Climibing Mt. Ararat Website

Surprise, Surprise.

My old UMass-Boston undergrad college roommate of one year from 1990-1991 just emailed me with details of his climb to the top of Mt. Ararat with about 15 people or so back in August 2005. Vasken Knouni of Athens, Greece has published a website describing the experience with pictures and a diary. You can access to website here. I can't believe the guy did it. Please visit the site as it is tremendous to read about his encounters. Please keep in mind that he had to overcome some Visa issues in Turkey back in 2002. But, now, he went, saw, and conquered...

It's great to see and hear of old friends achieving the impossible. Back in the summer of 1991, a few of my close Armenian friends (Aram Hajian and Arto Payaslian) and I took off for Europe on one of those after college graduation trips that lasted a month or so. Our Athens, Greece stop was hosted by the Knouni family and Vasken took us to Mykonos Island for some fun. After that, he ended up moving to San Francisco, then London where he lives and works now. Kind of a blast from the past.

Bravo Vasken, you are a "mangas". The Boston boys are proud. But, we can still kick your ass in Nardi.

Here is his explaination for the trip,

Dear Friends,

Recently I climbed Mountain Ararat, fulfilling a lifelong ambition. For
us Christians, this is a Holy Mountain; while for Armenians it also
represents a national symbol. In light of this, I have created a web site about the
expedition. It’s a “journal-style” web site which provides a day to day
account of the expedition. The site also contains a rich set of photos and a
gallery. However, I would kindly request that you read the pages one by one. I
guarantee that you will not waist your time!

Please forward this email to other friends and people you know;
irrespective of their nationality or religion. Just send it to them.

http://www.ararat5137.org

I look forward to receiving your feedback or questions. Keep in mind
that the site will be updated in the near future, so please revisit.

Kind Regards,

Vasken Knouni

Vasken also breaks down the Visa issue in detail on the website and the bias against Armenians. Here you go...

The permits for the climb to Ararat were arranged by the Turkish Travel Agency on behalf of the Greek Mountaineering Federation. In due course, the agency had informed the Federation that all permits are arranged and that we have all the necessary documentation for the climb. However, ten days before the departure of the first expedition, the Federation receives a telephone call from the Turkish Embassy in Athens, Greece requesting all the passports of the participants to be sent to them, in order to issue a special visa for the climb. This request was a bit strange and it was also impossible to fulfill within the given timeframe, as many members of the expedition were already traveling elsewhere. The Federation contacted the Turkish Travel Agency asking them to send all the documentation that was previously issued by the Turkish authorities giving us the permission for the ascent on Ararat. The documents were sent to the Federation as requested. They were issued by the Turkish Ministry of Tourism and Culture indicating that there were no concerns by The Ministry of Internal affairs for the climb for all of the names of the members of both expeditions. However, the document explicitly states that is was not recommended that the three Greek citizens Serko Agabadian, Garo Agabadian and Garabet Gentanian to ascent the mountain. Obviously this segregation of those three names out of a total of 37 was based on the fact that their last names had the characteristic Armenian ending in -ian. I also personally saw an email sent by the Turkish Agency confirming that the Turkish authorities avoid issuing permissions to people of Armenian origin. This made us all concerned but never the less we continued our trip.
What is the significance of this? It is clear that the Turkish Government has something to hide or to be concerned about when EU Citizens holding EU passports are not recommended to travel in Turkey because they are of Armenian origin. This event is non-other than a serious violation of my human rights, at least on the basis of discrimination. And it does not take much to figure out the reason that the Turkish government do not recommend people of Armenian origin to travel to Turkey. It's called Armenian Genocide and their concerted efforts not to face up to the truth.