At the Surp Garabed Monastery near Mush
Surp Partoghomiosi Vank South of Lake Van
Panorama of Bitlis (Baghesh)
Dzoradzir Church SouthEast of Lake Van near the Iranian border.
Drs Angele and Dickran Kouymjian in Samson
By Annette Gurdjian
In the spring of 1999 I had travel fever. I was trying to talk my husband and teenage son into traveling to Spain during the coming summer. When they both balked at the idea of leaving home during the most pleasant months of the year in our city weatherwise, I decided to take a trip without them.
I had been planning this trip in my mind for many years, to travel across Turkey and visit the places whose names I had heard so often while growing up: Van, Gesaria (Kayseri), and of course Bolis (Istanbul). I had even cut out an article that I read in an English-language Armenian weekly newspaper in 1993 about a man, Armen Aroyan, who led groups to Turkey and Armenia. The itineraries for these tours were custom designed to fit the desires of the participants. It sounded like a good way to go.
I picked up the telephone and called the number in the now yellowed article. The area code had changed, but I managed to track down Mr. Aroyan, who told me that he was taking a group to Eastern Anatolia on June 24. He gave me a rough itinerary. It sounded perfect.
My father was born in Constantinople (Istanbul) in 1904 and lived there until he came to America at age 18. I had heard many stories from his youth and was familiar with a myriad of names: Pera, Kumkapi, the Getronagan school and the Shugah (Grand Bazaar) to name a few. I wanted to see these places for myself. Although my father had never traveled into the interior of Turkey, his father had been born in Gesaria in Central Anatolia and, as a young man, had traveled to Istanbul on foot to seek his fortune.
My mother's father was from Van in Eastern Anatolia. His story was very similar to the story of the painter, Arshile Gorky, also from the Van area. Most of his family had perished during the 1915 Genocide. His mother had died of starvation. He had escaped to the United States (via Argentina) and started a new life, but a faraway look that sometimes crept into his eyes revealed a yearning for this place that he would never see again. I wanted to go there, to see Lake Van with my own eyes.
June 24
This morning my husband and son drive me to the airport to begin my trip. Our group is the smallest one Armen has taken to date, with only seven of us. Including Armen, his Armenian guide and assistant Aghavni, and our Kurdish bus driver Cemal, we will be a total of 10 traveling across Turkey in a comfortable minibus.
Another member of the group, Gladys Peters, is on my flights from San Francisco to Istanbul. We become fast friends.
June 25
We land in Istanbul in the afternoon, buy our entry visas for $45 each and go through immigration without a hitch.
After checking into the hotel, we have dinner at Haci Abdullah, an Ottoman restaurant from the 1880s in the Pera area. While sampling an assortment of dishes, we meet Armen and members of our group including professor of Byzantine culture, Dr. Dickran Kouymjian, professor of Armenian Studies at California State University in Fresno and his wife Angele, originally from Paris. Some native Armenians of Istanbul dine with us. I sit next to a woman who is the principal of the Getronagan Lycee which my father attended. Tears come to my eyes as I tell her the story of how my father, whose family was very poor, had received a scholarship to attend Getronagan and had walked several miles each way to school every day, and how he had had to leave the school when he left with his family for America.
June 26
I hear the call to prayer outside at 4:30am. We rise shortly thereafter to get ready for our early morning Turkish Airlines flight to Smyrna (Izmir). Another member of our group, Sonya Harlan, is meeting us at the airport. An instructor of English and Armenian in Chicago, Sonya was born and raised in Istanbul, but this is only her second time back to Turkey in 30 years. During the course of the next week Sonya's fluency in Turkish will prove useful to us.
We arrive in Izmir and are met at the local airport by our trusty driver, Cemal, with the minibus that will be like home for the next two weeks. An hour later Armen, Dickran, Angele and I are driving to Kasaba (now called Turgutlu), where Angele's mother was born and raised, to see if we can find her mother's old house. Kasaba is also Alex Manoogian's birthplace. With a population of about 20,000 in 1905, It is now a city of 80,000.
