Tamara Karakashian
editor

If you’ve never been to Armenia, Matthew Karanian and Robert Kurkjian are going to get you there in the 164 pages of their new book, Edge of Time: Traveling in Armenia and Karabagh. They aren’t exactly going to get you there, but they are going to provide a convenient travel resource for your trip!
A standing-room only crowd of students and community-members gathered at 7:30 PM on Monday, October 7 in the Alice Peters Auditorium on campus to view this fascinating slide presentation.
After months of photographing the beautiful countryside, churches and people of Armenia, Karanian and Kurkjian decided that the beauty was too good to keep locked within their photographs. They had to tell everyone about Armenia. “We were both first-time travelers to Armenia, and we were stunned by the beauty of the landscape and the hospitality of the people we met,” said Kurkjian. “The only photographs we had ever seen of Armenia were from the Soviet Era, and it was depicted as a sad, gray place.” Soon after, they published their first compilation of photographs, Out of Stone: Armenia and Artsakh (1999), which encouraged readers to visit the attractive country portrayed so lavishly. “First, we wanted to share our work on Armenia. We wanted to be able to show to the world that this remote and little-known land is stunningly beautiful,” said Karanian.
In 1995, Karanian and Kurkjian both journeyed to Armenia for the first time, and took jobs with the American University of Armenia. Finding each other through their common interest in photography, the two instantly became friends. This friendship fostered the publication of Out of Stone.
Both Edge of Time and Out of Stone were on display and for sale at their presentation, the first in the Armenian Studies Program Fall 2002 Lecture Series at CSU Fresno and co-sponsored by the Armenian National Committee, Central California.
The main topic of discussion was their newest publication, Edge of Time: Traveling in Armenia and Karabagh (Revised Second Edition, 2002). Edge of Time is a travel guide through Armenia and its brilliant color photography and descriptive passages draw the reader closer to making that journey to Armenia, the homeland so many have heard about, but never visited.
Attendees saw outstanding, rare photographs of the mountainous region, the striking churches, and the people of Karabagh. Karanian and Kurkjian have spent many days in Karabagh taking photographs. The two also had on display many of their more popular prints including a few that had taken them hours upon hours to capture perfectly.
Karanian and Kurkjian both commented how it was necessary for them to return to the same exact place many times to capture the precise image they desired. The time of day and seasons also produced varied photographs.
Shortly after the publication of Edge of Time, the two realized how necessary such a publication was. After a mere 11 months, and with a 200-copy order that they couldn’t fill, they unexpectedly ran out of books. For a period of about three months they had no books to deliver, despite the orders which kept rolling in. The travel guide was promptly reprinted and Karanian and Kurkjian could breathe a sigh of relief.
Karanian, who has worked in Armenia for at least part of each year since 1995, is a practicing lawyer in Washington, DC. He will return to Armenia in February to work as an Associate Professor of Law at the American University of Armenia.
Kurkjian is a scientist and has served for several years as the Director of the Environmental Research and Management Center at the American University of Armenia, beginning in 1995. He was later married in Shushi, the cultural capital of Karabagh and has traveled extensively throughout the most remote parts of Karabagh.
Both Out of Stone and Edge of Time are available from Stone Garden Productions, a publishing company founded by Karanian and Kurkjian. To order books call toll-free: 1-888-266-7331, for all other inquiries, call: 202-537-3708; emai info@stonegardenproductions.com or visit their website at http://www.stonegardenproductions.com.