As I worked on this slideshow, which is the second I ever made, I realize this is a whole professional direction to take. So I think it will take me time to learn, and the most important is just to show the photos.

And the photos are about to towns that are all too close to each other but know nothing of each other, Kars, Turkey, and Gyumri, Armenia. With so much attention towards the Armenian-Turkish relations, eyes have also turned towards the border towns. I have a good friend photographer who is now on her trip around the border, too many journalists and photographers go to Margara, the Armenian village that has a bridge over the bordering Araks river. Lots of stuff goes on.

Well I was in Kars last summer. This trip organized by my teacher Ruben Mangasaryan, together with four more photographers, was so strangely revealing. We traveled towards the past of Armenia and towards a town that was a stranger to us. This big market-place was beautiful, colorful, and kind of cheap as well. There were the houses that we could feel and see were built by Armenians. And there were cops telling me, “we welcome all Armenians here. Our governments are the fault”.

In all this market of thoughts and visuals I didn’t think too much and just photographed. I took more photos in those five days than during the five months that I’ve lived in Gyumri.

In any case, I photographed what is Kars like now, to show it to the people in Gyumri. There were five photographers from Turkey photographing Gyumri, to show it to the people of Kars. At that time there were still no talks about the border, so now the angle has turned a bit towards this direction of impatience and the possibility of the opening.

In fall after going to Kars, I got married and moved to Gyumri. This town, which was really as new to me as for the Turkish photographers, was a peaceful opposite of Kars, this sleepy fellow who used to be active with its culture when the border was open, then with its industry during the Soviet times. Now, and especially after the 1988 earthquake, things are far not the same.

These photographs are an attempt at re-introducing these two towns of the Caucasus.

Music is by Arik Grigoryan, an interpretation of the Armenian traditional “Gorani”.