0:00

What happens inside your mind

0:02

when your body is pushed to its limits?

0:05

In twenty seventeen, Egyptian adventures,

0:08

and Amerenor attempted

0:10

the world's toughest trace. A

0:12

three thousand mile unsupported row

0:14

across the Moita Atlantic Ocean in

0:16

a seven meter rolling boat. It's

0:19

a journey taken by fewer people than

0:21

those who've been to space. It

0:23

was like being at war every single

0:25

moment of the experience. However,

0:27

about nine days into their journey, when

0:29

their boat capsized in a severe storm and

0:31

the life raft didn't open, they

0:33

came face to face with death. You're

0:36

feeling seasick, you're feeling

0:38

tired, every fiber of your

0:40

body is telling you to

0:43

stop. Inspired by the documentary

0:45

film beyond the raging sea. The

0:47

podcast unravels new layers of

0:49

human's state of mind against adversity.

0:52

Listen to be on the Regency state

0:54

of mind right here on the podcast

0:56

app, episodes drop every

0:58

Monday.

1:06

They're always ready for breakfast

1:08

deal. Going to bed already? Yep.

1:11

Breakfast at Mickey D's tomorrow. So

1:13

soon I go to bed, soon there'd be Kerning.

1:16

Soon I'll be at Mickey

1:17

D's. This is actually brilliant. You

1:19

can come to. Turn out that light. There's

1:21

a deal for every breakfast strategist

1:23

at McDonald's. Mix and match two for

1:25

just three dollars, like a sausage biscuit,

1:28

sausage muffin, or hash browns, and

1:30

paired with a one dollar any size Dr Pepper.

1:32

Price and participation may vary, cannot be combined

1:34

with any other offer single item at regular price.

1:42

And one story that always kind of is my

1:44

imagination. And you're listening to earning

1:46

going in. Currently, it's

1:49

a lost culture.

1:50

And you're listening to Kerning cultures.

1:53

You're earning cultures.

1:57

A quick warning before we start. This episode

1:59

contains a couple of references to violence.

2:04

I'm

2:04

Dana Belutz, and this is Kerning Cultures.

2:11

Well, for me, it was totally unexpected. Every

2:15

time I stepped out of the van, I would get choked

2:17

up. And

2:21

there were times when I was so

2:23

overwhelmed emotionally that

2:26

my daughter Abby would stand between

2:28

me and everyone else who's getting up the vent

2:30

to just give me some room because I was

2:32

turning around because I was crying. I

2:34

had no idea why I was crying. I

2:40

don't think it's overstating it if I say,

2:42

you know, I'm a different person because of this

2:44

trip.

2:51

New Bar, Alexanian, grew up in

2:53

Western Massachusetts. His family

2:55

is Armenian all the way back generations.

2:58

And his first language was Armenian. And

3:00

he remembers Armenian food and music

3:02

as a constant background to his childhood.

3:06

But there was also a hole in his family's

3:08

history, one that he

3:10

really didn't know how to fill.

3:12

I did not feel connected to the

3:14

homeland, but that was really because my

3:17

parents never talked about

3:19

it. My parents were really

3:21

serious about being American. My

3:24

grandparents never spoke about the American

3:26

genocide. You know, denial

3:28

is a powerful thing.

3:33

The

3:33

Armenian genocide began in nineteen

3:35

fifteen. Under the cover of

3:37

World War one, the Turkish military murdered

3:40

over one million ethnic Armenians,

3:42

Greeks and other minorities. Many

3:45

were killed in death marches. They were forced

3:47

to walk in these long lines through the desert

3:49

towards concentration camps. And

3:52

growing up, newborn knew the genocide

3:54

as this awful event that some of his ancestors

3:56

had been subjected

3:57

to. But it was distant.

4:01

I knew a rough sort of rough story

4:03

that my maternal grandmother

4:06

had to go on a death march with her

4:07

brother, but she's survived by eating

4:10

desert grass. You know, she

4:12

saw her entire family massacred

4:15

except for her three daughters and

4:17

her brother The genocide

4:19

became one of those foundational events

4:21

leading up to the creation of the Turkish city.

4:23

Today, almost all of historic Armenia

4:25

as part of the Republic of Turkey,

4:27

and the Turkish government has a very different narrative

4:30

of what was inflicted upon Armenians in those

4:32

years. What they say

4:34

are things like It was an unfortunate

4:36

tragedy that was just part of World War

4:38

one or Armenians left on their

4:40

own volition or that thousands

4:42

of Turks died too. They were the real

4:44

victims. This

4:46

kind of deliberate distortion of history

4:48

has had its intended

4:50

effect. Today, only thirty

4:52

three countries officially recognize the

4:54

Armenian genocide. If you

4:56

think about that, so as a

4:58

people, we have

5:01

been traumatized by

5:03

this event, which nobody

5:05

believes basically. So

5:08

as of people, where do we belong?

