Restitution of Armenian property remains unresolved

 Susanne Güsten

The Armenian monastery of Varagavank stands teetering on the brink of collapse in the mountains above Lake Van, in eastern Anatolia. Built a thousand years ago, and once the seat of an archbishop, it was forsaken in 1915. The monastery's buildings have more recently been used as stables, as a Kurdish villager named Mehmet Coban explained. “The manure was piled this high,” he said, marking the spot with his hand. His clan found the church like this when they settled in the former Armenian village in the 1950s, he recalled. Having shoveled out the dung, Coban now shows visitors around the church and dreams of making the village rich by turning it into a tourist destination. When he enlisted authorities to support the project a couple of years ago, it emerged that a prominent Turkish media executive in Istanbul held the deed to the monastery. His grandfather had amassed vast landholdings around Van after World War I.

Armenian Genocide: 100 Years Later, Turkey Replaces Armenian Memories With 'Restored', Whitewashed Sites

Erin Banco

 

YEMIŞLIK, Turkey -- The mosque in the center of this village in eastern Turkey looks new compared to the buildings around it. Sporting a fresh coat of green paint, it overlooks a group of crumbling houses, most of them abandoned, made of stones, sticks and steel sheets. There is virtually no trace of the once-famous village that Armenians view as one of the holiest places on earth.

A Time to Act: What will become of Varak Monastery after the recent earthquake in Van?

Ara Sarafian 

Varak Monastery, near Van, was one of the great monastic centres of the Armenian church. Its main structure was built at the end of the 10th century. Much of the monastery was destroyed in 1915, a significant part was destroyed in the 1960s, while good sections have just barely survived until our days. In recent years, busloads of tourists have visited Varak as a place of historic interest. Many have been Armenian, but also Germans, Japanese, Italians and Americans.