Going Greek!

At the Acropolis yesterday, my middle-aged and temperamental guide, after explaining the Roman theater (or odeon, which finally explains why so many cinemas in the world are called Odeon... Not sure about why many others are called Eros, though) said "That's enough about Romans, now I'm going Greek." I almost fell off: clearly the woman didn't know the lurid-ness of that phrase, though it is not unreasonable given the old Greek proclivities dating to Alexander.

Alexander. There is one name that you hardly hear mentioned, forget about proudly mentioned. His tyrannical style never fit with democratic Athens, which after sinking into obscurity through the Roman, Byzantine and Turkish occupations, finally emerged as the capital of the Greeks. It makes you wonder why the Greeks even fight over FYROM - they never seemed to have much liked Macedonia, not the Athenians at any rate.

Makes you wonder why India views the Mughals as dear sons of the soil rather than the abrasive interlopers they were, Babur forever lamenting the torpor of this land, contrasting with the cool mountains and (adopted) Persian culture and finery.

The similarities hardly end there: Greece vs Turkey, formerly a mostly-Hellenic region and population converted into a new identify, hating its progenitors, and finally the population exchange... Anyone with half a brain can see the similarity with the subcontinent. The one difference is that coming out of partition the Hindus outnumbered those who had turned during the long occupations. Apart from that accident, there is no binding ethos, and what is left is being chipped away daily. Where is the Smithsonian Institute of India? Where is the concerted effort to rediscover and shepherd the multi-faceted Indic legacy that goes beyond lip service to the Indus civilization and a few Sanskrit books? What an enormous waste.

Contrast this with the way the Greeks tie their free new country to their rich legacy, even as they are the poorest in Europe - the rightful re-appropriation of the West's traditions, the deep sense of history and even the resurrection of their pre-Roman, pre-Christian past, as embodied in the terrific Acropolis museum.
We could all go Greek, a bit, actually.

Sent from my iPhone

Getting to the crux

While this is unlikely to be my last ever post on Armenia, it is the one that I hope summarizes my experiences in that enchanting country. At barely 4 million (in-country; the diaspora is much larger) it is a small nation enslaved practically through history, scrappily fighting, surviving and even thriving. The only comparable people I can think of are the Jews. The Assyrians, also a Biblical people, are all but extinct - and these are the great warriors who once sacked Babylon and held court in Nineveh.

Since the advent of Islam, Armenia has had one master after another - Arab, Turkic, Persian, sometimes all at once; and do not forget the Russians. Today's Armenia only exists since 1992!!. Despite all this - or perhaps because of all this - the folklore here is so amazing and powerful it is striking. Tales, no doubt some true, some not, have been passed down for long. And the fact that they have had their own alphabet make this less tenuous than an oral tradition, I suppose. So it is with a pinch of salt that I suggest you take the following episodes.

Was Stalin Georgian? No. According to Armenians, he was born of an Armenian father, a rich merchant living in Georgia, to his domestic help. Not wanting to acknowledge his progeny, the biological dad arranged for her to be married off to some Georgian sod. Hence Josef's abiding hatred of  Armenia. (Separately, do not forget that Lenin was one-quarter Mongolian. Really. His grandmother was apparently from Kalmykia, a dream destination of mine). Makes you wonder - how scarred must he psyche be to even claim as its own one of the most notorious sociopaths in history?

Where was Noah's Ark? In historical Armenia, currently Turkey, lies Mount Ararat.

Where was the world's first university? Armenia. I forget the details, but knowing of Taxila and Nalanda, I could not help but shake my head indulgently.

Where is the original Stonehenge? Armenia, in Karahunj (apparently "kara" means stone). I went to the desolate pile of stones, looking like giant misshapen turds of the gods. Not exactly breathtaking, but weird, quirky and curiosity inducing. Whether it was the world's first observatory, or even if it was an observatory - who knows.

What was the world's first Christian country? Armenia. This is true. However, the convoluted story includes feuding dynasties, exiles, secrecy and incarceration of the man who would eventually convert the Armenian king. It is said that the king had gone mad and accepted Christianity which cured him. I am surprised nobody has ever considered that he took up Christianity because he was mad... but of course I am Heretic with a capital H.

Who gave the world apricots? Armenia. This may be true, but several parts of Central Asia, and even China claim the fruit.

What's the world's best / original cognac? Armenian. Apparently Winston Churchill swore by it. It is not cheap stuff, but I would have bought a bottle if not for the fucking no-liquid rule.

Whose is the face carved on the Echmiadzin cathedral? That of an Iranian shah, whose forces turned back without sacking the edifice because his face was carved on it. Speaking of which, Armenians love (relatively speaking) their Persian masters, compared to the Turkish ones. How interesting these twists of history are.

Is the Armenian language related to Georgian? No. It is special and has no known relatives (which I find exceptionally hard to believe).