Time after time we will find the former Armenian sectors of cities to be located in the oldest part of the city, and now also the poorest. The children come out in full force, following us everywhere, wanting to get their picture taken. In Kasaba, several times I see storks in large nests made of straw on rooftops. It brings back memories of the stories about storks in the old Armenian primers from which my father taught me to read Armenian. With a lot of imagination, one could imagine the thriving Armenian quarter as it had once been, with small homes and the large Armenian Church central in the neighborhood. The church in Kasaba is now a mosque.
We return to Izmir, pick up the rest of our group, and head for Ephesus. We spend the night at a waterfront hotel in Kusadasi, our rooms overlooking the Aegean, and dine on fish so fresh that they are swimming in a nearby tank until just after we order. The trial of the Kurdish PKK leader, Ocalan, is over, and we all await the verdict.
June 27
After brief stops in Ephesus and Selcuk, we head east through Germencik by the Meander mountain chain to our south, through Aydin toward Nazilli.
The highlight of the day is the archeological site of Aphrodisias near the town of Geyre. It is a very large site, newly discovered and excavated by a team from New York University. The stadium is incredible, built into the ground and very long. There is also the agora, the bishop's house, the bathhouses and a great theater. We celebrate by sharing a watermelon that we had purchased earlier in the day.
The weather is very hot and the landscape very dry. We cross a lake today. The soil has so much iron in it that the lake is a vivid pink. Truly amazing! We give a short ride to a British woman from Hawaii. She has been traveling alone all over Eastern Anatolia visiting archeological sites.
We spend the night in Denizli, a very large and pleasant city, whose claim to fame is the long drawn out crowing of its roosters.
June 28
Life appears to be very difficult in the interior. The land is desolate and dry. We pass many cherry trees, cherry pickers and cherry stands; also lots of poppies, dried and ready to harvest and turn into opium. We are in the vicinity of Afyon, the opium capital of Turkey. There are many fields of sunflowers. We are headed north towards Konya. The police pull our bus over and accuse our driver of speeding, a bogus charge. He pays the equivalent of a $50 fine and they let us continue. We pass the outskirts of Konya, then pass through Nevsehir and enter Cappadocia, an area with vivid rock formations caused by a volcano. In the Byzantine era the monks lived in the many caves in this region.
We spend the night in a large, fancy hotel in Urgup in Cappadocia. There are no other tourists. Many foreign tour groups have cancelled this year due to the Ocalan trial. After dinner I walk the one kilometer to town. The moon is full and has lit up the rock caves surrounding the town.
June 29
We visit the former Armenian neighborhood of Kayseri. Now it is the poorest section of town and the little stone houses are in ruin. There are a few Turkish families living there, like squatters. There is a Kurdish man who holds the key to the Armenian church and opens it for us. At one time there were several Armenian churches in Kayseri. The church we enter, St. Gregory the Illuminator, was built in the 15th-16th century. It was renovated in 1885. There used to be a school (Gumshian Varjaran) next door to the church.
Robert tells us that the Armenians of Kayseri spoke Turkish because, as one story goes, the sultan did not want to hear the Armenian language and threatened to cut out the tongues of any who spoke it. Suddenly I realize why my father used to speak Armenian to his mother and Turkish to his Gesaratsi father.
On the hillside is Talas, the "Beverly Hills" of Kayseri, where the rich Armenians lived. The American College is located there on a beautiful site overlooking the city, but Americans no longer occupy it. At one time the missionaries were here and helped Armenians come to America. The Gulbenkian family was also from Talas. I later find out that this is where my grandfather was from. The population of Kayseri is now almost half a million. Before the Genocide there were about 15,000 Armenians living there, with another 5,000 in Talas.
I just ate my first mulberry. There were some Turkish men under the mulberry tree, picking. When we stopped and asked for some, one man said to the others, "They are our grandmothers. Give them some." Apparently a lot of Turks acknowledge that their grandmothers were Armenian, alluding to the many Armenian girls kidnapped by Turks and forced to become their wives and bear their children.
This morning we visit one of the caves with beautiful fresco paintings inside, where celibate monks once lived. Now we are driving through Pinarbashi, population 11,000, headed towards Malatya. The invisible border of historic Armenia is not far from here, between Pinarbashi and the next town of size, Gurun. It is so desolate here. I have been marking our route on a roadmap of Turkey that I bought at one of our pit stops. This minibus has been the ideal way to see Turkey. No other tour would go to all of these places.
