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Erhan Arik - Horovel and the Armenian Genocide | Ep 509, Jan 22, 2026

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Horovel and the Armenian Genocide | Ep 509, Jan 22, 2026

The Critical Corner - Recorded on January 18, 2026


Topics

  • Horovel, a cross-border memory project
  • Ojakh, a second trip down memory lane
  • Gayan, a wider regional lens
  • Our Seeds, continuity across generations


Guest

Hosts


Episode 508 | Recorded: January 18, 2026

https://podcasts.groong.org/509


Subscribe and follow us everywhere you are: linktr.ee/groong

Asbed (00:00:04):

Hello, everyone, and welcome to another episode of The Critical Corner on Groong.

Asbed (00:00:10):

In this episode, guest host

Asbed (00:00:11):

Dr. Bedros Afeyan continues the exploration he began in episode 499,

Asbed (00:00:16):

where he discussed with Diana Mkrtchyan her documentary,

Asbed (00:00:20):

Ojakh, The Other Side of Silence.

Asbed (00:00:22):

Diana was inspired by an exhibit called Horovel by Turkish photojournalist Erhan

Asbed (00:00:28):

Arik, and so Bedros sought out Erhan to discuss where his inspiration came from for

Asbed (00:00:33):

Horovel.

Asbed (00:00:34):

and he found that Erhan has been documenting Genocide survivors in their

Asbed (00:00:38):

communities for a long time.

Asbed (00:00:42):

Dr. Afeyan is a theoretical physicist specializing in plasma physics and laser fusion

Asbed (00:00:47):

since 1980.

Asbed (00:00:49):

He also paints, sculpts, and writes poetry.

Asbed (00:00:53):

He is keenly interested in classical music, classical guitar, theater, cinema, and chess.

Asbed (00:00:59):

He lives and works in Palo Alto with his wife, Marine.

Asbed (00:01:03):

So without further ado, take it away, Bedros.

Bedros (00:01:12):

Hello and welcome to this episode of The Critical Corner on the Armenian news network, Groong.

Bedros (00:01:19):

Today we're talking with Erhan Arik, an accomplished photographer and photojournalist.

Bedros (00:01:25):

Erhan's ancestors are from the Javakhk region of the South Caucasus in modern-day

Bedros (00:01:30):

Georgia,

Bedros (00:01:31):

who were exiled by Stalin in 1920 and settled in Ardahan.

Bedros (00:01:35):

He grew up there and eventually started working at Agos in Istanbul,

Bedros (00:01:39):

the legendary Armenian newspaper originally led by Ram Dink,

Bedros (00:01:43):

a martyred Armenian of modern times.

Bedros (00:01:46):

Erhan pulled a thread on the question, where does the word Horovel come from?

Bedros (00:01:52):

What happened to the Armenians in Ardahan?

Bedros (00:01:54):

Where are the survivors or remnants of those communities?

Bedros (00:01:58):

And he found them across the river in Armenia,

Bedros (00:02:00):

approaching or surpassing 100 years of age in 2010.

Bedros (00:02:04):

His photographs and captured quotations summarizing entire lives of contemplation,

Bedros (00:02:10):

longing,

Bedros (00:02:11):

chagrin,

Bedros (00:02:12):

loss,

Bedros (00:02:13):

revaluation of parents lost,

Bedros (00:02:16):

parents and families slaughtered,

Bedros (00:02:18):

the absurdity replaced by Soviet absurdity,

Bedros (00:02:22):

then so-called freedom,

Bedros (00:02:23):

and still no right to return,

Bedros (00:02:26):

unending yearning,

Bedros (00:02:27):

and young Erhan with an olive branch and a kind camera lens recording their plight

Bedros (00:02:34):

for posterity.

Bedros (00:02:36):

This then led to Diana Mkrtchyan's documentary project,

Bedros (00:02:40):

Ojakh,

Bedros (00:02:41):

where Erhan plays a central role.

Bedros (00:02:43):

It recreates what Erhan did and now captures those

Bedros (00:02:47):

centenarians in their homes, in their own words and feelings, and on digital film.

Bedros (00:02:54):

We wanted to discuss all this with Erhan,

Bedros (00:02:56):

Horovel,

Bedros (00:02:57):

Ojakh,

Bedros (00:02:58):

Gayan,

Bedros (00:03:00):

on Middle Eastern Armenian communities,

Bedros (00:03:02):

and his current project,

Bedros (00:03:03):

A Seed-Planting Journey Back to Javakhk,

Bedros (00:03:07):

which spans Armenia,

Bedros (00:03:08):

Georgia, and Eastern Turkey,

Bedros (00:03:10):

with a feature-length documentary with his cinematographer wife,

Bedros (00:03:15):

Hello Erhan, welcome to the Gurung podcast.

Erhan (00:03:18):

Hello Bedros, thank you for your invitation.

Erhan (00:03:21):

I am so happy to be here.

Bedros (00:03:24):

We're very happy to talk to you.

Bedros (00:03:26):

Just for the record,

Bedros (00:03:27):

I hope you know this is the first time we're speaking with a person with a Turkish

Bedros (00:03:31):

passport.

Bedros (00:03:33):

I'll just leave it at that.

Bedros (00:03:34):

But even though you're from the corner of the world,

Bedros (00:03:37):

which has Armenians and Turks and Georgians all mixed up.

Bedros (00:03:41):

All right.

Bedros (00:03:43):

So, Erhan, let's start with your origins and everything that led you to Horovel.

Bedros (00:03:52):

If you could take us through your journey from Ardahan to Istanbul.

Erhan (00:04:00):

I was born in Ardahan, in a small village of Ardahan.

Erhan (00:04:05):

It's called Samzelek.

Erhan (00:04:06):

It's an old Armenian and Greek village.

Erhan (00:04:11):

After the Genocide period,

Erhan (00:04:13):

my family started to live in there,

Erhan (00:04:15):

and my ancestors from the Akhaltsikhe, Akhalkalak.

Erhan (00:04:20):

And just before 1944,

Erhan (00:04:22):

before Stalin period,

Erhan (00:04:26):

my family come to the Ardahan around the 20s,

Erhan (00:04:31):

25s, 20s and 25s, this time.

Erhan (00:04:34):

They are starting to live in this old Armenian and the Greek village.

Erhan (00:04:39):

I was born in there.

Erhan (00:04:41):

And until 2010,

Erhan (00:04:43):

from my family,

Erhan (00:04:44):

I mean,

Erhan (00:04:47):

sometimes they were saying that this is an Armenian house,

Erhan (00:04:50):

this is an Armenian house,

Erhan (00:04:52):

but we never know how they know this.

Erhan (00:04:55):

Just when we asked them, how do you know it's an Armenian house?

Erhan (00:04:59):

My father always said, my father said that this is an Armenian house.

Erhan (00:05:06):

And 2010, I saw a dream about this house where we use as a barn.

Erhan (00:05:18):

This place is an old, one of the center of these houses, and there is an Ojakh.

Erhan (00:05:27):

and the stone Ojakh and I saw a dream about this barn and somebody is talking with

Erhan (00:05:36):

me in my dream and he's telling me this is my house and this is my Ojakh and my wife

Erhan (00:05:45):

making a cook in this Ojakh and my children playing in this room and today we are

Erhan (00:05:52):

using these houses my houses as a barn

Erhan (00:05:56):

For me, it's quite a strange feeling to show this dream.

Erhan (00:06:01):

Somehow,

Erhan (00:06:02):

I heard that sermon in-house,

Erhan (00:06:05):

but when I saw this dream,

Erhan (00:06:08):

I deeply affected from the voice that I heard in my dream.

Erhan (00:06:14):

And I started to criticize myself and my family and my identity,

Erhan (00:06:21):

my cultures that I grew up because Ojakh is an open heart,

Erhan (00:06:28):

let's say it's a heart.

Erhan (00:06:30):

This is a quite important symbol of our cultures.

Erhan (00:06:33):

It symbolizes a family,

Erhan (00:06:34):

it symbolizes to be together,

Erhan (00:06:36):

it symbolizes the people who pass away,

Erhan (00:06:39):

it symbolizes family,

Erhan (00:06:41):

it symbolizes who goes and who lives,

Erhan (00:06:44):

who stays.

Erhan (00:06:45):

So it's a very symbolic place.

Erhan (00:06:48):

And we have a very inner connection with this part of the houses.

Erhan (00:06:54):

And if somebody's houses,

Erhan (00:06:58):

if they destroyed,

Erhan (00:07:01):

even if destroyed, and if there is nothing,

Erhan (00:07:03):

nobody's touched the Ojakh,

Erhan (00:07:04):

because it symbolizes lots of inner things,

Erhan (00:07:08):

and you cannot touch it.

Erhan (00:07:10):

But my family, they touch this oven.

Erhan (00:07:13):

And this question makes me crazy, quite.

Erhan (00:07:16):

I mean, if we cannot touch to another oven, it belongs to us.

Erhan (00:07:22):

Let's say us.

Erhan (00:07:24):

How we touch to this oven?

Erhan (00:07:25):

How we started to use this oven as a barn?

Erhan (00:07:29):

Why we made it dirty?

Erhan (00:07:33):

I don't know, there's somehow some voices from inside me.

Erhan (00:07:37):

I don't know,

Erhan (00:07:39):

the thing that from this point that I'm telling is not so,

Erhan (00:07:43):

I cannot explain some logical things.

Erhan (00:07:47):

Somehow deeply, I just feel that I should do something.

Erhan (00:07:51):

And I decided to do a long journey, a journey.

Erhan (00:07:57):

to go to Armenia and visit to the border.

Erhan (00:08:01):

People who live in the border.

Erhan (00:08:04):

Why is it a border?

Erhan (00:08:05):

Because,

Erhan (00:08:07):

I don't know, somehow I just think that this small border is a place that I can access so easily.

Erhan (00:08:14):

And it's also the symbol of the, how to say, separate to us.

Erhan (00:08:19):

And I just want to pass it.

Erhan (00:08:21):

And I just wanted to sit the Armenian people, the families and face to face.

Erhan (00:08:26):

And I just want to share the same table with them.

Erhan (00:08:29):

And during that period, I know only one Armenian person.

Erhan (00:08:33):

Name is Pakrad Estukyan.

Erhan (00:08:37):

He's an Armenian journalist and he's also a very important figure of us.

Erhan (00:08:42):

So I just called to him and I met with him and I just tell him to my dream.

Erhan (00:08:51):

And I just tell to him, I want to do something.

Erhan (00:08:53):

I just want to go and do some trip and some visits to meet with the Arminian

Erhan (00:08:59):

families,

Erhan (00:09:00):

just other side of the border.

Erhan (00:09:04):

And he supported me very well and this idea.

Erhan (00:09:08):

And when we are talking with him, he told me that it might be so nice...

Erhan (00:09:14):

Maybe when you visit the oldest border and oldest village,

Erhan (00:09:20):

when you meet the oldest families,

Erhan (00:09:22):

the farmer families,

Erhan (00:09:24):

it should be so nice recording the horror well,

Erhan (00:09:27):

some horror wells from both sides.

Erhan (00:09:30):

It might be so nice to hear the horror well from the different side of the border.

Erhan (00:09:37):

And I asked him, Akhbarik, what is the meaning of Horovel?

Erhan (00:09:42):

And he said,

Erhan (00:09:44):

you should know that if your father is a farmer and if you work in the farm with

Erhan (00:09:50):

the ox,

Erhan (00:09:51):

because as he knows that I'm coming from the village,

Erhan (00:09:56):

my family is a farmer and I grew up there.

Erhan (00:09:59):

So he imagined that I work in the farm.

Erhan (00:10:03):

So, and...

Erhan (00:10:05):

And I said, yes,

Erhan (00:10:06):

I work in the farm and I work with my father and with the ox,

Erhan (00:10:12):

but I didn't hear or heard that this name,

Erhan (00:10:14):

this bird.

Erhan (00:10:16):

And he said, he explained to me what is the meaning of Horovel.

