The railroad comes to Armenia in 1898; a century later, the Soviets arrive with their concrete. A new translation of a story by the famed Armenian author, alongside a current-day landscape.
HOVHANNESS TUMANYAN, the most beloved of Armenian writers, was born in 1869 in Dsegh, a village in the Lori region of northern Armenia. Although Tumanyan spent most of his life in Tbilisi, then a cultural capital for the region, the rugged mountains, forested valleys, and indigent peasants of his birthplace remained at the heart of his work. The years preceding Tumanyan’s death, in 1923, were among the most difficult in the history of the Armenians and of the region. Tumanyan witnessed the First World War, the dissolution of the Ottoman Empire, the genocidal campaign against Ottoman Armenians, the Russian Revolution, and the annexation of Armenia by the Soviet Union. Yet his work—short stories, epic poems, and folk tales—resisted the fiery nationalism that consumed so many of his contemporaries. Tumanyan preferred to imagine quotidian village life, celebrating the simplicity and integrity of peasants, finding his country—then a precarious entity caught between empires and occupiers—in their character and endurance.
In “The Construction of the Railway” and other stories, Tumanyan limns the cultural transformations that would come to the provinces as the forces of modernity—trains, merchants, armies—marched through them. It is a bitter irony that the railway described in this 1898 tale would, a century later, be dismantled, leaving rural Armenia isolated once again and prone to economic deterioration. Today Armenia is still almost entirely cut off from its neighbors, and the railway is rusted and derelict. Perennial conflicts have left the borders with Azerbaijan and Turkey sealed since the early 1990s; last year, a rail link between Armenia and Georgia was ruined by an explosion during the war between Russia and Georgia. A recent agreement between Turkey and Armenia to work toward the establishment of diplomatic relations could be transformative; yet a new railway connecting Turkey, Georgia, and Azerbaijan, under construction since 2007, is set to bypass Armenia completely.
Of course, unrelenting tragedy is the oldest and most basic theme of Armenian history and literature, including the folklore drawn on by Tumanyan. With the collapse of the Soviet Union, the signs of progress that had come with empire faltered; now, driving through the Armenian countryside, you can see unfinished construction projects from the final days of the Soviet era—stillborn buildings, ghostly A-frames, foundations carpeted in grass—dotting the landscape. It is as though the Soviet vision of modernization had ceased in the midst of a hammer’s swing when the news of independence arrived.
In 2006, Vahram Aghasyan photographed the remains of one abandoned Soviet project, a housing development in northwestern Armenia called Mush, named for a town in Turkey from which Armenians were expelled at the end of the Ottoman era. The modular concrete buildings were intended to house victims of the December 7, 1988, earthquake, which claimed twenty-five thousand lives and leveled portions of nearby Gyumri, Armenia’s second-largest city. Construction began and ended in 1989. The remaining husks are mirrored in pristine pools of water—an apocalyptic scene that no one is likely to ever encounter, as no one travels to that part of northern Armenia these days.
—Meline Toumani
The Construction of the Railway
In 1898, the railway running from Tiflis to Kars had just opened. We were sitting around on logs in front of the house of Master Ohaness in one of the villages in the Lori region, having a chat. Master Ohaness was telling us how the construction of the railway had gotten started.
“One day, me and our Simon here were out chopping wood in the lower valley by the river”—he was telling it like this.
“Suddenly we saw a few men wearing white worker’s caps making their way along the bank. I said, ‘Well, Simon.’
“‘What is it?’
“‘There’s something going on here,’ I say.
“‘Why should there be something going on? They’re just travelers going on their way. They could be lost.’
“I say, ‘No, something’s going on here. You’ll see.’
“When we get back to the village we see that someone has stuck a white pole on the roof of Tersan’s flourmill. ‘Well, Simon,’ I say.
“‘What is it?’
“I say, ‘Now you see?’
“‘See what?’
“‘Wait a little longer.’ I say. ‘You’ll see.’
“Not long after that, a newspaper comes, and wouldn’t you know it, we find out they’re taking the railway through here! ‘Well, well, Simon,’ I say.
“‘What is it?’
“‘Now do you see how right I was?’ I say.”
“OH, IF ONLY YOU WEREN’T,” cried the hunter Ovsep, interrupting Master Ohaness’s story.
“Come on, man, why are you talking like that? What harm is there in a railway?” some of the villagers chimed in.
