As you drive in from the airport, Yerevan looks forlorn, like it’s been forgotten by its residents: crumbling buildings, exposed masonry, peeling paint, overgrown yards. Drab brown dominates the color palette. The snow-capped Mt. Ararat & Mt. Aragats that dominate the northwestern & southern horizons of the city try valiantly to fight the bleakness, but the haze that hangs in the air – perhaps urban detritus trapped in the valley that Yerevan is situated in – defeats them. From the air, the two mountains appear as large white, riven patches in a sea of arid brown.
As you get closer to the center, the city brightens up, the dull brown giving way to a more cheerful pink and orange hues. Although most of the old buildings have been demolished to make way for new apartment blocks, there are still many left standing, especially around Abovyan Street. My hotel turned out to be a studio apartment in one such building. Stately from the outside, with massive grey stone blocks forming the base, an anachronistic modern buzzer system by the huge old wooden double doors that were rotting at the edges. Inside it was dark. The stairs leading up to the elevator lobby were uneven and missing a few tiles. A false step could result in an embarrassing tumble. The walls were pockmarked with peeling plaster. This was not due to an attempt to render it chic ancient, but simply due to neglect and lack of regular upkeep, symptomatic of the city at large. To my relief, the studio itself was quite comfortable if spartan.
Abovyan is a busy, wide, tree-lined thoroughfare with many more photogenic and better-maintained buildings than the one my studio was in. On the ground floor are cafes, restaurants and shops, many chic, modern and brands: Mango, Swarovski, Baldi, Aldo. It leads towards the large Republic Square, the epicenter of the city’s activities, with government buildings and museums bordering it. This is apparently where the residents of the city and tourists show up, strolling around the dancing fountains, chatting with family and friends. As do the numerous tourist vans & taxis advertising tours all around Armenia, including Artsakh, as Nagorno-Karabakh is known in Armenian. A burly man, leaning against his van, beckoned me. ‘Tours!’ he exclaimed in English. ‘I go everywhere.’
‘Everywhere?’
‘Yes, even Azerbaijan if you want!’ He chortled at the joke, referring to the fact that Armenians cannot travel to Azerbaijan and (especially) vice versa.
Further down the square, on a large stage there was a performance of eclectic, live music: English rock, electronic music, opera, etc. The main attraction of the evening concert was D’Black Blues Orchestra, but that was to come later in the night and go on into the small hours of the morning.
Before arriving in Armenia, I’d been introduced to Aram & Anahit a couple in their 40s. I met them for dinner at a new restaurant not far from Republic Square. We had the well-lit place mostly to ourselves. Whether it was really a loft before being converted to a restaurant or the bare vents on the open ceiling were placed there for effect, I could not tell. It had a chic Provençal air to it. The large space had floor to ceiling glass on two sides and many corners & nooks within. On the wall were artwork of vineyards, grapes and stills of vegetables. Surrounding the eating area were large display cases with a variety of wines, a charcuterie, a counter with all kinds of sauces and fruit preserves.
We took our seats at a one of the long pinewood tables. Aram is a school-teacher and Anahit directs an NGO that works towards healing the bitter scars that mar the various peoples of the region. His hair looked like someone had deposited a dark mop on his head, but he had a youthful, lively demeanor. Anahit, on the other hand, was quiet, her small frame delicate, her raven eyes deeply observant, her black close-cropped boyish hair framing her contemplative expression.
It didn’t take much prompting from me for Aram to talk about the contributions of Armenians. ‘In Istanbul you must have seen a lot of buildings designed by Armenians,’ he said. ‘Particularly by Sinan.’
He’d claimed the master-architect under Suleiman the Magnificent, Mimar Sinan, for the Armenian diaspora. There’s uncertainty over Sinan’s origins: some historians believe he was Albanian, others say he was Greek and still others – that Aram evidently agreed with – think he was Armenian. Sinan did design hundreds of structures in the Ottoman Empire, including the Suleimaniye Mosque in Istanbul and, what is widely considered as his masterpiece, the Selimiye Mosque in Edirne.
‘Most of the Sultans had Armenian architects building their palaces, mosques and government buildings. Have you heard of the Balyan family?’ I shook my head. ‘They designed dozens of buildings: The Dolmabahce Palace, the Sarayburnu Palace, Ortakoy Mosque. I could go on and on. In addition Armenians held important positions like doctors, teachers, civil servants, businessmen — you know that kind of thing. It was the Armenians and Greeks who ran the Empire for the Ottomans.’
I smiled at the exaggeration. But he was not alone in his earnest attempts to articulate an inflated role Armenians have played in the region and indeed around the world. I would meet a few others on this trip for whom nostalgia for a more glorious past seemed to make up for their recent frailties and indignities.
‘We Armenians are everywhere. In fact there are more of us outside Armenia than here.’
