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The Ani quarries - LA times report


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#1 bellthecat

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Posted 01 September 2001 - 12:57 PM

LA Times
Aug 30 2001

As a Rare Cathedral Crumbles, Two Rival Nations Point Fingers

Turks blame Armenian quarry blasts for damaging church in Ani. The dispute is but one legacy of countries' bloody, bitter
history.


By AMBERIN ZAMAN, SPECIAL TO THE TIMES


ANI, Turkey -- Towering above a bleak, wind-swept plateau near
Turkey's border with Armenia, the red stone cathedral of Ani has
defied wars, earthquakes and time.

But today, one of the holiest sites of Armenian Christian Orthodoxy
is facing what an archeologist here calls the biggest threat of its
millennium-old existence: dynamite blasts from four stone quarries
less than a quarter of a mile away in Armenian territory.

The stone, ironically, is being mined to build a Christian Orthodox
cathedral in Yerevan, the Armenian capital, that will look similar to
the one in Ani. Turkish officials say the deafening explosions have
shaken the area for two years despite their pleas to Armenia for the
quarrying to stop. The United States, France and the United Nations
have backed Turkey's appeal.

"Not only the cathedral but most of the monuments here will soon
collapse," said Beyhan Karamaragli, a Turkish archeologist who has
been leading excavations here since 1988. "This is cultural
genocide."

Genocide is a particularly loaded word here. Armenians often use it
to describe how they say the Ottoman Turks killed 1.5 million
Armenians during World War I. Turkish officials today acknowledge
that as many as 600,000 Armenians died but portray them as victims of
civil disorders, exposure and starvation as they fled southward to
escape the conflict.

The dispute over those deaths still stands in the way of diplomatic
and trade relations between Armenia and Turkey, as does Armenia's
continued occupation of territory claimed by Turkey's closest
regional ally, Azerbaijan.

Gagik Gurjan, head of the cultural heritage department of the
Armenian Culture Ministry, said geologists at the quarries had been
consulted and that they had reported that the quarrying of stone
there could not be damaging the cathedral in Ani.

"I think some people in Turkey are using this situation for political
ends," he said. "If the Turks hadn't destroyed these monuments
themselves over the centuries, they would have nothing to complain
about now."

"What's more," he added, "there is a gorge between them, and the
shock waves from the explosions could not reach or in any way affect
any building or monument in Ani."

Trying to break the ice, retired diplomats and academics from Turkey
and Armenia have set up a commission to promote cooperation in
educational and cultural projects. At their first meeting last month,
in Geneva, they reportedly discussed a joint effort to preserve the
ruins of this walled medieval town.

Until the early decades of the 20th century, at least 2 million
Armenians are believed to have lived in Turkey, mostly in the east.
Today, about 60,000 Armenians remain in Turkey; most of them live in
Istanbul.

Nowhere are traces of the Anatolia region's Armenian heritage more
visible than in Ani, 27 miles northeast of the Turkish town of Kars.

Ani rises above the emerald green waters of the Arpa River, which
separates Turkey from Armenia. Stubby pillars that once supported a
14th century stone bridge between the two countries remain as a
symbol of the neighbors' stormy ties.

Armenians and Turks tell different versions of Ani's history.

Turkish historians insist that Ani holds greater significance for
Turkey because it was one of the first Anatolian cities to be
conquered by the Seljuk Turks when they swept in from Central Asia in
the early 11th century. Armenian rule, they say, did not last more
than 50 to 70 years before defeat by the Seljuks.

According to Armenian accounts, Ani was ruled for much of its history
by a succession of Armenian kings, and it was their capital for at
least two centuries. In the 10th century, Ani was glorified by the
Armenians as "the city of a thousand and one churches," with the
cathedral as its centerpiece.

"If so, why are they [Armenians] willfully destroying it now?" asked
Karamaragli, pointing to a 30-foot-long crack in the southwest corner
of the cathedral, which she says widens with the tremors from the
quarries.

The septuagenarian archeologist says she has records of every blast
and every crack and hole resulting from each explosion. The nearby
Menucehr, the oldest Seljuk mosque in the region, has suffered some
of the worst damage.

In this earthquake-weary country, residents of the neighboring
village of Ocakli often mistake the tremors for quakes. "Our children
are terrorized. Our cows have stopped producing milk," said Muhammad
Sevcan, a local farmer.

In an embarrassment for the Armenian government, an ear-splitting
explosion rocked the site in mid-June just as a group of Armenian
Americans had gathered to pray at the cathedral. They were part of a
150-member group of Armenian Americans on a pilgrimage through Turkey
to retrace the steps of St. Gregory.

"They were terrified--they thought it was a bomb," recalled Mehmet
Kinacioglu, a Turkish tourist who was present.

Pilgrims reportedly sent letters of complaint to the Armenian
government. So did the Istanbul-based Armenian patriarch, Mesrob II.
No explosions have been heard here since mid-July.

Turkish officials, though, say they doubt that the respite will last
long. They point to a May 5 report from Russia's Interfax news agency
quoting an Armenian Foreign Ministry spokesman as saying the
quarrying would stop by the end of that month. "In June, the
explosions were continuing," said a senior Turkish diplomat, "so who
is to say they will not resume again?" Gurjan, the Armenian official,
said the blasts have stopped. But it wasn't because of complaints
from Turkey, he said, but because workers are now using different
quarrying methods.

*

Staff writer Robyn Dixon in The Times' Moscow Bureau contributed to
this report.

#2 edward demian

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Posted 01 September 2001 - 04:11 PM

"SIGNIFICANT DIDDERENT QUARRYING METHODS"
Finally. With modern dimentional stone quarrying methods, no explosives are used all all.




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