5:11

Who are we? How do you figure out what your identity

5:13

is if your brutal past

5:15

is denied basically? New

5:17

Bar is a photographer and a filmmaker.

5:20

His entire life, he's traveled the world

5:22

taking pictures for magazines and newspapers

5:24

like life magazine and the New York

5:26

Times. He's worked in more than thirty

5:28

countries, but he's

5:30

never been to Armenia. And the

5:32

idea to go never really crossed his

5:34

mind. Until he retired and

5:36

started thinking more about the Armenian

5:38

part of his identity, and a

5:40

sense of belonging that he felt he was

5:42

missing. I mean, I live in I live

5:44

in a really nice fishing

5:46

village here in Massachusetts. It's

5:50

a great place. I've lived here for fifty years.

5:53

This is home to me, but

5:56

there's another home. And if

5:58

you're an immigrant, there has

6:00

to be another

6:01

home. My dad

6:04

talks a lot about how he

6:06

sort of tried

6:08

to escape the sense of Armenian

6:10

identity. And so that

6:12

showed up a lot in what he didn't

6:14

bring to my childhood.

6:16

This is a new Bar's daughter, the Alexander.

6:19

Identity, but I would still

6:21

see it and feel it during holidays.

6:23

My grandparents, you know,

6:25

the little comments that they would

6:27

make and my dad's you know,

6:29

stories from his childhood. And so

6:31

there's just such a concept of a,

6:34

like, container that had not been filled

6:36

and I know the container is called Armenianness

6:39

or being Armenian, but I

6:41

didn't know it was supposed to go in it. So I think that

6:43

was so much a driving

6:45

force for me when I was graduating

6:47

from college, which

6:49

led me to asking my dad if

6:51

he would go with me on a

6:54

trip to I mean, yeah.

6:56

I was like, absolutely. I

6:59

would go anywhere with her. But

7:02

to our media

7:02

sure. So yeah. I

7:05

mean, I my response was absolutely

7:07

yes. In

7:10

our episode today, newborn Abby go

7:12

on that trip, looking for answers

7:15

to questions that they both knew they had,

7:17

but didn't know the right way to ask them.

7:19

The answers they thought might be back

7:21

at the very beginning in

7:23

their family's ancestral homeland. Producer

7:32

Alex Aetag takes the story from here.

7:35

So when Nuba first got this idea into

7:38

his head to go with his

7:40

daughter Abby to visit their ancestral

7:42

homeland, At first, he started

7:44

looking at flights to Yerevan, which is

7:46

the capital of modern day Armenia.

7:48

The plan was flying to Yerevan, book a hotel,

7:50

and just make day trip out to different parts

7:52

of the

7:52

country. A lot about the heritage that way.

7:55

I was talking to a colleague of mine

7:57

who's Armenian and she asked me

7:59

how, you know, what what we were gonna do. And

8:01

and I said, well, we're gonna go to Yedeban.

8:03

I have a nice hotel, and we're gonna

8:05

find some guides and stuff. And she stopped

8:07

me and said, What does YeraVein

8:09

have to do with you? Nothing.

8:12

I'm like, nothing.

8:15

And she said, no, you're families

8:17

come from Western Armenia,

8:20

Eastern Turkey, Anatolia. That's

8:23

the place. And of course, she was

8:24

right. The Republic of

8:27

Armenia today is just a small corner

8:29

of what used to be considered Armenia.

8:32

Now about ninety percent of Armenians in

8:34

America trace their roots back

8:36

to what is today an entirely

8:38

different country. New born knew

8:40

the names of his grandparents' villages. Where

8:42

they lived before fleeing the genocide. And

8:45

so after this conversation with his

8:47

colleague, he completely upended his

8:49

plans, changed them entirely. And

8:51

decided instead that he was gonna book a trip to

8:53

Eastern Turkey and visit his

8:55

grandmother's village there. But they

8:57

needed a guide Nubar and Abhi

8:59

don't speak Turkish. And when you

9:01

go to these historic Armenian areas

9:03

today, a lot of the Armenian

9:05

history like the houses and the gravestones

9:08

they're just gone or at least you

9:10

wouldn't know where to find them unless you knew what to

9:12

look for. If they wanted to

9:14

find the exact place where new bars

9:16

grandparents they were gonna need an

9:18

expat. Armen

9:21

Arounian is like a gift to the

9:23

Armenian community that just

9:25

descended from the heavens This is

9:27

Carol Butrom. She's the author of a

9:29

book called The House in The Homeland, and

9:31

she's been writing about Armenians visiting their

9:33

ancestral hometowns for years. It's

9:35

her book that got us set off on the story in the

9:37

first place. She's been on

9:39

around a dozen trips to Eastern Turkey

9:41

with groups of her medium pilgrims as she

9:43

calls

9:43

them. Each time with the same guide.

