bell-the-cat

In English, "ian" is not pronounced the same as "yan". So you can use one or the other, but not both. I wonder if it is political and a recent thing to use "yan". Maybe people under Russian influence prefer to use "yan"???? The painter Arshak Fetvadjian spelt his name with an "ian" - and signed his paintings with an "ian" - but in recent literature from Armenia his name is now changed to "Fetvajyan". www.virtualani.freeserve.co.uk/fetvadjian/

But. Look at the foundations to those columns. They are very weak and insubstantial. Something like that could not have survived for a long period of time. Also, if the foundations were from the apse of an older zvartnots-plan church then they would have to be much more substantial. And the columns are very diminutive in size when you see them in reality - they are completely different from the character of those at Bana, or at Zvartnots, or at Gagik's church in Ani. I will scan and post some of my photographs of the altar apse colunms at Ishkhan.

Hi (And sorry for it being in English) I've visited Ishkhan, and those 8 columns in the apse are certainly not from the VII century. Personally, I do not think anything in the current church preserves anything from an earlier building. Steve

There are accepted international standards for the conservation of historic buildings - though I do realise that those "standards" do change over time. There is a UN treaty on it, from 1964, which Soviet Russia, and probably now Armenia, signed up to. It is called the "International Charter for the Conservation and Restoration of Monuments and Sites" or the "Venice Charter" and it is administered by ICOMOS, the International Council of Monuments and Sites. Article 9 specifically disaproves of restoration involving conjectural and unnecesary rebuilding. Also, the history of the building must always be respected - this means that restoration which destroys all the natural signs of age in a building is forbidden. The destruction seen in Georgia is also, of course, specifically forbidden, under article 11, which states that the contributions from all periods of a buildings history must be respected.

It was cut through the historical fortified wall that surrounds the whole site. There are pictures on the net somewhere, but I don't know where. I think that the restoration was paid for by private funds and the monument was, as usual, "given" to the Armenian Church after completion.

Yes, after restoration it was "completely another church". But are you sure of the rest. If the church was being "restored" in 1986 then this was before the war. And the restoration does not seem much harsher than the restoration of other Armenian churches done in the 1990s and in the present decade. Incidently, there are some textual diferences between the printed version and the web version. In the printed version, for this church, the word restoration is written in inverted commas like this: "restoration". If it were an entirely Azeri-sponsored "restoration" then I think that the criticism in the book would be much harsher than just using some inverted commas!

They are from the article that I quoted - written by head of Department of Preservation and Study of Monuments of the Nagorno Karabakh Republic. I do know about this - that Artsakhworld website you quoted - I have a book version of it, in which many examples of the Azeri destructions are illustrated. But it is a different issue. And it is an historical problem, one that we all hope will never return to Artsakh. It is the activities of those "restorers" that is now the greatest threat to the architecture of Artsakh!!

Nemesis, your views on the preservation of historic architecture are so outdated that it is hard to know where to begin! It is not even possible for me to dismiss those views by assuming that they are just a result of backward thinking from Soviet times because, actually, Soviet Armenia was, on the whole, very good at properly preserving its architectural treasures. You, and others, casually throw about words like "restore" without having any concept of what they mean. ALL RESTORATION IS IN PRINCIPLE WRONG. A building should be preserved by the consolidation of the existing structure only. Nothing new should be added unless it is absolutely necessary for the preservation of that original structure. IT SHOULD NOT BE RESTORED. Restoration = destruction! Please, get out of the 19th century and start living in the 21st century. Try to understand modern practices of architectural conservation. Steve

Thank you for the links. But, none of them actually show the "restoration". photographs that I have seen of the destructive "restoration" reveal that, to allow access for cars, a new entrance of about 5 metres wide was hacked through the monastery wall (presumably because the priests and their paymasters were too lazy to actually walk to the church entrance), and that large sections of the masonry of the church were badly rebuilt using a stone that was a completely different colour from the original masonry.

I am sorry - I cannot locate it. It was an article in an online magazine about the preservation of Georgian architecture. Maybe someone else knows the site.

Having 200 churches damaged in Artsakh IS damage on a massive scale!! And how can you complain about destruction in regions where it can be expected to occur, while entirely washing your hands of the problem when it also occurs in regions under Armenian control and where one would expect that the buildings should be safe.

And the Greek Church is just as bad when given the chance! There was an article in a Georgian website a while ago about how Greek priests in Jerusalem had destroyed medieval Georgian inscriptions that were on the courtyard wall of one of their churches. I will try to locate the url.