Erhan (00:10:21):

And the farmer people,

Erhan (00:10:25):

while they are working in the field,

Erhan (00:10:27):

they are telling,

Erhan (00:10:30):

singing songs,

Erhan (00:10:31):

some kind of song,

Erhan (00:10:32):

and they're telling some of the beautiful things to their animal to motivate them.

Erhan (00:10:40):

to spend the time, just killing the time.

Erhan (00:10:43):

Sometimes just have to say,

Erhan (00:10:46):

telling to some beautiful or some,

Erhan (00:10:50):

I'll say,

Erhan (00:10:51):

think something to another farmer who is working near to him.

Erhan (00:10:57):

And then he told me, it should be so nice to ask your father also this word, if he knows or not.

Erhan (00:11:03):

Probably he knows what is the meaning of Horovel.

Erhan (00:11:07):

And before starting to go on this trip, I visited my father again.

Erhan (00:11:17):

And I told him my dream.

Erhan (00:11:22):

And he affected also so much.

Erhan (00:11:27):

And then I asked him, father, what is the meaning of the horror world?

Erhan (00:11:33):

What is that?

Erhan (00:11:34):

And he told me, you don't remember why we are working.

Erhan (00:11:39):

I was singing some song to my ox and in the farm, so in the field.

Erhan (00:11:47):

This is the meaning of the horrible.

Erhan (00:11:49):

And I asked him, which language is a horrible?

Erhan (00:11:53):

And he told me that it's an old Turkish.

Erhan (00:11:58):

And in this point,

Erhan (00:11:59):

I realized that's why Pakrad Estukyan sent to me,

Erhan (00:12:04):

to my father,

Erhan (00:12:05):

and to ask to him what is the meaning of the Horovel.

Erhan (00:12:09):

This is a very basic,

Erhan (00:12:10):

very simple experience,

Erhan (00:12:12):

but it shows the main core of the issue about the Armenian Genocide and after that.

Erhan (00:12:22):

And Armenians, they remember what they have and what they lived on the Turkish side.

Erhan (00:12:29):

They forgot or they don't remember or they change all the history.

Bedros (00:12:35):

Erhan,

Bedros (00:12:36):

there's so much in what you said that if I don't stop you,

Bedros (00:12:39):

there's going to be too much and we're never going to be able to go back.

Bedros (00:12:42):

So thank you for all of that.

Bedros (00:12:46):

By the way, I just had a thought.

Bedros (00:12:48):

Holovel in Armenian, holovel, means to conjugate.

Bedros (00:12:52):

It's a grammatical term, you know, like past tense, future tense.

Bedros (00:12:56):

When you play with a verb, that's holovel.

Erhan (00:12:59):

Yeah.

Bedros (00:12:59):

So it's very,

Bedros (00:13:00):

it's sort of the antithesis of an onomatopoeia like horover,

Bedros (00:13:05):

which is used with animals who don't have language.

Erhan (00:13:08):

Yeah.

Bedros (00:13:08):

While holovel is how we say the most sophisticated thing you can do is,

Bedros (00:13:13):

you know,

Bedros (00:13:14):

transliterate time signatures of expressions and stuff.

Erhan (00:13:21):

Yeah.

Bedros (00:13:22):

So in Diana's podcast, when she brought up Horovel, I sang it.

Bedros (00:13:27):

So I just feel I have to sing it here too.

Bedros (00:13:29):

This is Gomidas's thing, Screwed Up by Me.

Bedros (00:13:45):

Is the Turks version the same or similar, or does it get Turkified musically?

Bedros (00:13:51):

Just as a musical question.

Bedros (00:13:53):

Or...

Bedros (00:13:54):

Are there many versions, or what do you remember?

Erhan (00:13:56):

I think that when I asked this word to my father,

Erhan (00:14:01):

and what was the meaning of it,

Erhan (00:14:03):

the thing that I heard is some kind of spontaneous word,

Erhan (00:14:07):

just telling some stories to his animals.

Bedros (00:14:11):

Oh, okay.

Bedros (00:14:12):

So whatever he told his animals, they call that horrible word.

Erhan (00:14:16):

Yeah, but it's some kind of singing.

Erhan (00:14:20):

As a very spontaneous, a very experimental time.

Bedros (00:14:25):

You're a very sensitive guy, and this dream, so this is the main point I want to make.

Bedros (00:14:31):

This dream touched you,

Bedros (00:14:33):

and the violence of converting somebody's hearth,

Bedros (00:14:39):

the place where the whole home was surrounded by,

Bedros (00:14:45):

turn it into a barn or a storage space.

Bedros (00:14:48):

In Diana's movie,

Bedros (00:14:49):

we see images of it as the camera goes down and gets to the hearth and closed up or

Bedros (00:15:00):

furnace.

Bedros (00:15:02):

Now,

Bedros (00:15:03):

I just wanted to remind you that in almost everywhere Anatolia,

Bedros (00:15:08):

the churches have been turned to barns.

Bedros (00:15:12):

The violence of that is so much more,

Bedros (00:15:15):

if they're not turned into mezgits,

Bedros (00:15:17):

into Muslim worship places,

Bedros (00:15:22):

they're turned into barns.

Bedros (00:15:24):

And for instance,

Bedros (00:15:25):

in the movie I always mentioned,

Bedros (00:15:26):

which was my first foray to seeing Armenians trying to go back,

Bedros (00:15:30):

a movie called Yearning or Garod.

Bedros (00:15:34):

What happens is that he goes back to the village and he sees that the church has

Bedros (00:15:38):

grass growing and animals grazing.

Bedros (00:15:43):

And he just freaks out because he just can't believe that such a thing can be disrespected.

Bedros (00:15:50):

Like you felt that the oven itself being disrespected was already too much.

Bedros (00:15:57):

Being used for something else was already too violent.

Bedros (00:16:00):

And so you can imagine the memories that are frozen in Armenian heads about that.

Bedros (00:16:06):

But anyway, so tell me about Agos.

Bedros (00:16:08):

What did you do at Agos?

Erhan (00:16:13):

I think it's 2011.

Erhan (00:16:16):

It should be.

Erhan (00:16:19):

When I did Horovel, I moved to London for just taking an English course.

Erhan (00:16:27):

But as you understand, it doesn't work very well.

Erhan (00:16:31):

And also, I want to keep going on my life.

Erhan (00:16:34):

I'm about photography, about professionally.

Erhan (00:16:37):

I just want to keep going on my life from any part of Europe.

Erhan (00:16:44):

And later on, I decided that it's not a good idea

Erhan (00:16:50):

to stay far away from Turkey because I'm quite,

Erhan (00:16:57):

I have to say,

Erhan (00:16:58):

I'm so much,

Erhan (00:16:59):

not half to say,

Erhan (00:17:01):

not stuck.

Bedros (00:17:02):

One word is grounded.

Bedros (00:17:03):

Grounded.

Bedros (00:17:04):

This is the same problem Russians have.

Bedros (00:17:07):

You take a Russian and put them in New York, they usually, they just disappear.

Bedros (00:17:12):

But they have to be in Russian soil, they say.

Bedros (00:17:15):

So grounded in Turkish culture.

Erhan (00:17:18):

Yeah,

Erhan (00:17:19):

so I decided I cannot stay far away from here and from my soul and from my,

Erhan (00:17:25):

how to say,

Erhan (00:17:27):

the country,

Erhan (00:17:28):

the roots and the memories.

Erhan (00:17:32):

And then I come back and during that time I had more relation with two Armenian

Erhan (00:17:38):

communities and also with the Agos.

Erhan (00:17:41):

I just want to work with the Agos.

Erhan (00:17:45):

I just want to be in there.

Erhan (00:17:48):

Somehow this is the place that I want to be.

Erhan (00:17:52):

So I just talk with them and they also help you to work with me.

Erhan (00:17:58):

And I start to work with them.

Bedros (00:18:01):

Let's jump back to the creation of Horovel, the photographs you took, the old people you met.

Bedros (00:18:07):

Now, we're going to do this in two stages, remember?

Bedros (00:18:10):

First, we're going to talk about what it was like for you the first time.

Bedros (00:18:14):

And then, thanks to Diana, what it was like for you the second time.

Bedros (00:18:17):

So try to separate the two.

Bedros (00:18:19):

Just talk about what it was like for you, your camera, your raincoat, your rain boots.

Bedros (00:18:27):

jeans,

Bedros (00:18:28):

because Diana photographed it afterwards,

Bedros (00:18:30):

that's how I know,

Bedros (00:18:31):

and you going into these houses and speaking to these ancient Ardahantsis and

Bedros (00:18:39):

Moushetsis and Vanetsis and whoever you found,

Bedros (00:18:43):

Karsetsis.

Erhan (00:18:44):

Yeah,

Erhan (00:18:45):

it was really...

Erhan (00:18:46):

when I look at from this time again,

Erhan (00:18:49):

from today to this time,

Erhan (00:18:51):

I don't know,

Erhan (00:18:53):

it's come to me as a question really strange because somehow I haven't any

Erhan (00:19:00):

contacts.

Erhan (00:19:01):

And nothing.

Erhan (00:19:02):

Just I had a contact from my friend and he forwarded me a woman named Armine Avetisyan,

Erhan (00:19:12):

working also the cultural area and art and cultural area.

Erhan (00:19:18):

And he connected me to her.

Erhan (00:19:22):

And I just contacted her and I just wrote to her and I just called to him and he

Erhan (00:19:28):

said,

Erhan (00:19:29):

someone pick up you when you pass the border and you will come and we will start to

Erhan (00:19:33):

talk and we will see what will happen.

Erhan (00:19:36):

And it was so interesting, really.

Erhan (00:19:38):

I just went to Gyumri and more than two months I stayed with her and her family.

Erhan (00:19:51):

And what I did, of course, they helped me so much.

Erhan (00:19:55):

They have some small organization, the cultural organization.

Erhan (00:19:59):

And there is no any logical reason that they believe me.

Erhan (00:20:08):

They weren't any logical reason, I think.

Erhan (00:20:11):

But somehow they prefer to believe me.

Bedros (00:20:16):

Take you at face value.

Bedros (00:20:18):

In other words, not try to find complicated explanations of paranoia,

Bedros (00:20:27):

but to just treat you face to face as a human being who's telling the truth.

Erhan (00:20:32):

But, you know, Pedro, it's not so easy, especially from this time when I look at 2009 and 2010.

Erhan (00:20:39):

It's not so easy.

Erhan (00:20:41):

And they believe me.

Erhan (00:20:44):

And they said, let's do some presentation in here.

Erhan (00:20:47):

And they call somebody, some people from different backgrounds.

Erhan (00:20:53):

And let's speak all of us and describe yourself and tell your stories.

Bedros (00:21:02):

With the translator?

Erhan (00:21:03):

Yeah, with the translator and explain yourself.

Erhan (00:21:06):

I think, yeah, Armine, she was speaking, yeah, she was speaking Turkish also very well.

Erhan (00:21:15):

Not so good, but she can, I use it better than my English.

Erhan (00:21:19):

So, yeah, I did some kind of presentation.

Erhan (00:21:23):

I just tell to who I am.

Bedros (00:21:26):

Did you tell them all about your dream?

Erhan (00:21:30):

I just tell them just my dream and my motivation.

Erhan (00:21:33):

And then everybody's starting to help me about access to people.

Erhan (00:21:38):

And every day it was so nice and so beautiful.

Erhan (00:21:42):

And we were sitting in their, how to say, office.

Erhan (00:21:47):

And we were calling to do, we called them Mukhtar, we were calling that

Erhan (00:21:53):

to the chef of the village that is telling to them there is a person from Istanbul.

Erhan (00:22:00):

He's a non-Armenian and he's doing some kind of project.

Erhan (00:22:05):

He would like to meet with you.

Erhan (00:22:07):

So what I am doing every time we are calling to the chef of the village and I'm

Erhan (00:22:15):

going to there with a translator or driver.

Erhan (00:22:18):

And then they introduced me and we started to talk and I explained to them my project.

Erhan (00:22:25):

Then they introduced me to the family who might be accepted.

Erhan (00:22:30):

And most of them were accepting.

Erhan (00:22:34):

And yeah, I worked like this.

