Georgs Avetisjans: Pursuing His Crane to the Fatherland

You write your first and last name in the Latvian way. It would be Gevorg Avetisyan in Armenian (transliterated into English). Please tell us about your Armenian roots.

In the early ‘80s (when both countries were still under the umbrella of the Soviet Union) my father Vladimirs Avetisjans migrated from Tbilisi, Georgia to Riga, Latvia where he met my mother Inta Avetisjana while he was studying at the Russian State University of Cinematography (VGIK) at the world’s oldest film school in Moscow. While my grandfather Georgs Avetisjans was born in Tbilisi, Georgia, my great-grandfather Artjoms Avetisjans came from the land of our forefathers — Armenia, to Georgia, whereas my father migrated to Latvia from Georgia. My great-grandfather Artjoms Avetisjans was born in Kars, Armenia, which is currently a city in northeastern Turkey and the capital of Kars Province today.

While my father’s roots go back to Armenia, he was born in Tbilisi, for centuries a centre of Armenian culture and socio-political thought, and died in Kaltene, Latvia. The mix of ethnicities in my blood – Armeno-Greek on my father’s side and Latvian-Russian on my mother’s – has always intrigued me and encouraged me to become more familiar with ideas of identity and genetics. Of course, Latvia is my birthplace, the country I love as the place I grew up in, but I have never been quite sure if I really belong here, having always lived with this fragmentation of ethnicities, and with a hidden, as yet unfamiliar mystery of the Armenian soul, which I now long to uncover.

Have you any idea how many Armenians live in Latvia and can you remember some interesting figures?

Nowadays it could be around 2,500. We have many art professionals, like film director Aik Karapetian, painters Arturs Akopjans and Varuzh Karapetian, ballet dancer Avetik Karapetyan. I have interviewed pastor Ter Khosrov Stepanyan, artist Babkens Stepanjans, businessman Roberts Ogenesjans, poet Gagik Sarkisjans, painter Varuzh Karapetian, and musician Tigrans Tumanjans.

Last spring you came to Armenia during a very crucial for the country period. Tell us please your impressions of what you have experienced and your general thoughts.

It was such a great coincidence that I could join you in Armenia for such a crucial period of Armenian history. It was wonderful experience and also an opportunity to witness such a spirit and elevation of the nation during the Velvet Revolution in April 2018. I think that I have photographed and witnessed an important part of my project – a history, and I also have recorded the voices of Armenian people from different backgrounds. All this addition to my research and materials will be shown into my new photobook Krunk: The Crane That Flew Over The Fatherland, reflecting the past, present and future.

Please tell us about your Armenian project.

This is a story about my father; this is also a story about our genetics, Armenian diaspora and history of the land of my forefathers in Armenia and Georgia. “Krunk” means crane in Armenian and it is a symbol of longing for one’s homeland, as well as a song sung by wanderers that embodies the historical fate of the Armenian people. The song, composed by Komitas and sung for centuries, has become a quasi-official state hymn, a hymn of sadness and longing.

Endless foreign invasions, great social and ethnic oppression, and a host of other political and economic conditions have meant that large swathes of Armenians went to live abroad. The exodus began a very long time ago, and gave rise to Armenian settlements in many parts of the world where Armenians preserved their language, their cultural traits, their religion, and the idiosyncrasies of their inner life. Recent history has few nations whose sacrifices and bloodshed could equal that of Armenians. The 1915 genocide murdered the flesh, but strengthened the spirit, as whenever the enemy tried to take out Armenian culture by storm, the same storm carried the seeds of this culture to the far corners of the Earth, and new life sprouted in faraway places, just like the crane, headed for foreign lands, and made its song heard throughout the world.

Armenia is covered in rocks, hard and weighty as the soul of the people who carry its weight, its sadness and its melancholy. This enigmatic territory of the Caucasus is nestled between two seas – the Black and the Caspian – that is traditionally regarded as the point where the West and the East meet. This befits its history, at once exciting and tragically ridden with conflict, which I am approaching to find out more about the place my father came from in Georgia and our roots in the land of our forefathers, Armenia.

My first dummy of the photo book Krunk. The Crane That Flew Over the Fatherland was developed, created and produced during a workshop “Photobook As Object” in 2018 by Jan Rosseel (Belgium) and Yumi Goto (Japan) at the ISSP in Latvia. The dummy was exhibited at the ISSP Gallery in Riga, Latvia and in the Art House in Kuldiga, Latvia. My next solo show, and first of this project, will be held at the Archdiocesan Museum from September 15 – October 15 in Poland during International Photography Festival Bialystok INTERPHOTO 2019 and after in Yerevan (dates are still to be confirmed).

Whom have you interviewed and photographed in Armenia?

Many interesting people – musician and collectioner Yakov Zargaryan; artist and public activist Zaruhi Muradyan; photographer Vahan Kochar; cultural figure Gayane Georgian; ballet master Roudolf Kharatian; architect and actress Arine Tagvor; translator of Latvian and Russian literature Naira Khachatryan; Armenian cuisine researcher Sedrak Mamulyan; business woman and finansist Anna Vardanyan; architect and filmmaker Oshin Yeghiazariantz; musician Alex Mirzoyan; journalist and lawyer Zaruhi Mejlumyan; folklorist Verjine Svazlyan, and historian Knarik Avagyan. I should not forget you, philologist and author Artsvi Bakhchinyan!

What was your biggest impression of Armenia?

Unity of the whole nation, hospitality, nature and all the seasons across the country – from