I nodded. Armenians, at the cross-roads of trade between Asia & Europe, traveled and spread via the web of trade routes that existed amongst far-flung nations. Although not well known, they made their presence felt in India too. They, like Baghdadi Jews (think of the Sassoon family), had engaged in trade with India for centuries, with rather noticeable and prosperous communities in Calcutta, Surat and Madras. One of Akbar’s wives was Armenian. The community in Madras was vibrant enough to support the publication of a periodical in the Armenian language. In more recent times, one of the more colorful personalities of the community in India was Gauhar Jan, born to an Armenian father & Anglo-Indian mother, converted to Islam along with her mother after her parents’ marriage fell apart, and became a tawaif. In 1902 she became the first Indian to have an LP record released.
‘But the most famous clan lives in LA,’ I teased them.
‘Oh, please,’ groaned Anahit. ‘Please keep the Kardashians in America. We don’t want them. You know Kim Kardashian and her family were here a couple of years ago. What a circus they turned this city into!’
‘Speaking of trashy American celebrities, what do you think of your dear President?’ Aram asked. I was taken aback by his frankness. Had I been a Trump supporter, that would have effectively been the end of our conversation. But I suppose I don’t look like one, and he felt bold enough to broach the subject.
‘Can we talk about more pleasant topics, please?’ I replied and they chuckled.
Our food arrived. Aram & Anahit had put their heads together and had ordered a number of vegetable dishes for me: mushrooms, wild greens from the surrounding hills that had hard stems & a bitter aftertaste, a salad & matnakash bread to go with it.
‘It occurs to me that the Armenians & Israelis have much in common,’ I remarked off-handedly as I poked a fork into the greens. Like the Mizrahim, Armenians were traders and established communities in far-flung places. Like Jews, Armenians have been persecuted, especially in recent times. Like Israel, an independent Armenia came into being only within the last 100 years after their traditional homeland was divided between the Byzantines & the Sassanians in the 6th century. The country of Armenia today is the descendent of the Sassanian – and much smaller – part of the ancient kingdom, having been a neglected backwoods Persian satrapy for centuries before being incorporated into the Russian Empire in the 19th Century along with the rest of the Caucasus. And like Israel, Armenia is in conflict – an existential struggle, some would say – with most of their neighbors.
Aram nodded in agreement. ‘When you are a dispersed people and have no country of your own it’s easy for the people of host countries to persecute you, especially if you’re a successful, visible minority. Take for example the Armenians on the Ottoman Empire. They were a very successful, educated community. But because we didn’t have a land of our own the genocide was allowed to happen. For us, as with Israel, even though it’s only a small piece of land, it’s our land. It’s our historical home. Nobody can throw us out of here.’
And yet, Armenia has struggled to define & defend its borders. Having lost what they call Western Armenia to Turkey (which the Turks would vigorously contest) and eastern parts to Azerbaijan, they’re hemmed in mostly by closed, hostile borders: Turkey to the west & Azerbaijan to the east. The venerable Mt. Ararat, so visible from most parts of Yerevan, is across the border in Turkey, closed in the early 90s a result of Armenia’s conflict with Azerbaijain (a cultural, linguistic & political cousin of Turkey) over the Nagorno-Karabakh region. The ancient capital of Ani is also across the border. In addition, it’s entire eastern border with Azerbaijan is sealed. Armenia’s only outlets are the northern border with Georgia and a small sliver of a border with Iran in the south. And, yet, people find ways around the closures. Turks & Armenians travel between the two countries via Georgia (or take the only nonstop flight from Istanbul to Yerevan). Azeris travel to their Nakhchivan enclave (much like Gaza is to Palestinians) via Iran, thus avoiding the far shorter route that would go through Armenia. And as for the Armenian-majority enclave of Artsakh as Armenians refer to Nagorno-Karabakh in Azeri territory, fortunately they have direct access to it. But heaven forbid if you get an Artsakh stamp on your passport and try to enter Azerbaijan via Iran or Georgia: you’ll be sent right back by the Azeris, or maybe even jailed.
A few days later, in Tbilisi, a Georgian man would ask me, ‘What’s Armenia? It was all Azeri territory. The Armenians moved there from Turkey and pushed the Azeris aside.’ That is, of course, a skewed, ignorant interpretation of history. But it is not an uncommon belief amongst Armenia’s neighbors. Georgians – who have a few bones of their own to pick with the Russians over contested territories – would say that Armenia survives largely due to Russian largesse. Indeed Armenia – as one of the poorest ex-Soviet states – is unusually and uncomfortably reliant on Russian help. Russia practically guarantees Armenia’s security thanks to a number of military agreements & patrols its borders with Turkey & Iran.
That evening when I asked about this jigsaw puzzle of territories Anahit spoke up to say, ‘The world recognizes Nakhchivan, but not Artsakh. Nobody even talks about Western Armenia any more. It’s lost to us. But if Armenia proper goes, so do we as a people. There will no longer be an Armenian civilization. Only a cruel parody of it in the United States.’
