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On the Turkish side of the Armenian-Turkish frontier lies the spectacular medieval city of Ani. The deserted city is an Armenian cultural and religious heritage symbol. Filip Warwick documented its remains.
Perched above the Akhurian River in the Turkish province of Kars, the Armenian city of Ani once stood on various East-West trade routes. Ani’s citadel, built in the seventh century, now overlooks the Turkish-Armenian border. The sign warns that entrance to the area is forbidden.
In 1915, more than a million Armenians were deported and executed in a few months on the orders of the government of the Young Turks. A century later, the genocide is still denied by the Republic of Turkey … but in the eastern regions of Anatolia, on the main sites of the massacres, the memory remains vivid.
Leaning against a pillar of basalt, Muhammed Enes calls his thin voice anyone approaching the altar. “I make you see? Surp Giragos Church in Diyarbakir, eastern Turkey, built in 1376, is the oldest Armenian church in the entire Middle East, it has hosted up to 3,000 worshipers and a cannon destroyed its steeple 1915, “the boy recited in the same breath, widening her big green eyes at the mention of the barrel.
Muhammed is too young to have played in the ruins of Surp Giragos, restored and reopened for worship in autumn 2011. It is still too young to understand the massacres and deportations which these walls, this city, this part of Anatolia have witnessed nearly a century before his birth. But the child of Diyarbakir, the schoolboy who hears the bells at recess time, already knows much more than what deign history textbooks teach him.
Too often, too fast when it comes to Turkey and the Armenian Genocide denial of state is likened to the denial of a whole society. They forget that the memory of the Armenians is registered in jurisdictions where they have lived so long, and in the spirit of the people they have so long rubbed shoulders, the first Kurds.
The Monastery of the Hripsimian Virgins, in the ruins of the city of Ani, Turkey, on April 19, 2011. The monastery is thought to have been built between 1000 and 1200 AD, near the height of Ani’s importance and strength. The Akhurian River below acts as the modern border between Turkey and Armenia.
Situated on the eastern border of Turkey, across the Akhurian River from Armenia, lies the empty, crumbling site of the once-great metropolis of Ani, known as “the city of a thousand and one churches.” Founded more than 1,600 years ago, Ani was situated on several trade routes, and grew to become a walled city of more than 100,000 residents by the 11th century. In the centuries that followed, Ani and the surrounding region were conquered hundreds of times — Byzantine emperors, Ottoman Turks, Armenians, nomadic Kurds, Georgians, and Russians claimed and reclaimed the area, repeatedly attacking and chasing out residents. By the 1300s, Ani was in steep decline, and it was completely abandoned by the 1700s. Rediscovered and romanticized in the 19th century, the city had a brief moment of fame, only to be closed off by World War I and the later events of the Armenian Genocide that left the region an empty, militarized no-man’s land. The ruins crumbled at the hands of many: looters, vandals, Turks who tried to eliminate Armenian history from the area, clumsy archaeological digs, well-intentioned people who made poor attempts at restoration, and Mother Nature herself. Restrictions on travel to Ani have eased in the past decade, allowing the following photos to be taken. [27 photos]
Source: the atlantic