Bedros (00:22:38):

Erhan, did you take pictures on one day,

Bedros (00:22:39):

the day you met them,

Bedros (00:22:41):

or did you go back and take more and more pictures?

Erhan (00:22:45):

It was my first professional journey at the same time in the photography side.

Erhan (00:22:53):

It was very professional.

Erhan (00:22:55):

But I realized it so clearly.

Erhan (00:22:58):

I saw that because I'm visiting the border villages and the zone of the army zone.

Erhan (00:23:07):

and the Russian control area at the same time.

Erhan (00:23:11):

So it's not so easy.

Erhan (00:23:15):

You might not find the chance to go back to again there.

Erhan (00:23:19):

So after the first few experiences,

Erhan (00:23:23):

I realized that when I go there,

Erhan (00:23:25):

I should meet any person,

Erhan (00:23:28):

not so much person,

Erhan (00:23:29):

but maybe a few person that I spend the time.

Erhan (00:23:32):

I should, because at the same time, I want to listen to their stories.

Erhan (00:23:36):

I want to spend the time with them.

Erhan (00:23:37):

I want to have to say to know that what I am feeling and what I am thinking and who I am.

Erhan (00:23:44):

So at the same time, I just want, I don't want to steal something from their life.

Erhan (00:23:49):

And they love their stories.

Erhan (00:23:52):

I mean, it should be some deal with them.

Erhan (00:23:55):

So that's why I need time.

Bedros (00:23:56):

So you recorded their statements from which you culled the pieces,

Bedros (00:24:01):

the quotations that you put up near the pictures?

Erhan (00:24:04):

Most of them I weren't recording because recording in that kind of area is quite,

Erhan (00:24:12):

for me, is not a good way.

Erhan (00:24:14):

The nice way because you are in the border area.

Erhan (00:24:17):

Okay, they can believe you and they can trust you.

Erhan (00:24:21):

But on the other hand, recording something makes them very stressed.

Bedros (00:24:27):

So that's why... How did you remember those quotations?

Erhan (00:24:31):

Because I was taking a note.

Bedros (00:24:33):

So you were listening to the translator and furiously writing?

Erhan (00:24:37):

Yeah.

Erhan (00:24:39):

Every meeting, it's,

Erhan (00:24:40):

I don't know,

Erhan (00:24:42):

when I went to the village,

Erhan (00:24:44):

maximum with two people I was meeting,

Erhan (00:24:47):

not more.

Erhan (00:24:49):

I was sitting and I spent the time and only I think it's one village I visit again,

Erhan (00:24:56):

but the rest of them,

Erhan (00:24:57):

yeah,

Erhan (00:24:58):

the few people.

Erhan (00:24:59):

And that's why during this journey in my archive,

Erhan (00:25:04):

there is not so much pictures,

Erhan (00:25:06):

only two people or maybe three people.

Bedros (00:25:10):

Okay, we're gonna talk about Dikranouhi, obviously.

Bedros (00:25:13):

Dikranouhi being the central character, both in your Horovel and in Diana's.

Bedros (00:25:19):

In my opinion, in Diana's, one of the most impressive things to me was Dikranouhi.

Bedros (00:25:26):

But Dikranouhi, what was her last name?

Bedros (00:25:28):

Asadourian?

Erhan (00:25:30):

Asadourian.

Bedros (00:25:31):

Right.

Bedros (00:25:32):

That old lady whom you photographed and you filmed,

Bedros (00:25:39):

who's in Diana's movie because of your film,

Bedros (00:25:41):

she was dead already by the time Diana showed up,

Bedros (00:25:44):

really pins her movie too.

Bedros (00:25:46):

So every other character makes a nice bouquet, but the central flower, in my opinion, is her.

Bedros (00:25:52):

So when you meet a woman like that,

Bedros (00:25:54):

are they noticing maybe subconsciously that you're from Ardahan?

Bedros (00:25:58):

Do they understand that?

Bedros (00:25:59):

And did they ask you questions about Ardahan?

Erhan (00:26:03):

Yeah, this meeting is a quite, for me, is a quite sensitive meeting still.

Erhan (00:26:09):

When I remember, I am shaking.

Erhan (00:26:13):

And I was,

Erhan (00:26:16):

during that period,

Erhan (00:26:17):

I was looking for any person who has survived from the Genocide period.

Erhan (00:26:23):

Right.

Erhan (00:26:24):

And when I, in my, during that time, I met a photographer, name is Nazik Armenikyan.

Erhan (00:26:31):

Armenian, and she is a very good photographer.

Erhan (00:26:36):

She lives in Yerevan and many years she was photographing to the survivor of the Genocide.

Erhan (00:26:46):

And I contact with her and to tell her if there is any chance I would like to meet a survivor.

Erhan (00:26:57):

and a couple of weeks later she called me that and she said there's one person in

Erhan (00:27:03):

Yerevan but it won't be so easy to meet her as a non-Armenian and she asked me that

Erhan (00:27:10):

what do you think to try first of all to not tell her you are just coming from

Erhan (00:27:19):

Istanbul, from Bolis, you are working in Agos a photographer working in Agos

Erhan (00:27:26):

Then when you met with her,

Erhan (00:27:29):

maybe after a while,

Erhan (00:27:31):

even if she learned that you are non-Armenian,

Erhan (00:27:35):

maybe she accepted to keep going on.

Erhan (00:27:41):

And somehow, I mean, ethically, it's not a good way.

Erhan (00:27:45):

But on the other hand, I just want to, I accept it.

Erhan (00:27:49):

And I said, I want to see her.

Erhan (00:27:53):

And so Nazik called to her and her family.

Erhan (00:27:59):

And I mean, her daughter and the son.

Erhan (00:28:04):

She told her daughter and son, I'm not an Armenian.

Erhan (00:28:10):

and who I am and what I am doing, but she didn't tell to her I am an Armenian, a non-Armenian.

Erhan (00:28:17):

So then we went to there and we met with her families and with her.

Erhan (00:28:25):

And of course, she's starting to talk with me, Armenian.

Erhan (00:28:29):

And a couple of minutes later, she realized that I am not speaking very well.

Erhan (00:28:35):

I'm not speaking Armenian.

Erhan (00:28:37):

So I don't understand anything.

Erhan (00:28:39):

So she become a bit angry.

Erhan (00:28:42):

Yeah, sometimes it's also angry.

Erhan (00:28:44):

She was very angry because she said how any young Armenians and working in Agos

Erhan (00:28:50):

newspaper doesn't know Armenians.

Erhan (00:28:53):

It cannot be acceptable.

Erhan (00:28:56):

And I turned to Nazik and I said, Nazik, we cannot keep going on like this.

Erhan (00:28:59):

We should tell to her I'm not Armenian, so who I am.

Erhan (00:29:02):

And to think that.

Erhan (00:29:04):

And then Nazik explained the situation and about me.

Erhan (00:29:09):

And suddenly she's silent.

Erhan (00:29:15):

for a couple of minutes she's just silent and she didn't tell anything and suddenly

Erhan (00:29:21):

she's starting to and I have a camera with me and a photographic camera and a video

Erhan (00:29:26):

camera near to me

Erhan (00:29:29):

And then she's starting to keep going on, starting to speak again with the Nazik.

Erhan (00:29:39):

And she's starting to tell the story, telling something to the Nazik.

Erhan (00:29:43):

And the Nazik just told me to keep the recording with the video.

Erhan (00:29:51):

Because she said now she's telling the stories, but she didn't talk with me.

Erhan (00:29:56):

I'm just thinking here.

Erhan (00:29:57):

Right.

Erhan (00:29:58):

She's in here and Nazik in here, just talking to each other.

Erhan (00:30:02):

But she stopped to keep communication with me.

Erhan (00:30:05):

Stopped to communication with me.

Erhan (00:30:07):

And while I'm recording and suddenly...

Erhan (00:30:14):

She returned to me in the middle of the stories.

Erhan (00:30:17):

And in my video, there is this moment.

Erhan (00:30:23):

And she returned to me and she said, I want to tell more, but I cannot remember.

Erhan (00:30:31):

And from this point, then starting to talk directly to my camera.

Erhan (00:30:39):

And then, yeah, it goes like this.

Bedros (00:30:44):

Yeah. So, by the way, Asadourian comes from Astvadzadour.

Bedros (00:30:50):

Asadour is Astvadzadour, which means God-given.

Erhan (00:30:54):

Yeah. Yeah.

Bedros (00:30:55):

So Astvadz is God in Armenian.

Bedros (00:30:58):

If somebody sees that video, one understands Dikranouhi is literally Astvadzadour.

Bedros (00:31:04):

Because she's so,

Bedros (00:31:07):

her face is so withered,

Bedros (00:31:08):

so,

Bedros (00:31:10):

you know,

Bedros (00:31:12):

the grimaces are chiseled into her cheeks.

Bedros (00:31:15):

And she, she, she,

Bedros (00:31:18):

All the pain that she suffered and had to witness just as a woman,

Bedros (00:31:22):

as a woman under Turkish rule,

Bedros (00:31:24):

as a woman in Soviet era,

Bedros (00:31:26):

I mean, just,

Bedros (00:31:27):

it's all there.

Bedros (00:31:28):

That face, you know, tells a million stories.

Bedros (00:31:32):

And she's a very strong personality.

Bedros (00:31:34):

So as you said, she doesn't like you, she stops talking to you.

Bedros (00:31:39):

There's no this sort of Middle Eastern,

Bedros (00:31:44):

let's keep it sweet,

Bedros (00:31:45):

let's keep it sugary,

Bedros (00:31:47):

none of that stuff.

Bedros (00:31:48):

It's very Armenian.

Bedros (00:31:49):

It's harsh.

Bedros (00:31:50):

It's as we say.

Erhan (00:31:53):

I mean,

Erhan (00:31:54):

it wasn't about to do,

Erhan (00:31:56):

doesn't like, it's about to direct it to some kind of really to think that...

Erhan (00:32:00):

Her memories were triggered.

Erhan (00:32:03):

Yeah, of course.

Erhan (00:32:05):

I have to say, is it an object about the Genocide period?

Erhan (00:32:15):

I'm the object of this issue, object or subject?

Bedros (00:32:18):

Yeah,

Bedros (00:32:19):

you're a reminder of,

Bedros (00:32:21):

you know,

Bedros (00:32:22):

the usual canonical tool used in literature or movies is the gendarme.

Bedros (00:32:29):

You know, even Gomidas,

Bedros (00:32:30):

our most famous composer,

Bedros (00:32:33):

a genius,

Bedros (00:32:34):

who went crazy after the Genocide,

Bedros (00:32:37):

just completely crazy,

Bedros (00:32:39):

because a sensitive guy like that cannot handle the concept of,

Bedros (00:32:43):

you know, millions of people are sensible.

Bedros (00:32:46):

would wake up, stop talking Armenian,

Bedros (00:32:48):

even when he was in Istanbul,

Bedros (00:32:50):

and every day believe the gendarmes coming to take him away.

Bedros (00:32:53):

Even when he was transported to France to a mental institution,

Bedros (00:32:59):

he still thought the Turkish gendarmes are coming to take him away.

Bedros (00:33:03):

That same ruse is used in Greek movies.

Bedros (00:33:06):

If you see the movie,

Bedros (00:33:08):

My Big Fat Greek Wedding,

Bedros (00:33:09):

the grandmother is constantly running around saying the gendarmes are coming to

Bedros (00:33:13):

catch me.

Bedros (00:33:14):

So there's that sort of imprinted fear and imprinted doom of,

Bedros (00:33:24):

And the inevitability of failure,

Bedros (00:33:26):

like Shostakovich believed that every day at 3 in the morning,

Bedros (00:33:30):

the KGB is coming to take him.

Bedros (00:33:32):

until Stalin died.

Bedros (00:33:33):

It's that same thread that you captured.

Bedros (00:33:36):

But what's beautiful is how you changed it.

Bedros (00:33:39):

You guys hugged, you guys touched foreheads, right?

Bedros (00:33:43):

And she accepted you, which shows an openness of heart that's just immense.

