“That site defines Armenia,” I said.
“It’s a country bordered by enemies,” said Brent. “That’s what defines Armenia.”
“Maybe Ararat defines it?” I said.
“Armenia is a country with too much history and not enough geography,” he trumped.
A man came by with little green apples and gave us a handful, then walked down the street to sit with friends at the next cafe. He’d left some at another table, and we watched people cut the apple and salt it before eating. We did likewise.
“I found an Avis agency this morning. I haven’t driven behind a steering wheel in a year. Bring your credit card? I’ve got an Iraqi driver’s license for my motorcycle and it should be good. Let’s leave in the morning.”
“Day after,” I said. “I heard back from the man I mentioned, and the three of us are meeting up tomorrow.” Through a colleague of my son Sean, I’d wangled an introduction to Tigran Zargaryan, head of the National Library of Armenia. He’d invited us to visit with him over lunch.
Descending the hotel’s stairway to the lobby the next morning, we were met by a man with graying hair, thoughtful eyes, and a dignified posture. Tigran was wearing a jacket and tie, and we felt good we were too.
Offering an open hand, he said, “Welcome to Yerevan. I know where we should have lunch.”
The waiter looked surprised at the arrival of Brent and me, but when he saw Tigran behind us, camaraderie broke out. Tigran told us, “You are my guests. He will serve us time-honored Armenian dishes. Armenians are very good with cooking.”
“Tell me about your visit,” he asked as we sat. Then he steered the conversation to a more substantive topic. “Many in the world media, politicians, people in general, ignore Armenia. They see it as a country to be shifted about. Not what America or Europe would call ‘a player.’” Then, he went straight to the point: “What is it you seek here?”
“An understanding of Ararat’s place in Armenian history, and to learn more about what occurred between Turkey and Armenia a hundred years ago.”
“For Ararat, it is a mountain now in the wrong country. And that country has done much wrong to Armenia.”
“The genocide …” I started. The obvious.
“That is single in its horror.”
It felt early to be on this terrible topic, so I returned to the mountain. “Attempts to ascend Ararat from the north, through Armenia, were difficult and often not successful. I have read of Armenian climber Abovian, who was with Friedrich Parrot on the peak of Mount Ararat in 1829. While I’m here, I hope to learn more about him.”
“Khachatur Abovian, yes. You should definitely understand our country’s famous writer. That he also climbed the mountain is separate story—important, yes, but to the side. He wrote our first books in the modern Armenian language, using the Eastern Armenian dialect. Wounds of Armenia.”
“Wounds of Armenia?” asked Brent.
“It is the book for which he is best known. Though he is better known for disappearing.”
“Disappearing?”
Tigran looked at Brent. “Abovian was your age when he vanished in 1848, having gone for a morning walk. No one knows where or why. He was never seen again.”
“Enemies of his writing?” Brent asked.
“Abovian was not published when he was alive, not for the public. It was later that his work became widely available, so that does not seem a motive.”
Tigran returned to Ararat. “Abovian was sent with Parrot in 1829 as a guide, though he hadn’t been up the mountain himself. He could translate the language and provide introductions. Their expedition is famous for being among the last visitors to the village of Ahora, destroyed not long after in our worst natural disaster. From the summit of Ararat, Abovian brought back ice in a bottle, carrying it to Yerevan as Holy Water.”
“Abovian also guided the geologist Hermann von Abich in 1845,” I mentioned. “By then an experienced guide.”
“Rick, you will have found the name Urarat,” he said, changing the subject, “but”—turning to my son—“you may not have. In the Old Testament, we see Urarat as the name for this region, and for the mountains. It is indistinguishable from Ararat as a name, modified. When Latin filters the word, Urarat becomes Armenia. We are Urarat, Urartu, Ararat, Armenia.”
As we took in a sweet-tasting dessert, Tigran broached the important topic. “We could talk about the atrocities you mentioned, if you wish. Better, though, would be for you to go up the hillside to see the memorial. Be thoughtful within the Genocide Museum.”
