Digitally preserving Armenia’s Christian heritage

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1:20I'm in the ruins of an ancient church in Armenia in the baking heat of summer. So we are here at the Basilica of Yere Ruyk. I'm around an hour and a half northwest of Armenia's capital, Yerevan, near the border with Turkey. And I'm here with archaeologist Sipana Chakerian. It was built most probably at the 6th century. It has been studied since the beginning of the 20th century. It's a really extraordinary monument. There are no guides or tourists and we're surrounded by barren scrubland. But this redstone building has international significance. This is one of the most important early Christian monuments of Armenia and it most probably had the relics, so it was an important site of pilgrimage.

2:05Although this building has been here for centuries, it's clearly deteriorating. But now a unique scanning project, using technology like this drone, is ensuring it's being preserved as it is in digital form.

2:28You're listening to the documentary from the BBC World Service. I'm Julia Paul and for this episode of Heart and Soul, which explores stories of spirituality from around the world, I'm in Armenia. This country is home to some of the world's most significant ancient Christian heritage, but it's in danger from war, earthquakes and even neglect. Some sites have already been erased from the map. There was a church in Berzor that doesn't exist anymore and we have the 3D scan of that church. That church now only exists digitally. For some young Armenians, helping preserve these sites has been a way of getting closer to their Christian faith.

3:11When you spend a day, photograph every inch of it, it's like your soul gets attached to the building. But when it comes to worship, can a digital representation really be a substitute for the original? As a Christian of the Armenian church, I strongly believe that an in-person encounter within a church, with your community, is crucial.

3:44So what exactly is happening here at Yeraruk? So the technology we have is generally three things. We have a drone, we have a terrestrial camera, and we also have a laser scanner. Hello, my name is Anna Arzumanyan. I'm a 3D scanning technical specialist. Anna is from the TUMO Centre for Creative Technologies, a unique Armenian educational institution for teenagers. It has campuses all over the world, but this team is from Yerevan. How exactly do you digitally preserve a building like this? So the drone and terrestrial camera is what we call photogrammetry, which is a process of taking a lot of pictures with a fairly large overlap, like 70 to 80 percent, in order to create this building that we're standing in right now in the digital space.

4:34How it works is by all of the information that we get in the photos, all of the little details, the computer understands where everything is in relation to each photo. And it's able to recreate it by using the camera sensors as well, which gives us depth information. And with the laser scanner, it is mostly used for incredibly accurate information about the architecture in terms of the measurements. So photogrammetry can be a bit more prone to distortion in terms of perspective, whereas laser scanners are made specifically for this kind of work, also for building restorations. And it allows us to use the best of both worlds.

5:11scanning and photographing this whole site will take hours when the material is gathered it's uploaded into a computer and compiled to create a 3d virtual recreation of the building in armia you have a few sites that everybody goes to and this one is not in the radar yet so so you don't have that much of course so i am hula keshishian i'm a senior project manager at Tumal. And I'm also now the director of the Armenian Cultural Heritage Institute that we've founded to preserve heritage and innovate on heritage. Our scanning pace is really high. We have scanned more than 250 monuments by now, but the processing is a bit slower.

5:58This project doesn't only scan religious buildings. The work to recreate these sites online can take months, but eventually they'll be available for anyone to view. What makes a 3D scan interesting is that you can visit the scanned site from anywhere and anytime. So we want to obviously give access to anyone. But not yet. We're working on it. So by the end of this year, hopefully in fall, the platform will be available. We will not have, unfortunately, all 250 sites at that moment on the platform. but the idea is just to feed along the way the platform. It's a strange experience to be standing here in this beautiful, ancient, religious space.

6:50Impressive still in its own way, but a ruin. No roof, sand on the floor. But then to be surrounded by this state-of-the-art technology and the team all around intent on making sure that even though this building will remain open to the elements, it will be preserved in digital form.

7:25Yeraruk was initially damaged by an earthquake, and during the Soviet era, religion was discouraged, so the remains were neglected further. But the scanning project was sparked by conflict. In 2020, Christian Armenia and neighbouring Muslim Azerbaijan went to war over the small mountainous province of Nagorno-Karabakh, a place Armenians call Artsakh.

7:54So at that moment we knew we only had two to three weeks to access for one last time before we had to get out. The province is located inside Azerbaijan, but was connected to Armenia by a road. It's internationally recognised as being part of Azerbaijan, but Armenia says ethnic Armenians have been there for centuries. To more organised the logistics, we found cars, we found a team of volunteers and drove to Artsakh to scan as many sites as possible during these last days. Back then we scanned 40 sites, which is a very high amount for the time that we had. So we lost one part of Artsakh at that moment.

8:38We lost another part a few years later. And between those two wars, we went back also to the remaining regions of Artsakh that were still under Armenian control and scanned 40 additional sites. So we now have an archive of 80 scanned Armenian sites from Artsakh. In 2023, Azerbaijan took final control of the region. The Azeri government said no Armenian who stayed would be harmed, but all 120 ,000 inhabitants left and now the border is closed. Armenia says there's also evidence collected via satellite imagery that Azerbaijan is damaging or destroying religious sites. No organisation, nor Armenian, neither international, is able to access now Nagorno-Karapa.

9:31Whenever you have a satellite view of a place and then there was a church on day one and then on day ten, there's no more church, it's really easy to document. So for instance, there was a church in Beldor that doesn't exist anymore and we have the 3D scan of that church. That church now only exists digitally. When you woke up and heard that that church no longer existed and that you had the only evidence that it ever existed, I mean, how did you feel?