Bedros (00:33:49):

And you captured all that.

Bedros (00:33:50):

And I'll always be grateful to you for that attempt at reconciliation.

Bedros (00:33:58):

and accepting of her story as it is,

Bedros (00:34:01):

not telling her how to change it so that it's convenient or something like this,

Bedros (00:34:05):

or just ignore it,

Bedros (00:34:07):

but to find her where she was.

Bedros (00:34:11):

I think that's your journalistic training,

Bedros (00:34:13):

where you're not supposed to change the...

Bedros (00:34:15):

I always thought a journalist is a very strange person,

Bedros (00:34:18):

a photojournalist of war,

Bedros (00:34:20):

because he has to witness somebody being killed,

Bedros (00:34:23):

and instead of helping them,

Bedros (00:34:25):

has to take a photograph of it.

Bedros (00:34:27):

You know, there's always that dilemma, right?

Bedros (00:34:30):

What do you do? Do you interfere or do you just passively observe so everybody else can see?

Erhan (00:34:35):

I mean,

Erhan (00:34:37):

I really, I don't know,

Erhan (00:34:39):

probably we don't have the chance to show her movie,

Erhan (00:34:42):

her video,

Erhan (00:34:43):

the small video in the podcast,

Erhan (00:34:45):

but the thing that the story that she's telling so directly in front of the camera

Erhan (00:34:52):

and our experiences and my experiences and my memories with her,

Erhan (00:35:00):

it wasn't about,

Erhan (00:35:02):

how to say, the fear.

Erhan (00:35:04):

She was so brave.

Erhan (00:35:06):

And just she realized that a subject of the Genocide period and the Genocide is

Erhan (00:35:15):

standing in front of me.

Erhan (00:35:16):

There's some kind of big reactions.

Erhan (00:35:19):

Now I don't want to talk with you.

Erhan (00:35:21):

But later on, I cannot answer for her.

Erhan (00:35:24):

But suddenly she changed her mind and she changed her position.

Erhan (00:35:30):

Her reactions are some kind of statement in front of me.

Erhan (00:35:33):

They're giving a reaction.

Erhan (00:35:35):

I don't want to talk with you right now.

Erhan (00:35:37):

This is the point.

Erhan (00:35:38):

And later on,

Erhan (00:35:40):

She just changed her position and is a very valuable and is a very big thing, actually.

Erhan (00:35:48):

And yeah, there are so many things I can tell about my experiences with her.

Erhan (00:35:56):

But one of the main points in my work discipline is...

Erhan (00:36:03):

Should be a deal.

Erhan (00:36:05):

If I am photographing to somebody,

Erhan (00:36:07):

if I am recording something and telling the stories about somebody,

Erhan (00:36:12):

they should give me.

Erhan (00:36:14):

And it should be some kind of a deal between us.

Erhan (00:36:19):

And they should believe that I will carry off to their pictures and their stories.

Bedros (00:36:25):

Yes.

Bedros (00:36:26):

Speaking of which, let's now move to you're in Nancy.

Bedros (00:36:30):

You meet Diana.

Bedros (00:36:32):

She wants to make the movie.

Bedros (00:36:33):

Now you go back.

Bedros (00:36:35):

How different was it?

Bedros (00:36:36):

We've already talked about the movie with Diana.

Bedros (00:36:40):

But what I want to know is from your perspective,

Bedros (00:36:44):

what was different for you to go back and try to recreate all that?

Bedros (00:36:48):

You know, if you think about it from a philosophical or literary point of view,

Bedros (00:36:54):

you going and asking him about the Genocide the first time,

Bedros (00:36:58):

or their experiences in Ardahan and Moush and Kars and so on,

Bedros (00:37:02):

the first time was you recreating their lives 100 years earlier or giving them an

Bedros (00:37:08):

opportunity to recreate their memories or rekindle their memories from 100 years

Bedros (00:37:14):

ago. That's 2010.

Bedros (00:37:16):

Five years later,

Bedros (00:37:17):

you go back,

Bedros (00:37:18):

and now Diana is rekindling your and their memories of what you did five years

Bedros (00:37:23):

earlier.

Bedros (00:37:24):

What did that feel like to you?

Erhan (00:37:26):

First of all, I mean,

Erhan (00:37:29):

it's a totally different,

Erhan (00:37:30):

of course,

Erhan (00:37:31):

different experiences and different feeling.

Erhan (00:37:34):

And in the first trip, I was just myself.

Erhan (00:37:38):

I think I don't need to think to control myself and my feeling and thinking about,

Erhan (00:37:45):

I have to say,

Erhan (00:37:48):

about my feeling because sometimes I have to say,

Erhan (00:37:54):

During that period, I mean, in my first trip, I was crying.

Erhan (00:37:59):

I was thinking.

Erhan (00:38:00):

I was stopping.

Erhan (00:38:01):

I was keep going on.

Erhan (00:38:03):

I was angry.

Erhan (00:38:04):

And so many things.

Erhan (00:38:06):

I'm just giving reactions and I am taking reactions.

Erhan (00:38:10):

And when I visited them the second time,

Erhan (00:38:16):

First of all,

Erhan (00:38:17):

I am visiting to them,

Erhan (00:38:19):

giving to their pictures that I took many years ago,

Erhan (00:38:24):

five years ago.

Erhan (00:38:26):

And it was a nice feeling to revisit again and giving to their pictures.

Bedros (00:38:34):

You take them gifts, Erhan, or are you a bad Turk?

Erhan (00:38:39):

Sorry?

Bedros (00:38:39):

Did you take them gifts?

Erhan (00:38:42):

Yeah, I said I take them gift.

Bedros (00:38:44):

Good.

Bedros (00:38:45):

Continue, continue.

Erhan (00:38:47):

Yeah, I didn't get the points.

Bedros (00:38:49):

Did you take lokhum?

Bedros (00:38:52):

Did you take, what did you take them?

Bedros (00:38:54):

Baklava? Why did you take that?

Erhan (00:38:56):

No, I just revisit them and I just give to their pictures and just sit a bit again and

Erhan (00:39:06):

spend the time with them.

Erhan (00:39:08):

Yeah, that's it.

Erhan (00:39:09):

I didn't give to them lokhum.

Erhan (00:39:11):

Yeah, I bring to something to my friend,

Erhan (00:39:17):

but not to have to say the pictures,

Erhan (00:39:21):

the people that I take there with these pictures.

Bedros (00:39:24):

Okay, so you took their own picture that you took, signed by you.

Erhan (00:39:30):

Yeah, yeah.

Bedros (00:39:31):

It's pretty narcissistic.

Bedros (00:39:34):

Okay, go on, go on.

Erhan (00:39:36):

I don't know.

Erhan (00:39:38):

I don't know. Do you think it's about narcissistic?

Bedros (00:39:42):

I'm just joking.

Bedros (00:39:43):

Continue.

Erhan (00:39:44):

I don't know. Maybe there's some point maybe I should understand.

Bedros (00:39:47):

There's always truth in jokes, Erhan.

Bedros (00:39:49):

But let's just move on.

Erhan (00:39:52):

Yeah.

Erhan (00:39:53):

I don't think that is a... I don't know.

Erhan (00:39:55):

Is this somehow a nice thing?

Erhan (00:39:57):

Because it's a...

Erhan (00:40:00):

The photography for me is always remind me family album.

Erhan (00:40:05):

I mean,

Erhan (00:40:06):

so for me,

Erhan (00:40:08):

it's not only remember any pictures,

Erhan (00:40:10):

not only remember,

Erhan (00:40:11):

remind you or remember you,

Erhan (00:40:13):

remind you just a moment is also remind you the person who took these pictures.

Erhan (00:40:20):

and the time, and the period, and the place.

Erhan (00:40:23):

So,

Erhan (00:40:24):

giving pictures of the family,

Erhan (00:40:26):

for me, is some kind of,

Erhan (00:40:27):

also reminds you,

Erhan (00:40:28):

the taking period,

Erhan (00:40:31):

and our first meeting,

Erhan (00:40:32):

and the thing,

Erhan (00:40:33):

I don't know,

Erhan (00:40:34):

some kind of,

Erhan (00:40:35):

for me, is a

Bedros (00:40:35):

Was it well exposed, your photographs?

Bedros (00:40:38):

Were they properly exposed?

Bedros (00:40:40):

Because if they were, that's not like a family album.

Bedros (00:40:43):

You see, there's one difference there.

Bedros (00:40:45):

You would have to be underexposed for it to be like a family album.

Erhan (00:40:48):

I will give you some real thing about this.

Erhan (00:40:52):

During that period, I have...

Erhan (00:40:54):

I haven't camera in the first visit.

Erhan (00:40:57):

I haven't camera.

Erhan (00:40:59):

I haven't lens.

Erhan (00:41:01):

I brought to my camera from my brother.

Bedros (00:41:04):

And I think- You didn't own a camera yourself.

Bedros (00:41:08):

You used your brother's camera.

Bedros (00:41:09):

And we should say, he's also a photojournalist.

Erhan (00:41:12):

Yeah, he's also a photojournalist.

Erhan (00:41:15):

And I also take a lens from my friend, but it was broken, you know.

Erhan (00:41:22):

There is the focus ring, it was broken, so it's not focusing every time.

Erhan (00:41:30):

You should keep to your distance always.

Erhan (00:41:34):

You should care about your distance.

Bedros (00:41:35):

So even though it was a zoom lens, you were using it as a primary lens.

Erhan (00:41:40):

I use a primary lens.

Erhan (00:41:41):

So what I am telling to this story is actually most of these pictures is

Erhan (00:41:47):

under-exposing and over-exposing.

Erhan (00:41:49):

And it's also some kind of the mis-focus.

Erhan (00:41:55):

So that's why at the same time,

Erhan (00:41:57):

I was so,

Erhan (00:41:59):

I have to say,

Erhan (00:42:00):

focused about the distance when I'm taking the pictures because you cannot fix

Bedros (00:42:04):

focal length. Right.

Erhan (00:42:05):

You cannot focus on broken.

Erhan (00:42:08):

So it wasn't well exposing.

Bedros (00:42:13):

So it is like a family album.

Bedros (00:42:15):

Okay, I get it.

Bedros (00:42:16):

All my childhood pictures are yellow and green.

Bedros (00:42:19):

I don't understand what my parents don't understand about photography, but okay.

Bedros (00:42:24):

Instant cameras, I remember these pieces.

Bedros (00:42:26):

Yeah,

Erhan (00:42:26):

I mean,

Erhan (00:42:27):

with Diana,

Erhan (00:42:29):

revisit with Diana,

Erhan (00:42:31):

of course,

Erhan (00:42:32):

it was so pleasure for me to revisit again all the families with Diana and with her

Erhan (00:42:40):

film.

Erhan (00:42:42):

I didn't really critique or ask any question to me,

Erhan (00:42:47):

really,

Erhan (00:42:48):

or imagine what kind of movie she's going on doing.

Erhan (00:42:52):

I just have to say, feel that... Went along, just went along.

Erhan (00:42:56):

Yeah, just I accepted and I said, let's do it and let's do this visit again.

Bedros (00:43:02):

So now you were a witness.

Bedros (00:43:04):

You didn't have to get the exposure right.

Bedros (00:43:06):

There was a cameraman.

Bedros (00:43:07):

You didn't have to worry about any of the technical things.

Bedros (00:43:10):

So now you're seeing these people as an observer and as a player.

Bedros (00:43:15):

What did that feel like?

Bedros (00:43:17):

They're already comfortable with you.

Bedros (00:43:20):

You're no longer a stranger.

Bedros (00:43:22):

In fact, more than that, you've come back.

Bedros (00:43:25):

This is the Turk who's come back, right?

Bedros (00:43:27):

Five years later, you're back.

Bedros (00:43:28):

So it's real.

Bedros (00:43:30):

It's more intimate.

Bedros (00:43:32):

How did that feel to you?

Erhan (00:43:34):

First, I went to the second visit.

Erhan (00:43:36):

I visited them with my book and with the picture of them.

Erhan (00:43:41):

And also I visited them with Diana and their crew.

