Reminiscence from Anatolia- Part Thirty Five: The poignant ruins!

The person, used to work at a point of time, in Marmaris… and there he had a co-worker from Bangladesh… an excellent friend… with whom he lost touch after a while.He was pleased to meet a person from Bangladesh, reminding him of his friend.

It set me thinking… we are three countries- India, Pakistan and Bangladesh… a lot of animosity… game of one-upmanship… and yet the world often views us as people of the same stock… same lineage… same history... we tend to cooperate in places where we are minorities… in places where we are threatened… and yet when we are in more accustomed climes, we become sworn enemies… a pack mentality takes over. Sad but true…

I purchased some supplies required for the Ani trip… when I was going, he hugged me and told me to meet before I head back to Istanbul and off from Turkey. I had seen this warmth many-a-times in this unknown land… it grew in intensity as I went off the beaten path… there is a lesson… in tourist traps, we see tourist places… off it, we see human touch… I can fore-go seeing the top 20 tourist places in the world for one of such wondrous human touch.

At around 7, Jaleel came to the hotel with his car… there were two people sitting inside it… a hippy-like Canadian and his girlfriend from Hong Kong. They had been staying in Kars for about a week… and were off to Erzurum from here… Erzurum is famous for its incredibly beautiful Seljuk architecture… a sight left for the next time, perhaps…

I sat on the pillion seat… leaving the rear seats for the couple, who didn’t mind cosying up even while having two strangers in the same car… it was an amusing sight.

I and Jaleel started talking… he was a well-known guide… and therefore well informed about the Kars, Ani and other places in the vicinity… while talking, I realized that he was an ethnic Turk and not a Kurd… and when he realized that I had been to Kurdish areas, before arriving at Ani, he asked me… what did the Kurds tell me… did they tell me that they are being treated badly by Turks… I nodded and said that they have some complaints… he broke into a diatribe… ha! The Kurds are nothing but bunch of smugglers… they trade in opium and narcotics… and when the Army acts… they start crying hoarsely…

There are some incidents indicating that Kurds have, in the past, and even now, dealt in Narcotics… but that, I am sure, is just a small part of truth… the problem is much more complex. However, conversation with Jaleel told me one thing… that the animosity is not one sided… it runs deeper.

The Canadian looked up… he couldn’t hold back… but Turks have had problems with the Armenians too… and now they try to deny it… hell broke loose… sending Jaleel into another diatribe… ha! You don’t know anything… it was the Armenians who started it all… and when we reacted, it was called an Armenian genocide… actually it was a Turkish genocide…

He took us to a place, where there is a small memorial for Turkish genocide… generations of Turks have been led to believe in this one-sided theory of Turkish genocide… propelled by Turkish Army… the present Islamist in power, however, are more open to talk about the possibility of an Armenian genocide.

We reached the Ani ruins… Jaleel told me that Ani ruins were initially Armenian… then changed hands to Seljuks… and the Armenian fortress was destroyed not during the so called “genocide” … but much before in history… he told me so, I guess, so that I don’t start blaming Ani ruins to Turks as well.

The Ani ruins are poignant… massive and beautiful churches lying in rubbles… some churches are in better shape than the others… some frescoes are still discernible… some engravings can still be read… the best, and most dramatic, however, the church of Christ the Redeemer… which was destroyed by lightening in such a way that half of it lies in rubble and half is intact. Another beautiful sight is Ani Cathedral… sprawling and particularly intact… it tells a story of a mighty kingdom in the yesteryears…

Interestingly at some places- like Ani Cathedral... the Ani masonry is quite similar to the Seljuk masonry… Ani uses black, white and red stones… while Seljuks used black and white stones for masonry… if one follows the Seljuk trail to Turkey… one would realize that the nomads of Central Asia swept over the entire Persian and Anatolian region in a matter of hundred years… they absorbed architectural influences from various sources… and Ani could be one of the sources.

While walking along the Ani walls… I realized that Ani in located bang adjacent to the much problematic Turkish-Armenian border… and a ravine of river Akhurian separates it from Armenia… the military deployment on Armenian side is not as massive as claimed by Turkey, and moreover Armenia does not possess military mighty... therefore, it made me think if the Armenian issue is being kept alive by Turks to justify a large Army and charge false patriotism among its people... Or may be its to counter-attack the allegations of an Armenian genocide.

Further ahead… one can see some caves in the ravines… they were, at one point of time, used by people of city to live… the lower class who didn’t find space in the city.

Ani ruins are impressive and need almost a day to explore… we did it in 4 hours… every nook and corner had a history to tell… and it was worth every bit of effort to have come over here to see this desolate and off the beaten track ruins…

While going back, I see a Swastik sign on one of the walls of the fort… I asked Jaleel about it… he said that Ani, before the Armenians, was an important Pagan center… and the Swastik sign tells that history…

From Pagan to Christianity and then to Islam… the middle east has a very convoluted history… and no country, more than Turkey, is a better witness of this complexity.