Mount Ararat towers over Yerevan.
It was always part of Armenia, until the territory was annexed by the Ottomans. It remains symbolically important to Armenians and features on their currency and in their art.
The Turkish government insists that Armenia remove images of Ararat because it is not in Armenian territory. Armenia responds: ‘Sure, when you remove the sun and moon from your flag because they’re not in Turkish territory either’.
Pomegranates and grapes also feature prominently as Armenian symbolic images of national importance.
Armenia is one of the world’s oldest nations. The first Armenian state of Urartu was established in 860 BCE. Yerevan was founded 782 BCE, 29 years before Rome.
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Although the lesser Caucasus do not reach the heights of the greater Caucasus, the average elevation of Armenia is ~2000m.
Tufa stone, a type of limestone, is a common building material and in Yerevan is used to great effect for public and prominent buildings. It comes in pink, sandy, a patina-like green, and black. Unfortunately, because it is stunning, building with the black variety is now restricted due to lack of reserves.
Now for the difficult stuff …the Armenian Genocide.
While only ~30 countries formally recognise it, the Armenian Genocide is as well documented as the Holocaust and sits on that same level of human depravity and suffering.
Around 100 contemporaneous reports of the atrocities were published in the New York Times alone. Many more elsewhere.
I could use far worse pictures from the archives at the Armenian Genocide Museum in Yeravan - as bad as you can possibly imagine - but the following 4 say everything that needs to be said. They break my heart.
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In 1915 as WWI turned from quick victory to ugly slugfest the German High Command covered up the genocide because those perpetrating it were their ally, and they needed to keep them in the war. Nowadays, NATO is a factor.
Every nation is compromised by Realpolitik. And so it ever was.
Consequently, we don’t stop the slaughter. We just build more monuments and museums in honour of the slain. Here, at Auschwitz, in Rawanda.
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And, yet to come, in Ukraine and Gaza …
This gives encouragement to perpetrators. To what Thomas Merton called “the void out of which Eichmann drew the punctilious exactitude of his obedience”.
On the eve of WWII Hitler said “…who, after all, speaks today of the annihilation of the Armenians?”
All that said, the experience of Armenia and Armenians transcends tragedy. The diaspora, perhaps twice the size of the local population, punches above its weight. Andre Agassi, Andy Serkis, Cher, Charles Aznavour, Gladys Berejiklian, etc etc etc.
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Following the fall of the USSR, following the pillage of 3 hopeless former Soviet slug presidents, following the shrugging off of that yolk in what has come to be called ‘the Velvet Revolution’, the economy and confidence has grown, the diaspora has begun to invest, even repatriate, rediscovering what has always been the case. What was recognised by Byron:
“There is no other country on the globe that would be as full of wonders as the land of the Armenians.”
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