Home is Not Where the Heart is: A Story about Diaspora Armenians in Lebanon.

(Photograph: P. Papalov’s photographic studio:http://www.photomuseum.org.ge/photographers/papalov/papalov_en.htm)

The year was 1946, and Diaspora Armenians from the Middle East were invited to repatriate Soviet Armenia.

My father was around 22 years of age, and he owned a building in Burj Hammoud, the Beirut suburb that was founded by the survivors of the 1915 Armenian Genocide. He did not live in Burj Hammoud but visited once every few months to collect rent from tenants. He was living in Niha, al-Chouf, his hometown, and the trip back then consumed an entire day given the nature of the roads and unavailability of affordable methods of transportation.