“What is there but harm! Why, it came howling into the valleys and before you knew it the deer got scared and ran away. It’s as if they never existed,” complained Ovsep.
“It’s more than just the deer, believe me,” said a shepherd who was leaning on his stick. “When I go and stand near the edge of the cliff and look into the valley and see them blasting the rocks, my heart aches as if my own child is having his guts taken out by the enemy and I can’t do anything to stop them.”
“A lot of things will be destroyed,” some sighed in agreement.
And the argument went on. The railway will bring some benefits, the railway will bring some problems, and so on.
DURING THIS ARGUMENT, there came up from the valley one of the foreign men who was working on the railway tracks. He approached us.
“Good evening,” he said.
“A blessed evening, master!”
“I need some flour. Can any of you sell me some?” the stranger asked, addressing us all.
“Where are you from?” asked Master Ohaness.
“I am from Ottoman lands.”
“Master Ohaness, ask him what town he’s from,” said one of the villagers.
“What’s the name of your town, my friend?” Master Ohaness asked again.
“Sivas.”
“Sivasss!” Master Ohaness repeated knowingly, drawing out the last syllable.
“What did he say, Master Ohaness?”
“Sivas.”
“May your house remain standing!” cried some of the villagers, clapping their hands and laughing.
“How many months’ journey is it from there to here?” Master Ohaness continued his questioning.
“Three months’.”
“Oh, my...” everyone exclaimed in unison.
“Welcome, wandering brother. Sit down and join us. They’ll bring out some food, and please enjoy it.”
“No, thanks, I’m in a hurry. If someone will just sell me some flour, I’ll take it and be going.”
“Hey in there, girls! Bring out a pot of flour,” Master Ohaness called into the door. “And fill it all the way up to the top!”
One of the women brought out a pot of flour and went to pour it into the stranger’s bag, but he stopped her.
“How much does this cost?” he asked.
“Well, pour it into your bag for starters,” said Master Ohaness.
“No. First let’s know the price.”
“Go on and pour it in, and then we’ll tell you. If it’s too expensive you can always pour some back.”
The stranger opened his bag, and the woman poured the flour in and went away. “So how much do I owe you?” asked the stranger, pulling out his purse from under his belt.
“Nothing, master. That won’t be necessary. It’s a gift. In our part of the world they don’t take the money of travelers for food. There’s no such habit,” said Master Ohaness, and then went back to puffing on his pipe.
The stranger was a little embarrassed, gave a bit of a protest, and then left.
IT WAS QUIET FOR A FEW MOMENTS, then one of the villagers spoke up. “A few days ago, one of them came and asked for yogurt. The women gave him some. He eats it, then he gets up and asks how much it costs. ‘What?’ I ask him. ‘The yogurt,’ he says. ‘Come on, man, are you kidding me? Don’t talk that way or the sheep’s milk might just dry up altogether!’ I say.”
“Fine, gentleman, but then what are we supposed to do? Is that right that whoever comes along just eats all he wants and then takes off?” This was the younger brother of Master Ohaness talking. “Do you have any idea how many more of them are going to come after that one? Just the other day, I myself poured out a pot of flour for one of them and handed it over. Where does it end?”
“If he comes again, give him another,” said Master Ohaness calmly, raising his head.
“May your home always be joyous,” some of the older men called out.
“I should be so lucky,” said the younger brother. “You’re telling me that whoever comes, from Sivas or wherever, that I should serve them all as if I work for them? Whoever comes, welcome, a thousand welcomes! But if you want food, pay first and then take it!”
And they began to argue. Master Ohaness got all worked up and the noise got louder and louder.
Chooo chooooo... From down below came the whistle of the train.
It had just entered our valleys.
Photographs from Vahram Aghasyan’s “Ghost City” series, previously exhibited at the 2007 Istanbul Biennial. Page 7: Etching of Van, then Armenia, present-day Turkey, by Félix Thomas, 1867. Illustrations pages 8 and 9, respectively: Rev. Henry John Van-Lennep, Armenian Piper and Armenian Peasant Woman, from The Oriental Album: Twenty illustrations, in oil colors, of the people and scenery of Turkey, with an explanatory and descriptive text, 1862. Page 10: Detail from URSS: Broderies Russes, Tartares, Arméniennes, edited by Henri Ernst, 1925. This page: Albumen print from the Robert N. Dennis collection of stereoscopic views, 1859–1897. Illustrations courtesy of the New York Public Library Digital Gallery.