There is a tiny, beautiful river along this terrible road. We pass a group of women doing their wash in the river. There are tall posts on both sides of the road, marking the road for times of heavy snowfall. Men are fishing in the river. The soil is very dry but very fertile, all volcanic. However, for anything to grow it needs irrigation. It is typical to see no trees until we pass a village.
We enter Gurun (once called Gorek), population 9,900 and find the old Armenian church. There is a storefront facade built onto it and it looks deceptively small from the outside. Someone lets us in and it is huge; it was once used as a movie theater by the Turks. Now its purpose is to store animal feed and lumber and it is in very poor shape.
We stop at the Armenian church in Malatya, today a predominantly Kurdish city. The front door of the church is boarded up, but we enter through a hole in the side of the building. There is rubble inside; and outside a large garden, probably once the cemetery. The former Armenian quarter is also a slum. Nothing has been kept up, and it's very sad.
Near Malatya we cross the Euphrates River , where we stop for photographs. The sun is slowly setting. the light is beautiful. The countryside is much greener now. Cemal, our driver, tells us that Malatya has the best apricots in all of Turkey. Now we pass our first military checkpoint, 12 miles from Elazig, population 250,000, close to where we will spend the night. The Turks just wave us through.
Our hotel is on Hazar Golu, or Lake Hazar. There is a once in a lifetime magical moment that occurs. Four of us enter our hotel room and stride onto our adjoining balconies overlooking the lake at the exact moment that, from behind a hillside, the full moon begins to slowly rise over the lake. In her beautiful voice Gladys sings "Loosin Yelav" ("Moonrise"). As she finishes her song the moon peaks in the night sky and its light glistens across the lake. That night we dine on fresh fish from the lake at the hotel's outdoor restaurant.
June 30
Today we climb the hill to the town of Kharpert, with its fortress. We're seeing more of the women fully covered in their traditional black garb ("charshaf"). Today this is an almost wholly Kurdish town. From here east the population will be predominantly Kurdish.
We stop at the ruins of the church, St. Hagop, then at St. Garabed. Ten minutes from here is Husenig (now called Ulukent), where some old Armenian homes are left. We stop at St. Barbara Church, a pile of rubble that was once the Armenian church. Only one wall remains standing.
We travel east to Mush and drive with a military escort up a mountainside to St. Garabed, a church and monastery dating from the 4th century. At one time this was the most sacred pagan site of ancient Armenia. The Mush plain is below us, the cradle of Armenia. There was once over 300 Armenian villages here. The snowcapped Taurus Mountains are in the distance, creating a beautiful setting.
This site was abandoned in 1915 and remained so until 1960, when the Turkish government settled Kurds here. The Kurds used remnants of the Armenian church to build their homes. We see Armenian inscriptions on the stones that are now parts of the existing buildings. the people are very kind. Some of the old churches are now barns for their farm animals.
Tonight we spend the night in a hotel in Mush. A local Armenian man joins us for dinner and tells us his story. He speaks only Turkish and is a Muslim. His grandfather was shot by the Turks. His grandmother was married off to a Turkish man, but she hanged herself. Her son, this man's father, went to an orphanage and then was taken in by a rich Kurdish family. Eventually they found him an Armenian girl to marry.
July 1
We travel to Bitlis, population 51,000 - William Saroyan's family's ancestral home. It is situated at about 5,000 feet elevation. The Armenian church here is now used by the government liquor monopoly to store their inventory. We are not allowed to enter. We stop by the Bitlis River, which runs near the city. It is about 163 kilometers to Van.
At Tatvan we catch the first glimpse of the beautiful blue waters of Lake Van. There are mountains all around us as we drive along the lake. I see a lot of beehives and bee collectors, and also hay harvested and tied in rolled bundles. There are a few nomadic tents here and there. From Gevash we take a boat to the island of Akhtamar. The water is clean and invigorating and I go for a swim. I wonder if my grandfather once came onto this island and also swam in these waters. I'm sure of it.
The church on the island is relatively well preserved. The outside designs are wonderful motifs -- animals and Christian personages of renown. Inside the church, remnants of paintings on the walls are still visible. Tonight at dinner we sample the Tarekh fish, a fish that is only found in Lake Van.
