On the road: Kars

With me were two fellow teachers who I had traveled with in Van only two weeks earlier. Added to our group was an art historian doing research in İstanbul. We headed to Kars in early April because we couldn't wait any longer to explore Ani, the uninhabited city in the province of Kars which was once the capital of the medieval Armenian kingdom.

Ani -- tensions new and old

From A.D. 500 to today, Ani has been invaded, constructed and deconstructed, respiritualized and subject to both natural and political disasters. Like many sites in Turkey, Ani wears a complex historical record.

 The most recent political tensions are witnessed in the “restorations” of the city and the Armenian quarry just across the gorge which marks the border between Turkey and Armenia at the eastern edge of this once thriving city.

A professor in my department told me with a laugh that “the Armenians are mining and undermining [Ani] at the same time.” Other sources corroborate that the Armenian quarry jeopardizes the historical city -- the quarry was established out of a mixture of spite for Turkey's border and remembrance of Armenia's religious heritage. (The stone from just outside the former capital of Armenia was used to build a cathedral in Yerevan commemorating the anniversary of Armenia's conversion to Christianity.)

The restorations in Ani also tell a political story. The restorations have been condemned by every art historian to write about Ani and are recognized at best to be a way of creating construction projects in the region, at worst as a way to hide Ani's historical significance as the former capital of Armenia -- the sign at the entrance also contributes to the latter point, never mentioning Armenia in its extensive list of empires to control the city.

 Whatever political tensions exist between Armenia and Turkey, I hope both sides can agree on the significance of the site and do the right thing in its preservation. The site has been listed consistently on the World Monuments Fund's list of top 100 endangered historical sites.

Exploring Ani

While I could spend the entire article talking about botched restorations and political battles, I would be denying the fun of exploring Ani at this stage in history. After being dropped off in the middle of Kars, we met an eager taxi driver who took us to our hotel and waited while we settled in and ate breakfast. At the hotel we met an Australian man touring eastern Turkey, and he joined us on the way to Ani, the six of us packing into a small taxi for the 45-minute ride.

At Ani we paid our entrance fee and walked through the Lion's Gate at the center of the enormous city walls, the ruins stretching across the landscape. The rubble of old homes led to impressive churches and mosques, some only half intact but majestic for their courage against gravity.

I walked the streets trying to imagine myself as a peasant centuries ago when the city rivaled Constantinople, Cairo and Baghdad in size and influence. On the second floor of the cathedral I am a priest. On top of the minaret at Menucehr Mosque I am a müezzin calling out for morning prayer.

While the taxi driver drank tea with the guard just outside the front gate, we had Ani to ourselves for most of the afternoon. An overcast sky helped me sink into the feel of the city, touching the walls worn from wind, rain and arrowheads.

As the rain drizzled and then poured, we made our way along to our final sites, quickly visiting the fire temple before retreating underneath the Lion's Gate and packing into the taxi once more, a wet Australian man on my lap in the front seat.

Ani's condition may not be respectable considering its historical significance, but the cranking machinery across the gorge and the poorly done restorations mark Ani with the tensions of the current period. Like no other site I've visited in Turkey, Ani wears its century and a half of abandonment and conflict, proof that these histories cannot be removed or forgotten.