oh well, that's the story of most of the world it seems.
not much one can do .. just got to live in the present i suppose, and try not to forget the past ...
yeah, ... ani is pretty impressive, there was one church there called "the wedding cake church"
concentric circular walls stacked up, one on top of eachother with a fresco'ed vault and free standing dome.
above the front door of the church had a carving of the architect ( i think i am remembering right )
presenting a model of the church to the king he made it for ( or maybe it was the king presenting it to the Catholicos? )
both kind of smiling, long curly hair ... kind of fun
i think it is pretty much gone now .. just rubble.
there is another church called akhtamar ( church of the holy cross ), on an island in lake van i studied when i was a student ...
the whole church is banded / completely covered in carvings and relief of biblical scenes and stories,
pretty mind blowing. a lot of the other churches are carvings here + there but not everywhere
... ( i think there are pix in the wiki if you are interested )
just the same i don't think i will ever be able to go, so i will just dream of it all, and thumb through
my old text books, the photographs are beautiful hand made vintage xeroxes of vintage photographs