July 2
We are spending two nights in the city of Van, population about 230,000. Our hotel is well situated near shops and great bakeries and pastry shops. Today we are on a day trip, driving along what was once the main caravan route from Van to Iran. At Albayrak is the church of St. Bartholomew, but the soldiers do not let us enter the church. We only have permission to photograph it from the outside. Again the Kurdish villagers are kind. They invite us into their homes and offer us tan, a thick yoghurt-like drink made from sheep's milk.
We pass through a myriad of military checkpoints. The Turkish soldiers are very nervous about the verdict in the Ocalan trial. They are expecting the Kurdish insurgents to swoop down from the hills any day and engage them in battle. They tell us that, for this reason, the road back to Van is closed to traffic after 3pm, but after much persuading we are allowed to return to our hotel. We stop at the old city of Van, which is all destroyed now. Tonight we go shopping and several members of our group buy rugs.
July 3
Before leaving Van we stop at the local museum. On the second floor is an Armenian Genocide section where the Turks acknowledge the genocide. However, they have it backwards, as the statements try to convince us that the Armenians massacred the Turks. I don't know whether to laugh or be disgusted.
We eat lunch at the beautiful waterfall at Muradiye. The land we are traversing now is very sparsely populated. Sheep are a mainstay. The women occupy themselves with the washing and drying of wool. There used to be buffalo and reindeer here, but they are now extinct, although they are still used as motifs on rugs.
There are military checkpoints about every 20 minutes here. We are close to the Iranian and Armenian borders, headed ever closer to Mt. Ararat. We'll be spending the night in Igdir, a jumping off point for visiting the "ghost city" of Ani tomorrow. We stop at Ishak Pasha's palace, a gingerbready palace in the mountains. Legend has it that the architect was an Armenian man, and when he finished the building the chieftain cut off his hands so he could never design anything more spectacular.
Just as the sun is setting, we stop on a deserted side road to photograph the fabulous view of Mt. Ararat.
July 4
We drive to Kars to get the required permission to visit the site of Ani. It is a formality that takes about 30 minutes. On the way we stop at the town of Digor to see the remains of the Armenian church there. Only one wall of stone is left.
The road from Kars to Ani has been newly renovated. There is a lot of action at Ani, known as the city of 1,001 churches, although in reality the number was more like 140. There are a lot of Turkish soldiers here and there is some renovation going on. Armenia is only a stone's throw across the river from here. There is a beautiful view of the Marco Polo Bridge where the famous Silk Road crossed the Akhurian (Arpi) River.
After spending several hours in Ani, we drove along the Arax River to Erzerum, where we will spend the night. The sun is setting and the light is beautiful. The landscape is very green with rolling hills.
July 5
Today we pass some of the most spectacular scenery of this trip, deep gorges and canyons surrounded by huge rock faces. Our bus climbs a narrow road up to the hillside town of Ardanush and then to Artvin. We continue on to Rize for the night.
July 6
We drive to Samsun by way of Trabzon and Ordu, all along the Black Sea coast. At Samsun we drive to the former Armenian quarter where the mother of Dr. Kouymjian had lived. People in the neighborhood point out what had once been the Armenian church and tell us that an old house still standing was where the church's caretaker used to live. Everyone in the neighborhood is very friendly. A boy of about 15 who speaks English directs us to a spot with a spectacular view of Samsun. It is a very uplifting experience for us all. He also suggests a restaurant situated directly on the Black Sea. Our last night together as a group is celebratory. We drink cognac and dance.
July 7
We board our flight from Samsun to Istanbul. I will spend the next several days visiting my father's old neighborhood and the schools that he attended, as well as the tourist sites of Istanbul. I think of how different my life would have been had my father and his family not immigrated to the United States. I feel badly for the Armenians who, as they put it, were "left behind". The Armenians in the diaspora look down on them for being Turkified, although to me it is no different than being Americanized. And the Turks don't consider them Turkish. They remind me of the man without a country.
I highly recommend this trip for anyone interested in exploring his or her Armenian ancestry, or even just getting a close-up view of eastern Turkey with an experienced and knowledgeable guide. We traveled 2,600 miles overland, literally from one side of Turkey to the other. I guarantee that this will be a journey you will remember for the rest of your life.