Forgotten Photos I took on Lake Sevan a Year after the Disastrous Spitak Earthquake of 1988, Armenia

 

 

 

A major earthquake shook a town, Spitak, in Northern Armenia on December 7, 1988. The surface-wave magnitude of the quake was 6.8 and a maximum MSK intensity of X or Devastating. About 50,000 people were killed and up to 130,000 were injured. Mikhail Gorbachev formally asked the United States for humanitarian aid, along with 130 other countries. All countries responded within 4 days of the earthquake with much needed assistance by providing rescue equipment, medication, and medical and public health teams.

A year later, in November 1989, I was part of a public health team that visited Armenia to assist the government design an epidemiological prospective tracking of the earthquake survivors’ health status, as well as the health impact of the natural disaster on regions surrounding Spite. That project is still ongoing in 2026.

… As an exclusively film-user photographer I traveled around our green earth in the past 50 years, I have kept miles of 35 and 120mm negatives, mostly well preserved in (often) clearly labeled envelopes. Last week, looking through a box of negatives, I came across an envelope labeled “Spite, 1989.”

I was surprised, since I thought that all my exposed films during that trip were destroyed by the miss-calibrated metal detector at Moscow airport. But, there was one 35mm strip that had obviously survived and, although I do not recall it, I had developed.

So, time for discovery!

I went to my darkroom and printed a few frames that looked good under the loupe. And with the magic of a photo slowly appearing in the developer solution under a red light, suddenly almost 40 years’ old memories came back. Now I recalled exactly when I took these photos!

There were frames of colleagues during our trip to Spitak, and then in the capital Yerevan. But the most interesting ones were from a half-day trip we took to Lake Sevan, the most historic and large Lake of present day Armenia. So I decided to print a few from that trip.

It was a sunny day, and the shores of the lake were covered in the November snow. We walked to the Hayravank church, lit a candle, said a prayer and listened to a local colleague tell us the story of the church.

The two photos I printed are of the church from a distance, and of the steps leading to that church.

 

The Hayravank church: Built between the 9^th and 12^th centuries, Hayravank is a dark basalt construction that sits on a high cliff overlooking Lake Sevan. It is more humble than the main church on Lake Sevan, the Sevanavank, which is easier to access.

The day of our visit there were magnificent clouds for a B&W photo. I recall trying to capture the church on the high cliff and the snowy path.

Unfortunately my 1953 Soviet Kiev camera did not do well with the shade that covered the historic stone carved “cross stones” along the way.

These cross stones, called khachkar are carved memorial steles are to show a cross and additional motifs, such as interlaces. Their origin goes back to the 9^th century when Armenia was liberated from Arab rule.  It is said that there are about 40,000 khachkars in today’s Armenia, many preserved in Yerevan museums and many are still standing in ancient cemeteries.

Since the carving of the two khachkars on the path to Hayravank did not show well in my photo, here is one from Noratus cemetery where more than 1000 khachkars exist.  (https://armgeo.am )

 

 

… Almost 40 years later, an old B&W film negative strip came to refresh my memory of difficult times in Armenia following the 1988 Spitak earthquake. But, the people’s resolve of that ancient country stood unshaken and Armenia is today a regional leader in mining copper and molybdenum, as well as software development and information technology.

And I have heard many a master of ceremonies at social gatherings who have raised their glass and, tongue-and-cheek, recited Winston Churchill’s secret for a long life:

                                    “Cuban cigars, Armenian brandy and no sport.”

Things have changed, since.

 

February 19, 2026

© Vahé A. Kazandjian, 2026

 

PS/ I dedicate this posting to the memory of Dr. Harout Armenian who passed in 2025. A physician, epidemiologist, painter, author and academician, Harout was the second president of the American University of Armenia. He designed and directed the epidemiological survey of the 1988 Spitak survivors ‘and populations in the regions.

He was a mentor for two generations of public health professionals around the globe, and a very dear personal friend.

