Armenia, Travels and Studies (Volume 1 of 2) / The Russian Provinces

by H. F. B. Lynch

Our experiences at Akhaltsykh had warned me to proceed with caution in endeavouring to realise the topography of the site. It was not often or in public that I could have recourse to my compass; yet I contrived to collect sufficient particulars of an innocent nature to supply my own wants and those of my lay readers. Conceive in the first place a fordable river flowing on a southerly course through a plain of vast extent and slightly basin-like surface. On the left or eastern bank beyond a strip of quite level ground rises a ridge of insignificant elevation, roughly parallel to the stream. Of no great breadth upon the summit, it tends to circle inwards on the north of the town, which it screens from the river. South of the site it dies away into the plain. The north-west angle of this ridge is occupied by the citadel, and consists of a spacious table surface, with plenty of room for barracks and magazines. The entire formation is strongly fortified with earthworks and with massive structures in brick or stone. Such is the principal or, at least, the most conspicuous feature in the defences of Alexandropol. But it is by no means the only advantage which they derive from Nature.

Just inside and, therefore, east of this longitudinal ridge a second back of nearly equal height and of similar direction rises beyond a ravine which is threaded by a brook, and which widens as it extends from the citadel towards the south. It forms the standpoint from which I took my photograph of the town (Fig. [24]), extending eastwards at its skirts. The tombs seen in the foreground belong to a straggling Armenian cemetery. From this position on the inner ridge I estimated the distance across the ravine at about five hundred yards, and our distance from the river at about three-quarters of a mile. As the valley narrows towards the citadel, it is filled with the trees of a little park, whither the citizens repair to escape the dazzling light of summer and to enjoy the contrast of deep shade and murmuring waters. It forms a welcome patch of verdure in the treeless expanse. On this same ridge, but further south, are seen the graves of officers and men who fell in the last Russo-Turkish war. They are grouped about a monument to Loris Melikoff; but I believe that great general of Armenian origin is buried at Tiflis.

In the manner I have tried to describe, Alexandropol is screened on the west at first by the river, and then by two long ridges, with a valley between which may be compared to a gigantic moat. I am not aware that the inner crest is strengthened by fortifications; but it offers an admirable second line of defence. The curious feature about the site is that the ridging formation is not yet exhausted; three minor and roughly parallel elevations are covered with the houses of the town. They cause the streets to go up and down, and make them none too pleasant walking. As a fortress, I should be inclined to conclude that the place is weak upon the east and south; while the nature of the ground beyond the river, rising as it does from the right bank to a height almost equal to that of the outer ridge, exposes it to a bombardment from that side.

It must not be supposed that these characteristics of the topography are prominent in the landscape. They are lost in the folds of the plain and overpowered by the scale of their surroundings. Look where you will, you have around you the floor of a sea-like expanse, bounded at immense intervals by mountainous coasts. In the east it is the indented outline of the range on the side of Georgia, curving round from a south-easterly into a due meridional direction as it approaches the point of intersection with Alagöz. From that point the great volcano composes a side of the frame, inclining a little south of an east-west line. It forms a magnificent object as seen from Alexandropol, high in the sky, yet with scarcely perceptible gradient in the profile on either side of the core of precipitous peaks. You follow its train declining into the vague spaces of the west, where the bulging convexities become broken into hummock forms. The greatest breadth of the plain, as it appears to the eye, would be measured from the wall of the range which intersects with Alagöz to a distant mass of mountain in the south-west. That vague boundary probably belongs to one of the elevations on the plateau which extends between Kars and the Araxes. Between it and the skirts of the volcano there is a broad depression in the outlines, giving passage to the Arpa Chai. The misty prospects on the west and north-west did not reveal during the course of our stay the limits of the level surface in those directions.

