Ninety years after fleeing, Armenians return to Turkey
by Mariam Haroutiounian

Agence France Presse — English
April 22, 2005 Friday 2:33 AM GMT

YEREVAN April 22 — Ninety years after massacres in Ottoman Turkey
caused an Armenian exodus from eastern Anatolia, Armenians are
returning to Turkey by the thousands.

This time the Armenians travel as tourists to a nation which still
holds no diplomatic relations with their homeland.

Armenia will mark on Sunday the mass killings by Ottoman Turks, a
slaughter that is among the most painful episodes of the country’s
ages-old history and that continues to strain ties between it and
its neighbour.

Though Armenians say up to 1.5 million of their kinsmen perished in
orchestrated killings between 1915 and 1917 as the Ottoman Empire
fell, they are now drawn by sunny beaches and low prices, travel
agencies say.

At home and abroad, Armenians have spent the better part of the last
century fighting for international recognition of the massacres as
genocide and for an apology from Turkey.

But Ankara refuses. Instead Turkish officials say 300,000 Armenians
and thousands of Turks were killed in “civil strife” during World War
I when the Armenians rose against their Ottoman rulers and sided with
invading Russian troops.

Turkey has frozen diplomatic relations with Armenia over the issue
and crippled its economy by shutting its land border with the country
when it occupied the territory of its close ally Azerbaijan.

None of this has stopped visitors from land-locked Armenia pouring
onto Turkey’s sun kissed beaches.

“There is a noticeable tendency for more people to spend their holidays
in this neighboring country and it’s not just because of the cheap
travel packages. Unlike the United States and Europe it’s easy to
get a visa,” said Artak Kagramanyan, a manager for the Yerevan-based
Armentur agency.

Like visitors from almost any other former Soviet republic, Armenians
can purchase Turkish visas for 10 dollars upon arrival. A weeklong
holiday including airfare costs an average of 1,200 dollars (920 euros)
while bus trips to Turkey through Georgia are even cheaper.

Still, the bad blood between Armenia and Turkey means many Armenians
are often uncomfortable with visiting at first.

“In the beginning we were worried,” said Sofia Davdyan who recently
spent her vacation in Turkey with her brother.

“We were going to a country with which we have so many unresolved
problems, but then when we got to the resort in Alania and saw the
conditions and services we calmed down,” she said.

Davdyan said ordinary Turks were not concerned with the ethnicity of
their visitors because “business is business and they make a lot of
money on tourism.”

Many Armenians, however, consider it to be disrespectful to the
victims of the Turkish massacres to spend money in a state that has
not acknowledged them as genocide.

Ayk, 20, a student in Yerevan State University said visiting Turkey
was simply wrong.

“Turkey needs to admit to the genocide and apologize to our people,
we can talk about better relations, mutual visits only after that,”
Ayk said.

When it comes to visiting the parts of Eastern Anatolia from which
Armenians were expelled during World War I, things are not so simple
with the Turkish authorities either.

“The Turks have no problem with tourists from Armenia who spend
piles of cash on shopping, holidays and sightseeing, but when it
comes to visiting the historic homeland politics comes into play,”
said a travel agent who asked not to be named.

According to Anitur, one of the only agencies in Armenia that sells
tours to Eastern Anatolia, known as Western Armenia to Armenians,
visitors are required to get a special pass from Turkish authorities.

“Not everyone is ready to overcome these difficulties,” the agency’s
director Vladimir Arushanyan said, adding that only 100 Armenian’s
make the emotionally difficult trip every year.