Folklore is amazing. Take the home town of my driver, Lori, up north. Legend has it that a Georgian king gifted it to a childless Armenian merchant thinking it would revert to him once the merchant died. The canny merchant willed it to Armenia. And he made his fortune trading with / in... Madras, in southern India! Which is the same place that enriched a certain Elihu Yale (no connection to Armenia), who endowed much of his fortune to the eponymous institution in Cambridge, MA.

Lest we mock too much - as with the Jews under various non-Jewish regimes, the Armenian were skilled tradesmen, craftsmen, scholars, bureucrats and much more, dispersed far and wide across the globe and making themselves useful, even valuable, just about everywhere. And do not forget famous Armenians like Cher and Agassi. Ahem.

What an amazing culture, and how it has withstood time. I suppose part of that is a dose of semi-myths to keep the collective soul nourished and healthy.

To Armenia!

A walk through history

What's in a label? If the label is "Caucasian", plenty. I always therefore recommend a trip to a museum (the historical kind) of any interesting place you go to. I paid up my US $10 or whatever it was to get my own personal English-speaking guide at Yerevan's main museum right off Republic Square. The tour started with historical cartography proving Armenia's existence into antiquity and proceeded to the modern day.

One of the things I learned was the exact meanng of "Caucasian Albania". An area roughly coincident with modern-day Azerbaijan has been called Caucasian Albania since antiquity. The guide patiently explained that there is no connection to modern-day Albania. I did not get much more than that, but researching on this further, I discovered there is also a "Caucasian Iberia", roughly modern Georgia. Which was of course called Gurjstan by the Turks, and the Gujjars of northern India and Pakistan claim descent from here. Which is not unlikely, because the Caucasus is surmised to be the cradle of various horse-warrior tribes including Huns and Scythians who historians believe ruled great parts of the subcontinent.

Back to Azerbaijan - from the Armenian perspective it is an "invention of history". Perhaps it is, but these issues are so vexing though. Armenians have a strong notion of  "historical Armenia", as opposed to the post-Soviet nation state, which includes Western Armenia (now in Turkey) and much of Azerbaijan. One supposes that territory was Armenian geographically and culturally, until most of Eastern Armenia was taken by the Persians (and then to the Russians who defeated the Persians).

No doubt every culture, civiliation or polity is begotten by another, but somewhere the umbilical cord gets cut. Azeris are a mix of Persian, Turkic and other prominent ethinicities of the region which certainly includes Armenians. They converted to Islam though, and adopted the Turkic culture. Now they are a separate nation and culture. This has happened elsewhere: Pakistan is a good example of a new nation, culture and race, no matter how connected to its parental nations.

Some day I hope to grab my Azeri friend here in Singapore on this. Speaking of whom, he was the person most excited about my Armenia trip: how was it? is it a modern country? what's Yerevan like? are people rich? educated? The questions wouldn't stop. Funny, this life and its animosities.

But since we are on a James-Burke-Connections type ramble here, let us also throw in that the first native post-Islamic dynasty in Iran, the Safavids are considered Azeri Turks (it is surmised they were of Persian, Turkic, Kurdish and even Georgian ancestry, but they did come out of presnt-day Azerbaijan) and hated by "Persian" Iranians today. They in fact believe there is a Turkic conspiracy to keep the Persians down, swamping Iran with (Azeri Turks) and getting themselves into power - both Khameini and Ahmadinejad are rumored to be Azeri Turks, not "Persian".

So as we step into 2010, let us not forget who we are and how we got here. Oh heck, it is all so confusing, let us have a drink and forget just that.

Ani

I referred to Ani briefly in an earlier article. One of my two key destinations in Turkey was Ani. The other, sadly consigned for a trip in the indefinite future, is Konya (once the capital of the Seljuk Sultanate of Rum), a great center of Sufism, Seljuks and of course the whirliest of them all, Jalaluddin Rumi (I confess I have read none of his works, and probably never will, but it bestows the place with historicity).

The trip to Ani was arranged by a man called Jelil (again, I am Anglicizing spellings) and on this point the guidebook was finally proving to be useful. The crew that day comprised the driver; me on the front seat - I always ride shotgun for the room and the view; a young American guy who I think said he was studying "computing" in Egypt (!) and a dusky beauty he said he had "met on the streets of Cairo" (!!); a couple of Japanese ladies; and a pair of Italian girls. Off we went at about 9 am. It is incredible that there are no regular buses to Ani, which is what most people come to Kars for. Where is the spirit of enterprise? It is astonishing. If someone bought a couple of vans, put themselves on the Internet and got a mention in a travel guide, there is a mother lode waiting for them.

About 20 minutes out, on the highway the young driver received a call; did a u-turn; and we picked up another guy, a larger man in a suit. He became the new driver, the original moved in and my dreams of a roomy ride gazing at desolation were shattered. Also, they could both have done with some Axe effect. Or perhaps they were wearing Axe for Goats.

The landscape was pretty desolate. It is amazing how far the fucking steppes stretch. It could have been Mongolia. Slightly undulating plains, brownish scrub, goats and critters and a road in the middle of it. We drove for about an hour and finally passed a small village and got our first glimpse of the ruins of Ani. The village was sweet - little boys on the side of the road spinning tops, flying kites and whatever other useless stuff we did as little boys. Some waved. Older men would nod at us. Low-built, nondescript houses occupied both sides.

