Hrag Vartanian who took the photo above wrote in his blog about the first year anniversary of the assassination of Hrant Dink. Hrag was the last person to interview Hrant before he was killed.

It’s a difficult thing. My background is fully ensconced in what this assassination represents. My Armenian family is from Istanbul, and left the country to flee a kind of persecution that is boiling under a seemingly placid surface, and rears its ugly head in tragic and violent moments like these.

I met Hrant Dink at an Armenian function in San Francisco a year before he was murdered and am outraged that his voice has been silenced. To speak up in Turkey can mean the signing of your own death warrant. But in remaining silent, you die a little each day, allowing the memory of your past to vanish into thin wisps of air.

Delays, delays. I have been away for a while, and just returned from a two week stay in Istanbul, Turkey. An extraordinary visit to the city where my family is from. I can say that I have an understanding as to how my family came to be the way they are. And why, in the end, they chose to leave and start fresh in America.

Istanbul is truly beautiful. I liken it to a massive San Francisco, with what some might call an exotic twist. I was surprised to find that I did not feel like a foreigner there. I’ve grown up saturated with elements of this culture — the language although I don’t speak it, the music, the food, the way people are. Armenians (Bolseh Hyes) living in this city are plentiful, and I found myself back home, in a sense. Loose edges in my minds were mended, and my identity makes more sense to me.

There is so much to talk about and share. But I’ll whet your appetite with a picture of the inside of the Hagia Sophia. (Pronounce it “Aya Sophia” please.) The Turks are realizing what a incredible historical treasure this old Greek Orthodox Cathedral-turned-mosque is, and they are now attemping to slowly restore the magnificent mosaics that they carelessly plastered over so long ago.