Let us see now what these latter-day Armenians have made of their city; for the public and private edifices are creations of their own. It is evident that they have inherited the love of building which distinguished their forefathers, and that the craft of that excellent masonry which we admire in their ancient monuments has not become extinct. On the other hand, they share to the full in the tastelessness of the modern peoples in the decorative arts. Their churches are at once pretentious and commonplace both in design and in ornamentation. Of those exquisite mouldings with their lace-work chisellings which adorn the exteriors of their mediæval counterparts there is, indeed, scarcely a trace on these ambitious structures. But even the standard of the seventeenth century, of which many a specimen has been preserved elsewhere, notably in the porches of much older churches, has not been maintained into our times. Size and a certain effect, rather than elegance of proportion and a loving care for detail, are the characteristics of the new style. The cathedral, dedicated to the Trinity, is a spacious building, which is held up to your admiration, as blending the features of the old models. It is difficult to understand how such an assertion and such a comparison can be forthcoming from people who have at their doors in the neighbouring cloister of Marmashen an example of the art of their ancestors. I need only say of the cathedral that it is built of black volcanic stone, relieved by courses of the same material but with a ruddy hue. I was informed that it was commenced in 1859 and completed in 1874.

Fig. 25. Byzantine Picture in Greek Church.

Besides this temple the Gregorian Armenians have three churches, of which the most considerable is a large structure in grey stone, named after the Virgin Mary. The Armenian Catholics are possessed of a single but roomy church. The Greek chapel of St. George is of some interest because of its connection with the Greek colony of Erzerum, who, like so many of the ancestors of the Armenian inhabitants of Alexandropol, followed the armies of Marshal Paskevich upon his evacuation of Turkish territory. It contains a picture of St. George and the dragon (Fig. [25]) which is of considerable merit, and is said to contain the date of 1327. But those figures, as they now appear, are due to a recent restoration. The father of a M. Mergoroff, whom I met during my stay, was principally concerned in its transportation at the time of the exodus. I understand that it was brought to Gümri, whence it migrated to a village called Zalga, only returning after the lapse of seven years. M. Mergoroff writes a curious hand, partly composed of Greek letters and partly based upon the Russian alphabet. This characteristic may correspond to the present culture of his countrymen at Alexandropol, numbering some four hundred souls.

This flourishing town is badly supplied in respect of education, the Armenian schools being restricted by Government to a purely elementary course, and having the rank only of schools of two classes.[5] They are three in number and are attended by 700 boys, besides two institutions which dispense instruction to 500 girls. The Russian State school is said to be limited in accommodation, and is attended by no more than 140 youths, principally Armenians. The inhabitants have been agitating for a Russian gymnasium or High School, such as has been vouchsafed to their less numerous compatriots at Erivan. They attribute their ill-success and the greater advantages enjoyed by Akhaltsykh to the fact that the latter town belongs to the Government of Tiflis while they are dependent upon Erivan. At Alexandropol I heard little of the much-vexed school question, which I shall treat in a subsequent chapter. But the inhabitants were loud in their complaints that, while forbidden to raise the standard of their own schools, they were not provided with adequate education by Government. Such a situation is typical of the application of Russian methods, and would be humorous if its results were less grave.

I must have spent much of my time in attending the various ceremonies attendant upon the wedding of a M. Ter Mikelean. I think I may have come near to getting married myself, the lady being none other than his intended bride. For on one occasion, when we were all assembled in a lower apartment, and, the bride’s father being dead, her nearest male relation was conducting her sale by formal auction, my own bid seemed for some time to hold its own against all rivals, amounting, so far as I remember, to twenty pounds. I was relieved at discovering that there was a want of reality about the proceedings, and that it had been arranged beforehand that the damsel should be knocked down to the chosen bridegroom. When we were taken upstairs, and, among a throng of women, were permitted to gaze upon the girl’s features, my apprehensions were almost converted into regret. Such a sweetly pretty face, recalling the favourites of Andrea del Sarto, with their fresh simplicity and candid eyes! I was in part rewarded by her consenting to form the centre of a wedding group, and thus to enable me to perpetuate her youthful beauty (Fig. [26]). The lady with the head-dress, standing behind her, is her amiable mother, a type of Giovanni Bellini; while the gentleman with his back to the wall is M. Vahan Barsamiantz, engaged in an export business of the fruits of the castor-oil plant, which is cultivated in the valley of the Araxes. The musicians in the foreground were the most lively and strenuous performers I have ever met, being rarely silent and never tired. Every member of the group was an Armenian. When night came there were dances in the open air to the light of streaming torches. The strains were not yet hushed as we regained our encampment, which we had placed in a shabby garden of the suburbs.