Gallivanting Grandma

We were flabbergasted!  It was 7:00 PM.  The sun was setting, it was getting late, we were hungry, and everyone had expected to spend the night in Erzurum.  Armen did not mention that we were leaving the city.  Everyone was tired because we had been on the road since 10:00 AM in the morning, we had not stopped for lunch, and we had a two hour ride ahead of us to Sarikamis.

The final ‘s’ in Sarikamis has a little ‘comma’ under the letter in Turkish.  That gives the letter ‘s’ an “sh” sound. The name is pronounced, “Sarikamish”, but spelled Sarikamis.  My computer does not have squiggly underscored letters, so I’ve spelled it both ways in this piece as a reminder of the sound of the name.

We left Erzurum and continued to drive through rural Eastern Turkey.  The sun set and the road was pitch black.  As we continued, we noticed drops on the windshield and realized that it was raining.  The only lights were from the occasional car or truck heading in the opposite direction.  The highway had two-lanes: one lane heading in each direction.  There were no lights on either side of the road.  There was only darkness all around us.

Selcuk did a great job of driving in the dark, but we felt sorry for him because he celebrates Ramazan and had not eaten or had a drop of water since sunrise.  He must have been exhausted.

Sarikamish was the site of a battle between the Russian and Ottoman Empires during the First World War. It took place from December 22, 1914 and January 15, 1915.  The outcome was a Russian victory.  Both sides had approximately 100,000 soldiers each.  The war zone was almost 900 miles wide from the Black Sea to Lake Van.  The forces were concentrated at each side of the border at the fortresses of Kars (Russian) and Erzurum (Ottoman).

The Ottoman troops were ill prepared for the brutal winter conditions and suffered major casualties.  The elevation of the area ranges from 5000 to 6000 feet above sea level and winters are snowy and very cold.  The Russian Tsar visited the battle front on December 30th, telling the head of the Armenian Church that “a most brilliant future awaits the Armenians.”  With these words, the fate of hundreds of thousands of Armenians was endangered, as the Ottoman Empire perceived its large Armenian minority as a source of treachery and disloyalty and did nothing to discourage (and perhaps, encouraged) anti-Armenian feeling among its populace.

The relationship between the Armenians and the Ottoman Empire had already started to deteriorate after numerous massacres in eastern Anatolia during the 1890s.  The Ottoman government claimed that it had a legitimate defence against a projected Armenian uprising in favor of a Russia and Western Allied invasion of the Ottoman heartlands.  On his return to Constantinople, Enver Pasha blamed his failure to win the Battle of Sarikamis on the actions of the region’s local Armenians, initiating the repressive measures against the Ottoman Empire’s Armenian population.  This was an early stage of the Armenian Genocide.

We finally saw lights high on a hill and drove up to a huge ski chalet!  It was 9:00 o’clock at night and we had arrived at Sarikamis!  We stepped out of the van, it was pitch dark beyond the hotel, and the air was actually quite cold.  We had no idea what was “out there”. We hastened inside and registered. It felt like we had entered The Twilight Zone.

We entered the huge lobby of a hotel that could have been in any ski resort in the world: Vermont, Idaho, Chamonix, St. Moritz, Switzerland. There were heavy wooden beams on the ceiling and along the walls, big leather chairs, pictures of deep snow and skiers, and skis on stone walls.

lobby of the Sarikamish Hotel

In two hours we had travelled from hot noisy exotic Erzurum to a quiet, peaceful ski chalet in the middle of nowhere and we were the only guests in the entire hotel!

We freshened up in our rooms and then went down to dinner in the hotel dining room. Waiting there for us were “The Zeronians” from Pasadena, California.  This was the other Armenian family that Armen had booked to join us during part of our Anatolian tour. Joe & Marilyn Zeronian, their two adult children, one spouse, and four grandchildren.

We also met our new guide, Satenik Usta.  She is an Armenian who was born in Istanbul and spoke English and French as well as Turkish.  Satenik had been guiding the Zeronians all around Istanbul and they all flew into Erzerum in the afternoon.  Jemal, who is Selcuk’s father and the other half of the family business, picked up the Zeronians in his white Mercedes van at the airport and drove them around Erzerum before driving to Sarikamis earlier in the afternoon.