Tigran took us to a taxi stand. As we waited he spoke. “We cannot—will never—forget Turkey was on purpose eliminating the Armenian people. Yet they will not acknowledge the terribleness. The Ottoman elite, German elite, they managed decisions aimed at killing Armenians. Today Germany, Canada, many other countries like France and Russia, recognize the atrocity. Not Turkey, though. Not yet.”19
American Ambassador Morgenthau’s telegram of July 16, 1915 was informed by recent unsettling events and anticipated the candor of Consul Davis’s letter of July 24, 2015 (quoted in this chapter’s epigraph).
The taxi arrived, and Brent and I made our way to the site of memory.
A spire thrust into the sky to mark a holocaust. The memorial recalls—as best as one can—inexplicable tragedy. The museum itself is partially ensconced in the hillside, and we entered from above.
A young woman working for the museum asked if we needed information. Before we could respond, she moved us toward a display case. “This is from World War the First.” Below the banner of “An Appeal to the American People” was the original letter, on White House stationery, under the signature of US president Woodrow Wilson. The girl encouraged that we look closer, saying, “You can hear with your eyes.”
President Wilson addressed the magnitude of the dislocation, noting there were “more than 400,000” orphans and “more than 2,000,000 destitute survivors.” His words confirmed his intentions: “Armenia is to be redeemed … So that at last this great people, struggling through night after night of terror … are now given a promise of safety, a promise of justice …”
Wilson accepted responsibility to oversee arbitration between Turkey and Armenia regarding four provinces, including Van. Mount Ararat was within the area under review. The resulting United States recommendation accorded Armenia a coastal section of the Black Sea and 40,000 square miles of land in the disputed provinces. Notwithstanding the evidence of the recent atrocities and the president’s leadership, Congress stood aside and declined to support the mandate required to enforce this decision. Despite initial Turkish conciliation, the boundaries were later altered, when in 1920 Turkish and Soviet military maneuvers reduced Armenia to a landlocked satellite country in the USSR.
US President Woodrow Wilson’s letter appealing for donations to assist the Armenian people was a follow-up to a proclamation in which he stated the need was: “in view of the misery, wretchedness and hardships, which these people are suffering.”
As we were leaving, the attendant said, “It is a ceaseless pain.”
Partway through the following morning we kept our plan to visit Khor Virap. We drove out of town on Admiral Isakov Avenue, Brent behind the wheel and me inspecting a foldout map that I’d given up trying to refold correctly.
“It can’t be more than half an hour,” he said, although at that point neither of us realized I’d misguided us onto the M-5 when we should have chosen the M-15.
“Orphan City,” Alexandropol in northern Armenia, coped with the ongoing waves of desperate Armenian orphans forced to leave Turkey. The migration continued beyond 1915 into the early 1920s, reaching a peak of 22,000 children. Image courtesy of the Near East Relief Historical Society, Near East Foundation collection, Rockefeller Archive Center.
Much later, having missed two logical turnoffs with the hope that an adjustment road would show up ahead, we took an exit and pointed the car southward into the plains and down unmarked roads
not on my map. Using Ararat as a compass mark, we knew the general direction. Or thought we did. The mountain wasn’t moving, but it didn’t always seem to align with the map.
There was no rush. The farmlands were pleasant and we had lots to talk about, until we noticed we could no longer see Ararat. Traffic dwindled until it was just a tractor and us. When an equipment merchant’s sign said groceries were available, we pulled over.
Returning to the car with potato chips and chocolate bars, two soft drinks, and directions, Brent said, “Stay on this road another mile, turn left, which would be east. We drive on the paved road. Stop at the stop sign. Another mile or so later there’s a dirt road. It actually connects another mile on to a pretty good road, which will eventually take us to where the map markings show Pokr Vedi on H11. That’s how we get to Khor Virap.”
Two more stops for redirections, a thorough scouting of the farmlands and small community clusters, and forty-five minutes later, we were down to a half tank of gas as we arrived at Khor Virap.
