Good and Bad Impressions of Armenia‏

Time-Traveling in Armenia
By JAMES FIDLER
JUNE 18, 2010

Discovering ancient churches and forgotten relics; reliefs carved into
the walls of a monastery's cave-chapel

The cracked streetsand crumbling buildings of Kars, Turkey, bear
feeble witness to better days long past. But it's also the last stop
on the journey to Ani, the magnificent abandoned Armenian capital,
which sits in the province of Kars, on the Turkish side of the
Armenian border.

To historians, Armenia is a borderland between East and West, on which
the tide of cultural division has washed back and forth since the days
of Rome and Persia. To theologians, the country is a window through
time; this oldest national church is a witness to a Christian
tradition both ancient and unique. To students of early-Christian
history, it's both.

Since Ani's heyday in the 10th and 11th centuries, Seljuk, Georgian,
Mongol and Timurid armies have breached its walls. Now the city is
empty, ruins on a barren and treeless plain, with no visitors apart
from a young group of Turkish soldiers joyriding through the site.

The imposing Church of the Holy Mother of God casts a long shadow. It
was completed at the turn of the second millennium by the architect
Trdat, following his return from building the great dome of Hagia
Sophia in Constantinople.

The blind arcading pattern and inscriptions in Armenian that cover the
church's external walls are reflected throughout the site—on the
elegant Church of the Redeemer, built to house a fragment of the True
Cross, and the Church of the Holy Apostles. To the southwest stands
the Minuchir mosque and, on the promontory beyond it, the citadel. To
the east flows the Akhurian river, past the monastery of the Virgin
and the brightly frescoed church of St. Gregory of Tigran Honents. In
the north, Ani's huge walls and towers puncture the skyline, glowing
red in evening light.

Flanked by the border fence, Armenia is a stone's throw across the
Akhurian, yet unreachable. Turkey closed the border in 1993, a
demonstration of support for Azerbaijan in its conflict with Armenian
separatists in the disputed territory of Nagorno-Karabakh. The Turks
appear to show little interest in Ani. Yet across the border in
Armenia, Ani and her churches, some of the last vestiges of Armenia's
grand past, are deeply ingrained in the country's national conscience.

Armenia, however, has wonders of its own, worth the detour around the
closed border. The trip, through the country of Georgia, goes by bus,
van and taxi north into the foothills of the lesser Caucasus
mountains, east through herds of cattle driven by weather-beaten
cowboys and finally, at night, south to Yerevan, the Armenian capital,
flickering gold in the Ararat valley basin.

Armenia adopted Christianity in A.D. 301, and it's no surprise that
the most striking aspect of this church today is the antiquity of its
religious monuments. In Avan, now a suburb of Yerevan, stands the
chapel of St. Asdvadzadzin, which was probably built in the fifth
century and remains mostly intact less a roof. This is by no means
remarkable in Armenia.

There are no signposts for the chapel and no entrance fee; it stands
among allotment gardens and fruit trees, accessible to all who manage
to find the tiny path that leads to it. The foundations of Etchmiadzin
Cathedral, the Mother Church of Armenian Christianity, are even older,
dating to the turn of the fourth century.

Among other memorable churches seen in a several-week visit through
Armenia, there's the heavily inscribed church at Kosh with a
breathtaking vista of Mount Ararat—a symbol of Armenian identity
painfully close but located beyond the border in Turkey. Elsewhere in
Armenia, the reliefs carved into the walls of the cave-chapel of
Geghard Monastery, the original repository of the lance that pierced
Christ's side until it was moved to Etchmiadzin; the immense and
starkly beautiful Hripsime cathedral; and the 32-sided cathedral of
Zvartnots, now in ruins, are all marvels of art and engineering, each
alone worth the trip.

Three chapels, in Yeghvard, Kosh and Avan, have been ignored in
hundreds of pages of a catalog of Armenian architecture. In Kos I
unearthed fragments of inscriptions from the rubble among the graves
of the adjacent cemetery, and in Pemsazen I tripped over a large rock
in the meadow surrounding a church that, when cleared of grass,
revealed a somber bearded face carved in relief.

This world is quickly changing. The rebuilding programs of the
Armenian Apostolic church are extensive and, for some architectural
experts, overzealous. Throughout the country, fallen domes and
collapsed arches have been incorporated in restored churches. For the
Armenian church, ruined buildings are unused, but certainly not
unusable, and so long as there are people to worship in them, they
will be reborn as they once were.

Yet to focus only on ancient relics is to miss the most captivating
aspect of the Armenian church. During Sunday service in the restored
monastery of Saghmosavank, Armenian chant filled the church. Through
the heavy curtains separating antechamber from congregation the priest
could be seen, drenched in a single ray of sunlight from a window high
overhead which pierced the heavy incense to illuminate an intricate
red and gold cloak falling from his shoulders to the floor. The shroud
that separated the congregation from the divine was on that day the
thinnest of gossamer.

