ARMENIA The mysteries of Ararat between Türkiye and Armenia

Noah’s Ark Mountain, a biblical symbol of ancient Armenia, remains an unresolved issue in current attempts to mend relations between Ankara and Yerevan. Türkiye claims that Kurdish armies are organized on its slopes and does not want to grant any rights to others. And Pašinyan would like to remove it from Armenian flags so as not to pursue “dreams of the past.”

Yerevan () – Between Turkey and Armenia, which are currently trying to reopen their borders and reestablish relations, overcoming disputes over the genocide of the early 20th century, the tension over Mount Ararat, a biblical symbol of ancient Armenia in the border between both States, which the Turks consider to be their exclusive property, after having received the volcano as a “gift” from the Soviets more than a century ago.

The Holy Scriptures relate in the book of Genesis that Noah built the Ark with hard gopher wood, similar to contemporary ships, with three decks with bulkheads and interior rooms, tarring the body inside and out. The measurements of the ship that rescued the universal flood are also reported, 135 meters long, 25 wide and 15 high, and students from the University of Leicester have calculated that about 70,000 animals could fit in such a carrying capacity. According to tradition, on the “seventeenth day of the seventh month,” the ark came to rest “on the Ararat Mountains,” whose peaks rose above the waters, where a dove appeared.

Today, Ararat is a large mountain complex that extends over an area of ​​130 kilometers between Iran and Armenia, while the main part, with the two snow-capped peaks, lies within the borders of Turkey, rising to 5,165 kilometers. meters above sea level, more than 4,000 meters from the base of the entire system. It is not simply a mountain, but an active volcano with two craters, which last erupted in the 19th century, when the icy waters melted inside, causing an explosion of heat. The story of Noah’s Ark has always fascinated historians, who have explored the area especially since the last two centuries.

Until the beginning of the 19th century, the inhabitants of the area, Persians, Kurds and Armenians, believed that it was forbidden to climb the sacred peaks of Ararat, but in 1828 the Peace of Turkmenčaj was signed between Russia and Turkey, thanks to which the explorer German Johann Parrot could have been the first to reach the summit. Over the course of a century, the Ark was sighted three times, by shepherds, the Turks and the English mountaineer James Brice, who claimed to have found woody remains at 4,000 meters above sea level. In 1916, a Russian expedition reached Ararat, claiming to have found the Ark on the ridge between the two peaks, following photographs by pilot Vladimir Roskovitsky, and the American Alexander Koor also went to the area.

The expedition material was lost during the revolutionary events in Russia, and in 1921 the Soviet Union granted all of Ararat to the Turks, and access was prohibited to all explorers, although during the Cold War American spy planes flew over its summits, guarding the Soviet borders. Astronaut James Irving, a fervent Christian, dedicated several years to the search for the Ark, and according to rumors he found its remains in 1982, which remained inaccessible due to the ban by the Ankara authorities, and several subsequent expeditions were unsuccessful.

Turkey justifies itself by claiming that on the slopes of Ararat, the Kurdish armies have even organized a Noah’s Ark Museum and venerate the mountain as sacred, uniting Christians and Muslims and considering the area as belonging to them, they call Noah Nukh, and They consider themselves heirs of the biblical stories. Also for this reason, the Turks do not want to grant any rights to others, not only to the Kurds, but not even to the Armenians, to whom they even dispute the symbol of the mountain, which was already extolled on the flag of the republic. Soviet Armenia, and which is still used today as an image of Armenian glory, especially in the regional conflicts with Azerbaijan over the other mountainous region of Nagorno Karabakh. Prime Minister Nikol Pašinyan himself has suggested eliminating it, to remain linked to the “real Armenia” and not pursue dreams linked to the country’s historical and biblical past, but the mystery of the Ark continues to ride the waves of the mountainous borders of these regions in perpetual conflict, trying to find the dove of universal peace.