And do you know famous Russian archeologist Nicholas Marr? The Nicholas Marr that carried out excavations in Ani. Perhaps you, as I, thought that he was an Armenian. However, the tourists that had come all over the world to see the ruins of Ani, reading the signs placed beside the walls of Ani, find out that he is a Russian archeologist. Then, crossing the whole territory of Ani, passing by a few churches, reading signs everywhere, they find out that a certain church was built by King Gagik or King Ashot, the Bagratuni dynasty was here, then Arabs, Georgians, Persians, Seljuks, Russians… ruled here. And that’s it. Who was King Gagik, what dynasty was the Bagratuni house? The history written by Turks is silent about that. The history was silent also about the origins of the Holy Apostles Church in Kars.
Armenian and Turkish journalists who are on the bus tour financed by USAID finished the Turkish part of their tour in Kars yesterday, visiting also Ani.
We saw Yeghishe Charents’s supposed house. Or the stones that remained of it.
Charents’s Supposed House in Kars
We have been also to the Holy Apostles Church in Kars, which is a mosque these days and which has also been built by some “unknown” King Abbas. Kars, which was built at the same time as Gyumri, of the same black basalt, reminded very much of Gyumri. People were more open there for talking with Armenians. Armenians come here more often, besides, the residents of Kars look forward to opening the Armenian-Turkish border. There is no Armenian resident in Kars. This city is in a very untidy condition, even one of our Turkish colleagues said “I cannot believe that this is a part of Turkey, it seems we are not in Turkey.”
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The Cathedral of Ani
However, what we saw in Ani was beyond our imagination. I was upset, when I heard in the Saint Grigor Lusavorich Church that the Turkish
guide, in response to a question of foreign tourists what letters those were, said pointing to the Mesrop Mashtots’s bas-relief with Armenian letters that those were probably Georgian or old Arabic letters.
When I asked our guide, Ali bey, why it was so, he said that it was the hand of the Turkish government, which was often criticized in the Turkish press and on television, journalists and some social figures raised that issue, they said “what does it mean, who is that King Gagik, who is Ashot Bagratuni, what kingdom is that, why do you take us for fools?” However, the reality is that this criticism doesn’t have any effect, there are no factual evidence of Armenians and the presence of Armenians in Ani. And many foreign tourists who don’t have any basic historical knowledge and have to rely on the signs placed beside the walls and churches of Ani, on which there weren’t the words “Armenian,” “Armenia” anywhere, will not know what city it is…
Melanya BARSEGHYAN
