The Old Man and the Cross-Stones: A Real-Life Fable

Gurgen Serobyan is one of 30,000 people permanently displaced as a result of the Second Artsakh war. We met him and his family in the village of Mets Masrik in Armenia’s Gegharkunik Province, where they settled following the 44-day war. They’re among 500 displaced Artsakhtsis currently receiving weekly food assistance through our collaboration with Focus On Children Now (FCN), all thanks to your donations.

When we met him in his new home, Gurgen recounted to us the following true tale about how he brought two khachkars (cross-stones) to Armenia while evacuating Artsakh, saving them from potential desecration or destruction by invading Azerbaijani forces. The threat of cultural genocide against Armenian cultural heritage by Azerbaijan is all too real — for decades, the Azerbaijani regime has engaged in the outright erasure of Armenian monuments and artifacts from indigenous Armenian lands, and continues to do so.

When we listened to Gurgen tell the story of the khachkars, we thought it sounded just like the Armenian folk tales of old, so we made it into one! While it certainly sounds like the stuff of legend, we guarantee that this story and its details are all true, at least according to Gurgen.

The Old Man and the Cross-Stones

There was and there was not an old man who lived in the windy hills of Karvajar. On the first morning, with his son, the man set to work cultivating the land.

The man, Gurgen, was digging in the ground when he hit it. “Gor, my son, this is a khachkar.”

Gor was doubtful. “No, pap, it can’t be.”

But lo and behold, it was! As Gurgen continued to clear the earth, he noticed a pomegranate carved into the khachkar, with little holes depicting seeds that were painted red. He vowed to come back the next day with tools to pull the stone out from the ground. Today he could do nothing more, as he had a terrible pain in his hand that kept him from opening his fingers fully.

On the second morning, Gurgen awoke, and noticed that the pain in his hand had lessened. He gathered his tools and set to work freeing the khachkar from the ground. With Gor, he extracted the khachkar, cleaned it, and set it upright. It stood proud.

On the third morning, Gurgen awoke, and noticed that his hand had healed completely! In his sleep that night, he dreamt that the khachkar had fallen and cracked straight down the middle. Living in windy Karvajar, he worried a strong gust of wind might have pushed the stone over and broken it. “My heart is uneasy,” he said. “Let me go see my rock. I must see how it broke.”

Gurgen rushed outside to see for himself. Thanks to God, the khachkar stood proud, exactly the way he had left it.

But if the khachkar wasn’t broken, then what of the dream? Gurgen knew in his bones that there must be another khachkar somewhere close, cracked just like the stone he had seen in his sleep. To his wife, Luba, he said “there’s another rock under the earth and I must find it.”

And so, Gurgen set out again, searching far and wide in the canyon for the cracked stone. He entered an abandoned building and lo and behold, there was half a khachkar! He searched the entire building and, to his surprise, there was the other half! His dream had become a reality.

Gurgen placed the ancient cracked stone in his garden, where it stood proud alongside the first khachkar.

Gurgen loved his khachkars, with which he had become so well acquainted. He never thought that war would tear them away from him. But war came many mornings later, and it was time to part ways. The cracked stone was sent away with friends to Etchmiadzin, the holy city of Armenia, as the people of Karvajar prepared to say goodbye to their home before it was handed over to destructive forces.

But what of the first khachkar with the pomegranate carvings? Gurgen lamented at the thought of leaving it behind — he didn’t have a car to take it to Armenia himself, and time was running out. They had only 5 days to leave. Of all his belongings acquired over a lifetime, this stone was the most precious. He worried for its fate.

When a car of strangers, also leaving Karvajar, came their way, he implored its passengers to take the stone to Armenia. Across the border, he knew, it would be safe, away from maleficent hands. Across the border, it would find him just as he had found it under the ground. Together, six strangers lifted the khachkar into the car, and off it went.

After that day, Gurgen thought only of his beloved khachkar. “My rock, my rock, my rock. I’m going to get it.”

And lo and behold! The khachkar found him. It had ended up in the hands of the father of a neighbor from Karvajar, who contacted Gurgen. “The rock is safe. Come and get it!”

Gurgen’s family had lost nearly everything to war. They had very little money. Still, they managed to pay for a car that would take them to their stone. They brought it to their new front yard in Mets Masrik, where it stands proud near the entrance of their home once again. Now whenever guests come to visit, they always kiss the khachkar before entering.