9:46

Mister Aman or Ryan? He

9:48

had a family who

9:51

had also been survivors

9:53

of the genocide, but they had moved

9:56

to Egypt, not to the

9:58

United States. And then he came to the

10:00

United States and became an engineer,

10:02

decided, oh, why don't

10:04

I go see my village?

10:06

And he did.

10:08

Well, it was an opportunity. I was in Germany

10:11

and working for a German company for

10:13

a month. And there was a long weekend

10:15

coming up, which This is Armanoroyan speaking

10:18

in an oral history interview in two

10:20

thousand eighteen for the Institute of

10:22

Armenian Studies at the University of Southern

10:23

California. Thanks by the way to

10:26

the people there for letting us use this

10:28

audio. I told my

10:30

work partner, I said, you guys

10:32

came about to take actually a big

10:34

answer. Visit Turkey. So I thought, is it

10:36

easy to go to Turkey? He said, no. We can go

10:38

on weekends. Why don't you go this

10:39

weekend? So I went and bought the ticket.

10:42

And he went into that first trip with

10:44

caution. Growing up, he'd always been

10:46

taught that Turkey was in some way

10:48

dangerous for our medians.

10:49

Well, I think it was very bad.

10:51

Yeah. We just had a negative

10:54

image. Yeah. Yeah. The teachers in high school are

10:56

in primary school. Always

10:58

talked about the

10:58

massacres. I knew it was forbidden

11:01

territory, though.

11:01

And I was really scared in the airplane,

11:03

and I told the the hostess was a man.

11:06

This is Is it really okay? Yes. He

11:08

brought me a

11:08

candy. It is candy if you're okay. So

11:11

he maybe sent me.

11:12

Did you But when he landed and went through

11:15

the airport security and out into

11:17

Istanbul, he was surprised.

11:19

Everything here felt familiar the

11:20

food, the way people looked, the music. It

11:23

was very illuminating and

11:26

interesting. And it was not the

11:28

image was different we had before

11:29

going. So that gave me the encouragement that I

11:31

should go back and go deeper. That

11:34

first trip was pretty short just three or

11:37

four days. But realized how

11:39

easy it was to travel to Turkey, he wanted to

11:41

go again and he wanted to go back

11:43

with a more specific

11:43

objective. And what

11:45

was the goal of Patrick for you?

11:47

To go to my grandfather's best

11:50

place, mister Jimmy. And

11:51

Jimmy, did you

11:51

find it? Yeah. What

11:54

was that reaction? Like or what was that experience

11:56

like for you? It was

11:59

tremendous. It it lacks

12:01

any words. And in the experience, you never

12:03

see again. I even cried on the

12:05

spot. I got the sword from Youtube. When he

12:07

got back to America, he started telling

12:09

other Armenians in his community in

12:11

Pasadena about his trip. And how he'd

12:13

actually managed to find his grandfather's

12:15

village. He had photos and

12:17

video clips, and he started

12:19

showing them in these little presentations at his

12:21

local

12:21

channels. People

12:22

want to join. I mean, I started showing

12:25

these videos after the show that it becomes

12:27

as much status.

12:28

And just sparked such

12:31

longing in the Armenian community

12:33

that everyone wanted

12:35

to go. So

12:36

he slowly started doing that

12:38

And so in October nineteen

12:41

ninety two, armored got on a panown flight to

12:43

Turkey again, this time with

12:45

six Armenian Americans from California,

12:47

in search of their ancestral villages.

