran's Vanak Armenian church cemetery with "Mirza Tatavos Sarvarian" engraved on his thumb stone. Tatavos' son Mkrdich was a merchant who would travel across Caucasus from Tehran to Tbilisi, Alexandropol (Present Gyumri) and other Russian cities for business. Beside trade he was also interested at art and culture which turned him into a part-time actor in a theater group in Tehran, where he first met his future wife Markarit (Margret) Haroutunian.

Age of Margret

Markarit was born in 1885 in Tbilisi, Georgia to Armenian parents. After finishing her higher education in Child Development in 1901, she was invited to Iran by Haykazian institute at 1905 from which point her impact on education and culture of her new community begins.

After marriage Mkrdich and Margret began their new life in Tehran where their four children Napoleon, Mushegh, Sonia and Sasha are born. Taking care of four children turns Markarit's household into a daycare center and with the addition of a few other children from the neighborhood this becomes her full-time job, eventually leading to establish her own kindergarten, where she begins implementing her studied and specialized methods of child development and learning technologies to toddlers and children. This is how the first Armenian kindergarten in Tehran is launched, which eventually develops into the "Sarvarian School" with hundreds of students that later spread across the world with their early memories shaped with Markarit's teachings.

Beside child development and education, Markarit was an avid reader who used her knowledge of languages to translate several books.  In 1935 with the help of his son she begins to publish "Nor Hasker" (New Crops or New Clusters of Wheat) A biweekly for children and teenagers in Armenian.