Names of lost Armenian villages read in Istanbul’s Sultanahmet Square

It’s April 24, 2013. In Sultanahmet Square in Istanbul. People have gathered in front of the Turkish-Islamic Arts Museum which, in 1915, served as the Central Prison that held Armenian intellectuals kept before they were sent to their deaths. But something very unusual is happening. From a loudspeaker, people hear some Armenian names of places. The names of lost Armenian villages. The voice says: “Vaspuragan province… Avants… Lezk… Shahbaghi… Akhzia… Shoushants… Kouroubash… Gentanants… Pertag… Dzevestan… Ardamed… Tarman… Vosgepag…”

There are big panels on the wall, showing these names and the provinces or districts they are connected to. People come and take photographs. I recognize some of them; Armenians from abroad with a delegation are visiting Istanbul for the commemoration activities, taking photographs of these names from a certain province. I guess these are the provinces of their ancestors.
Eren Keskin starts to speak as the volume of the sound and voices goes down.

“These names you are hearing now are the names of the Armenian villages in Asia Minor before 1915, together with the provinces and districts they belong to—a total of 2,300 settlements. In fact, they are more in number. The work to compile the names of all the Armenian settlements before the genocide is still under way. Our guest, Historian Ara Sarafian, the director of the Gomidas Institute based in London, will give more details of this work.

“The names you listen to now, constitute the solid proof of the genocide. The Armenian communities living in these villages were annihilated. They changed the names. Some of them were wiped off the map altogether; some became the home of others. “We wanted our ears to hear these names. We wanted them to penetrate deep into our souls. Here, on these panels, you can see them. You can come closer and read them one by one. These are lost Armenian communities. We want the Turkish people to remember and never forget these names.”

Then the volume rises again, and we listen to the names of the lost villages for another five minutes.