Lost on the Way to Armenia

Early June. Elazig. Kristen's grandmother was born in Harput, just up the road from Elazig. At age 5, perhaps 4, her parents were killed as part of the Armenian Genocide. As an orphan she, with many other orphans, walked across the Syrian Desert and eventually onto a ship to the United States. But I'll let her tell that story. It's very emotional. The town of Elazig lies in the southeastern part of Turkey. There is irrigated land all around, growing fruit: grapes, apricot, white mulberries, plums, peaches, and more. The province of Elazig is also home to many mines, including copper, cobalt, manganese, marble, feldspar, lead, tin, and a bit of silver, and even less of gold. In an earlier post I commented how similar were all the cities that we stayed in were. We've broken that pattern, if only slightly. In the cities in western Turkey, every block had several shops selling Doner (like a Greek gyro sandwich), Kebap (shish kebab), and Lamacun (lamajun, sometimes call...

June 1 I wasn't ready emotionally to feel what I did in this part of the trip and that's where this story gets interesting. Grandma was born in Turkey just prior to the Armenians being extirpated from the country. My dad's side of the family was said to be of Armenian descent so, naturally, I believed that all my relatives were obviously from Armenia. I could not have been MORE wrong. My grandparents and my great grandparents from my dad's side of the family were all from south-central Turkey and lived in and around the towns of Harput and the cities of Elazig and Malatya. It was quite the surprise to me to wander down the family ancestry tree and learn that they were from cities in Turkey and not from anywhere near modern day Armenia. Of course I needed to visit the towns they were from and that's where we headed to next on our tour of the country. About to board a bus for a 12 hour overnight trip to the birthplace of my grandma The 12 hour overnight bus ...