On the anniversary of the 1988 earthquake in Armenia, where over 25,000 people were killed Words by me, photos by two awesome photographers and a beautiful short film by independent film maker Talene, aka Vochinch. Excerpt is below, but you can read the entire thing here: 23 Years Later, Gyumri Struggles to Move On

The train from Yerevan to Gyumri took three hours. It was sturdy, but Soviet. Sturdy but Soviet. I sat on its wooden pews, looked at its safety posters with Cyrillic letters I could recognize, but not understand. I imagined myself in one of those grand train scenes in film – the ones filled with smoke, calls from the conductor, long goodbyes and waves from windows that seem to drag on long after the train has left the station.

We rode along Mount Ararat, just miles from the closed Turkish border, passing post offices, small towns, grazing sheep and marshutkas heading back to Yerevan in time for lunch. Then, Gyumri came into view, wearing its heart on its sleeve, and on the buildings still in ruin from a day that changed the course of its history forever. There is something hollow about Gyumri, and yet whole at the same time. The air wafts of tragedy, but the wind reveals its need to go on, despite its sordid circumstances. As I exited the bus station the scenes I had heard about so many times in my head began to play out.

On a winter morning 23 years ago, at 11:41 a.m., Gyumri and neighboring Spitak were hit by a 6.8 magnitude earthquake that killed over 25,000, left 19,000 injured and hundreds of thousands of people homeless. More than 20 towns and 342 villages were affected, and 58 of them were completely destroyed.

Photos above by K. Shamlian/2011

from The Human Journalist