And thank you for understanding what I was trying to say! 1000 years ago they were capable of building beautiful churches, however, now neither the Georgian Church or the Armenian Church have shown themselves capable of undertaking the preservation of those same ancient monuments under their control. Both churches are extremely avaricious and grasping, and display severe inferiority and persecution complexes. This, in Georgia, is probably the core reason for all this elimination of anything non-Georgian (such as Armenian inscriptions within a building) that the Georgian Church sees as threatening its "God-given" historical position. In Armenia it reveals itself in the total lack of care shown towards ancient monuments by the Armenian Church. The only thing the Armenian Church cares about in an historic ruined church is whether it can be rebuild in order for them to stick one of their priests in it. Steve

Alas, partly due to the influence over the Armenian press by both Church and State and powerful individuals, little has been written on the destruction. The cover-up of the disgraceful stone-quarrying operations opposite Ani are a prime example of this. The pathetic "Disneyfication" of the Zvartnots site is the most easily seen example of the destruction within Armenia. However, most of the destruction seems to have been committed in Artsak. The dreadful over-restoration of the famous church of Tzitzernavank (Dsidernavank) is the most prominant example there. Other examples include the virtual destruction by "restoration" of the 6th century church of Vankasar. In an article in Azg, dated 6th Nov 2004, Slava Sargsian, head of Department of Preservation and Study of Monuments of the Nagorno Karabakh Republic, says that "the state of the monuments of Artsakh is far from being satisfactory". The article further says that "around 200 monuments were repaired since 1988. Most of them were repaired by the Artsakh diocese of the Armenian church. Sargsian complains of the quality of repair. He thinks that the monuments should not be repaired, partially because of money shortage and the absence of specialists. Often repair changes a monument's looks, alienating it from its historic roots or even making it into an ultramodern building".

This is an interesting topic. Thank you for starting it, Kartvel. I can understand most of it by using translation software. But it is sad that the subject seems to have changed from "common features and differences in Georgian and Armenian architecture" to "differences between Georgians and Armenians". About the destructive alteration or "Georgification" of Armenian churches in Georgia: does anyone know exactly WHO is responsible for doing it. Is it the Georgian state?. Or is it the Georgian Church that is organising it? If it is their Church, then it is more of a RELIGIOUS problem than a racial or political one. And also if that is the case, is it any different to the many ancient Armenian churches in Armenia that have been almost destroyed, over the last decade, by "restorations" organised by the Armenian Church? Steve

It seems that your understanding of history is every bit as lacking as your aesthetic standards.

The old name for Bayazit was Darunk or Daronk or Darung or Dariunk - there are lots of variations to the spelling.

If you are seriously presenting a silly 19th century tale produced for children and ignorant peasants as equal to the works of Shakespeare, then I don't think much of the standard of your aesthetics!

Thank you. PS: Some 19th century travellers say that it is Diyadin, and not Uch Kilise, that was on the site of the city of Bagavan.

And Bagavan is the old name for Uch Kilise. The church was said to have been one of 4 churches founded by Nerses, grandson of Gregory the Illuminator, and contained relics believed by pilgrims to be the bones of John the Baptist

Bayazet is Dogubayazit. The village was once called Uch Kilise (3 churches) and is now called Tashteker. It is about 55km west of Dogubayazit. As the name suggests, there were once 3 Armenian churches there: one in the valley, one in the village, and one on the slopes of a hill overlooking the valley. By the end of the 19th century only one church remained, plus some ruins of the one on the hillside. It was once a famous pilgrimage place, and the church was very old: 631AD, and extremely important architecturally. Steve

Here is a bit of advice, Murad. Don't try to be ironic using a language you don't fully understand how to use. And maybe you should turn your irony into Turkish and onto Turkey - there they literally think the sun (as in sun theory) shines out of their arses. Steve

Hi. Since I cannot read Russian I have had to read the article using altavista translations. It's certainly interesting. But I'm not clear when this visit took place, and what this 1881 book was, and who it was written by. Can someone help. Here is a photo of the church when it was standing. I was told by the locals that there was nothing left of it, when I visited the village in the early 1990s.

The quarry

Lets try to nip this in the bud before it grow into yet another Armenian myth. There is nothing specifically Armenian about the relief carvings on this church. The reliefs of the animals, such as the one below, are no different from the relief carvings you can find on countless other early Romanesque buildings in Europe. The tree-of-life relief, depicted below, in that specific form is not like anything found in Armenia art. And the tree-of-life motif in general is found throughout the Christian world and beyond. The supposed "flowering base" of the cross below seems to be just a background pattern, and there is no stepped base to the cross like an Armenian khatchkar would have. Some of the other reliefs, like this one below, are similar to carvings seen at places in Armenia like Ani - but there is nothing specifically Armenian about them, and they are probably just copied from textiles imported from the East.