We sat down to a late Turkish dinner at a long table. Over dinner, we learned that Armen would ride with the Zeronians and that Satenik would be our guide for the rest of the trip.  Soon afterwards, we finally went to bed. It had been a very long day……

On the morning of August 17th, everyone woke up early to see where we were.  It had been pitch black darkness when we arrived late last night and we had no idea what the place looked like.

View from my window!

The Sarikamish Hotel was perched on a hill high above the main road.  The view from the window was vast brown hills of farmland as far as the eye could see.  Far in the distance below there were houses and perhaps villages.

Side view

There were pine trees close to the building giving it a ski lodge appearance.   The morning air was cool. In the winter this is a major ski area with great amounts of snow.  We ate breakfast with the Zironian family in the dining room and then prepared to leave Sarikamis.

View of the Sarikamish Hotel from a distance

It was just a two hour drive to Kars, (rhymes with ‘farce’) which was our next destination.  Selcuk expertly drove into the city of about 74,000 people.  We noticed a distinct military or police presence in Kars.  There were uniformed men with machine-guns posted every few blocks.

Armed Guard on the Street

We arrived at the modern Grand Ani Hotel near the center of the city and checked in.  One thousand years ago the Kars region was part of an Armenian kingdom.  In the late 1890s, 21% of the population was still Armenian.  Today, there are no known Armenians living in Kars.  Orhan Pamuk’s novel, Snow, takes place in Kars.

Kars is a city in Northeastern Turkey and is the capital of Kars Province.  The city is 5800 feet above sea level and winters are cold and snowy.  Some sources claim that the name, Kars, is derived from the Armenian word, “harse” which means bride.  Historic sites in the city are the Armenian Church of the Apostles (937 AD), a 15th Century Ottoman stone bridge, a 19th Century Russian cathedral, and the huge Citadel which dominates the city.

Kars Citadel

The walls of the Citadel date back to the Bagratid Armenian rule of 880-1045, but its present form was established in the 13th Century.  The Turkish claim that it was built by the Ottomans in the 16th Century, but historians have proven that this is false.  Kars was under Russian rule from 1878 through 1920, which accounts for the Russian style buildings in the city.

According to sources, the region produces some of Turkey’s best butter and honey, and thick rough wool carpets.  Today most travellers go to Kars on their way to the ruins of Ani, the great medieval Armenian capital which is located 28 miles to the east, on the Turkish-Armenian frontier.

We were now a caravan of two bright white Mercedes ‘Sprinter’ vans.  The Zironian Family in one van and our international cousins in the other.  We drove through Kars and up a steep hill which was located in the center of town. Our hill looked across to the Kars Citadel on the next hill.

Kars Citadel With Turkish Flag

We stopped at the top of the hill to see a huge cement monument dedicated to “peace” between the Armenians and the Turkish people.  The unattractive cement monument is of two tall statues, men I suppose, facing each other.  They are about to extend their hands to each other in a handshake, but there are no hands on either figure.

Monument to Peace

There was one very large cement hand on the ground and we all wondered out loud if or when the city, or the Turkish government, was planning to put hands on either statue to commemorate peace with a handshake.

The monument is on a high hill close to the center of the city of Kars.  We all left the vans and walked around the top of the hill to admire the fantastic view and take photos.  Several mosques could be seen below, as well as the former Armenian Church of the Apostles which was built in 930 A.D.  It was converted to a mosque in 1579 and then converted into a Russian Orthodox church in the 1880s.  It was converted back to a mosque in 1998.

Suddenly, as we stood there admiring the view, the “call to prayer” from the mosques in the valley began their chants.  They sounded as if they were calling and responding to each other because the Imams had different pitched voices.  It was quite an experience to hear the voices echo through the valley.  High above them, we all stood silently listening to the chanting.

When the the “call to prayer” had stopped, we turned around to see Jemal walking around and eating a huge sandwich!  Clearly, he was not celebrating Ramazan!  It was about 1:00 PM and everyone was hungry for lunch but we had become accustomed to skipping lunches with Armen in charge.  Jamal waved and called us  to go to his van.

Impromptu Lunch

The back door was open and in the storage area he had placed large round loaves of ekmek (bread), strips of local cheese, peeled cucumber, and juicy long green peppers.  He invited everyone to make their own sandwiches and we enthusiastically joined in.  Bravo Jamal!

