Announcement

Collapse
No announcement yet.

The Railway Ties That Bind

Collapse
X
 
  • Filter
  • Time
  • Show
Clear All
new posts

  • The Railway Ties That Bind

    THE RAILWAY TIES THAT BIND
    by Anush Babajanyan

    Transitions on Line
    April 29, 2009
    Czech Rep.

    All but totally cut off from each other, twin cities either side of
    a closed border sense that change is coming.

    GYUMRI, Armenia | A sign on a small streetside booth in central Gyumri
    advertises, "Tickets to Istanbul." The head of this small ticket
    agency, Artur Lazarian, sits near the booth talking with men from the
    neighborhood. "Opening the border is good unless the compromises made
    for it are too big," Lazarian says. What used to be the only crossing
    from Armenia into Turkey lies just 20 kilometers outside Gyumri. The
    border was closed in 1993, but now the possibility of it reopening as
    bilateral relations thaw after years of tension is a lively discussion
    point in this city that could see substantial economic benefits from
    the renewal of communications with neighboring Turkey.

    When the next bus working with Lazarian's firm departs en route
    for Istanbul, it will head, not west toward the old crossing point,
    but north into Georgia, making a tiresome, 10-hour journey to the
    Turkish Black Sea coast. Until 1993, local people could take a train
    from Gyumri to the Turkish city of Kars in two hours.

    A street in central Gyumri.

    THE KARS EXPRESS

    "If the border opened, the route from Yerevan to Istanbul, which is
    about 2,050 kilometers, would be 800 kilometers shorter," Lazarian
    says. "It would be cheaper, and we would not have to go through the
    anxious procedures on the Georgian border." Passengers and vehicles
    must go through long document checks at Armenia's border with Georgia.

    For much of the 20th century the railway was the only way to cross
    the border and a reminder of the good relations the two towns once
    enjoyed. Merchants in Kars shipped cattle and goods on the railway
    to the south Caucasus and other Soviet republics.

    Until the bloodshed and mass population movements brought about
    by World War I and the Russian Revolution, the two towns shared
    connections deeper than those of trade and commerce. Armenians
    comprised a third of the population of Kars together with Turks,
    Greeks, and Russians. People in Kars, who are mostly Kurdish nowadays,
    say there are still many Armenians left who conceal their identities
    behind Turkish names for safety.

    The architecture of Kars carries echoes of that earlier time. Behind
    shop signs and ranks of bicycles, an older building in the center of
    town displays a black stone facade like those once common in the city
    now known as Gyumri. (Gyumri, renamed Alexandropol under imperial
    Russian rule, then became Soviet Leninakan before going back to
    the older name following Armenia's independence from the USSR.) The
    cobblestone streets threading through each town are another visual
    reminder of the past.

    Relations between the two towns ceased as Turks began to see the
    Armenians as obstacles in the struggle to build a new state on the
    ruins of the Ottoman Empire. About 1.5 million Armenians were murdered
    or deported from Ottoman territory beginning in 1915, and when in 1921
    the Treaty of Kars signed by the Turks and Soviets returned Kars to
    Turkish control, killings and deportations of Armenians occurred there
    as well. But for the railway and a road crossing opened after Armenia
    broke away from the USSR, the Armenian-Turkish frontier was closed,
    and both stopped working in 1993 when Turkey sealed the border as
    a sign of solidarity with Azerbaijan during the Armenian-Azeri war
    over Nagorno-Karabakh.

    Today, few in Gyumri know anything specific about modern Kars, a
    Turkish provincial capital of 80,000 people. Not many know that most
    people living in Kars are Kurds. What many on the Armenian side do
    know is that Kars is where their grandparents came from.

    The father of Rima Shakhparonyan, 73, was one of the last Armenians
    to move to Alexandropol from Kars. "My grandmother starved to death
    during the genocide," Shakhparonyan says. "My father followed her
    body to the mass grave where hundreds of Armenians were buried." Her
    father then worked for the family of a Turk who had two wives, a
    Turk and an Armenian. In the 1920s he moved to Alexandropol, where
    he had relatives.

    The closing of the border in 1993 was a huge economic blow to both
    towns. Unable to export goods to the Caucasus states, Kars went into
    economic decline. A Yerevan-Istanbul flight was soon established,
    and Armenian trade concentrated on Istanbul. Tradespeople from Gyumri
    now take a bus or the plane to Istanbul, and Kars is for them just
    another provincial city with a limited choice of goods.

    After years of isolation from the Caucasus, the people of Kars are
    looking to trade and business to restore the region's declining
    economy. Already, one new communications corridor is being built,
    but because the Baku-Tbilisi-Kars railway detours around Armenia,
    the United States and other friends of Armenia are not happy about
    it. Nonetheless, work on the Turkish section began last summer. Even
    so, many in Kars are also placing their hopes in a reopened border
    with Armenia. One local booster, former Mayor Naif Alibeyoglu, told
    the Hurriyet newspaper that 50,000 of the city's 80,000 residents
    signed a petition in favor of reopening the border that he circulated
    while still in office.

    "The economic life of Kars has been suspended since 1993. As a
    municipality, we can't even collect taxes from the locals," he said.

    LINGERING DOUBTS

    Armenian business people are also hopeful the railway will reopen,
    but doubts remain that Kars can regain its former position as an
    important trading partner for Gyumri.

    Kars residents waiting at a bus stop in the city center.

    "Right now there is no business with Kars," the ticket agency owner
    Lazarian says. If the railway reopens, "Armenian trade with Istanbul
    will increase, only the route will be shorter." Many in Armenia, as in
    Turkey, are alarmed at the compromises statesmen from both countries
    might need to make to reach agreement on reopening the border. The
    Turkish side anticipates compromises in the Nagorno-Karabakh
    conflict, and the Armenians hope for Turkish recognition of the
    Armenian genocide.

    "Even the trader who has to go an extra 800 kilometers will not
    agree with the border opening if the price is too high," Lazarian
    says. Armenia's main export route now runs through Georgia. Renewing
    the Gyumri-Kars connection would bring greater flexibility and
    security. "Armenians must have an alternative exit toward the world,"
    says Anahit Merouzhanyan, 53, a professor of English at Gyumri State
    Pedagogical University. "If Georgia suddenly decides to close its
    border, Armenia will remain isolated."

    Nor does the cultural community have high hopes for a renewal of old
    cultural ties should the trains start running again. Like business
    people, local artists looking toward Turkey have much stronger links
    to Istanbul now. Vahan Topchyan, 59, a painter from Gyumri, says the
    border holds little interest for him.

    "Kars will change nothing in culture," he says. He says an important
    happening for him is the International Istanbul Biennial coming up
    in September, "but I can go there even if the border is closed."

    Musician Gagik Barseghyan, 56, disapproves of the Turkish influence
    on Armenian culture. "Armenians already sing Turkish songs translated
    into Armenian," Barseghyan complains. If that influence were to grow
    still stronger thanks to a reopened frontier, he says, "they will
    simply sing in Turkish instead of Armenian."

    "The borders must open in any case," Merozhounayan says. "It's
    important psychologically to have open borders."

    Armenian photojournalist Anush Babayanjan reported and took the photos
    for this article.

    From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress
Working...
X