On reaching Echmiadzin I went directly, as was the custom, to worship at all the holy places. I then went into the town to look for a lodging, but it was impossible to find one, since all the inns (hotels did not exist then) were full and more than full; and so I decided to do as many others did—simply establish myself outside the town under a cart or wagon. But as it was still early, I decided first of all to do my errand, that is, find Pogossian and give him the parcel.
He lived not far from the main inn in the house of a distant relative, the Archimandrite Surenian. I found him at home. He was about the same age as I, dark, of medium height, and had a small moustache. His eyes were very sad, but at times they burned with an inner fire. The right eye was slightly crossed. At that time he seemed to be very frail and shy.
He began asking me about his parents, and having learned in the course of the conversation that I had not succeeded in finding lodgings, he ran off and, returning almost immediately, proposed that I should share his room.
I of course accepted, and went at once and brought back all my paraphernalia from the wagon. And I had just finished arranging a bed for myself with Pogossian's help, when we were called to take supper with Father Surenian, who greeted me affably and asked me about Pogossian's family and about things in general in Alexandropol.
After supper I went with Pogossian to see the town and the sacred relics. It must be said that during the festival there is a great deal of movement all night in the streets of Echmiadzin, and all the cafés and askhani are open.
That whole evening and all the days following were spent with Pogossian. He took me everywhere, as he knew all the ins and outs of the town. We went to places where ordinary pilgrims do not have access and even to the Kanzaran, where the treasures of Echmiadzin are kept and where one is very rarely admitted.
During our talks we discovered that the questions which were agitating me also interested him; both of us had much material to share on these questions, and little by little our talks became more intimate and heart-to-heart, and a strong tie was gradually formed between us.
Pogossian was nearing the end of his studies at the Theological Seminary and in two years was to be ordained a priest, but his inner state did not correspond to this at all. Religious as he was, he was none the less extremely critical of his environment and strongly averse to living among priests whose mode of life seemed to him to run entirely counter to his own ideals.
When we had become friends, he told me a great deal about the hidden side of the life of the clergy there; and the thought that on becoming a priest he would have to live in this environment made him suffer inwardly and feel deeply distressed.
After the holidays I stayed on in Echmiadzin for three more weeks, living with Pogossian at the house of the Archimandrite Surenian; and thus I had the opportunity more than once of talking about the subjects which agitated me with the archimandrite himself, and also with other monks to whom he introduced me.
But during my stay in Echmiadzin I did not find what I was looking for and, having spent enough time to realize that I could not find it there, I went away with a feeling of deep inner disillusionment.
Pogossian and I parted great friends. We promised to write to each other and to share our observations on the questions which interested us both.
One fine day, two years later, Pogossian arrived in Tiflis and came to stay with me.
He had graduated from the seminary and had been in Kars for a short time with his parents. Now he had only to marry in order to obtain a parish. His family had even found a bride for him, but he was in a state of complete indecision and did not know what to do. He would spend days on end reading all kinds of books that I had, and in the evenings, on my return home from work as a stoker at the Tiflis railway station we would go together to the Moushtaid and, walking along the deserted paths, we would talk and talk.
Once, while walking in the Moushtaid, I jokingly proposed that he should come to work with me at the railway station, and I was greatly astonished when the next day he insisted that I should help him get a place there. I did not try to dissuade him, but sent him with a note to my good friend the engineer Yaroslev, who at once gave him a letter of introduction to the station-master, who took him on as assistant locksmith.
So it continued until October. We were still engrossed in abstract questions and Pogossian had no thought of returning home.
Once at the house of Yaroslev I made the acquaintance of another engineer, Vasiliev, who had just arrived in the Caucasus to survey the route of the proposed railway between Tiflis and Kars. After we had met several times, he proposed one day that I should go with him on the survey as overseer and interpreter. The salary offered was very tempting—almost four times as much as I was earning. I was already tired of my job, which was beginning to interfere with my main work, and as it also became clear that I should have much free time, I accepted. I proposed to Pogossian that he should go with me in some capacity or other, but he refused, as he had become interested in his work as a locksmith and wished to continue what he had begun.