After our surprise picnic, we boarded the vans again and continued down the steep hill to visit the Church of the Apostles in the valley.  A Turkish man with a religious cap stood in the doorway of the former church.  He acknowledged our presence and with a serious expression, allowed us to enter the building. The architecture of the church was clearly Armenian church architecture and we carefully stepped over the threshold.

The Church of the Apostles

Later Satenik and I were walking around the outside of the church to admire the stone carvings on the outer walls.  We saw a man standing with his hands open and extended sky-ward.  He looked like he was praying.  Muslim men usually pray with their hands at their side.

Satenik walked over to the man and began to speak to him in Turkish. He simply said that when he came to the former church he was inspired to pray outside and he chooses to pray in his own way.  Later, Satenik said that she thought he or his family might have been Armenian, or perhaps Russian Orthodox, or Greek.

A Mosque behind the Church of the Apostles

Then we drove the short distance to Ani, the site of the ancient Armenian kingdom. To be continued…….

We left Sivas in the heat of the morning and Selcuk drove the van onto the highway going farther east.  The Turkish government seems to be improving their highways so wherever we’ve been, there is a lot of road construction, making the journey longer.  Generally, the highways have been surprisingly good, but the farther east we travel, the worse the roads are getting.

We were on our way to Erzincan and we drove past exotic-sounding place names such as the Munzur Mountains (3000 meters high), and the village of Kemah which is near the headwaters of the Euphrates River.  The famous ‘Bust of Anahid’ was found in a village nearby and is currently on display at the British Museum.

We took a side trip off the highway and onto a rough bumpy rural road to go to the Kemah Gorge.  10,000 Armenians were thrown off the high steep cliffs and into the river below by the Turks during the genocide. The entire Armenian population of the city was killed in this way.  As the story is told, “the river ran red with the blood of the Armenians.”

It was a long ride to Erzincan.  The vista is wide with vast wheat fields and shepherds watching small flocks of sheep.  Occasionally we saw farmers on tractors working the land and gathering hay and wheat. The terrain is brown and treeless and mostly flat with hills in the distance.  This area is known as the ‘high plains’ because the entire area is high above sea level and the altitude of the mountains is the highest in Turkey.

We arrived in Erzincan before dark and were surprised to see a modern city.  There had been an earthquake in the early 1990s and almost the entire city has been rebuilt.  The hotel was modern and very clean.  When I arrived at my large room, I explored and found a copy of a Koran and a folded prayer rug in the closet. We had been told that the farther East we travel, the people will be more religious and perhaps more intolerant of outsiders, especially Armenians.  We were advised not to mention that we were Armenian when we traveled to eastern Anatolia.

When we arrived at the hotel, the restaurant near the lobby was full of local people, but we noticed that no one was eating. Someone said that they were waiting for the official notification of sunset, frequently a cannon blast or loud gun shot, to break their day’s fast.

In an hour, the Muslims were finished eating and had left the restaurant, so when we arrived, the room was virtually empty.  We ate a good Middle Eastern dinner of lamb, yogurt, fresh tomatoes, and vegetables.  There is a delicious long skinny light-green seasonal pepper which we have been eating in all the restaurants.  For dessert we had different kinds of baklava and, finally, Turkish coffee.

My cousins and I had expected to drink good Turkish coffee on this trip, but we have been disappointed because the modern Turks drink ‘chai’ (tea).  For some reason the entire population of Turkey stopped drinking coffee about 20 years ago and switched to black tea which is ‘chai’ in Turkish (also in Armenian).  Very few restaurants make Turkish coffee now.

My cousin Roseanne has discovered a hidden talent for “reading” the grinds of Turkish coffee.   This is an old Armenian tradition.  After a person almost finishes drinking their coffee, they carefully turn the cup upside-down onto the saucer. They wait for a few minutes, rotate the cup three times for good luck, and finally look at the pattern of the fine grinds left on the inside of the cup. Then the cup is passed to the person who is gifted or clairvoyant to be the “reader”.