Armenia's worshippers come from every part of society. In Hripsime
church, a young man with a shaved head lit tapers next to an ancient
man and a young woman holding her baby on her hip. Through invasion
and occupation, the church has helped Armenians keep their identity,
and this unique relationship is revitalizing and encouraging to
behold.

Trip Planner
Yerevan is a good base from which to explore the rest of the country;
Armenia is a small nation, and many places can be reached on day
trips.


One place to stay is the handsome Marriott Hotel, Yerevan, on Republic
Square, with rooms starting at around $200 a night.

For something light to eat or an afternoon drink, try M arco Polo, at
1 Abovian St. For dinner, Dolmama's, at 10 Pushkin Ave., is well known
for traditional lamb dishes.

HyurService (www.hyurservice.com) is a source for daily tours from
Yerevan throughout Armenia. For group tours from the U.S., one option
is the Fund for Armenian Relief Society's Hayastani Kitak society
(www.farusa.org/hks), which offers a two-week tour

Azerbaijan Social-Democratic Party official shares his impression from
recent visit to Yerevan
16 June 2010 [15:10] - Today.Az
Interview with Deputy Chair of Azerbaijan Social-Democratic Party,
human rights activist Salahaddin Allahverdiyev.

You attended a meeting of the Socialist International Committee of
the CIS, Caucasus and Black Sea states in Yerevan last week. What is
present-day Armenia like?

It has been left behind Azerbaijan in all areas. Even a couple of days
staying in this country is enough to realize how great is Armenia’s
socio-economic backwardness from our country, how irreversible is this
process and how Armenia is becoming the most backward state of our
region. I can foresee claims of Armenian opponents who will argue that
one needs to live in the country and have a detailed monitoring to
describe the situation there. But those objections are swept aside by
me for several reasons.

First and foremost, IMF and other influential organizations voice the
same view: Azerbaijan is developing rapidly, while Armenia is living
with a hope to get out of an economic abyss. Plus, I had a lot of
personal interviews with by Armenian residents who, though not openly,
confirmed entire depth of the economic crisis and also crisis of
ideology of Armenians around the world. Finally, I myself saw a lot of
facts what great socio-economic problems Armenia faces. Public
transportation there is in terrible condition. This is the case also
with industrial sites Armenia has inherited from the Soviet Union.

What was the attitude towards you in there?

Ordinary Armenian citizens showed no hostility towards me. There was
some hostility only by journalists. But I think this is because they
were instructed to do so. As I said, the socio-economic situation in
Armenia is simply horrible and it is not easy to find a well-paid job.
Therefore, the Armenian journalists, of course, do not want to lose
their job. So, they did what they were instructed to do.

In your opinion, do ordinary people of Armenia understand that grave
socio-economic situation in the country has been caused by country
leadership’s disregard of international law and failure to settle the
Armenian-Azerbaijani conflict over Nagorno-Karabakh conflict under
the law?

At backstage conversations with me, not only ordinary Armenians, but
also politicians and journalists of this country showed understanding
of the relationship between today's disastrous economic and social
situation and country’s disregard of international law, its refusal or
inability to agree to settlement of the Armenia-Azerbaijan
Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, which led them to the pinnacle of power.

But we all understand that the power in Armenia is held by a criminal
regime which is able to destroy anyone who does not like it. My
interlocutors also admitted this. So, it is not surprising that none
of the Armenians, who spoke to me personally about the depth of the
abyss Armenia has ended up, could not say this openly.

So, you want to say that Armenian President Serzh Sargsyan does not
enjoy much authority in his country?

Exactly. Power of the Armenian President relies on force and is
ready to shed blood of its own people as Armenians witnessed
during latest presidential elections. Therefore, part of the country's
citizens are afraid of their power, and some hate it. In interviews with
me Armenians said the following: "Serzh Sargsyan is a native of
Azerbaijan. So, take him back, we do not need him."

What do Armenians thing about Azerbaijan’s right to restore its own
territorial integrity by different ways in event Armenia fails to be
constructive in peace talks?

Almost all Armenians, with whom I had an opportunity to communicate,
were asking me whether Azerbaijan is really ready for a forceful
solution to the Armenian-Azerbaijani Nagorno-Karabakh conflict. I
could see how Armenian citizens are fearful of the fact that
Azerbaijan may exercise its right to restore its territorial integrity
through military means.

Moreover, the Armenian citizens are well aware that their children
will suffer in the event of war rather than the children of those
officials who came to power thanks to the conflict and now live in
luxury while ordinary Armenians live in poverty.


