Gyumri: ghost city of my soul @gyumriboy - Tumblr Blog

ghostsista-deactivated20161108

Today marks the 27th anniversary of the earthquake that destroyed my city, Gyumri, Armenia. On Wednesday, December 7, 1988 at 11:41 local time, a 6.8 magnitude quake struck the northwestern part of the country. In the span of 4 seconds somewhere between 25,000-50,000 people were killed and at least 130,000 injured. The cities of Spitak, Vanadzor and Gyumri (at the time known as Leninakan) were hardest hit, with Gyumri reduced to rubble. Though I had no way of knowing it at the time, as a result of that earthquake I was sent to Gyumri as a Peace Corps volunteer. Everything that happened to me — for good and bad — are a direct result of those 4 seconds. The Armenian word for earthquake is yerkrasharzh (երկրաշարժ), a lose translation being, “it trembles, it crumbles, it falls down.” That is the best description in a single word of the horror, pain and loss that occurred, but also all the love the compassion, the coming together when the world seemed the darkest. The people of Gyumri, despite everything that happened, are some of the bravest, kindest and open souls I’ve ever had the honor of living with. I am not Armenian but Gyumri will always be my home, the ghost city that haunts my dreams, a memory I will never be able to return to but always carry with me.

#gyumri #armenia #Spitak earthquake #December 7 #reblog

k’uyry guynerov: sister in colors

#k’uyry guynerov #art #sister in colors #armenian traditional dress #քույրը գույներով

քույր -- k’uyr -- sister

#քույր #sister #k'uyr #art #blurry art is blurry #my blood

rmean

The #OpenWounds1915 movement is definitely in #Documentary2 mode. Disc 1 vs. Disc 2 www.Shop1915.com #TheGame #howdoyoudocumentary2 @losangelesconfidential

gyumriboy

damn

#rmean #openwounds1915 #reblog

քույրերը եւ արագությունը: “sister and speed”

#քույրերը եւ արագությունը #girls on bikes #sisters and speed #art

... from OneArmenia, Conan O'Brien has been filming a segment of his show in Armenia, shat lav! Here, he is standing with his assistant, Sona Movsesian, in front of the temple of Garni.

#Conan O'Brien #OneArmenia #shat lav = very good #Garni #Armenia #Sona Movsesian

ghostsista-deactivated20161108

the children of arba lijoch

— for Kwame Dawes

Crown Prince Ras Tafari brought the children of Arba Lijoch out of the desert —

Orphans who became Ethiopian, who sang of the Metz Yeghern, the Great Hurt;

composed, “Marsh Teferi,” the first music Marcus Garvey heard while in audience.

I, too, have heard of, “Natural mystic blowing/ through the air,” Ararat’s fragrance

in each word. I’m told, Babylon crashing. Where in Kingston is the orchestral sound

of Addis Ababa? — I listen — I listen, but the dance halls tell me nothing.

The ghosts of Van hang low in the background. Who will sing their song? Tell their prophesy?

Notes: Arba Lijoch were a group of forty Armenian orphans who had escaped from the 1915 atrocities in Turkey, and were afterwards adopted by Haile Selassie I of Ethiopia. He had met them while visiting the Armenian monastery in Jerusalem; they impressed him so much that he obtained permission from the head of the Armenian church, the Catholicos, to adopt and bring them to Ethiopia, where he then arranged for them to receive musical instruction. The Arba Lijoch arrived in the capital city, Addis Ababa, in 1924, and along with their conductor, Kevork Nalbandian, became the first official orchestra of the nation. Nalbandian also composed the music for Marsh Teferi (words by Yoftehé Negusé), which was the Imperial National Anthem from 1930 to 1974. Metz Yeghern is the Armenian word for their Great Calamity, their genocide.

gyumriboy

#sonnet #reblog #Metz Yeghern #rasta #Haile Selassie I #armenian genocide #arba lijoch

arulam

#armenian genocide #reblog

aboutarmenia

Հին Գյումրի / Old Gyumri

#home #Gyumri #Armenia

thisiscaucasian-blog

Memorial for the Assyrian Genocide in Yerevan, Armenia

#armenian genocide #reblog

tomarza-blog

[Assyrians and Armenians] were targeted for eradication and ethnic cleansing for some of the same reasons—suspected disloyalty and collaboration with the enemy. Even the weakest sign of self-defense was met with disproportionate violence. Both groups were pushed out of their home territories at the same time in 1914 and 1915. They were subjected to indiscriminate mass violence orchestrated by high Ottoman officials, backed up by neighboring tribesmen. In Iranian Azerbaijan, years of pro-Turkish and pro-Russian propaganda had played on latent religious animosity causing interfaith relations to degenerate into a climate of fear and hostility. Given the lack of protection granted them by the government in Istanbul, the Armenians and Assyrians sided, almost by default, with the Russians. Whether the pull of Russian support or the push of Ottoman suspicion was the greater factor is impossible to discern. At the same time Muslims were attracted to the Ottoman cause and some Muslim Persian subjects welcome occupation and probable annexation. The expulsion of the Assyrians from Hakkari took the form of genocide under the guise of counterinsurgency. Mass killing of women, children, and noncombatants proceeded, while the army and volunteers destroyed rural villages. It was not a “deportation” but rather a forced expulsion against an unwilling population. The Ottoman army was not content with merely defeating the Assyrian warriors. The order from central government was to drive them out and make sure that they would never return.

David Gaunt, “The Ottoman Treatment of the Assyrians” (A Question of Genocide: Armenians and Turks at the End of the Ottoman Empire, edited by Ronald Grigor Suny, Fatma Müge Göçek and Norman M. Naimark) (via tomarza)

#armenian genocide

ghostsista-deactivated20161108

Սարերում արշավելիս խաչքարի վրա հյուսված սարդի բույն տեսա:

Ես նախանձում եմ ձեր թագավորությանը, Փոքրիկ թագուհի:

][

Sarerum arshavelis khach’k’ari vra hyusvats sardi buyn tesa:

Yes nakhandzum yem dzer t’agavorut’yany, P’vok’rik t’aguhi:

][

Hiking through the mountains I found a woven spider’s web on a khachkar.

I envy your kingdom, Little Queen.

][

Note: The Armenian sculpture known as Khachkar (“cross-stone”) dates back to the Medieval-era and serves a variety of purposes, from grave markers and memorials of military victories, to marking the construction of a new church, or even as a form of protection from natural disasters. There was one I was very fond of that I discovered one day while out hiking in the mountains near the city of Gyumri. It seemed to be as old as the mountains themselves and filled with, as C.S. Lewis once put it, Deep Magic.

#Armenian translation #khachkar #art #poem #reblog