There is usually a person, almost always a woman, who is able to ‘tell your fortune’ by “reading” and interpreting the pattern of the leftover grinds.  I remember my grandmother gathering with her female friends, over cups of Turkish coffee and Armenian pastries.  There was always one woman who was an expert reader.  A good reader carefully studies the grinds, points out what she sees and expresses her interpretations in a mystical and dramatic manner.  This is always great fun!  Roseanne carried on the time-honored tradition with wonderful insights!  :-)

The two-lane highway to Erzurum twists and turns along side the ancient Euphrates River.  On the way to Erzurum, Armen wanted to find the ruins of an Armenian church in a small village and take photographs. We drove off the highway and followed a dirt road for several kilometers.  We finally found a village on the outskirts of Erzurum and Seljuk parked the van.  The shabby rough stone houses were surrounded by rubble.

Inside, the dirt floor was dug-up and full of holes and mounds.  Over the years people dug up the earthen floor of the churches looking for the “treasures” of the church.

Again, charming, smiling children congregated around us as soon as the van stopped.

The houses immediately around the church were in ruins or reduced to rubble. There had been wars and fighting in the region since the 1850s.  During 1915, Armen said, 10,000 Armenians had been killed in this region.

Roseanne’s guidebook told about a unique Muslim woman’s cover-up which is only worn in this area by some women.  It was described as a coarse-fabric brown “gunny sack”.  It seemed to be one large square piece of fabric wrapped around, and entirely covering, the woman.

We finally arrived in Erzurum.  This was the most exotic city of the entire trip, so far.  As we drove into town through the people and vehicle-clogged streets, I was reminded of one of the Star Wars movies.

Erzurum looked like the scene in Episode I: The Phantom Menace when Ani and Liam Neeson rode their spaceship into a strange new busy city.  People and congestion were everywhere.

Erzurum is the largest province in Eastern Anatolia and is located on a high plateau, 6,400 feet above sea level, and surrounded by mountains.  It is 300 miles east of Sivas. The history of the capital city extends back to 4000 BC and has been a major crossroads since antiquity.  Erzurum was captured and ruled by many different nations throughout history, including the  ancient Armenian Kingdom.  The region is known for its local black stone, jet, which is a velvet-black mineral mined from local quarries.  Jet is carved to produce beautiful jewelry, pipes, and boxes.

Seljuk carefully maneuvred the van through the busy streets and parked in front of the ancient Medrasah.  This is the name for a religious school, usually part of a mosque complex, to teach young boys to read the Koran.

We walked up the street to see the inside of the Medrasah, and learned that it was built in the 13th century.  There was a small park in front of the school with benches.  Many men sat on the benches and stared and leered at us as we walked past them.  For the first time on this trip, we did not feel safe.  All the women cousins, asked CeeGee to stay close to us.

I walked up the steps of the Medrasah and when I turned around Francoise and Nicole were talking to a clean-cut young man.  My first thought was, “walk away!”  I continued walking slowly, keeping an eye on them.  When they got closer, I realized they were all speaking French.  I went over to them and when I was introduced as an American cousin, the man switched to good English.  He said he was born in Erzurum, and had attended school at the Sorbonne in Paris and at the University of Albany, in New York.

The young man said he knew Erzurum very well and if we were interested, he could show us some interesting sights.  He said that behind the Medrasah was the old original Armenian and Greek neighborhood which was very interesting and historic. We had been warned not to mention that we were Armenian in Erzerum because of very strong nationalist Turkish sentiments among the majority of the residents in the city.

He said that he knew the owners of a 400 year old house and for a few lires, we could see the inside of the house.  The people were elderly and poor and could use the money, he said.  Armen joined us and said he thought it might be interesting.

We followed the young man and walked up the hill to a rather large brown house that we recognized as Armenian architecture.  He knocked on the door and a middle-aged Turkish woman answered and she invited us inside.  The entry room was dark with huge stones on the floor.  We were led into another large room which was the kitchen and dining room.

We took photos and looked at the neatly arranged cups and plates which covered most of the walls.  In the center of the high ceiling was a skylight which was built with alternating beams of wood arranged in descending sizes.  Armen said it was a very old Armenian style ceiling called, “hazarahshen”, which means “1000 built”.

After about 20 minutes, the young man suggested that we should leave and give the woman a donation of 5 Turkish lires each.  That is about $3.00 each which we felt was an outrageous price to see one room in a house!  None of us complained and we thanked the woman and left.