Erhan (00:43:45):

So the second time visiting, for me, it was quite comfortable.

Erhan (00:43:51):

Because I am with the Diana

Erhan (00:43:53):

and her crew.

Bedros (00:43:55):

Yeah, you brought an Armenian along with you this time.

Erhan (00:43:57):

Yeah, and also I finished my book and also I visited them with their pictures.

Erhan (00:44:04):

So revisiting with them and doing all this trip with Diana and her crew is that

Erhan (00:44:16):

technically it was so easy to do all this thing.

Erhan (00:44:21):

But there's an emotional part

Erhan (00:44:24):

for me is quite hard.

Erhan (00:44:25):

Because in this time,

Erhan (00:44:28):

yeah,

Erhan (00:44:29):

I believe and I trust and I'm totally,

Erhan (00:44:33):

I want to be part of this film and spend the time with Diana.

Erhan (00:44:39):

But at the same time, somehow I cannot totally have to say... Express yourself.

Bedros (00:44:45):

Let me finish your thought because I just figured it out.

Bedros (00:44:48):

Here's the problem.

Bedros (00:44:50):

This is the drama.

Bedros (00:44:52):

first time you're learning about these stories you have no background no knowledge

Bedros (00:44:58):

because you're a turk who grew up in turkey and went to London and went to Istanbul

Bedros (00:45:03):

that's it that's your life and now you're talking to these people and you don't

Bedros (00:45:07):

know anything and you're learning and learning and learning then you do the horror

Bedros (00:45:11):

show you go around the world

Bedros (00:45:14):

You meet more Armenians.

Bedros (00:45:16):

They tell you what they think about your photographs.

Bedros (00:45:19):

Now you have delayed reactions to these photographs that you've had over five years.

Bedros (00:45:26):

When you go back, you want to talk, but you can't talk because you're a character now.

Bedros (00:45:31):

You're the character with the camera.

Bedros (00:45:32):

You're not allowed to talk.

Bedros (00:45:34):

Diana is doing the talking with them.

Bedros (00:45:37):

So now that you actually have something to say, you can't say it.

Bedros (00:45:42):

And in fact,

Bedros (00:45:43):

that's the fact about every Turk in Anatolia and their children and their

Bedros (00:45:48):

grandchildren. You know, there's many other movies that have been made where Armenian directors go back and

Bedros (00:45:54):

find Arabic Bedouins who took Armenians in,

Bedros (00:45:57):

by the way, that's the story of that particular movie.

Bedros (00:45:59):

And they put, you know, blue marks on their faces as like they're animals.

Bedros (00:46:04):

They own these women.

Bedros (00:46:05):

But that's a secondary point.

Bedros (00:46:07):

The main point is they remember what happened to the Armenians from what they heard

Bedros (00:46:12):

from their grandparents.

Bedros (00:46:14):

And the movie director can ask them questions and stuff.

Bedros (00:46:17):

So that memory exists all over Turkey.

Bedros (00:46:21):

There's this historical memory of this thing that happened 100 years ago,

Bedros (00:46:25):

like in America,

Bedros (00:46:26):

about Indians,

Bedros (00:46:28):

what happened to the Indians.

Bedros (00:46:29):

Every person who lived through that has some memory from their grandparents that's

Bedros (00:46:34):

transmitted down to some degree.

Bedros (00:46:37):

Or meeting Armenians in Turkish Arabic dress,

Bedros (00:46:42):

you know, in golden things,

Bedros (00:46:43):

you know, nothing Armenian about them,

Bedros (00:46:45):

who remember that their grandmother told them when they went to the cave that

Bedros (00:46:49):

they're Armenian.

Bedros (00:46:50):

But that's a secret.

Bedros (00:46:52):

They know it. Nobody else knows it.

Bedros (00:46:54):

And they're living like Turks or they're living like Arabs.

Bedros (00:46:57):

So that inherent knowledge, you now were a Turk who knows a lot about this.

Bedros (00:47:05):

And it's the questions you never asked the first time that you would love to ask

Bedros (00:47:09):

again, but you can't because now it's Diana's project and it's a different project.

Erhan (00:47:14):

Yeah.

Bedros (00:47:14):

Right?

Bedros (00:47:15):

So that's an amazing tension, right?

Bedros (00:47:17):

There's enormous psychic tension there where you get to meet them again,

Bedros (00:47:21):

which is fun,

Bedros (00:47:22):

but you can't talk to them because that would change the other story.

Bedros (00:47:26):

If you had talked, it would have been yet a third story.

Bedros (00:47:31):

Right? You would have taken over the project.

Bedros (00:47:32):

So if it were me, I would have done that.

Bedros (00:47:34):

But that's just because I'm not a very good person.

Bedros (00:47:36):

But you're so nice that you just let her make her movie in your witness.

Bedros (00:47:43):

You know, she made an Armenian to Armenian contact with a Turk president.

Bedros (00:47:47):

That's an amazing story.

Bedros (00:47:50):

But it's frustrating for you.

Bedros (00:47:52):

But artistically, it's very rich.

Erhan (00:47:55):

Yeah, it's very, very rich.

Erhan (00:47:56):

And it's also, I think, somehow also, I mean, she make all the journeys so calm, so relaxed.

Erhan (00:48:06):

And she went through so deeply and without any noise.

Erhan (00:48:14):

And it wasn't so easy because there's a tension with me.

Erhan (00:48:19):

And because I couldn't express myself because of lots of reasons.

Erhan (00:48:25):

And it's also,

Erhan (00:48:26):

this is the first time I realized it and I'm facing from my photography

Erhan (00:48:32):

experiences.

Erhan (00:48:33):

You know,

Erhan (00:48:34):

when you are taking any person's pictures,

Erhan (00:48:38):

when you are trying to framing his or her stories and the point and the things,

Erhan (00:48:47):

at the same time,

Erhan (00:48:48):

the person who is photographed

Erhan (00:48:51):

trying to take a position,

Erhan (00:48:52):

trying to express to his feeling or her feeling that giving to the photographer.

Erhan (00:48:59):

And it's also there's a big tension because I couldn't,

Erhan (00:49:04):

I couldn't,

Erhan (00:49:05):

I tried to also giving it to true,

Erhan (00:49:09):

the true point and true feeling from my,

Erhan (00:49:12):

it comes from inside me.

Erhan (00:49:14):

So it's a kind of a really big tension, but somehow

Erhan (00:49:18):

with her and with her cinematographer get into all the layers a very nice and a

Erhan (00:49:27):

very smooth way.

Bedros (00:49:29):

Yes,

Bedros (00:49:30):

I think she believes in truth,

Bedros (00:49:33):

if we're going to be a little philosophical,

Bedros (00:49:35):

in a very different way than you believe in truth.

Bedros (00:49:37):

Yours is much more emotional and much more visceral,

Bedros (00:49:41):

as we say in English,

Bedros (00:49:42):

you know, much more down to the ground,

Bedros (00:49:43):

you know,

Bedros (00:49:44):

earth truth.

Bedros (00:49:46):

Maybe it's the background of being from Ardahan or whatever.

Bedros (00:49:49):

She's from Moscow.

Bedros (00:49:50):

So for me, from Gyumri in Moscow is very different than being from Ardahan.

Bedros (00:49:55):

And she went to film school in Moscow.

Bedros (00:49:58):

It's a very different understanding of

Bedros (00:50:02):

But both of you as documentarians, of course, have to always step back.

Bedros (00:50:06):

It's not about you.

Bedros (00:50:07):

It's about them.

Bedros (00:50:09):

The oldest rule in journalism is that you're not the story.

Bedros (00:50:12):

That's how we teach it in America.

Bedros (00:50:15):

You're not the story.

Bedros (00:50:18):

the story should be independently of you.

Bedros (00:50:21):

Well, in physics, we have this problem.

Bedros (00:50:23):

It's called the observer.

Bedros (00:50:24):

Quantum mechanics doesn't work without the observer.

Bedros (00:50:26):

So we screwed that up.

Bedros (00:50:27):

But before that, it was always true that physics, reality was independent of the observer.

Bedros (00:50:34):

So in 1915, there was no quantum mechanics.

Bedros (00:50:36):

So Genocide...

Bedros (00:50:38):

There's no observer.

Bedros (00:50:40):

It's the truth.

Bedros (00:50:41):

Okay.

Erhan (00:50:42):

Sorry, I just want to cut.

Erhan (00:50:46):

You got a very good point about the art, actually.

Erhan (00:50:49):

The distance.

Erhan (00:50:51):

So why is the distance important?

Erhan (00:50:53):

Because when you're observing at the same time,

Erhan (00:50:56):

you should really think about the distance because you can still the story of the

Erhan (00:51:04):

person that you're trying to photograph.

Erhan (00:51:08):

So it's a very teeny line when we are talking about all this dealing and giving

Erhan (00:51:14):

that stories and taking stories and all this responsibility and the things.

Erhan (00:51:18):

But at the same time, you cannot create another room inside the stories that you are recording.

Erhan (00:51:27):

You cannot be taking kind of the subject and taking so much space on the story.

Bedros (00:51:34):

Diana did that.

Bedros (00:51:35):

So Diana made the story

Bedros (00:51:37):

what she found interesting is your interaction with them.

Bedros (00:51:41):

And so that's what she was capturing or recapturing.

Bedros (00:51:45):

And so, first of all, getting a second chance is an amazingly important concept here.

Bedros (00:51:51):

You know,

Bedros (00:51:52):

we can think of the future as one in which Turks and Armenians are never going to

Bedros (00:51:56):

get along.

Bedros (00:51:57):

We're never going to have anything to do with each other.

Bedros (00:51:59):

It's always going to be blood.

Bedros (00:52:02):

Or we have to say...

Bedros (00:52:05):

this is stupid.

Bedros (00:52:06):

At some point,

Bedros (00:52:07):

you have to sit and break bread and have to think of a future which is different

Bedros (00:52:13):

than the unfortunate elements of the past.

Bedros (00:52:19):

And if that's going to happen, somebody's going to have to

Bedros (00:52:23):

give in somebody's gonna have to just say that's more important than whatever the

Bedros (00:52:28):

hell has happened right that forming a future is more important so when Diana shows

Bedros (00:52:33):

up a Moscow educated french Armenian you know from Gyumri but still you know

Bedros (00:52:42):

genetically not really

Bedros (00:52:44):

Remember, she only went to Russian schools.

Bedros (00:52:47):

So if her mother was so interested in bringing up Armenians,

Bedros (00:52:51):

she teaches Armenian,

Bedros (00:52:53):

but she didn't go to Armenian school.

Bedros (00:52:54):

So she has her own internal and became a psychologist because of the movie she made.

Bedros (00:53:02):

She realized the important thing is to understand the psychology of these people

Bedros (00:53:06):

and the psychology of pain that never goes away,

Bedros (00:53:09):

which is, of course,

Bedros (00:53:10):

a very interesting distillation of what she learned.

Bedros (00:53:14):

Now, one thing she and I discussed,

Bedros (00:53:16):

I think you've seen that podcast,

Bedros (00:53:17):

which was fantastic,

Bedros (00:53:19):

and I wish we could talk about it more,

Bedros (00:53:20):

is the...

Bedros (00:53:22):

situation comedy of all the spy agencies,

Bedros (00:53:26):

the Armenian spy agency,

Bedros (00:53:28):

the Russian all following you around and suspecting you people and it's like doors

Bedros (00:53:34):

opening, doors closing.

Bedros (00:53:35):

So this search,

Bedros (00:53:37):

you could say that you withstood so much that could have ruined everything and you

Bedros (00:53:43):

came up with your own art and she came up with her own art and these people's

Bedros (00:53:49):

who were very likely to be forgotten.

Bedros (00:53:52):

The Soviet state was not interested in them.

Bedros (00:53:54):

The Soviet scientists never paid any attention to them, right?

Bedros (00:53:57):

So even after the Soviet Union, the Armenians never paid attention to them.

Bedros (00:54:03):

So let me ask this question in a more general way so it gets simpler.

Bedros (00:54:08):

You're from Javakhk.