THOSE CRINGING ARMENIANS
Team Keghart Editorial
June 15, 2010

Following Napoleon’s invasion of Egypt in the late 18th century,
Europeans representing various nations, trades, disciplines, and sects
elbowed their way to the Middle East. Diplomats, traders,
archaeologists, authors, journalists, artists, explorers, adventurers,
and missionaries seemed to be fascinated by the “Orient,” then ruled
by the Ottoman Empire. During their sojourn in Ottoman Turkey, these
Europeans inevitably came across Armenians—from Constantinople to
Cilicia to Erzurum. And they often wrote about the Armenians they met.

Some of what they said about Armenians was positive (hard-working,
better educated than Turks); other comments were uncomplimentary
(wily, haggling merchants). However, a word that again and again comes
up in their description of Armenians is ‘cringing’. Referring to
Armenians, British travelers Georgina Mackenzie and Adelina Paulina
Irby said, “…the hereditary cringing of the rayah,” while in ‘The
Times’ of London, British diplomat Valentine Chirol wrote of “the
beaten Oriental is abject.”

Describing the Armenians of Constantinople, William Goodell wrote,
“Four centuries of torture, of oppression, and of suspense have
stamped its [sic] impress upon an entire community… constant fear,
constant agony, constant humiliation have so crushed out every trace
of manhood, that they are still cringing, fawning, and abject race.”

Noel Buxton and Rev. Harold Buxton in the “Travels & Politics in
Armenia” (Times Literary Supplement, 1914) said that the ‘cringing’
descriptive was most frequently reserved for Armenians and Jews, both
in Imperial Russia and in the Ottoman Empire. The famous English
novelist William Makepeace Thackeray, writing about his travels in the
Levant in 1846, depicted an Armenian in Rhodes as ‘cringing and
wheedling.”

In 1910, Captain A.F. Townsend (“A Military Consult in Turkey: The
Experience & Impression of a British Representative in Asia Minor”)
remarked, “If a European were to strike an impertinent Moslem, he
would be paid back in kind, but an Armenian would become cringing; his
spirit is broken by centuries of oppression.”

Jean Victor Bates (“Our Allies & Enemies in the Near East”) wrote
about what he called ‘poor, cringing, unmanly Armenians even after the
terrible tragedy that befell the community in 1915, perhaps
representing a peculiar orientalist version of the tendency to blame
victims for whatever happens to them.”

Historian Cathie Carmichael, in her recent and exhaustive “Genocide
Before the Holocaust” (Yale University Press), says that for Ottoman
Armenians fear was a way of life. One survival strategy for ethnic
minorities, says Carmichael, was “fatalism and increased piety (a
phenomenon which was happening among Jews, Muslims and Armenians,
subjected to frequent missionary work at a time when they were most
vulnerable.”

Missionary Helen Davenport Gibbons recalled (“Red Rugs of Tarsus; A
Woman’s Record of the Armenian Massacre of 1909, 1917”) that the fear
and fatalism of “Armenians was very vivid. When we first came to
Cilicia and went to church up in the Tarsus Mountain summer place, I
remember how queer these people [Armenians] looked to me. They belong
to another world I was an outsider. I had difficulty in understanding
some traits of their characters. I was hasty in my judgment of
them—hasty through ignorance. I was impatient with their constant fear
of ‘what might happen anytime’ to Christians under Moslem rule.

Carmichael points out that another strong mechanism of coping [by
Armenians] was denial. “…they may be developed a ‘pogrom mentality’
expecting violence and waiting for it to pass like a storm.” For
example, Dorothea Chambers Blais (“Missionary Daughter”) recalled in
Cilicia in 1909 that an Armenian mother “had been through massacres
before, she knew one must treat it as an episode and not a final
tragedy.”

Describing the 1896 massacres of Armenians in Constantinople, Chalmers
Roberts (“A Mother of Martyrs,” Atlantic Monthly, 1899) wrote, “One
came to expect that venerable Ulemas and ascetic young Softas, on
their way from the mosque to mosque, would kick the mangled bodies,
which blocked their paths, and curse them for dogs of Armenian
traitors. The pools of blood in the streets in some places actually
dripping and trickling downhill came in time, after you had stepped
over and around a hundred of them, to remind you of some early visit
to a slaughter house.”

Talking about the long bondage of Armenians and Greeks, Margaret
Lavinia Anderson (“Down in Turkey, Far Away”) argued that the
discourse ‘essentialized’ the Christian in the Near East, who was thus
“the born victim, whose cries for help we have become tired of
hearing.”

While the litany of the Western narratives about Ottoman Armenian
life—the permanent anxiety, insecurity and dread-- is certainly a
worthwhile addition to our knowledge of Ottoman Armenian history, we
would like to pose here a single question to the government in Ankara:
“How can you continue to insist that such a powerless, harassed,
fatalist, over-taxed, impoverished, and abject minority could have
been a fifth column threatening to dismantle the Ottoman Empire?”