We walked across the street to see the unusual structures in a small park and learned that they were ancient tombs.  One of them was built in a Mongolian style with Mongolian symbolic images on the outside.  The others were built during the height of the Ottoman Empire in the Seljuk architectural style.

Finally, the young man suggested we visit his uncle’s carpet shop down the street. We walked into the shop and began to look at carpets.  The young man’s uncle had an impressive collection of carpets from all the neighboring countries.

He began to unfold carpets and placed them on top of each other on the floor.  Some were old and some were new. He described each carpet by the village or country where it was hand woven.  All of them were different and all were beautiful.

We asked prices and Roseanne indicated some interest in one of the carpets.  It was a beautiful hand woven Persian carpet with a delicate floral pattern.  ‘Barganing’ is an art raised to a high level in the Middle East and there are certain social rules. Once you begin the bargaining process you have to continue to a satisfactory conclusion, so you have to choose the item carefully.  The purchase could take hours and often includes cai (tea) and much conversation.  The purchaser has to insure that the seller does not ‘lose face’ or is embarrassed in any way, so it is a dance of words and gestures and bluffs and facial expressions.  I wished I had a video camera to tape the process!

The dealer started at 860 Turkish Lires. Roseanne countered strongly with 200 TL. I don’t have time or space here to recount the entire bargaining saga, but after Roseanne walked out of the shop and into the van, she was able to purchase the carpet at an excellent price.  Roseanne can bargain like a native and it’s fun to watch!  :-)

Erzurum from the Van – Bags of Potatoes

Afterwards, we drove a bit through the streets of Erzurum and left the city at sunset.  The road follows the Arax River and we passed a 13th century bridge spanning the river.

We had expected to stay in Erzurum and were surprised to learn when we were driving out of the city and that we were going to Sarikamish, two hours to the east.

We drove in pitch darkness with hardly any other vehicles on the road.  When we reached the hotel and stepped out of the van, the air was actually cold!

To be continued…….

We returned to Sivas and spent another night in the Sivas Buyok Otel. It is a clean and comfortable hotel which resembles a standard business hotel in any big city anywhere, and it has free WiFi in the room. It would be perfect, however the hotel has NO air conditioning and it was VERY hot outside. When we arrived late last night, it was a little cooler and I opened my window to let in a breeze.

It is currently Ramadan in the Islam world. The Turks call it ‘Ramazan’. During the month, the celebrants cannot eat or drink anything from sunrise to sunset. At 2:30 AM men ride around Sivas in cars or trucks banging huge drums to wake up the people so they can eat before the sunrise. The banging continues until about 3:00 AM. Then at 4:00 AM the ‘call to prayer’ is broadcast, load and clear, over the huge city amplifiers and it is time for the Muslims to stop eating for the day. Since my window was open, the sounds of the drum and the call to prayer were quite loud and I was able to enjoy all the dawn “music” of Sivas.  Unfortunately, sleeping was out of the question.

Urban Renewal and Armenian Architecture in Sivas

After breakfast, we boarded the van and drove to the old Armenian quarter of Sivas. All the Armenians are gone, but a few of their houses are still standing. Some houses have been renovated, and some are currently undergoing renovation, and others sit silently in a variety of states of ruin.

We stopped in front of a large, rather stately home that was in ruins. It had been a beautiful house built in the Armenian style of architecture, with Armenian letters and a date of 1890 decoratively carved in wood on the triangle under the roof.  The house had been abandoned and neglected for a long time and it had been vandalized.

We climbed up the steps and looked into the first floor.  When a police car slowly drove by looking at us, we assumed the neighbors called the police, we decided to leave the neighborhood.

We drove towards the village of Ishan which is only 5 kms from Sivas. Ishan means ‘prince’ in Armenian. This is the village of my maternal grandmother, Maritza Chahbazian. First we stopped at an arched Roman-style bridge which had been built in the 13^th Century.

The Armenian inscriptions had been scraped off the stone plaque, but Arabic writing remained on another plaque on the opposite side of the river.

Descendants of the Chahbazians

We drove onward to another smaller, similar bridge, which connected Sivas with Ishkhan. My cousin, Claudine, said that my grandmother and her sister and 3 brothers and parents walked across this bridge to go to Sivas, the big city.  Claudine and Astrig said that the family frequently walked the 5 kms to go to the market or to go the the hamam for a Turkish Bath in Sivas.

