neko

It happens in April, doesn't it?

You should try more internet cafes (and appreciate your luck in having discovered one of the few cafes that doesn't use the censoring software ).

Actually it is the opposite. It is odd and out of place as a church, because its design was never replicated for another church - but it wouldn't look out of place as a mosque since the typical Ottoman mosque design was a copy of it, and the "Ottoman mosque" form is the one invariably used for all the thousands of new mosques in Turkey.

And you will never hear of it again. There is no such monastery. Wonder what happened to the Turkish plan to build a restaurant and viewing platform on top of Ararat? Never quite knew if it was an April Fools Day joke or a serious proposal.

Crawled out from under your Iranian rock again? Crawl back, please.

But almost nobody here is from the region. For that reason, they can talk all the bullshit they like.

I'm beginning to think that Samvel Karapetian has become just another silly little nationalist fanatic. If that is the case, it is not surprising that protest against events such as the destruction of Julfa's graveyard have been so spectacularly unsuccessful.

Maybe it's not surprising that women seem, on the surface, often superficial and very short-term in their emotions, but very intense with them on a day to day level. Hint. Think biology, think 28 days. At the begining you have the possibility of something life-changing happening to you. You can put your whole heart and soul into that possibility. But if nothing happens - at the end it's just discarded, thrown away, and it doesn't really matter becasue you are all ready to start a new cycle of possibilities. You have done the same thing with love.

Really? Why do you think that any country (far less all the countries) would do that? So many Armenians (typified by the Helektor-type) seem to hold nothing but contempt and scorn for other nations and for anyone who is not Armenian (until they are needed for something). Don't you think that the World has wised up to that fact by now?

So many lies in so short a paragraph! RFE/RL should stop using the Turkish Daily News as a source! More like 300 visitors in 5 days (most them locals). On Sunday 1st April it had exactly 7 foreign visitors and a couple of dozen locals. And it's 4 lira to enter the church (which equates to one lira for each minute you are allowed inside).

Yes.

When did I mention the word "government"?

Perhaps the Armenian entourage realised just what such 'restorations' would entail. Well, at least one member of their delegation expressed this view to me: "a Turkish restoration is mostly just a demolition of the existing monument and then a complete rebuilding". Karapetyan is on record as saying he thinks the Aghtamar restortation is of high quality - which would seem to reveal either how little he knows about modern restoration techniques or how much he desires to have access to a similar budget.

Wrong. At the time Turkey had no obligations to Armenia or to any other country to keep the border open. However it does have an obligation to open the border soon if it is serious about proceeding with the stages towards EU membership.

Maybe in Istanbul they can get away with it - but in Van it is censored - tried in 4 different cafe's there, (on different days).

Have any of you tried? No.

No one is the boss of me - which is probably why my pay is so low.

At least one person should tell it like it really is. Someone who saw the church before, saw it during, and saw it after. I suppose I'll have to. Who else will, if I don't?

Hardly. At least two of them have been smashed since last year. They were uncovered last year when the monastery buildings were cleared of rubble - they were originally complete and are now in fragments.

I don't know what it means - but it sounds good enough to be used again whenever Error 404 says something silly.

A cliche coined by someone who had never been seriously wounded, I think.

HyeForum is also now banned in Turkey. (Wasn't last year.) It is on the list of forbidden sites used by the censoring software that most Internet Cafe owners use. (I think they have to use such software under Turkish law, but someone more knowledgeable might be able to confirm it).

You can say it as many times as you like - but it won't change the fact that there is still no DNA test for "an Armenian"! Why - because there is no way to define a population group as genetically varied as Armenians that narrowly.

They are the exact opposite, I think! The lily is the symbol of the Virgin Mary.

Artagers = Kaput Berd / Kaputkale / Blue Castle. There is an essay on the place somewhere on this forum (search isn't working just now so I can't post the exact reference).