Bedros (00:54:10):

Diana is from Javakhk.

Bedros (00:54:11):

All these people are from Javakhk.

Bedros (00:54:14):

How much,

Bedros (00:54:15):

you know, there's another place that you've been to,

Bedros (00:54:17):

actually, which we're going to get to in a second,

Bedros (00:54:19):

in Gayan,

Bedros (00:54:20):

which is Anjar,

Bedros (00:54:22):

right? So Aanjartsis or Musalertsis, when they get together, it doesn't matter.

Bedros (00:54:27):

They're from Tokyo.

Bedros (00:54:28):

They're from Argentina.

Bedros (00:54:30):

You know, all that matters is Musaler, right?

Bedros (00:54:33):

And they have annual Musaler meetings and this and that and the other.

Bedros (00:54:37):

And they make Harissa and all this.

Bedros (00:54:40):

My wife's father is from Musaler, so I remember...

Bedros (00:54:48):

So the question to you is,

Bedros (00:54:49):

as you Javakhktsis meet,

Bedros (00:54:52):

how much of the conversation explicitly or implicitly was Javakhkian in your

Bedros (00:54:59):

opinion?

Erhan (00:55:02):

That's why I was just jumping to your sentences when you are saying that two

Erhan (00:55:12):

different people and three different people they become together and during death

Erhan (00:55:18):

period.

Erhan (00:55:19):

So I was just jumping and excited because for me it is somehow we are not two

Erhan (00:55:25):

different people with Diana because

Erhan (00:55:28):

And also with the families,

Erhan (00:55:30):

the Armenian families that I met,

Erhan (00:55:32):

all this region and area,

Erhan (00:55:34):

I think,

Erhan (00:55:36):

culturally and sociologically is quite the Nero that we understand.

Bedros (00:55:46):

A hundred years apart.

Erhan (00:55:48):

Yeah.

Erhan (00:55:49):

So that's why for me Diana is some kind of another person who takes a good

Erhan (00:55:55):

education from the Russian school and studying psychology and living in France.

Erhan (00:56:00):

And for me, it's a typical person from the Meskheti, from the Akhaltsikhe and the Akhalkalaki.

Erhan (00:56:08):

So, of course,

Erhan (00:56:09):

it is somehow,

Erhan (00:56:10):

I don't know,

Erhan (00:56:12):

somehow we feel kind of the relative that the many years we know each other.

Bedros (00:56:24):

Right. We cannot escape our destiny, as they say.

Bedros (00:56:29):

And social engineering,

Bedros (00:56:30):

like the Genocide,

Bedros (00:56:31):

like these,

Bedros (00:56:32):

you know,

Bedros (00:56:33):

three Macedonians,

Bedros (00:56:35):

you know,

Bedros (00:56:36):

Enver, Taliat,

Bedros (00:56:38):

Jamal,

Bedros (00:56:39):

who thought they're going to change the...

Bedros (00:56:40):

And then Ataturk,

Bedros (00:56:42):

who thought he's going to change the...

Bedros (00:56:44):

The culture of Turks is not going to change anything because it's not up to people.

Bedros (00:56:48):

The Soviets,

Bedros (00:56:50):

who had this whole dream,

Bedros (00:56:52):

they're going to change the culture of people and replace the historical ties and

Bedros (00:56:58):

the genetic ties, by intellectual ties.

Bedros (00:57:01):

We know how well that worked.

Bedros (00:57:04):

It's just not how it works.

Bedros (00:57:05):

Humans carry with them what they have to carry with them.

Bedros (00:57:09):

And that's not...

Bedros (00:57:11):

Something you could just change like this on a dime, right?

Bedros (00:57:15):

So there's hope that what ties us together is stronger than that which makes us

Bedros (00:57:22):

want to not be together.

Bedros (00:57:25):

Anyway,

Bedros (00:57:26):

so what was your,

Bedros (00:57:27):

just in a few sentences,

Bedros (00:57:28):

what was it like to show Horovel around the world?

Erhan (00:57:33):

I mean,

Erhan (00:57:34):

for me, especially for the Horovel,

Erhan (00:57:37):

the showing in Istanbul,

Erhan (00:57:40):

it was a big thing,

Erhan (00:57:41):

very important things.

Erhan (00:57:43):

2010 or 2011?

Erhan (00:57:44):

2010.

Erhan (00:57:45):

And I mean, they weren't not so much, I have to say, the work that publicly you can show it.

Erhan (00:57:57):

And I don't want,

Erhan (00:57:59):

right now we don't have a time,

Erhan (00:58:00):

so I don't want to go into so much detail during that period and the exhibition.

Bedros (00:58:06):

But did Armenians come and tell you other stories?

Bedros (00:58:09):

And did you learn more about Javakhk people show up, et cetera?

Erhan (00:58:15):

Yeah.

Erhan (00:58:16):

During that part, I put a notebook in an exhibition.

Erhan (00:58:21):

And in this notebook, people wrote their thoughts.

Erhan (00:58:25):

Yeah,

Erhan (00:58:26):

and some of them,

Erhan (00:58:28):

of course, it's about,

Erhan (00:58:29):

again,

Erhan (00:58:30):

there's this exhibition and telling lots of the bad words and things.

Erhan (00:58:34):

And there's also,

Erhan (00:58:35):

there are lots of things also,

Erhan (00:58:37):

the people telling the inner thought and the feeling,

Erhan (00:58:41):

what they felt in this exhibition,

Erhan (00:58:42):

because it wasn't really Dikranouhi Asadourian,

Erhan (00:58:46):

and it was the first,

Erhan (00:58:48):

maybe,

Erhan (00:58:49):

it was maybe the first

Erhan (00:58:51):

survivor to showing herself inside the public.

Erhan (00:58:57):

It was a huge thing, actually.

Erhan (00:59:00):

So for me,

Erhan (00:59:02):

showing this picture in Istanbul,

Erhan (00:59:04):

in Turkey, and any part of Turkey is some kind of responsible.

Erhan (00:59:10):

And some kind of... Do newspapers write about it?

Bedros (00:59:14):

Do Turkish newspapers cover it?

Erhan (00:59:19):

Yeah, there are some newspapers they covered.

Erhan (00:59:21):

Turkey,

Erhan (00:59:22):

in this time,

Erhan (00:59:23):

it was passing kind of as a very liberal period,

Erhan (00:59:28):

as an ideology,

Erhan (00:59:30):

I can say.

Erhan (00:59:31):

They were trying to,

Erhan (00:59:33):

during that period, Turkey,

Erhan (00:59:34):

the politics they tried to face to the Armenian issue.

Erhan (00:59:40):

They covered also this exhibition.

Erhan (00:59:45):

But then we were a bit not so good experiences in the exhibition time.

Erhan (00:59:53):

But it wasn't stopped to have to say power of this exhibition.

Erhan (00:59:58):

And lots of people they visit, lots of people take a note over there.

Erhan (01:00:02):

And yeah, I think we were very brave to doing this exhibition.

Bedros (01:00:07):

Okay, let's go to now how you decided to do Gayan.

Bedros (01:00:12):

And what did you do?

Bedros (01:00:13):

And what is your impression?

Bedros (01:00:15):

Now you have an impression of Ardahan Armenians, which came from your dream.

Bedros (01:00:22):

In Diana's movie, there's another dream, as you know, that she talks about.

Bedros (01:00:27):

But how did you go to do Gayan?

Bedros (01:00:33):

And you went to Tehran,

Bedros (01:00:35):

Armenians,

Bedros (01:00:37):

Beirut Armenians,

Bedros (01:00:39):

Aanjar Armenians,

Bedros (01:00:40):

Jordanian,

Bedros (01:00:41):

Amman Armenians,

Bedros (01:00:42):

and who else?

Bedros (01:00:43):

Egyptian?

Erhan (01:00:45):

I couldn't visit the Egyptian because after the coup d'etat, it was coup d'etat in Egypt.

Bedros (01:00:52):

So where else did you go besides Lebanon?

Erhan (01:00:54):

Lebanon, Iran, Iraqi Kurdistan, Jordan, Palestine, Jerusalem, and what else?

Erhan (01:01:08):

Yeah, it's also in this part also, I visit also, revisit again Armenia.

Bedros (01:01:17):

But the same villages or somewhere else?

Erhan (01:01:19):

No, no, somewhere else.

Bedros (01:01:21):

Good, Yerevan?

Bedros (01:01:22):

Yeah, I've been in Yerevan, I was... Okay, so that's all in that Gayan photo exhibit.

Erhan (01:01:28):

Yeah, yeah.

Bedros (01:01:30):

Okay, so tell us about what, if somebody came to you and said...

Bedros (01:01:34):

What do Armenians have in common?

Bedros (01:01:36):

You know, et cetera, et cetera.

Bedros (01:01:38):

What are your impressions of Armenians from all your photographs and all your

Bedros (01:01:44):

encounters with Bourj Hammoud Armenians and Aanjar Armenians and so on and so forth?

Erhan (01:01:51):

When I did the first to Horovel,

Erhan (01:01:53):

it was the main reason was,

Erhan (01:01:58):

I have to say,

Erhan (01:01:59):

I saw there's a big gap in my memory.

Erhan (01:02:04):

and the memory that I learn,

Erhan (01:02:07):

the memory that I live,

Erhan (01:02:08):

and the memory that have to say appearances,

Erhan (01:02:14):

and it showed me.

Erhan (01:02:15):

So I feel there's a big gap in my memory.

Erhan (01:02:18):

And it was a reaction that filled this memory, this gap, filled this gap.

Erhan (01:02:26):

And I was thinking that if I'm going to meet with the Armenian families and sit at

Erhan (01:02:34):

the same table with them,

Erhan (01:02:36):

I was thinking that this gap is going to be...

Bedros (01:02:40):

You weren't going to learn about Armenians by living in Turkey.

Bedros (01:02:44):

There's a whole state apparatus to make sure that doesn't happen.

Bedros (01:02:48):

So for you to learn about Armenians,

Bedros (01:02:49):

you have to go and find them where they are,

Bedros (01:02:51):

which is what you did.

Bedros (01:02:52):

So what did you find?

Erhan (01:02:53):

I tried to explain this.

Erhan (01:02:58):

But I realized that this gap is going to be not closing.

Erhan (01:03:02):

It's going to be more big and more big.

Bedros (01:03:04):

Why?

Erhan (01:03:07):

When you open a door, another door is opening, and another door is opening.

Erhan (01:03:12):

You have to open.

Erhan (01:03:14):

I mean, when you open any door, if you are talking about to stay far away from the homeland,

Erhan (01:03:25):

Then you start to talk about the far away and talk about the homeland.

Erhan (01:03:30):

Then all the still spaces about the memory is going to be more big and more big.

Erhan (01:03:35):

Then I feel that I should go on to more deep.

Erhan (01:03:41):

That's why I visited... Well, the subject becomes bigger.

Erhan (01:03:45):

Yes, subject becomes bigger.

Bedros (01:03:46):

If you've made one giraffe...

Bedros (01:03:48):

and all you've seen is one giraffe and you wanna know more about giraffes,

Bedros (01:03:51):

you go to Africa,

Bedros (01:03:53):

now you meet gazelles and lions and all these other animals and you realize,

Bedros (01:03:59):

oh,

Bedros (01:04:00):

Africa is not about giraffes.

Bedros (01:04:02):

So I understand that, but still,

Bedros (01:04:06):

You were attracted to the giraffe in the first place.

Bedros (01:04:09):

You shouldn't lose track of the giraffe.

Bedros (01:04:10):

So if you just go back and think about the giraffe,

Bedros (01:04:14):

even though you met the lions and the tigers and the villagers,

Bedros (01:04:19):

what did you learn about the Armenians,

Bedros (01:04:22):

let's say,

Bedros (01:04:23):

from Javakhk,

Bedros (01:04:24):

your thoughts about Armenians from Javakhk when you met so many different kinds of

Bedros (01:04:28):

Armenians?

Erhan (01:04:30):

So why I tell you this story is I mean that the main motivation is not try to

Erhan (01:04:34):

understand the differences or the similarities.