I travelled with this engineer for three months in the narrow valleys between Tiflis and Karaklis and managed to earn a great deal, having besides my official salary several unofficial sources of income of a rather questionable character.
Knowing beforehand which villages and little towns the railway was to go past, I would send someone to the power-possessors of these villages and towns, offering to 'arrange' for the railway to be laid through these places. In most cases my offer was accepted and I would receive for my trouble a private remuneration, at times in the form of a rather large amount of money.
When I returned to Tiflis I had collected, including what remained from my previous earnings, quite a substantial sum, so I did not look for work again but devoted myself entirely to the study of the phenomena which interested me.
Pogossian had meanwhile become a locksmith and also found time to read a great many books. He had recently become especially interested in ancient Armenian literature, of which he procured a large quantity from the same booksellers as I.
By this time Pogossian and I had come to the definite conclusion that there really was 'a certain something' which people formerly knew, but that now this knowledge was quite forgotten. We had lost all hope of finding any guiding clue to this knowledge in contemporary exact science, in contemporary books or from people in general, and so we directed all our attention to ancient literature. Having chanced to come across a whole collections of ancient Armenian books, Pogossian and I became intensely interested in them and decided to go to Alexandropol to look for a quiet place where we could give ourselves up entirely to study.
Arriving in Alexandropol, we chose as such a place the isolated ruins of the ancient Armenian capital, Ani, which is thirty miles from Alexandropol, and having built a hut among the ruins we settled there, getting our food from the neighbouring villages and from shepherds.
Ani became the capital of the Bagratid kings of Armenia in the year 962. It was taken by the Byzantine Emperor in 1046, and at that time was already called the 'City of a Thousand Churches'. Later it was conquered by the Seljuk Turks; between 1125 and 1209 it was taken five times by the Georgians; in 1239 it was taken by the Mongols, and in 1313 it was completely destroyed by earthquake.
Among the ruins there are, by the way, the remains of the Patriarchs' Church, finished in the year 1010, the remains of two churches also of the eleventh century, and of a church which was completed about 1215.
At this point in my writings I cannot pass by in silence a fact which, in my opinion, may be of interest to certain readers, namely, that these historical data which I have just cited concerning the ancient Armenian capital Ani are the first, and I hope the last, that I have taken from information officially recognized on earth; that is to say, it is the first instance since the beginning of my writing activities in which I have had recourse to an encyclopedia.
About the city Ani there still exists one very interesting legend, explaining why, after being called the City of a Thousand Churches for a long time, it came to be called the City of a Thousand and One Churches.
This legend is as follows:
Once the wife of a certain shepherd complained to her husband about the shocking misbehaviour in the churches. She said that there was no place for quiet prayer and, wherever one went, the churches were as crowded and noisy as beehives. And the shepherd, heeding her just indignation, began building a church especially for his wife.
In former times the word 'shepherd' did not have the same meaning as it has now. Formerly a shepherd himself was the owner of the flocks he grazed; and shepherds were considered among the richest people of the country; some of them even possessed several flocks and herds.
When he had finished building the church, this shepherd called it the 'Church of the Shepherd's Pious Wife', and from then on the city of Ani was called the City of a Thousand and One Churches. Other historical data assert that, even before the shepherd built this church, there were many more than a thousand churches in the city, but it is said that during recent excavations a stone was found confirming the legend of the shepherd and his pious wife.
Living among the ruins of this city and spending our days reading and studying, we sometimes, for a rest, made excavations in the hope of finding something, as there are many underground passages in the ruins of Ani.
Once, Pogossian and I, while digging in one of these underground passages, noticed a place where the consistency of the ground had changed, and on digging further we discovered a new passage, which turned out to be a narrow one, blocked at the end with fallen stones. We cleared the stones away and before us appeared a small room with arches crumbling with age. Everything indicated that it had been a monastic cell. There was nothing left in this cell but broken pottery and pieces of rotten wood, doubtless the remains of furniture; but in a kind of niche in the comer lay a pile of parchments.