The mountain backdrop looked “modern” in contrast to the seasoned brown of the monastery’s protective walls and its slim, cathedral-like tower. We walked up to the brow of the hill, where Khor Virap’s mezzanine affords a stunning view of Mount Ararat.
This is a vital place for Armenians to pilgrimage, a hub of religious belief. The Armenian Church’s patron saint, Gregory the Illuminator, was imprisoned here for fourteen years around 300 CE, when he was known as Grigor Lusavorich, an instigator in the eyes of established rulers. We could see the Armenian-Turkish border fence off in the distance, far closer to the monastery than to Ararat.
The day had turned sunny and the place was crowded. In the mass of families toting digital cameras I found a lonely man. He sat silently on a chair and had a small display of printed pictures propped beside him. Slouched at the shoulders, he was unshaven and wore an unwashed jacket. His pants were threading at the cuffs, hanging over scuffed shoes. Nestled in his lap, held by his right hand, was a Polaroid camera. With that museum piece in his grip, he was decades out of sync, anachronistic, and appeared irrelevant to what was going on.
A young man and woman approached the man, wanting their photograph taken. They handed him their Nikon. He declined, pointing to the work he offered. It dawned on the young man and woman that they’d like a printed picture. They passed him money, and he set up the two of them, with Ararat in the background. Within a minute he handed them the printed picture, then sat back down to his post.
“Dad. Come here.” Brent beckoned from the stair beneath the monastery’s tower. He motioned me up and through a church doorway. The gothic chapel sat under the dome of the Holy Mother of God church. A baptism was being conducted as we entered. The family cradled their child for a blessing. Another set of grandparents and family members waited nearby in a processional queue. Candles, aided by an electric bulb, provided the light that the dusty stained-glass windows kept out. The ambiance, which reminded me of standing in a holy cave of sorts, was mysterious.
In the time since my summit of Ararat, I’d begun writing a travel narrative. Thinking that right now might be a chance to source a missing image, I whispered, “The Polaroid man looks like he’s been here forever. Think he’s got a photograph of a full moon over Mount Ararat?”
“Let’s go ask him,” said Brent. People mumbled “Shhh” with an Armenian accent. We hurried outside, the daylight stopping us for an eye-adjusting moment.
The photographer was hunched over, unmoving and unoccupied. He looked up slowly, as though he sensed our shadows.
“Vwi govoretye pa-Ruski?” Brent asked. “Do you speak Russian?” The two languages widely spoken in the area are Russian and Armenian.
“Da.” The old man smiled, keeping his lips together as though opening them would make him vulnerable. “Pachimoo vwi govoritye po-Ruski?” he asked, wanting to know why Brent spoke to him in Russian.
Brent explained he’d lived in Russia for a year, teaching English. He gauged the man. “Do you have a photograph of Mount Ararat with the full moon?”
It was a long shot. Lacking equipment and skills ourselves, we knew that only a craftsman could capture such an image in the quality I sought. The man’s eyes lit up as he conveyed in Russian, “Yes. But not with this!” He held up his camera. We could see the markings of Svetozor, the former USSR’s assembler of Polaroid units. “I am for many years a professional.”
“Tell him I want to buy his photograph of Mount Ararat with the moon.”
The man responded while looking at me, as my son explained. “He has a photograph. Just one. He says it is stunning. It is at his home.”
“Can he go and get it?” I was suddenly anxious.
The response brought complexity. “His name is Vage. He needs permission from the priest to leave here.”
“Vage. How much for the photograph?” I asked.
There was a hurl of Russian phonetics between the two of them.
“Dad, you’ve got to do right by him. I think that he does not want enough money from you.”
The photographer wanted what amounted to less than ten dollars in American money. It was pennies on the dollar that a Western photographer would charge for publication rights. I put a down payment in his hands.
The man packed up his wares and we followed him into an on-site residence. A partially clothed deacon, barely old enough to be out of seminary, stopped us short and told us to leave. The old man handed him the Polaroid and went away with us.