Erhan (01:04:37):

So and actually after all this trip and all this visiting and I met with the family actually.

Erhan (01:04:46):

I cannot say that this is the big differences and the things that especially we are

Erhan (01:04:52):

talking about the Caucasia and Armenia and Turkey and the Middle East,

Erhan (01:04:58):

all the culturally and emotionally.

Bedros (01:05:00):

Come on, the Middle Eastern food is better.

Bedros (01:05:02):

Just admit it now.

Bedros (01:05:03):

Beirut's food was the best.

Bedros (01:05:05):

Yes or no?

Erhan (01:05:06):

Yes, it cannot be compared with anything.

Bedros (01:05:09):

Okay, I think I've got what I need.

Bedros (01:05:11):

Continue.

Erhan (01:05:13):

You're right, you're right.

Erhan (01:05:15):

Yeah, I don't know, maybe I have to say in Lebanon,

Erhan (01:05:21):

I felt totally different for the rest of all the countries about politically.

Erhan (01:05:27):

They are more organized, I can say.

Erhan (01:05:29):

I'm talking about politically.

Erhan (01:05:32):

And they are more organized and they are more get into.

Erhan (01:05:36):

And so that's also understandable because they are living in Lebanon.

Erhan (01:05:40):

They are not living in Armenia and not in Yerevan.

Erhan (01:05:43):

They are not living in the country.

Erhan (01:05:48):

So there is another difficulty that is about to stay alive and to keep going.

Bedros (01:05:58):

Yes, they have an existential need, just like in Tehran.

Erhan (01:06:02):

But with sharing, there are no differences.

Erhan (01:06:09):

about what we have to say how we stand standing on the table and talking about

Erhan (01:06:15):

there is no any difficulties there is no any differences and for me when i'm

Erhan (01:06:21):

working in the 2000 and 2015 it was a very difficult time all the middle is there

Erhan (01:06:30):

is a lots of problem

Erhan (01:06:32):

There's a war, there's ISIS, and there are so many things.

Erhan (01:06:36):

There are lots of suspicions about foreigners.

Erhan (01:06:40):

And yeah, but meeting with the Armenian community.

Bedros (01:06:46):

Yeah, but there's an interesting thing, right?

Bedros (01:06:48):

If you're a Tehran Armenian, maybe you know Iranian Turks, but you don't know Turkish Turks.

Bedros (01:06:55):

Maybe you do.

Bedros (01:06:57):

If you're from Beirut, you don't know any Turks.

Bedros (01:07:00):

Yeah.

Bedros (01:07:01):

If you're from Jordan, you don't know any Turks.

Bedros (01:07:03):

So they're meeting you.

Bedros (01:07:05):

You're the giraffe, right?

Bedros (01:07:07):

I mean, they've heard about you,

Bedros (01:07:09):

but,

Bedros (01:07:10):

you know, you're a strange animal with a big neck,

Bedros (01:07:13):

and, you know,

Bedros (01:07:14):

you only eat on top of the tree,

Bedros (01:07:16):

and, you know,

Bedros (01:07:17):

you're very pacifist,

Bedros (01:07:18):

except if you bang your neck against another animal,

Bedros (01:07:21):

you can kill them.

Bedros (01:07:22):

So how was that interaction, the sociology of meeting a Turk...

Bedros (01:07:29):

who's an artist, who has a pure soul.

Bedros (01:07:32):

He's from the villages.

Bedros (01:07:34):

He's not some sort of militarist.

Bedros (01:07:39):

How was that like?

Bedros (01:07:40):

If you look back at how they took you in and how they interacted with you,

Bedros (01:07:46):

the Lebanese-Armenians have all fought.

Bedros (01:07:48):

They've all fought in the wars.

Bedros (01:07:50):

They've been in a civil war.

Bedros (01:07:51):

They've all held guns.

Bedros (01:07:52):

That's different than

Bedros (01:07:55):

Jordanian Armenians or Tehran Armenians, you know, who don't deal with guns?

Erhan (01:08:00):

I mean,

Erhan (01:08:02):

why I think when I'm thinking for a long time,

Erhan (01:08:05):

when I'm working as much longer and visiting all these places,

Erhan (01:08:11):

I think it's about the vision of the Armenian people as a political leader.

Erhan (01:08:18):

they know it is very important to talk and to meet and to tell the story that they

Erhan (01:08:26):

lived,

Erhan (01:08:27):

a person from Turkey,

Erhan (01:08:29):

especially the non-Armenians,

Erhan (01:08:32):

because they know it is very important and it is valuable.

Erhan (01:08:36):

So I think that for me, this is the point they wanted to and accepted to meet with me,

Erhan (01:08:44):

And at the same time,

Erhan (01:08:45):

all we grow up in the Middle East and in Anatolia and the Caucasian and Armenia.

Erhan (01:08:49):

And culturally,

Erhan (01:08:51):

for us,

Erhan (01:08:53):

any person, if they knock our door,

Erhan (01:08:55):

I mean,

Erhan (01:08:56):

not so important that what kind of life we are living and the politically what we

Erhan (01:09:02):

are living,

Erhan (01:09:03):

if we are in the war or something.

Erhan (01:09:06):

We believe that we should open the store and we should sit in the table.

Erhan (01:09:11):

We should share our foods.

Erhan (01:09:14):

this is important, and we should keep it.

Erhan (01:09:17):

And I think these two things,

Erhan (01:09:19):

the culture and the political vision,

Erhan (01:09:22):

is for me giving to me a chance to meet all these people.

Bedros (01:09:30):

So you called the show Gayan, which means channel, or like radio station, and you explained that

Bedros (01:09:42):

In Istanbul,

Bedros (01:09:43):

the Armenians used to get together in these Gayans,

Bedros (01:09:47):

in these places where they could talk to each other,

Bedros (01:09:50):

right? Once a week or something?

Erhan (01:09:53):

I mean, the Gayan, there's a very direct connection with the Genocide period as a word.

Erhan (01:10:00):

The Gayan is a place,

Erhan (01:10:02):

is a point that after the Genocide period,

Erhan (01:10:04):

families,

Erhan (01:10:05):

they become together and try to found their relatives.

Bedros (01:10:10):

In Istanbul?

Erhan (01:10:11):

Yeah, in Istanbul.

Bedros (01:10:13):

Do you know where they met?

Bedros (01:10:14):

Where did they meet?

Erhan (01:10:16):

In Istanbul, there is the church in Samatya.

Erhan (01:10:19):

I forgot its name.

Erhan (01:10:21):

But this is one of the places that after the Genocide.

Erhan (01:10:25):

And the people, every month, they are going to this church.

Erhan (01:10:29):

They know the day,

Erhan (01:10:32):

the people,

Erhan (01:10:33):

they are going to that and they are meeting and try to found each other.

Erhan (01:10:36):

So this name, this place is called the Gayan.

Erhan (01:10:41):

So it's also the name as a meaning.

Erhan (01:10:46):

Later on I learned it's a station.

Erhan (01:10:49):

Yeah.

Bedros (01:10:50):

Right. Communication station.

Bedros (01:10:52):

So it makes perfect sense.

Bedros (01:10:54):

Also train station.

Erhan (01:10:56):

Yeah.

Bedros (01:10:58):

So yeah, those are all Gayans.

Bedros (01:11:00):

But tell us about Tehran.

Bedros (01:11:02):

What was interesting?

Bedros (01:11:03):

You know, the women wear chadors and stuff in Tehran.

Bedros (01:11:07):

You know, the Armenian women.

Bedros (01:11:08):

Yeah.

Bedros (01:11:09):

Yeah.

Bedros (01:11:10):

Their Armenian-ness from the Javakhk Armenians, from the Lebanese Armenians.

Bedros (01:11:16):

What was different, if anything?

Erhan (01:11:19):

Of course, I mean, in the school, in the public area, they should cover to themselves.

Erhan (01:11:26):

And in the public area, in the school, and in these places, they should cover themselves.

Erhan (01:11:33):

But in their, how to say,

Erhan (01:11:36):

Homes.

Erhan (01:11:38):

Their homes, not only the homes,

Erhan (01:11:40):

they have also their cultural areas like Ararat center and things like cultural

Erhan (01:11:46):

centers.

Erhan (01:11:47):

In this part,

Erhan (01:11:48):

they have to say they are living how they are living in Armenia and Lebanon and in

Erhan (01:11:55):

other parts of the world if their own rights about this.

Erhan (01:12:02):

And talking about their life,

Erhan (01:12:05):

who is living in Middle East,

Erhan (01:12:06):

from my point,

Erhan (01:12:08):

is a somehow,

Erhan (01:12:09):

is a,

Erhan (01:12:10):

is a,

Erhan (01:12:11):

come to me a bit problematic,

Erhan (01:12:12):

you know,

Erhan (01:12:13):

because they live in a sociology and they live in a politic,

Erhan (01:12:18):

under the politic system.

Erhan (01:12:21):

So from outside to describe to their life,

Erhan (01:12:24):

not to say they are relaxed,

Erhan (01:12:26):

they are good,

Erhan (01:12:27):

they are so good.

Erhan (01:12:28):

This is something they care about their life.

Erhan (01:12:31):

But it doesn't like this.

Erhan (01:12:32):

It might not like this.

Erhan (01:12:34):

So that's why for me they're saying anything about their daily life or their

Erhan (01:12:40):

political life in there.

Erhan (01:12:41):

They're saying something.

Bedros (01:12:43):

Do their grandparents have memories of the Genocide?

Erhan (01:12:49):

In Iran,

Erhan (01:12:50):

there is no direct connection with the Genocide period because the Iran-Armenians

Erhan (01:12:54):

have a long background.

Bedros (01:12:56):

I know. That's why I'm asking you.

Bedros (01:12:57):

So how did that make them different?

Bedros (01:13:00):

The Lebanese-Armenians are all products of Genocide survivors, all of them.

Bedros (01:13:05):

In the villages you went to on the other side of the river, they're all Genocide survivors.

Bedros (01:13:11):

So what was the difference between the behavior or the way they talked to you or

Bedros (01:13:17):

the friendships or anything?

Erhan (01:13:19):

How was the difference?

Erhan (01:13:21):

About the behavior and about to have to say that politically,

Erhan (01:13:25):

there is no any big differences with the Genocide, and the Genocide.

Erhan (01:13:31):

And the memory is a memory and they have to keep it and they have to tell the

Erhan (01:13:35):

stories and they have to form it.

Erhan (01:13:38):

They believe, all they believe this, I mean, is a...

Erhan (01:13:42):

So there is no differences about this point.

Erhan (01:13:46):

But of course,

Erhan (01:13:49):

from my perspective,

Erhan (01:13:50):

there is differences about their life under the different system.

Bedros (01:13:58):

Right. So the Shia regime that's in Iran is in opposition to Turkey.

Bedros (01:14:04):

So they should be grown up thinking Turkey is the enemy.

Bedros (01:14:07):

just from an Iranian point of view.

Bedros (01:14:10):

But of course, there's also Turks and Kurds in Iran who have a different opinion.

Bedros (01:14:18):

And then there's the Azerbaijan,

Bedros (01:14:20):

which is the northern part of Iran,

Bedros (01:14:24):

which is much bigger than the country of Azerbaijan,

Bedros (01:14:26):

by the way,

Bedros (01:14:28):

and more populated.

Bedros (01:14:29):

Could you tell something about their mentality

Bedros (01:14:33):

or their worldview being influenced by these other elements,

Bedros (01:14:38):

or, you know,

Bedros (01:14:39):

you met them on a personal basis,

Bedros (01:14:42):

and it's all about family,

Bedros (01:14:43):

and Ojakh,

Bedros (01:14:45):

and,

Bedros (01:14:46):

you know, and cultural center,

Bedros (01:14:48):

and so there's no indication of any of that.

Erhan (01:14:52):

From the beginning,

Erhan (01:14:54):

from my career as a professional and still today,

Erhan (01:14:58):

especially when I'm working in some kind of problematic and dangerous area or some

Erhan (01:15:06):

kind of politically conflict area.

