Armenopolis (Gherla), Romania

In 2012 the World Health Organization (WHO) invited me to conduct a series of workshops in Croatia, Poland and Hungary.  It was a renewed opportunity to see my friends and continue our collective work toward improving the quality of health care.

… It was my last workshop in Budapest and we finished it in the early evening hours. As I was collecting my papers and turning off my laptop, a woman who was not a participant in the meeting, came to see me.

“You are Armenian, yes?”

“Yes.”

“I am too. Wanted to meet you and say hello.”

It was not the first time I had such encounters and I wanted to hear more from her.

“Well, I am not Hungarian,” she said. “I am Romanian, and my family comes from Armenopolis. You know about our city?”

I did not.

“It is now called Gherla, it is in Transylvania. Historically it was called Armenopolis and was a mostly Armenian city. We have a beautiful church.”

“Your name is not Armenian,” I said, “but do you speak the language?”

“No, but I can recite the Lord’s Prayer in Armenian if you want.”

It was a surreal and very emotional moment. A small conference room in Budapest, dark outside, and I was facing this woman who actually sang the Lord’s Prayer in Armenian. I had to sit down and let my tears testify to the moment.

“There are only 8 Armenians left,” she said. “All very old. You should visit Gherla soon.”

… I had reserved the last day of my trip for personal time and wanted to walk through Buda and Pest as I had done a number of times before. I think the Danube is most beautiful when it passes among the majestic palaces and building of the historic Hungarian Empire.

I had seen the Danube before, but not Armenopolis. So, drove to Gherla and back the same day.

It is a small city, and the Armenian Church is well kept. But it was empty and I was not able to see any of the 8 remaining Armenians.  I did say a prayer and drove back.

… I never regretted the 12 hour of driving that day. The story had stayed in me and with me for a few years, and did not find an outlet or opportunity to come out.

Until this morning when a friend shared with me the January 5, 2015 issue of the New Yorker Magazine.

“There is an article you should read,” he said. “It was a revelation for me.”

Which I did. It is a well written, well documented testimonial by the grandson of an Armenian survivor of the 1915 Genocide. His grandfather was from Diyarbakir and died in 1956 before the author of the article was born in Long Island, New York.  It is the testimonial of how the author decided to go to Diyarbakir, learn about the story of his grandfather, and as a reporter, describe the trip within the historical context of the early 1900s.

I have heard such stories from my grandfather, a survivor of the Armenian Genocide, whom I had the privilege to know for 8 years. I have read countless books and articles about the Armenian Genocide. And I have written my own book about the survivors I have known.

Yet, there was a passage in that article that stopped the vagabonding of my eyes upon the page. It was about the author’s sister who, fifteen years earlier, had also gone to Diyarbakir to search for remaining family members. The passage was about the first encounter of his sister with Uncle Anto, at the Sourp Giragos church. It read:

“My sister visited Sourp Giragos at its nadir, about fifteen years ago, and found Uncle Anto, as he was known, sitting on a rock, disheveled: loose shirt, cardigan tucked into sweatpants, Through a friend , she spoke to him in Turkish, but he just sat there, mute, empty-sighted. Later that afternoon, she returned and spoke to him in Armenian, and he jolted into alertness: Who are you? Where did you come from? We haven’t had a priest for so long. Do you know the Lord’s Prayer? She recited it, and he wept,….”

… That was the impetus for me to write about my last day in Hungary and long drive through the Carpathian Mountains in Romania.

March 5, 2016

© Vahé A. Kazandjian, 2016

PS1/ The New Yorker Magazine article was written by Raffi Khatcharourian and can be accessed via:  http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2015/01/05/century-silence

PS2/ I found a 2011 population census on the Internet regarding Gherla. It shows that at that date:

15,994 (79.2%) were Romanian

 3,419  (16.9%)  were Hungarian

    718  (3.6%) were Gypsy

      72  (0.4%) were others, including 16 Germans.

So, I can only guess that the 8 Armenians were among the 56 “Others”…

PS3/ I received an email from a dear friend who had read this posting and wanted to share a youtube link about the heritage of Armenians in Transylvania. I found it absolutely delightful and most educational. I would recommend watching this video as a complement to my post:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IU3YFjCnzFs&feature=youtu.be