12:50

In one case, they found the actual

12:52

house near to what is today

12:54

called

12:54

Gaziante. So we went to his house,

12:56

to his story house, big

12:58

house. He he said in the he said in the

13:00

middle, in the courtyard. He said, my

13:02

gosh. His really had a big son. Four families

13:04

are living with one family living with he

13:06

was so proud of

13:07

it. And that

13:10

became his life's work, he

13:12

stopped being an engineer, didn't

13:15

have a company. This was all

13:17

word-of-mouth and his desire

13:21

his dedication to giving people the kind

13:23

of experience that he had of his

13:25

past. Over

13:28

thirty years, Almirall took nearly

13:30

fifteen hundred to visit their ancestral

13:33

homeland, over nearly a hundred

13:35

trips. He had to

13:37

stop in two thousand seventeen because of

13:39

health issues. And he passed the torch

13:41

on to Annie Caucasian.

13:42

With his blessings, I took over the

13:44

tours and started doing

13:46

and guiding, organizing, doing

13:48

all aspects of the tour on my own.

13:51

I can't fill up his choose,

13:54

but I promise I can do my

13:56

best. Annie Mae Arman as

13:58

a herself looking for her own

14:00

ancestral village. I was born in

14:02

Lebanon, and then when

14:04

I was two years old, moved to

14:06

Damascus Syria. And

14:09

then I grew up there and

14:11

that's why we went back and forth to

14:13

Lebanon during the

14:15

summer. And then

14:17

in nineteen eighty

14:19

two, we moved to the

14:22

United States. Myself and

14:24

my whole family. Her and sisters are

14:26

Armenian from a small village called

14:28

Vakafi in what is today, Southern Turkey,

14:30

just a stone's throw from the Syrian border.

14:33

Her parents and grandparents had talked about

14:35

it growing up, but nobody from her

14:37

family had actually been back since

14:39

the

14:39

genocide. Until Annie went for herself.

14:42

The

14:43

minute I stepped out of the van,

14:46

I looked around and I felt

14:48

I really belonged there. It's

14:50

I don't was very weird. It

14:53

just it was an amazing

14:55

feeling. I just looked at the

14:57

nature. I looked at the

14:59

people, especially the people,

15:01

especially the same features, same

15:03

eye colors for a minute I

15:05

I like I would look and I say, where am

15:07

I? It was very emotional. Very

15:09

emotional. And I I started remembering

15:11

all the stories that my father

15:13

used to tell me growing up. Sorry.

15:15

Sometimes I get emotional. I

15:21

mean, I try traveled a lot. I

15:23

even traveled so many times to

15:25

Armenia, but I never

15:27

felt I belonged there.

15:29

You know? But I don't

15:31

know what's to deal with that when I'm

15:33

in in historic Armenia.

15:36

I automatically feel I'm one

15:39

of them. This is my homeland.

15:41

Some of the

15:44

people who make this pilgrimage go into it knowing

15:46

a lot about their family's story, but

15:48

that wasn't the case for Abby and New

15:50

Bar. I heard just little bits and

15:52

pieces. I don't think I knew very

15:55

much. And in fact, I

15:57

think my dad didn't know everything

15:59

until we started by interviewing

16:02

my grandparents to find

16:04

out more about what what

16:06

the stories were. I I think

16:08

there are a lot of feelings that came up in

16:10

that experience because I I

16:12

I've never talked with my grandparents in that way

16:14

before, and so I

16:16

I felt a sense of almost

16:18

intrusiveness into

16:21

something they maybe didn't wanna

16:23

share, but it turns out they

16:25

were very happy

16:25

to. My father

16:28

could not understand why his

16:30

granddaughter wants to go back to the old

16:32

country. He just couldn't believe he

16:34

didn't understand why. You

16:36

for and and I and I get that. I mean, it's

16:38

like for for second generation,

16:40

we're we're actually for first generation.

16:43

The past is the past. That's how

16:45

they view it. But in those

16:47

interviews with AbbVie's grandparents, New

16:50

Bar's

16:50

parents, They learned in more

16:52

detail about what had happened to their

16:54

family during the genocide and how

16:56

newborn grandmother had skate her village

16:58

in historic Armenia and made

17:00

it to America. And it

17:03

was that village which is called Husanig

17:05

that they decided was be their kind of endpoint

17:07

for the pilgrimage, the place that they would

17:09

pin their whole trip around.

17:12

They had no idea what was there today

17:14

or what they would find or

17:16

even what they wanted to do when they

17:18

arrived. The plan was just to

17:20

get To see it and feel it for themselves.

17:25

Often before going on these trips,

17:27

pilgrims won't have an exact idea of

17:29

where their grandparents or their great grandparents house

17:31

was or is. They might

17:33

have clues like just a street name or

17:35

like a landed or

17:37

drawing. Or even sometimes just the name of

17:39

a town that's usually since been changed to

17:41

a Turkish name.

