The Ani quarries - LA times report

[bellthecat]

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.

[edward demian]

"SIGNIFICANT DIDDERENT QUARRYING METHODS"

Finally. With modern dimentional stone quarrying methods, no explosives are used all all.