A Journey of Sharing

 

 

What stays in us

Is what we have given away

Sitting atop a stony wall

Or in a graveyard where weed

Had grown

Upon dried

Red

Roses

 

What stays within us

Is the first frisson

The last touch

And the promise

We never

Made

 

Yet we kept

 

February 16, 2026

© Vahé A. Kazandjian, 2026

 

 

PS1/ I wrote these lines after a colleague sent me a note about sharing curiosity through the arts.

It reminded of a poem by Alberto Rios, inaugural state poet laureate of Arizona and the first lines of his poem entitled “The Cities Inside Us”:

                                                  We live in secret cities

                                                  And we travel unmapped roads

 

PS2/ I took this photo in the Louvre Museum, Paris.

Dogs Mark Their Passage by Peeing; Humans Choose Their Passage by Leaving Themselves in Others

 

 

It was a cold January morning in the High Desert of Arizona. Just after sunrise I was walking downtown with my dog to start the day. It is a ritual we kept for almost a decade.

At that hour, there usually are a few homeless folks bundled up in blankets looking for the first rays of sunshine. They make coffee, roll cigarettes, and say hello to passing dogs.

“I wished you can leave your dog with us on cold nights,” one of them said while petting Ziggy. “He would keep me warm with his thick coat.”

Half way around the Court House oval, I saw an older man sitting on the bench with a pipe in his mouth, wearing a cowboy hat. He had found his sunny spot and was watching passersby.  I had not seen him before, and Ziggy immediately went to check him out.

And to my surprise, he sat by the man.

“Good morning,” I said, “it is very rare that my dog would sit down by a stranger.”

“Maybe I am not a stranger,” he replied after taking the pipe out of his mouth. “You can sit down too, if you want.”

Since Ziggy had no intent to get on with his walk, I did sit on the bench.

 

… He was in his seventies, I guessed. Smartly dressed and an aura of comfort.

“I am visiting my daughter and it is my first morning in Prescott.”

And he continued “Your dog is a large Akita, yes?”

I nodded.

“They are usually not friendly to strangers, I know. But you two seem comfortable with the moment. That is good.”

 

I have always enjoyed such encounters. In the past decades when I travelled the globe as a health care professional, most such encounters were in airports, between two flights. Others when I was stuck for 10 or 20 hours in the plane seat with an interesting stranger next to me. I often did not remember their names, but never forgot the conversations.

 

“I have been sitting here for a while and watching dogs do their morning walks and business. They do mark every tree, fire hydrant and parked car tires,” he continued without looking at me. “It seems to be both a passage and a rite of passage.”

A rite of passage?

“Yes, just we all do. But our passage is marked by leaving a bit of us in others,” he pondered.

My morning coffee had not yet cleared my mind, and I did not feel like discussing philosophy. But since Ziggy seemed comfortable listening to the man who was visiting his daughter, I asked:

“What if others do not want to receive and keep what we leave in them?”

He put his pipe back in his mouth and looked at me with a smile.

“That, you have no way to anticipate. But our passage makes no sense without trying. It becomes imperceptibly sonorous.”

“Sonorous??”

This time he did not look at me:

“Check the dictionary – it is a beautiful thing.”

 

… Now even Ziggy was getting impatient – he got up, looked at the man, and headed to the first tree on his left.

To leave his mark.

 

February 1, 2026

© Vahé A. Kazandjian, 2026

Words to a Young

 

 

Beauty

Is 

What you love

Without

Knowing

 

Your 

Goal is

To reach

A point in time

Where you were

Expected

To be

 

Then taste it

As if a morning

Chocolate in Bruges 

Before you take

The midnight train

From somewhere 

To go

To somewhere 

New

 

Do not avoid

Do not forget

At that point in time

Expect to become

Who 

You always were

 

For poetry

Does not have to

Rhyme

To make you 

Feel good

In your 

Skin

 

As long as

Your skin

Of travels parched

Enjoys

Wrapping

You

  

January 17, 2026

© Vahé A. Kazandjian, 2026

From Edgar Allan Poe to “The Garden of Forking Paths” (Jorge Luis Borges, 1941)

 

A few days ago, and to my surprise, as I was making tea in the kitchen I remembered a professor of physics I had in college. Since I had not drunk my tea yet, I could not accuse green tea for playing games with my memories.