17:42

But this is where Aman and now Annie will

17:45

help them. Programs will

17:47

bring whatever they have to them

17:48

and, like, detectives, they'll start narrowing

17:51

it down until they've got a

17:53

rough location. A

17:54

lot of people come with, like, not

17:57

photos, but drawn pictures

17:59

from their grandma that

18:01

It's like a map. They would say, this was the

18:04

church, there's the creek, and this was

18:06

the house. And then

18:08

we

18:08

try, even we try to find

18:10

from the drawing where the houses

18:12

used to be.

18:13

So literally just like hand drawn that. Hand

18:15

drawn your mouth. Yeah. Wow. Yes. Yes.

18:17

And these have been passed down in the family?

18:19

Yes. Yes. Yes. Yeah.

18:22

But they

18:22

don't always know the exact spot they're looking

18:24

for from memory. Usually, Annie will narrow

18:26

it down to just a town or a

18:28

village. And then once we're

18:31

there, we ask around a lot. We talk to

18:33

old people. We ask surround and a lot of

18:35

the elderly people of the

18:36

village, they remember more.

18:39

So we talk to them, we give

18:42

time, and then

18:44

one one thing leads to another

18:46

and then here we are at the

18:48

location that we're

18:49

looking for. Sometimes that might be a house in the

18:52

distinctive Armenian style made of

18:54

wood. Sometimes it might just be an empty

18:56

plot of land or there might be a new

18:58

building on top of that plot of

18:59

land. In newborn Abby's case, they

19:02

brought with them a hand drawn map of the

19:04

village, Husnig, that they'd found in a

19:06

book, an impeccable map

19:08

of who lived

19:11

there, where they lived, who

19:13

lived next to each other, where where

19:15

the mosque was, where the I

19:16

mean, in churches, where the schools,

19:18

you know, the cafe is all of it is on this map.

19:20

And so we had

19:23

that as a guide and there's all

19:25

the streets had the

19:27

street names were the names of the people who

19:30

lived in the families that lived on them.

19:32

So my grandmother's family

19:35

name was Gosh Digien, and so

19:37

we just were able to see Gosh Digien

19:40

Street on the

19:41

map. And so that gave us

19:44

a much closer and more detailed,

19:46

like, connection to the place.

19:51

Before

19:51

they left the US, they started getting these

19:54

threatening messages. Nubarb had made

19:56

a Facebook page to record his

19:58

trip, and somebody, they don't know

20:00

who, sent a message to the page,

20:02

claiming they were a Turkish police

20:04

officer. It's in Broken English, but the message is clear.

20:06

We'll be following you from the moment you

20:08

leave the airport, and you won't be safe

20:10

in

20:10

Turkey. It wasn't specific,

20:14

in a sense that made me feel like that was there

20:16

was a true risk that that single person

20:18

was going to do

20:19

something. But it made

20:22

me it was unnerving. But

20:24

it also kind of made

20:26

me understand

20:27

in a

20:28

different way why this feels

20:31

really important.

20:34

Aman had been dealing with this sort of thing for

20:37

years. They'd never had any serious

20:39

safety issues on the trip, but

20:41

It is uncomfortable. A group of Armenians showing

20:43

up in Turkish villages looking for

20:45

their ancestors homes. In

20:48

Turkey, government's official position

20:50

more or less is that the genocide didn't

20:53

happen. And that doctrine trickles down.

20:55

Usually, pilgrims aren't greeted

20:58

with hostility, just a total

21:00

misunderstanding of what really

21:01

happened. Author Carol Burtstrom again.

21:04

Well, it's a strategic misunderstanding.

21:07

That is taught in the curriculum

21:10

in Turkish schools,

21:14

which is many layered,

21:16

but one of the

21:18

stories is that

21:20

the Armenians were sent

21:23

away during the

21:25

war period for their

21:28

protection. And they didn't that's

21:30

what they were told we're protecting you. You

21:32

know, you're gonna be able to come back. But of

21:34

course, they the men were killed

21:36

immediately, the women and children were sent

21:38

on death marches and

21:40

died.

21:41

But Carol

21:41

told me that despite the threatening messages that

21:43

the Alexander's got, do

21:45

you really

21:45

want to know why are we

21:48

left? And so in

21:50

two thousand and twelve, newborn Abby

21:52

packed their bags and they got on a plane

21:54

to Istanbul. And then they got another flight

21:56

to

21:56

Atlantic, which is the Turkish name. Its

21:59

Armenian names are Mizir or

22:01

Khaled. So when we got

22:03

there, I mean, immediately

22:05

everything seemed like it was Armenian.

