Armenian Stories
2010 Armenia This is a series of portraits from Armenia. The country in the Caucasus borders Georgia, Azerbaijan, Iran and Turkey. The Armenians were the first people in the world to declare Christianity as the state religion in 301. Mount Ararat is sacred to the Armenians. Reaching him is difficult because he is in Turkey. The Armenian genocide took place in this area. In 1915, more than 1.5 million Armenians were massacred, the first genocide of the 20th century. This trauma is still felt in Armenia today. From 1920 the country was a Union republic of the Soviet Union until the declaration of independence in 1991. In 1988, an earthquake in the Caucasus rocked the area around the northern Armenian city of Spitak (today's province of Lori). With 25,000 dead and up to a million homeless people, it is one of the worst earthquakes in recent decades. Despite the far reaching humanitarian aid measures of western organizations, many people still live in the makeshift containers. We met people like a young woman from the diaspora in the USA, who supports schools in Armenia. A genocide survivor told us his story as well as an old man who lost his entire family in the 1988 earthquake and a young couple of musicians, who think of emigration because they see no future in their country.