Through the Ruins of Western Armenia

2 minute read

First of all, I want to acknowledge something. What we saw on this trip will not last forever. If my great grandchildren visit eastern Turkey, they will find fewer traces (of armenian artifacts?) than we did. The ruins will be smaller, the carvings thinner, and some places gone. What can still be touched today will by then exist only in photographs and in the words of those who took the time to record it.

And that is one reason I am writing this. Documenting this trip is a small form of preservation. And for the (over) 95% of Armenians from the diaspora who will never set foot in the villages their great grandparents fled from, all they have are stories like these. For them, these places exist only in black and white photographs and in documentaries.

I am not from these towns myself, but my friends are, and so we decided to go see them. Most never make the trip because it means crossing into Turkey, a place still carrying the shadow of what happened.

Secondly, something I learned firsthand during this trip is that Turkey does not invite you to notice the Armenian past. Often, all we had were Google Maps pins to follow, leading us to seemingly random places that felt like they were waiting to be repurposed or erased.

Signs point elsewhere, museums and official placards mention other empires, and silence does the rest. A fallen church is not just stones on the ground. It is a witness that can no longer testify. 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 ignore and forget.