On our Visit to the Armenian-Turkey Relations Center in Erzurum

we today still saw some armenian artifacts. turkey doesnt promote the armenian past, often siting seljuks. But i feel like in 100 years,there will be even less things to see. Today at least we see the churches in ruins. in 100 years there will be nothing to see.

Give some philosophy behind this. ANd is this trip important? why is it important to document this while we can? bcz if my great great grandkids visit eastern turkey, itll be a different experience. itll be further in the past.

ChatGPT said: What you’re touching on is the idea that physical traces of a people anchor memory in the real world — once they’re gone, the past becomes harder to grasp, and easier to distort.

Right now, the ruins still stand. You can walk through Ani’s arches, touch the stones at Surb Karapet, or see the outline of a cross carved into basalt. Even in decay, they are undeniable evidence that Armenians lived, built, and thrived there. Turkey may not promote that past — often presenting Seljuk, Ottoman, or even earlier civilizations instead — but the stones themselves still speak.

In a hundred years, wind, rain, neglect, and deliberate erasure will silence more of those voices. A church collapse is not just a pile of rubble — it is the loss of a physical witness. Without these tangible reminders, the story of Armenians in these lands will rely more on written records and memory, both of which are easier to dispute or forget.

That’s why trips like yours matter. They are not just personal journeys, they are acts of preservation. By photographing, writing, and sharing what you see now, you are freezing a moment in the long fade of history. If your great-great-grandchildren ever visit eastern Turkey, the land will be the same, but the evidence will be thinner. Their trip will be one step further removed from the lived reality, more like visiting a battlefield from a war a thousand years ago than from a century ago.

Documenting it now keeps the thread alive — it narrows the distance between the living and the past, so that even when the last wall falls, there will still be a clear picture of what once stood.

If you want, I can write you a short closing paragraph for your blog that captures exactly this idea in a factual yet reflective tone, so it ties your travel narrative to the reason you wrote it in the first place.

You said: but why is it important to remember?

ChatGPT said: It is important to remember because forgetting makes it easier for the truth to be rewritten. Memory is a form of resistance.

When a culture, a people, or a history is erased, the loss is not just emotional — it changes the way the present and future understand the world. If we forget, then the narrative is shaped entirely by those who remain, often those who benefit from the erasure.

For Armenians, remembering matters because it connects us to a past that others have tried to sever. It restores names to places, faces to ruins, and meaning to the stones left behind. It also makes injustice harder to bury — the more people know, the harder it becomes to pretend nothing happened.

On a personal level, remembering tells your descendants where they come from. Without that thread, they inherit land with no stories, ruins with no builders, and a family tree with roots cut off.

So remembering is not just nostalgia — it is the act of keeping history anchored to truth, so that when others try to deny or distort it, there is still a record that says otherwise.

If you want, I can phrase this in one compact paragraph that could fit neatly into your blog post as the “why this matters” section. That way it ties directly into your trip.

You said: is there an argument to just forget and move on? whats the right thing to do

ChatGPT said: Yes, there is an argument for forgetting and moving on — and it’s usually framed around the idea of breaking cycles of resentment, focusing on the present, and not letting old wounds dictate your future.

That perspective says:

Dwelling on past injustices can trap people in anger.

Nations and individuals change over time, and the people alive today are not the ones who committed those crimes.

Energy spent on the past could instead go toward building stronger communities now.

The counterargument is that “moving on” without remembering is not the same as healing — it’s amnesia. Without memory, there is no accountability, and without accountability, the same patterns can repeat. In the Armenian case, forgetting would mean accepting the erasure, leaving the story to be told entirely by those who denied it happened.

The “right” thing to do is rarely pure remembering or pure forgetting. It’s remembering truthfully, but not letting it consume you. That means documenting, teaching, and honoring the past while also living fully in the present and building toward the future.

If you only remember, you risk being stuck in the past. If you only forget, you risk losing who you are and allowing the same injustices to happen again. The balance is to remember with clarity but move forward with purpose.

If you want, I can help you phrase this balance as a closing reflection for your blog so it ends on a strong and thoughtful note rather than a purely emotional one.