The Challis messenger. (Challis, Idaho) 1912-current, 1921-01-26
THE TRAGEDY OF
ARMENIA

The plight of Armenia about the
end Of 1919. a condition which has
been aggravated by the recent defeat
of Armenian forces by Turkish ma
tionalists, is described in the following
communication to the National Geo
graphic society from Melville Chatter.
.Eriyan, the capital Of Armenia's
provisional republic is an inconceiv-
able contrast to the Georgian govern
ment seat at Tiflis. At Erivan one
finds NO spacious prospect nor vice
regal palace. no smart shops, Russian
opera. nor gay night life. To behold
misery in Tiflis, one must search it
out. In Erivan one cannot escape it.
This poor. struggling, dingy city of
the plains. whose government offices
suggest some hastily extemporized cleo
ton headquarters and whose parlia-
ment chamber is rugged up with bench
es and cheesecloth in the auditorium
of the second-class theater. boasts Of
but one beauty. and that-to speak in
paradox-is forty miles away; for. in
whatever quarter of Erivan you may
be, lift your glance and great Ararat
of eternal SHOWS is seen brooding dis
family over the mean streets with his
aspect Of majestic calm. He is the
Armenian's Olympus, or rather say,
the Sinai of a race which has known
bondage and MISUNDERSTANDING !;
and for centuries a peoples magma
ton has turned toward him.
THE little Erivsu republic has been
the center of refuge for Turkish Ar
menians ever since the massacre of
1915, and between 100000 and 3OO,-
600 of them are camped within its
borders. As for the city itself, its
former population of 10000, has been
doubled by this influx. There. star
walton and typhus have claimed their
toll of 5000. the death rate fiuctuat-
ing between fifty and eighty day.
Though the doctor and l were here
to observe the worst phases of the
situation, each of US waited for the
other to suggest trip to the Igdir
was most acute.
THE town of Igdir. with its local
and nearby populations of 10000 Ar
menians, 10000 Tatars. and 1900
Yezidis. revealed sc:ne squalid streets
with but a few people seated here and
there, as we drove in. Throughout
those tortuous. sun-heaten byways. no
children played and no animal roamed.
The air was heavy with dreadful ST.
Ience. such as hangs over plague->1nit-
ten communities.
I'VE found the children. such as
they We're. inhabitins an orphanage
wherein one sickened at putridity's
horrible odor. and were informed that
there were neither medicines nor dis
infectants wherewith to allay the con-
dition of the many little sick beds.
sick? Say. rather. the bed-ridden
"a word which more justly describes
those tiny. withered-up. crone-like
creatures. upon whose faces the skin
seemed stretched TO a drumhead's
tightness: whose peering eyes shot
terror and anguish. as if deaths pres
ence were already perceptible to them,
and who lay there at famine's climax
OF physical exhaustion. In those
young. yet grotesQuely-aged faces. We
seemed to see a long lifetime of trag-
edy packed into eight or ten childish
years.
1.-The mud huts which we visited
presented an invariable picture-a
barren. cave-like interior, lacking one
stick of furniture or household uten-
sill, and with q few bleached homes
scattered here and there"