“Tell him I want to use his photograph in a book.”
When that was translated for Vage, I heard back, “I also told him we will pay what the priest says is a fair price.”
Vage sprang straight into the chapel. We were three feet behind. The second baptism was under way, the priest bestowing blessings in hushed tones. Vage made straight for him.
“He’s going to stop the service! What have we done?”
Vage veered through the baptismal ceremony, threading between the parents, the wrapped child and the priest, darting into a door beyond. He returned with a senior priest and we stepped outside under the portico.
Vage, Brent, and the priest spoke to one another in Russian. Once I spoke the priest asked, “You speak English?”
“Vage has a photograph of a full moon over Mount Ararat,” I said, now able to participate directly. “If it is good, I wish to pay him for rights to use it in a book. He agrees, but wants too little money.”
The priest and Vage conversed in Armenian. The priest mentioned a new amount to us. “It is a price that he will accept. It is not for you to say otherwise.”
Brent reminded me, “We’ve not seen the photograph.”
“Father, here’s what we wish to do in front of you,” I said.
I had earlier decided on a suitable amount. I’d apportioned bills in my pockets out of sight of the photographer. I took one hand’s worth of Armenian dram and passed that to the photographer, a proper topping up of the down payment I’d given him, assuaging my conscience. The total exceeded the priest’s stipulated price by a respectful amount. It was still modest in my view, given the potential end use of the photograph. Vage fanned the bills and looked pleased. I took an equivalent amount from my other pocket and handed those drams to the priest. “This is for the church—a donation in Vage’s name. All of it is for the full rights to his photograph.” The four of us shared one firm handshake after another, followed by a chorus of “Spacibo.”
“Now let’s go see if this photograph is any good,” Brent said.
I hopped in the front seat of Vage’s dented Lada. He let his car ease down the hill and chug to life in a Russian-engineered jump-start. In one movement he rolled and lit a homemade cigarette, drew in the flame, and puffed heartily. Looking behind me, I saw Brent slip the smoke-free rental vehicle out of the parking lot and onto the road behind us, the nicotine addict in him jealous of our smoke-filled car.
Vage’s car stopped at a locked gate. I was already coughing from
the smoke but needed this friend, so did not complain. He tapped his cell phone, trying to reach a guard. Failing at this, frustration slipped from his lips and he leapt out of the car. Hustling down the roadway and around the lowered barricade, he burst into the guard shack and returned, dangling keys. He unlocked the gate and, once our car was through, relocked the bolt. We drove away with the keys, the guard shouting behind us.
We headed towards the village of Pokr Vedi, miles away. Our cars pulled over near a ditch where expired truck parts rested like dinosaur bones. I expected to wait while Vage retrieved the photograph. Brent was out of his car, offering his lit smoke to Vage.
“Photo Vage,” as we nicknamed the engaging photographer, with the author.
“Spacibo,” said Vage, crossing the street to a yard with a high wooden fence. He unlocked and foot-pushed the gate open, stepping over a timber threshold. He twitched his head to indicate that we should follow him.
I stepped through the gate and back in time as I heard the translation. “He says, ‘You are the first people I have had visit my home in twenty years.’”
In his backyard was an acre of leftover car parts and chicken shacks and used farm implements. Vage turned around to face us with a self-conscious happiness. His smile revealed teeth held together by gold fillings. “Eta moy toilet,” he said, pointing. In the yard, a porcelain tub supported by metal claws at the base looked pristine and functional, and nearby was an outhouse.
Entering the three-room house, I was told that “coffee is coming” and “you’ll want to sit in that room.”
Vage stood to his full height for the first time, the curve of his back disappearing in the confines of his home. The kitchen was nicely kept, the dishes put away, and the countertop wiped clean. A small fridge sat on a wooden box, a broken clasp wedged in to hold it closed.
“Kotayk,” said Vage, passing me a cold can of beer. The taste was tart and strong, though not heavy.
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