22:08

Mean, the look of a

22:10

Turkish man

22:12

or woman is very much

22:14

like an Armenian man or woman.

22:16

The food is very similar or the

22:19

same. You know, the music

22:21

is almost the

22:22

same. Everybody on these trips would into

22:25

just one or two of those small mini buses

22:27

with Arman at the front. They have

22:29

to get around everybody's villages and

22:31

they're not always near to each

22:33

other. So it can be miles miles of driving a day.

22:35

But they pass the time singing

22:37

or chatting or just playing

22:38

games. You can imagine Armin

22:41

at the of our buses with

22:43

his wonderful Kerning driver. We're in a

22:45

small little bus, and he's on

22:47

the phone all the time, figuring

22:51

things and where He and

22:53

Armin would be back and forth

22:55

trying to find the

22:57

villages. Which was difficult even

22:59

if you had been there before.

23:03

Very

23:03

difficult roads. We'd start at

23:05

about eight in the morning and

23:07

get home about nine or ten at

23:10

night. Armin occasionally

23:13

would talk about the villages,

23:15

but this was really not a

23:17

history trip at all. He would be more

23:19

likely to point out and say, oh, your friend,

23:21

so and so from

23:23

RESSINE HAVE FAMILY IN

23:26

THIS VILLENT. Reporter: AT ONE POINT ON

23:28

ABIA NEW BOSS TRIP,

23:30

Aman pulled the van over to the side of

23:32

the road. Everybody stepped out

23:34

and they found themselves overlooking this

23:37

deep gorge with the

23:39

euphrates river running slowly through the bottom of

23:40

it. Armen told them its name. It's called

23:43

the camouflage. I didn't know

23:45

about the camouflage. I had we had no

23:47

idea what was happening. And so

23:49

I'm shooting at everybody's

23:51

out of the

23:51

van. New Bar had been filming

23:54

everything on this trip so far. He thought he

23:56

might make a short documentary out of it

23:58

one day, or at least it just felt important to record

24:00

for his family's

24:00

sake. The gorge itself is

24:03

beautiful. I mean, the rock structure is

24:05

red. I mean, the color, the

24:07

Shreddy's river is like a biblical river, you

24:10

know. And it looks

24:12

like there's a, like,

24:14

a small memorial for

24:17

Turkish soldiers that had died

24:19

there. It sort of looks like there's a

24:21

spot to pull over to kind of, like, pay

24:23

respects to that memorial. And

24:26

so you that's what we

24:28

did, and I didn't know what it

24:29

was. And then our

24:32

mentor to explain it to

24:34

us that it was this

24:36

sort of big landmark

24:38

in the sort of history

24:40

of the genocide and that

24:43

you know, groups of Armenians have been

24:45

marched there, and

24:49

many jumped off the

24:51

the the cliff

24:53

into the river rather than

24:56

continue.

24:56

Women and children were forced up to the

24:59

top of the gorge to

25:01

jump into the gorge to their

25:02

death. Yeah. You know, it was it's

25:05

just horrific. As the

25:07

group was standing there looking down at this

25:09

gorge and at this memorial plaque

25:11

next to it, not for their

25:13

ancestors, but for Turkish soldiers. Nuba

25:15

looked around and realized he couldn't find his

25:17

daughter, Abby. So I don't see her anywhere, and

25:19

the driver comes up and says to

25:22

me, Abby's in the van.

25:24

So I go into the

25:25

van, I'm still rolling, and she's in

25:28

tears. They made them chump.

25:31

And then what? No. No. No.

25:33

No. Right. No body's

25:36

clocked over right. There's

25:38

a memorial here for twelve

25:41

Turkish soldiers. Who were killed because they

25:43

drove off the

25:43

bridge. I I couldn't

25:46

process it. It was so the sort

25:48

of contrast in the juxtaposition

25:50

of this sort of very, like,

25:53

militaristic memorial

25:56

and the sort of roughness

25:59

and and like natural

26:01

landscape of like

26:03

tragedy and death that

26:05

was feel visible and

26:07

get completely

26:08

erased. I mean, armenians

26:11

don't have a Wirtgenow or

26:13

an Auschwitz to visit.

26:15

It makes the story about what happened

26:18

to our meetings difficult because

26:20

there's not one place where all

26:22

of this happened. It happened

26:25

everywhere. So this was a place

26:27

where we could go, where

26:29

we knew what happened to

26:31

our minions there.

26:34

After the

26:39

break, newborn Abi go looking for

26:42

their families' ancestral home.