… My undergraduate studies were in biology and chemistry, but I had always a fascination with physics. Perhaps it was my curiosity, like with biology and chemistry, to know more about worlds that I could not immediately see or touch with my bodily senses. Perhaps I believed that I could learn more how to co-exist with what I could see and touch if I knew more about microcosms and celestial orders.

The immediate consequence of my curiosity was to take physics courses as electives, when everyone else was opting for “easier” social sciences classes to raise their grade average.

The teacher I had for my second course, Advanced Electricity and Magnetism (E&M II) was a notorious renaissance man. Not only he often introduced Schrödinger’s Equation to sessions on Maxwell’s Equations, but found a way to wet our appetites by explaining Quantum Physics’ Wave-Particle duality when talking about electric fields and magnetism.

And his view of the world went beyond science. One day when he was explaining quantum events, he said:

“These exist outside of physics and observation. They exist in our ways of facing new challenges and opting for our path to understanding them. I want you to read the book "The Garden of Forking Paths” by Jorge Luis Borges.”

We were overwhelmed with our courses so most of us did not go to the library to see what book he was talking about. But a classmate and I decided to find the book. Maybe talking about it in class would help us get that better grade?

And we read, wondering about what we were reading. I recall my friend stating “I think he made a joke – this book has nothing to do with what he was teaching in class.”

Still, we decided to catch up with the professor and let him know that we read the book, even if we never really read the entire book.

“I am glad you did” he said. “What jumped at you?”

Well, we told him we did not know what the garden was all about, and my friend read aloud a line he had scribbled in his chemistry lab sheet book

“When the game is chess, what is the only the forbidden word?”

The professor laughed.

“How does the book make you think about quantum physics ?” he asked

We had no idea.

“Well, the book is about multi-dimensional thinking as if giant a chess board of 4, 4 dimensions. And it is about a key concept – that of time. If you had read the book in toto, you should have noticed that Borges never mentions the word “time” – because it is the forbidden word.”

We received average grades for that elective course we had taken.

 

… Decades later, when making tea, I recalled that since forgotten moment. Always out of curiosity, I downloaded a copy of Borges’ book and read it after dinner, as now, I had time to read and see how an entire life experience later, I could perhaps understand the chaotic story Borges’ told in 1941.

It did not take long to feel comfortable with the chaos Borges proposed we have avoided in our daily lives. Indeed, the predictable is perhaps our daily goal to comfort, even serenity. And what can be more comforting than knowing that our watches’ prediction that 4 o’clock always comes after 3 o’clock; that we make choices because we know what the consequences would be; hence our will, free or not, is based on our ability to become who we want to be.

The garden described in this book refutes and rejects all predictability by proposing that time between our actions is never linear, and that it bifurcates, forks into new unknown paths. Into new universes as quantum physics frames it. That 4 o’clock is not assured to come after 3 o’clock but it depends on what happened at 3 o’clock.

As such, the garden is a multi-dimensional chess board, time is the forbidden word, and no player wins the game. Instead, we explore new moves during the game with each move we choose and make.

Yet, I could not dissociate myself from the basic need of every living creature to seek comfort. At least for a short period of “time.” Perhaps between two bifurcations.

To achieve such a state of anti-chaos, I wondered how I personally have experienced that halt and moment of relief. How did I experience that stillness between two bifurcations.

The answer seemed simple: through photography.

Indeed, as a photographer I always stood between the fleeing moment and my decision to frame that moment and make it still. All changed after I pressed on the shutter release; all got affected by that click from a vintage film camera; but all stayed on the film strip inlayed in silver and my joy of preserving stillness. Women I photographed were older after that click; men had already grown longer facial hair; and countries have disappeared.

