Note 9 — Chapter XVII · TO ANI AND TO KARS

Both the Pristav and the priest were quickly forthcoming; we were by them conducted to a house which contained two storeys, and which was the residence of the priest. While food was being prepared, we were accompanied by our hosts in a walk round the place. We were informed that it contained some thousand inhabitants, all of whom were Armenians. It possesses a church, but is still without a school. The old prejudices survive, and it was impossible to persuade the young women to submit to the camera. But Talin is distinguished by the close proximity of a piece of architecture which appears to date from the golden period of the Bagratid dynasty and which ranks among the most charming examples of the Armenian style. It is a church—they call it cloister (vank), and it perhaps belonged to a monastery—which, although in ruins, is fairly well preserved. The roof has fallen in; the walls display wide breaches; but the masonry is still sharp and fresh, as when first put together, and the traceries might just have undergone the finishing touch. With its bold windows—no mere apertures—and bands of elegant sculpture, I thought it the most beautiful building I had yet seen in Armenia. I reproduce some of these chiselled mouldings of the exterior. The first, a vine pattern (Fig. 62), belongs to the southern transept; and the second (Fig. 63), representing a pear or apple, is taken from that upon the north. On the south side of the ruin we observed a sun-dial, carved in stone; and we were shown a square block, which had been found among the débris, and upon which was sculptured a relief, representing the Virgin and Child, attended by two angels. A graveyard surrounds the building; some of the old crosses have been built into the walls of the village church. A little on the east we noticed the remains of a small chapel. The ground was strewn with fallen stones, some red, others grey—the two colours which are so skilfully blended or placed in contrast by Armenian architects upon the broad, undecorated spaces of their walls. We enquired the history of the ruin, and were referred to a partially defaced inscription on one of the piers which once supported the dome. It mentions the name of King Sembat, a member of the Bagratid dynasty, which reigned from the ninth to the eleventh century.9 The grandfather of the priest informed us that both the monastery and the church had been maintained up to a comparatively recent period. He said that the priests had fled during the campaign of Paskevich, since which date the buildings had been allowed to fall into decay.