The Saint Grigor Lusavorich Church taken care of by Karapet Istefanyan
Today a group of Armenian and Turkish journalists that participate in a fortnight bus tour in the framework of the SATR program of Eurasia Partnership Foundation and the GPoT left Malatya early in the morning and headed to Kayseri or to be exact, Caesarea. The sceneries appearing in front of our eyes during the 5-hour trip were so Armenian, were so much like our mountains, our poplars that we had no feeling of being in a foreign country.
In Caesarea or Kayseri, there are many new and nice buildings, more than one million people live there, by the way, it has an Armenian church, Saint Grigor Lusavorich, and an Armenian community.
Two days ago, a terrorist act was committed in Caesarea, a suicide bomber caused an explosion, as a result of which one police officer died and another sixteen people were injured. That was the reason why two police officers followed and watched over us during our stay in Caesarea.
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Our guide, Ali Bey, said that Caesarea was the fastest developing city in Turkey these days, much money was invested here, it was quickly modernized, but it continued being a city with a very closed and traditionalist society. He also said that Caesarea was known for its basturma, as well as foxy residents. This city was one of the most important centers on the Silk Road at the time. Caesarea was one of the cities with the biggest Armenian population, however, today only four Christian Armenians and an unknown number of Islamized Armenians live here. We met one of them, Karapet Istefanyan, inside the Saint Grigor Lusavorich Church, which was under his care. Mr. Karapet was born in Istanbul, but he came to Caesarea afterwards as a volunteer to take care of the church. 5-6 Armenians come here from Istanbul and other cities every year on a pilgrimage.
Mr. Karapet has a daughter by the name of Caroline who lives in Istanbul with his wife.
After meeting an Armenian man by an Armenian name of Karapet, we went to the houses of Armenians who had lived in Caesarea in the 19th century. They
have been renovated by the government recently and will be used for different social projects.
I must confess those empty houses, in which the spirits of the people who had lived there were still alive, made the deepest impression on me, in particular. It is impossible to describe those feelings with words; one should see it with his own eyes.
One of the police officers watching over us
This house belonged to the Guymchoghlu, probably Guyumjyan, family.
Melanya BARSEGHYAN
