YARP hello from Elise!
Today we are in Bjni village as always, only we are having guests this time. One of the guests is Judith Sarian. Ms. Sarian is from Boston, and she translated books by Zabel Yesayan. Zabel Yesayan was an Armenian writer, women’s right activist, and a teacher in Ottoman Turkey. She lived in the beginning of the 20th century. Zabel Yesayan was the only woman on the list of intellectuals targeted for arrest and deportation by the Ottoman Turkish government, according to Wikipedia.
“Do you guys want to go to Takavoranist (Bjni’s Fortress)?” my mom suggested. The guests agreed happily. So off we went. The drive isn’t long by car, but the footpath is a bit longer. We took the river path to get to Bjni Fortress. We crossed ‘the bridge with no railing’, that’s what I call it, and onto the side of the road. This road didn’t have a sidewalk; there are not many sidewalks in the villages of Armenia. We kept following that path until we reached the foot of a large hill. Bjni Fortress is found at the top of the hill.
“The fortress of Bjni was built in the 9th to 10th centuries by the royal Pahlavuni family of the Bagratuni Dynasty,” as quoted by Wikipedia. It was reconstructed by the commander of Bjni, lord Vasak. In 1021 Bjni was attacked by the Turkish soldiers of the Daylamis, who robbed and attacked towns and villages. Vasak and his troops became furious and attacked the enemy forces. They met in battle near the Kasakh river, and Vasak and his troops killed 300 enemy soldiers, causing the rest to flee. After fighting, Vasak became tired and went for a nap at the foot of a mountain. A man who had to flee the village of Bjni came and spotted Vasak asleep and hit him with a near death blow. He then killed Vasak by throwing him from one of the high rocks.
I personally think that was an evil thing to do, since Vasak had just saved the town from destruction. Well, all people have different opinions. The enemy soldiers remind me of character in the book I’m reading, the Warriors series, authored by Erin Hunter, about four clans of cats. One of the cats, Tigerstar, is a bloodthirsty male cat who plans of destroying the forest and robbing prey from other clans.
One cool thing about Bjni Fortress is that it has a tunnel that goes underground. People covered it and closed it with a gate, so no one would accidentally fall in. When we went, there were lights inside, and the small door was open. We didn’t go far though, since the stairs leading underground didn’t look safe anymore. After we walked some, we saw a light we thought was natural, soon figuring out we were wrong. At the point where the stairs started looking more fragile, we climbed back up to the entrance. The Bjni Fortress is an amazing site, and I think everyone should have a chance to experience the wonders of Bjni.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bjni_Fortress
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zabel_Yesayan