After we landed, and established that we had 3 hours to roam around, we all got tickets and a lecture on not going to the old castle in the complex because it was too close to the Armenian border. Indeed you could see a river winding past the ruin complex and that was the darn border. Not exactly the DMZ and Li'l Kim on the other side, but I guess sensitive enough. One almost gets lulled into underestimating the animus simmering across this sensitive border. When you think about it Turkey is in the middle of so much - southern Caucasus and all the bothersome Stans there, where from it is theorized crazed headhunting Scythians, Sarmatians and the likes went east and west; the troublesome issues with Armenia; Persians, enemies since antiquity of the Turkic tribes; Arabs to the south-east; of course Greece and intractable Cyprus. Sheesh. And then the Balkans to the north. What a landmine.

Ani was everything they say it is - eerie, desolate, magnificent, beautiful. A perfect place for a solo traveler, a history lover, for Japanese tourists to take thousands of pictures. Actually I kid you - the Japanese ladies, I saw later, were at one of the ruined cathedrals, making drawings or sketches or something. I, in fact, was behaving like a Japanese tourist by taking a lot of unnecessary pictures. I never understand this - a few carefully selected post cards will provide much better-photographed views that any amateur tourist could ever make it. Me included. Yet it is a moronic mania that takes over when you have a large (memory) stick. However, I did learn to use the timer very skillfully on this whole trip and so at least I show up in roughly 1 of every 10 pictures. (I remember on my trip to Mongolia way back when, the misanthropic British asshole in our group of four poured scorn at the Chinese for wanting to be in all their pictures, while he presumably shot highly artistic pictures that National Geographic was going to pay top dollar for. Well, guess what, those Chinese families have meaningful, visual memories of their fun and this misanthrope is probably still giving himself an enema.)

Enough of photos, back to Ani. The various complexes were spread around and it did take the full three hours to step into each of them. Some were in better shape than others. Georgian and Armenian cathedrals for the most part, but also some minarets, which themselves may have been built on top of older Christian structures. The characteristic dark and lighter-red blocks used to build these, and the conical roofs and - dang it, pretty much everything made the whole experience special. It was tempting to just walk right through into the old castle, but I did not want to risk the consequences. But what I saw was good enough - this was the spiritual and political capital of Armenia once.  How transient our ideas and establishments are. It humbles a human being to be in such surroundings.

The two artists took a long time to return to the van at the end of three hours. While waiting we struck up a conversation with one of the guys from the ticketing booth, who it turns out was living in Brooklyn and was a student in New York before returning for his conscription and had been assigned to Ani. We asked him about security, and about whose cows and goats we had seen in what presumably was a compound under close military watch. He frankly admitted that those belonged to local farmers, and they did not really understand nor care for the law and all that crap. They warn the farmers, they stay off, then they come back. Anyway he rightly pointed out that there are n-number of entry points, as it is not really a compound, and people could drive their herds in from any direction apart from the frontal stretch with a few hundred feet of continuous walls and the ticket/police booth. He rather  snobbishly characterized them as "low class". It only struck me much later that perhaps he was Turkish and the locals were largely Kurds.

Great games: Balkanization

Drinking in the varied phenotypes of Anatolia, the irrefutable historical proof of pre-Islamic civilizations of various stripes and the jarring singularity of "Turkishness" after centuries under a small Central Asian Turkic band and its singular dynasty, the similarities to Pakistan are striking. Cyprus is exactly the counterpart of Kashmir. Large and important cultural legacies of each side lie trapped across the border.

I never understood the bandying about of India's Balkanization until this particular journey. The comparison is slightly lopsided and ironic, as it was the Islamic Ottoman empire that was divvied up - but for Pakistan, India as the Eastern Question and its hoped-for Balkanization might remain very pertinent, in a sort of poetic justice.


Sent from outer space.

The Eastern Question

Not the old one of the 19th century European courts over the fate of the Ottoman Empire, but my own regarding Armenia in contemporary Turkish conscience.

As I surveyed the winding river below the ruins of Ani, on the other side of which lay Armenia, it struck me that the information posted on the monuments made no mention of Armenia. This place was the capital of Armenia - politically and spiritually. Bagratids (an old Armenian dynasty of the 10th Century were mentioned, and Russia and Georgia, but no reference to today's nation of Armenia.

I will get the other side of the story, when I'm on the other side next week.


Sent from outer space.

Solving Captain Haddock

Finally, one of his many swear-phrases traced: according to my reading of Ottoman history, the "basi bozuka" were local Muslim militia that rampaged in Bulgaria, slaughtering sundry Christians there, in 1876. This had followed riots by Christians on rumors that a Bulgarian Orthodox girl had been forcibly converted.

History - what a kick.

PS: I can't figure out accents, but the "s" in "basi" has an accent below it, and is pronounced "sh".
Sent from outer space.