Around the village of Ishan there were flat wheat fields and fertile farmland. Undulating hills gently rose behind Ishkhan. There were very few trees, the grass had turned brown from the heat of summer and the sun was strong and hot. The air was warm and dry and smelled like hay. Because of the altitude, this region receives a lot of snow in the winter.

We drove into Ishan slowly on the unpaved road and stopped above the mosque in the center of town. Five of us are descendants of Ishan. Claudine and Astrig’s father and mother, Nazareth and Ossana, were born and lived in Ishan. They had been neighbors and friends when they were young. My cousin Roseanne’s and my grandmother, Maritza, was Nazareth’s older sister. They had been a happy family with two more brothers, Levon and Haratoun and a sister, Margaret.

Their father was educated and had been the parish priest and an important man in the village. Many years ago, my grandmother told us that one of her greatest joys was watching their sheep on the hillside when she was young. Who knows how many generations of the Chahbazian family had lived in Ishkhan before the 1915 genocide. My grandmother’s parents were brutally killed by the Turks and my grandmother and her siblings were deported to an orphanage in Istanbul. After very difficult times, they eventually were able to escape Turkey and immigrated to the U.S and France.  They built new lives but their happy family life, as it had been, was destroyed and the memories of seeing their parents and other relatives and friends killed, stayed with them for the rest of their lives.

We all walked down the hill toward the mosque. This had been the church of my Christian Armenian great-grandfather. The stone building was intact with a minaret attached to one corner.

There was a wall around the church and we passed through the gate and entered the garden.

Roseanne and I wondered aloud if Grandma’s mother had also planted flowers and tomatoes there. We removed our shoes, left them at the door and entered the mosque.

All the ancient churches were built of large heavy stones. The walls of the interior of the church rose to the high dome in the center of the ceiling.  Large columns supported the dome and the roof.  The interior space was unmistakeably Armenian architecture but all the frescos and wall paintings had been scraped off or covered with plaster and any reminder of Christianity had been removed.

We silently walked around and looked at what remained and touched the columns and walls.  Claudine, Astrig thought about their parents, and Roseanne and I remembered our Grandmother Maritza.

Then Armen asked the Imam to open a door of what we thought was a closet.  It turned out to be the area where the alter of the church had been and the original stones of the church wall were visible. The Imam used the area for storage.  We walked into the space and Claudine took something out of her pocket.  It was “Mas”, which is the small disc-shapped bread a priest gives to parishioners during Communion in an Armenian church service.

The Imam was watching us but we shielded Claudine from his view and she pushed the Mas into the space between two stones.  Then we sang The Lord’s Prayer in Armenian in that alter-space where our great-grandparents and parents conducted Armenian services a hundred years ago.

When we emerged from the church, a neighbor had brought some fruits from her garden and left them for us.  In a small bowl were ripe tomatoes and cucumbers. It was a kind, welcoming gesture.  It’s interesting that Turkish men are ‘out and about’ and are present everywhere we go, but the women peek out of their windows or send their children to greet strangers and silently leave gifts.

Claudine and Astrig had visited Ishkhan five years earlier with Armen and another Armenian group.  They said that the village had greatly improved and there were many new houses now.  We walked around the mosque and tried to find my grandmother’s house.

We surmised that the parish priest’s house would be next door to the church, so we went around the new wall to look at the crumbling stone house next door.  It was in a sad state with the roof caved in and no windows.  But it was there: probably two stories, small windows to keep out the weather, another garden area, another structure for animals.  Yes, we were grasping at straws.  Who knows?  It could have been our grandmother’s house or it could have been the house of a relative.  We will never know……

Selcuk came to get us and we walked up a hill near the village which had been an Armenian cemetery. Large flat rocks marked the grave sites.

From the top of this hill we could see Sivas in the valley and the bridge my grandmother took to get there.  You could also see the distant hills where my great-grandfather was killed by the Turkish military.

We could look down upon Ishan and see the entire village.  In the other direction we could see the big city if Sivas in the distance.  What a great place!  A cooling breeze blew across the heat of the day and I wondered if my grandmother had ever come up to the top of this hill to look down on her world and to enjoy the view.  It immediately became my favorite place!  I wanted to sit on the ground and stay there all afternoon and enjoy the view of the village of Ishan…….