26:43

So a

26:47

few days after they pulled over

26:49

at the camouflage, It was time

26:51

to visit Nubarb's grandmother's village, the place that

26:53

they had come all this way to

26:56

see. Nubarb's pulled into this small

26:58

handler. It was just small

27:00

handful of buildings set at the bottom of

27:02

a steep cliff. So

27:03

we're in Houston right now.

27:05

And so usually when they arrive in

27:07

a Pilgrim's town, Aman will make

27:09

sure that they're the ones sitting front of the

27:10

bus. As we are approaching the village, it

27:12

says, the feelings you're having right now, you

27:15

never you never had anything

27:17

before after. Just enjoy these feelings.

27:19

And then they they respond by

27:21

crying. They don't say anything. They cannot say

27:23

anything. As you are pushing

27:25

the

27:25

village, It's

27:27

a different feeling. It's never gonna happen again.

27:29

And everybody else will be made to wait so

27:31

that whoever's village it is is first person

27:33

and to step foot off the

27:34

bus. We're

27:35

looking for as a place called Bornozian

27:38

Street, which is

27:39

here. And then we walk

27:42

right up there. So I'm

27:44

following my daughter with she's got the

27:46

map of the

27:46

village. So it's amazing

27:49

these streets at the same

27:51

street, but my

27:54

grandmother

27:54

watched. And

27:55

I'm following her and she's,

27:57

you know, navigating us

28:00

Nazian

28:00

stored the her pro land, and

28:03

we found the exact place.

28:05

I was so sick. Yeah. And

28:06

it was no question. It was

28:09

so cool. And, I mean,

28:11

it I found it

28:13

overwhelming. My

28:18

daughter brought a

28:18

picture, a wedding picture of my

28:21

paternal grandmother and her

28:23

husband. Yeah. So it's

28:25

it's like old timey,

28:28

Cepheidoned, and it's

28:31

my great grandmother with

28:33

her hair up. In, you

28:36

know, a very high necked white

28:39

gown. And my

28:42

great grandfather

28:43

that are standing stiffly in this

28:45

dark suit. And out

28:48

of the blue, when we found my

28:50

grandmother's piece of land,

28:53

I said, I wanna bury this picture

28:54

here. I think my dad and I were just

28:57

like, oh, well, we're just gonna we're just

28:59

gonna bury it in the land, like, in

29:01

the dirt. I had no idea I was

29:03

gonna do that. I don't even know

29:05

why I did that. It was

29:07

just this sort of like,

29:09

oh, I gotta I just gotta

29:11

put her here because she was here,

29:14

and I wanna put her here so that she

29:16

can be back here again

29:18

somehow. And so

29:20

it it was very,

29:23

like, spontaneous sort

29:25

of realized that this was

29:27

this opportunity to sort of return

29:30

something or give her her,

29:32

like, this little tiny

29:34

piece of Armenia back. And

29:36

in that in that way also give us

29:38

a sense of belonging to this

29:40

little piece of land.

29:45

I kept

29:45

getting choked up. And then when my daughter

29:48

and

29:48

I started to bury the

29:51

picture, We made a

29:53

cross on top of after we buried it,

29:55

we've been in a cross using

29:58

little stones. And there's a thing called AAAAAA

30:00

nermanian cross of called a kachka. And

30:03

there are all those stones that look like that.

30:05

So it it looks like a

30:07

kachka. I sort of brought her

30:09

home in a way. It's very

30:12

touching. My dad cried. It

30:14

was like, part

30:16

of what it meant so much to me about

30:18

it was how

30:20

watching him feel, what he

30:22

was feeling especially knowing how

30:24

much he had not felt in the course of

30:26

his life about this type of

30:28

thing, which in turn

30:30

felt like a connection, like,

30:32

like, I was connecting with him in a way that we hadn't

30:35

connected in our, you know, in the course of

30:37

my life.

30:52

In her book, Carol wrote a lot

30:55

about rituals, the way pilgrims

30:57

respond to finally reconnecting

30:59

with a place that their family had been taken away

31:01

from for so long. There's

31:02

something sacred about the house itself she

31:05

told me.

31:09

And I found many who

31:12

hid their either buried or

31:14

hid photographs of

31:17

family in places that either

31:19

actually were the family

31:21

house or stood for the

31:23

family house. And

31:25

other rituals I'll just mention

31:27

a couple. One is digging earth,

31:29

which everyone did and bringing some

31:31

home from their village and another is

31:34

in vocational, what I call in vocational.

