Sargis Tekyan whom we met in Caesarea is a real finding. He is a ready character for a movie, for a wonderful story.
He lives in the neighborhood of Talas, which was an Armenian neighborhood at the time and the spirit of Armenian architecture can still be sensed in that neighborhood. Caesarea is a big city surrounded by mountains and Talas is a green neighborhood above the big city, on the flank of a mountain. Sargis showed us a few houses, saying that this was Kahramians’ house, this was Ohannes’s house, this was Gulbenkians’ house….
Calouste Gulbenkian was from Caesarea and is Sargis’s distant relative, his grandfather’s nephew.
Although Mr. Karapet who watched over the Saint Grigor Lusavorich Church in the city had said to us that 4 Armenians lived in Caesarea, Sargis convincingly claimed for a few times that he was the only pure Armenian. He didn’t even accept Mr. Karapet, “He is not a Caesarean, he is from Istanbul.”
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Sargis invited our group of more than 20 people – Armenian and Turkish journalists participating in the bus tour organized by Eurasia Partnership Foundation and the GPoT, the organizers, the police officers following us all the time during our stay in Caesarea, Alsihan Hanim, the director of the movie Armenians in Caesarea, and her husband – telling us to feel at home, that it was
our home. A Turkish journalist traveling with us said that Sargis was a very hospitable man, if he received us at his home saying those words.
Sargis Tekyan offered us tea and answered all our question with ease. It turned out that that day was his birthday, he was 55 years old. Sargis was not married and said that family was not for him. However, he said that he needed a woman aide from Armenia who spoke Turkish for household, he didn’t care for the appearance, if she was smart. Sargis had a reason to attach importance to intelligence – he said that he had had a housewife from Gyumri who had worked not badly, but she had been very stupid; she wouldn’t understand what Sargis would tell her.
He talked about the Armenian-Turkish relations, he advised not to listen to the Diaspora, but to do what was good for the peoples – Turks and Armenians – living side by side in this region, open the borders and solve all issues.
Sargis said that his family had lived in that very house for three generations already. He has never concealed that he is Armenian, he even tattooed his name – SARGIS – on his wrist, but he also said that there were many Armenians that concealed their origins, they were afraid. Pieces of newspapers were pasted on his entrance door – those were his interviews – and in one of the corners there was an inscription on a stone that had been most probably brought from the church.
By the way, we saw another church much better preserved and more beautiful in Caesarea, unfortunately, from distance. As Kemal Bey, a Turkish journalist from our group, remarked afterwards, it was typical Turkish policy – where Armenians don’t reside, there are churches, they are preserved and where Armenians reside, for example, in Sebastia, Malatya, there is no church.
A group of police officers followed us all the time in Caesarea, moreover, armed to the teeth.
Sargis’s father and sister Hripsime lived in Istanbul, only he lived in Caesarea. He is engaged in trade, including trade of domestic animals. He had a rather clean and tidy house for a single man. Sargis was proud that Hripsime spoke Armenian. He himself didn’t and the only thing he could say was Our Father, which he recited for us with pleasure.
Melania Barsegyan