Erhan (01:15:09):

Crisis area.

Erhan (01:15:10):

that for me is the most important things and an important point to keeping to not

Erhan (01:15:19):

creating a danger for your character and the people that you met.

Erhan (01:15:25):

So when I go any places, any country,

Erhan (01:15:29):

And I am telling to,

Erhan (01:15:32):

I'm giving to the openly,

Erhan (01:15:33):

giving to the,

Erhan (01:15:35):

telling to the people who help me,

Erhan (01:15:37):

going on to help me,

Erhan (01:15:38):

telling to them,

Erhan (01:15:40):

please, if there is any chance or any place that giving,

Erhan (01:15:44):

how to say,

Erhan (01:15:46):

telling to them who I am and taking a permission and telling that it's like the

Erhan (01:15:52):

policy, it's like after the security or somethings.

Erhan (01:15:56):

Just connect with me to them and telling to them who I am and what I am in here and

Erhan (01:16:02):

what I am doing and what is the border of the work area.

Erhan (01:16:07):

So first of all, I think this is very important.

Erhan (01:16:12):

So I'm trying to say that I don't have to hide myself.

Erhan (01:16:17):

I am...

Erhan (01:16:18):

I showed myself because this is very important to save myself and the more

Erhan (01:16:24):

important things to people that I am working with.

Erhan (01:16:29):

So this is the,

Erhan (01:16:35):

I think because of this,

Erhan (01:16:36):

first of all,

Erhan (01:16:38):

everybody knows in this neighbor I am there and the security day knows I am there.

Erhan (01:16:43):

So it's creating a space that's working very openly.

Erhan (01:16:51):

That's why I think when I met with all these people,

Erhan (01:16:56):

beside of the culture,

Erhan (01:16:57):

beside of the politics,

Erhan (01:16:59):

because of the vision,

Erhan (01:17:00):

beside of the vision,

Erhan (01:17:02):

all this way is also giving us to keep going on our work together.

Erhan (01:17:09):

And it's also, I have to say, the talk.

Bedros (01:17:12):

So in the few minutes remaining, let's go to your seed question.

Bedros (01:17:17):

planting current project and the documentary that you're making with your wife.

Bedros (01:17:23):

What is your wife's name again?

Erhan (01:17:24):

Meryem Yavuz.

Bedros (01:17:26):

Yeah, so she's a cinematographer, if I understand correctly.

Erhan (01:17:29):

She's a cinematographer and is also the first time she's the producer of this documentary.

Erhan (01:17:36):

Our Seeds, Tohum.

Bedros (01:17:39):

Perfect.

Bedros (01:17:40):

So you're making a documentary and there's an idea behind it, which is to plant the seeds of a

Bedros (01:17:47):

ancestral tree, right?

Erhan (01:17:50):

The seed is a wheat seed.

Erhan (01:17:54):

It's making bread and things.

Bedros (01:17:56):

Which comes from where?

Erhan (01:17:57):

It's a Caucasian seed.

Erhan (01:18:01):

And it's planting in Georgia, in Armenia.

Erhan (01:18:04):

And it's also today in Turkey.

Erhan (01:18:07):

And it's in the northeast part of Turkey, in Kars, it's planting.

Erhan (01:18:12):

And the story is about a Miller couple who has this seed, the wheat seed.

Erhan (01:18:19):

and more than 1,300 years old,

Erhan (01:18:24):

and they are planting this seed in their field,

Erhan (01:18:29):

and they got product from this seed in their meal,

Erhan (01:18:33):

and they have some kind of inner connection also with this seed,

Erhan (01:18:37):

so they want to keep it,

Erhan (01:18:38):

and they want to forward to this seed and the meal their children.

Erhan (01:18:43):

But the children dream and expectations and the Miller couple expectations doesn't match.

Erhan (01:18:52):

So over the family relations, we try to tell a seed story.

Erhan (01:18:59):

It's not kind of ethnographical seed documentary.

Erhan (01:19:05):

Seed is more as a metaphor.

Erhan (01:19:08):

And we try to say what we have it and for what we are losing.

Bedros (01:19:17):

So how do we know it's 13?

Bedros (01:19:19):

Let me talk to you like a scientist now.

Bedros (01:19:21):

How do we know it's 1300 years old?

Erhan (01:19:25):

I just checked on the internet and I saw that it's a very long and...

Bedros (01:19:32):

Okay, the answer is carbon dating,

Bedros (01:19:34):

but okay.

Bedros (01:19:35):

So let me... There is a way to do it.

Bedros (01:19:39):

So this seed,

Bedros (01:19:42):

are you and your wife playing the role of the couple or you have actors playing the

Bedros (01:19:46):

role of the couple?

Erhan (01:19:47):

There's not any players.

Erhan (01:19:48):

It's a real Miller.

Bedros (01:19:51):

OK, so you're actually photographing the actual Miller whose story this is.

Bedros (01:19:56):

It's not a written story.

Bedros (01:19:58):

It's a documentary.

Bedros (01:19:59):

You're transmitting a true story.

Erhan (01:20:01):

Yeah, yeah.

Bedros (01:20:02):

How did you find the Miller?

Erhan (01:20:05):

I found a miller in Kars,

Erhan (01:20:06):

so I,

Erhan (01:20:07):

you know,

Erhan (01:20:08):

Kars and Ardahan, and this is also the place that I born,

Erhan (01:20:11):

so I know.

Bedros (01:20:11):

How do you know he's not Armenian?

Bedros (01:20:13):

Did you do 23andMe?

Erhan (01:20:14):

I'm not sure there are many.

Bedros (01:20:17):

You should check.

Bedros (01:20:18):

Yeah.

Erhan (01:20:20):

Yeah, yeah.

Erhan (01:20:22):

Yeah,

Erhan (01:20:23):

I know there are some,

Erhan (01:20:25):

of course, I mean,

Erhan (01:20:26):

when I'm doing research,

Erhan (01:20:29):

I saw there are some millers and they are planting this seed.

Erhan (01:20:34):

So I met

Erhan (01:20:35):

All of them.

Erhan (01:20:36):

And when I met with this couple,

Erhan (01:20:38):

in a short time,

Erhan (01:20:39):

I realized and I saw all the layers of the stories.

Erhan (01:20:42):

And then I was starting to work with them.

Erhan (01:20:46):

And more than, yeah, this is the fifth year, five years that we are working on.

Erhan (01:20:53):

Right now, we are in editing period.

Bedros (01:20:56):

Tchaghatsban or something, or hatsakordz is the Armenian words that you can use.

Bedros (01:21:01):

Tchaghatsban is, I think, the right one.

Bedros (01:21:04):

So, it's close, so maybe you want to use that.

Bedros (01:21:08):

All right, well,

Bedros (01:21:10):

Erhan, I want to tell you,

Bedros (01:21:11):

it's been a great pleasure talking to you and listening to your stories and seeing

Bedros (01:21:16):

how much work you've done in reaching truths that are not politically or

Bedros (01:21:23):

self-servingly dished out with,

Bedros (01:21:26):

you know,

Bedros (01:21:27):

extreme...

Bedros (01:21:30):

arrogance and chauvinism and all these things that exist in the news and instead

Bedros (01:21:38):

keeping everything on a human level uh where as you said we all become the same

Bedros (01:21:43):

thing you know we all eat bread we all have fears and memories that haunt us and uh

Bedros (01:21:54):

it's great that you've done the work to

Bedros (01:21:56):

bring the temperature down a little bit in the exchanges between different people.

Bedros (01:22:02):

So, teşekkür ederim.

Erhan (01:22:07):

Thank you so much for this really a chance to talk with you and again remember all

Erhan (01:22:17):

the memory and things.

Erhan (01:22:20):

And sorry for the audience that's listening to us because of my really bad English.

Bedros (01:22:28):

It could have been better, but it was just fine.

Erhan (01:22:35):

Thank you.

Bedros (01:22:36):

Until next time, when you have the seed story, maybe we can talk again.

Bedros (01:22:41):

Where in Armenia are you planting it?

Erhan (01:22:46):

As I know, I think in Gyumri and all the village still is a planting, but just I heard.

Erhan (01:22:54):

I didn't know it's planting.

Erhan (01:22:56):

I just heard it's planting still in there.

Bedros (01:22:58):

When do you think the movie will be available?

Erhan (01:23:01):

Probably, yeah,

Erhan (01:23:02):

it will finish after two months later,

Erhan (01:23:06):

three months later,

Erhan (01:23:07):

everything will be finished about editing.

Erhan (01:23:09):

So this year, we're starting to apply the festival.

Erhan (01:23:13):

So probably next year.

Erhan (01:23:14):

27.

Bedros (01:23:16):

Okay.

Bedros (01:23:17):

How can people see Horovel and Gayan?

Bedros (01:23:21):

What's a way for them to see these pictures?

Bedros (01:23:24):

Just on the internet, put in Erhan Arik or what?

Erhan (01:23:28):

Still, I don't have the website.

Erhan (01:23:33):

But if the people, if they contact me, I don't know, maybe we can write through the email.

Erhan (01:23:40):

Yes.

Erhan (01:23:42):

Digitally, I can share the book with them.

Bedros (01:23:47):

Is that book going to be available, the Horovel book?

Erhan (01:23:49):

Yeah, it's published in the Armenian Publish House in Istanbul.

Erhan (01:23:56):

Name is Aras Publishing House.

Bedros (01:24:00):

Are they on Amazon?

Erhan (01:24:02):

Yeah, probably, because I know they have to say sending to all of the world.

Bedros (01:24:07):

Okay, so Horovel is the name?

Erhan (01:24:09):

No, Aras name of the Publish House.

Bedros (01:24:13):

No, no, but what's the name of the book?

Erhan (01:24:15):

Gayan.

Bedros (01:24:16):

Oh, the Gayan is published, but not Horovel.

Erhan (01:24:20):

Yeah, Horovel doesn't publish, just the Gayan is published.

Bedros (01:24:23):

Okay.

Bedros (01:24:24):

Great.

Bedros (01:24:25):

So, they can go to Amazon and try to find that.

Erhan (01:24:29):

And also, if they want it, I can share the digital... Yes.

Bedros (01:24:34):

They should contact you on Facebook or by email?

Erhan (01:24:37):

Instagram.

Erhan (01:24:38):

Yeah, I'm active using Instagram.

Bedros (01:24:42):

Asbed will put a link,

Bedros (01:24:44):

maybe we can put it on YouTube,

Bedros (01:24:47):

Asbed,

Bedros (01:24:48):

the little short movie about Dikranouhi Asadourian that is in both Diana's movie

Bedros (01:24:55):

and in the original Horovel exhibit.

Bedros (01:24:58):

All right,

Bedros (01:24:59):

but the Dikranouhi you have to put in because that's a trouvaille,

Bedros (01:25:03):

that's a finding that he's made,

Bedros (01:25:05):

that capturing that woman,

Bedros (01:25:07):

that face, if you look at that face once,

Bedros (01:25:10):

Your life changes.

Bedros (01:25:12):

So much so that Diana had to use it, even though the woman was dead.

Bedros (01:25:15):

She used Erhan's footage in her movie.

Erhan (01:25:20):

OK. Thank you.

Erhan (01:25:21):

Thank you.

Bedros (01:25:26):

Thank you, Erhan, for a heartfelt conversation.

Bedros (01:25:29):

And thank you, Asbed,

Bedros (01:25:30):

for doing the mighty sound editing work next,

Bedros (01:25:33):

which will make a nice bouquet out of this torrent of words,

Bedros (01:25:37):

mental images,

Bedros (01:25:38):

and storming ideas I'm often fond of creating.

Bedros (01:25:41):

And thank you all in the audience for contributing your time to listen.

Bedros (01:25:45):

Don't forget to donate to Groong.

Bedros (01:25:48):

They need your help to move onward and upward.

Bedros (01:25:51):

Mi tzakh, mi atch, harach, harach.

Head Shot

Asbed Bedrossian

Co-host
Head Shot

Hovik Manucharyan

Co-host
Head Shot

Bedros Afeyan

Guest
Head Shot

Erhan Arik

Guest

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