Of course, another way to keep moments and decisions still, is by forgetting them, hoping that our future decisions would not be affected by past ones, especially if we felt they were the wrong ones. But Borges, through one of the book’s characters, Dr. Stephen Albert, proposes that:

"To eliminate a word is perhaps the best way of drawing attention to it".

If the word is time, then we may not forget about that moment. If the word is forbidden to use, we will remember it even more vividly.

… This concept is challenging but it was not originally created/expressed by Borges. Indeed, it was Edgar Allan Poe who in his book Marginalia (November 1844), wrote:

"If you wish to forget anything on the spot, make a note that this thing is to be remembered." 

And, in a funny way, I wondered if my 60 years’ love of photography was aimed to forget the trajectory of time or to remember when I kept it still!

 

... I assume my professor of physics is not among the living anymore. If he were, I would like to send him a note that reads:

“ I finally read the entire book.”

 

PS/ I took the photo atop this post in Marrakesh, Morocco. I was walking in one of the souks looking to freeze moments on B&W film when I saw this older man looking through the opening of la large paneled wooded gate.

I turned my Minolta Autocord TLR camera side wise, guessed the focusing distance and froze the moment without his knowing I was taking a photo.

Hence, neither I interfered with his demeanor, nor he changed his curious expression because he saw me taking his photo.

Time was frozen, and linear with no bifurcation or a forking path.

                                                                                                                                               

January 12, 2026

© Vahé A. Kazandjian, 2026

Mid-December Thoughts About the Eccentricities of the Present

 

My dog is getting old. No, he is old already.

When he was a puppy, I had to learn about him so I can keep up with his stubbornness. An Akita expects you to understand him. There is no compromise – he knows he can get what he wants given his size, strength and street smart.

And for 6 years, I was the one who searched. And he patiently waited for me to find.

…  It will be Christmas Day soon, and a new year will show up. My dog will be older and I will wonder if I learned enough.

So, this morning very early when he woke me up by vocalising his dreams, I got up, made coffee and sat by the window to count the stars. It seemed like all the stars were brighter at 3am, and the cold desert night had frozen them into their usual places in the high skies.

I do not look back at an ending year and wonder what happened, what I did make happen, nor what has happened to me. I just keep my sails tight and continue upon that river. But I do secretively return to the shore of that personal interior river, we all have. Where upon its banks we recall the mossy rocks we climbed barefoot. Where we have left prints walking, alone or with others. With someone who did not mind walking along.

It is that interior river Heraclitus described best:

“No man ever steps in the same river twice

For that river is not the same river and he’s not the same man”

I learned about that reality early in life. Still, it feels comforting to go back to that river, from time to time, knowing that the river is not the same, and that I have changed. 

As long as the river is not dry.

… My dog is getting old. And after almost a decade of daily experiences, I have come to realise that while he helped me appreciate that discovering and celebrating the eccentricities of present moments can be achieved best through routine behaviors.

Because we know we can return to routine for respite, while getting ready for the next eccentric discovery. Or thought. Or behaviour.

 

December 18, 2025

© Vahé A. Kazandjian, 2025

We Do Not Live in Reality, We Live in What We Think Reality Is (William Blake, 1757-1827)

 

It was winter outside and I sat by the fire. I have my favorite seat, one that has taken my shape over time. This time, I chose a rocking chair that has its own swing pattern no matter who sits in it.

And I looked at the fire. And this time, at a new angle, the fire looked new, and the wood log showed me its new face.

It was a face I might have known. It was a face that looked away from me, pensive and capricious. And the fire played with the long hair that adorned that face. In red and gold, as warm as a frigid memory.

And I saw a woman's face, a body I might have seen once. On a warm August day, when the summer rain became the earth’s aroma.

And made me who I always was.

 

December 13, 2025

© Vahé A. Kazandjian, 2025