31:36

And that is Speaking, calling

31:39

forth to the ancestors, and

31:41

I don't mean these way distant ancestors that

31:43

they didn't know, but their parents

31:46

or grandparents and saying

31:48

here I

31:48

am, mom, and

31:50

I'm calling for you. I want you to meet my son.

31:52

I want you I wanna tell you

31:54

things. I want to thank you.

31:57

And it was that sense

31:59

of finding that

32:01

place to call for those

32:03

ancestors. That made so clear to me

32:05

that this was really holy land, that

32:07

this was a place, this home, the

32:09

house, and the home were

32:12

a conduit to something transcended

32:15

and

32:15

healing. It's a

32:18

bittersweet

32:18

type of feeling because

32:20

people who come here is

32:22

their closure. They get a closure. Things

32:25

were a question mark for them all their

32:27

lives. But then by coming here, communing

32:29

with their ancestors.

32:31

They feel very relieved and,

32:34

I guess, psychologically conclusion.

32:53

And hope we

32:56

sort of walked through

32:59

history together. It

33:01

wasn't just a trip, you know. It wasn't just I

33:03

mean, the journey as a journey was a

33:06

journey through

33:08

the history of what happened to our minions.

33:11

And even though

33:13

she has read about it and I had

33:15

read about it, being there is

33:18

very different. And having that

33:20

bond with my daughter is

33:22

just phenomenal. It's still

33:23

there. I mean, every time I see

33:26

her, I

33:27

think for me it helped me

33:30

connect to a sense of belonging. There's

33:33

no

33:33

changing the history that

33:36

we share and the identity and there's no

33:39

pretending that that's not

33:41

there. And so I

33:43

think have been sort of unexplored

33:45

or uncharted and now

33:47

we can map it

33:50

together and refer to it

33:52

together and sort of have that shared

33:54

experience that wasn't there

33:56

before. It

33:58

changed

33:58

me. I mean,

34:01

in my life is not so heavy. It's

34:03

not I don't carry as much weight with

34:05

me. Trump is a powerful

34:07

emotion, jeez. I had no idea. Telling

34:09

this story was the key that unlocked the door that

34:11

I didn't know existed and now

34:14

it's open.

34:18

This episode

34:23

was produced by Alex Atak and

34:26

Zina Subsea. And edited by

34:28

me, Daina Balut. Fact checking

34:30

was by Dina Sudbury and sound designed

34:32

by Monzetta Hashim. Our team

34:34

also includes Nadine

34:36

Saket, Zena Dubuide and

34:38

Finbar Anderson. And

34:40

as a quick postscript to this story, newbar

34:42

ended up going back on a second trip to historic Armenia. This time he

34:45

went with

34:45

a camera crew and a fixer. The fact that

34:47

we were able to find my

34:49

grandmother's plot of

34:52

land and we buried her wedding picture there. I'd

34:54

have to go and buy that

34:55

land. And this time, he wanted to see if he could

34:57

actually buy his grandmother's plot

35:00

of land. You tell them you're an

35:02

Armenian filmmaker who is

35:04

doing a documentary about your

35:07

grandparents who vanished

35:09

during the

35:10

genocide,

35:10

They're gonna get a little bit

35:12

jittery. The film's not out yet,

35:14

but we'll post updates to it on our

35:16

social media when it is. We're

35:19

at Canon Cultures on both Instagram

35:22

and on Twitter. And you can watch the

35:24

trailer for the film at scars ofsilence

35:26

dot com. A

35:28

very special thank you to Susannah Petrosian

35:30

and Salpi Gazarian at

35:32

the University of Southern California's Institute

35:35

of Armenian Studies. They're the ones that gave us their generous permission

35:37

to use the oral history and view with

35:40

Amadorian. And thank you as well, of course,

35:42

to Abi and

35:44

new BairatiX Elian for sharing their

35:46

story with us and to Carol

35:48

Butrom and Anika Caigeon.

35:50

Carol's book is called a house in

35:52

the homeland and you can find it at Stanford

35:54

University press. If you're interested in

35:56

finding out more about Annie's tours or

35:58

maybe even going on one yourself,

36:01

You can find her on Facebook, such

36:03

historic Armenia. We're taking

36:06

a break over the holiday

36:07

period, but we'll be back with a new episode

36:09

on January twelve.

36:11

Even my friends were teasing me last

36:14

night, they were saying, like, we're gonna

36:16

line up. They want

36:18

my

36:18

autograph. After this episode, I said, okay, you guys line up.

36:20

So it's

36:21

like you're becoming famous and I said,

36:23

no. No. No. It

36:26

was very funny.