Ani: The Orphan?

It was always my dream to travel to "The City of 1001 Churches", the city after which I have named my daughter – the city of Ani. Of course without some background on the history of this city, it may be hard for one to imagine even 100 churches existing in what is now a deliberately neglected and destroyed "ghost-town". The fact that the city itself sits inside the military borders of Turkish-occupied Armenia, has been the biggest obstacle in the way of a visit by my wife or myself. Not that it's impossible for Armenians to go there, we just hadn't found a way to work it into our plans. So when we began planning our most recent trip to Hayastan earlier this year, we started considering the second best option: We had been told in 2005 while in Yerevan that there was a spot along a road to Gyumri that you could stop and see the ancient Armenian capital of Ani with the naked eye, while Binoculars or a Spotting Scope would provide an even closer view. Needless to say we jumped at the opportunity to add this little adventure to our plans for this year's trip. Why I wanted to go see a ghost town so bad – I don't know.

Needless to say, we added a half-day side-trip to Ani to our growing list of planned activities, which included swimming in the Arax river inside the military Checkpoint and meeting musician "Mister X", and a large number of other amazing activities. The day before we were to leave, a dear friend of ours remarked to us that we were free to do as we chose, but in his mind it didn't seem like the best idea to go see Ani from the border. Upon my inquiry as to why he thought this way, I learned that he was of the opinion that viewing Ani from the border is like Ani being an "orphan" that you know is there but that you know is all alone, and untouchable. His preference, he explained, is to not waste time going to see Ani as long as it's occupied, due to this "orphan" phenomena. I couldn't understand so I let the statement settle for a minute and then asked "So why do you so admire the view of Ararat from the window of your house in Yerevan?" I think my point was accepted by my friend and we had a few laughs about it. We didn't go to see Ani on this trip but it's definitely on the list for next time. Everyone has their own mentality and Armenians are no exception, minor differences in thought and approach are expected when traveling or living abroad, understand and embrace them, they're part of the colorful fabric of our world.