10:02It was extremely hard to witness one more Armenian site disappearing, obviously, because, you know, we've grown up with these stories. My entire life I was told about this village of my great-grandmother, and today there is nothing left. And just witnessing that firsthand is extremely difficult. But also, if there was a silver lining, I would say we just realized, okay, now what we have is even more valuable. Now we have to be even more careful. We have to reach even more people with this information, because we're the only ones who have it at that moment.

10:48Now Armenia and Azerbaijan have agreed a peace deal in the United States, which it's hoped will end decades of war. It allows for the building of a route along the Armenian border to connect Azerbaijan with the region of Nachivon, which is home to around 500 ,000 Azeris. But there's no mention of any access for Armenians to Nagorno-Karabakh.

11:22It's a big piece of rough-hewn stone, about maybe 10 foot tall, and then these very distinctive Armenian-style crosses are carved into it. Yes. When it comes to religion, in the 2022 census, 95 % of Armenians describe themselves as Christian, and there are signs of that everywhere. This khachka dates back to the 10th century. And what is a khachka? Khachka is literally translated as cross stone. It's very characteristic for Christian Armenians to create khachkas. To find out more about Armenia's Christianity, I've travelled around 100 kilometres from the ruins of Yarauk to another important holy site.

12:07Father Garagin, can you just explain where we are here? Oh, sorry. We are. Getting wet. No, that's all right. We are in the Mother's Sea of Holy Echmerzin, which is the spiritual and the administrative headquarters of the Armenian Apostolic Church worldwide. And we're just hearing the sprinklers behind us. The beautiful gardens here are being watered because it is very, very hot at this time. Yeah, and it's quite refreshing, at least to hear the sprinklers. I'm here to meet Father Garegin Hambadzumian, and to avoid any more showers, we decide to go inside. I am the director of the Ecumenical External Church Relations Department.

12:48I have been a priest of the Armenian Church for the past 16 years. The Armenian Apostolic Church is one of the most ancient Christian churches around the world. It was established in the first century by two of the apostles of Jesus Christ, St. Thaddeus and St. Bartholomew. And then in 301, the Armenians adopted Christianity as the state religion of Armenia first in the world. So Armenia is known also as the first Christian country in the world. Yes, you heard that right. Armenia adopted Christianity as its state religion, even before Rome. The church has played a crucial role to protect the Christian Armenian identity, even outside Armenia.

13:33So in a way, it kind of unites the Armenians all over the world. As you may know, there are only three million Armenians who live in Armenia, and almost seven plus million Armenians who live outside Armenia. So the church is also playing a role of protecting the language, protecting the identity and the Christian faith among the Armenians. But what about the Christians of Nagorno-Karabakh? The churches and monasteries of Nagorno-Karabakh Artsakh are not just mere monuments. They are living heritage of the Armenians where they practice their faith for millennia. And what has the Church as an institution been able to do to protest about the loss of that religious heritage?

14:18A certain department was established within the modesty of Holy Age Merzim for the protection of the cultural and spiritual heritage of Christian Armenians in Artsakh. And since then, the department and the modesty of Holy Age Merzim in general has done many initiatives in Armenia and around the world to firstly make these people know where Artsakh is and what cultural heritage of Artsakh means to the worldwide Christian and civilised community. And also this matter has been presented to the United Nations, to UNESCO, various organisations such as the World Council of Churches, European Conference of Churches have condemned the destruction of Christian cultural heritage of Artsakh.

15:05But we are yet to see some tangible actions. Part of your job is that outreach from the church. Obviously, Azerbaijan is a Muslim country. Are there any connections between the religious institutions of Azerbaijan and Armenia? Well, not that much, really. There is a tradition of trilateral gatherings of the leadership of the Armenian Apostolic Church, the spiritual leadership of Azerbaijan and the patriarch of Moscow and of Russia. And several times the spiritual leaders have gathered. And there is always this agreement that the war doesn't have any religious grounds. Again, we are yet to witness that the cultural heritage is left intact, is not destroyed, because in some cases we have seen that if they are not destroyed, they are disfigured.

16:02the churches or desecrated. We see that inscriptions are erased on the walls of the churches and then the cultural heritage is presented as non-Armenian. I contacted the government of Azerbaijan to put the accusations of the destruction of churches to them, but I didn't receive any response. But shouldn't the Armenian Apostolic Church be doing more to protect sites like Yeraruk? There are thousands of churches in Armenia, and since gaining independence, some 300 churches were either built or restored. When the matter comes to very historical ancient monasteries, the work of restoration and reconstruction becomes even more complicated, because you have to do a profound research.

16:50So it has made the overall process quite complicated and difficult. God. Whenever we have the possibility, we encourage the local community to look after their churches. We absolutely welcome and greatly value the activity carried out by the TUMO institution or digitalization and scanning of various churches in Artsakh and also now in Armenia too, because we believe that it can greatly contribute to later restoration of these monasteries and churches and cultural heritage in general. In religious terms, is worshipping really about being in the physical building? When it comes to practicing your faith, as a Christian of the Armenian church, I strongly believe that an in-person encounter within a church, with your community, where your faith is expressed, is crucial to retain your identity as a believer.

17:51You're listening to the documentary on the BBC World Service.

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18:51timeless masterpiece again and again. For everything you need to know about the Odyssey, check out Dan Snow's history hit wherever you get your podcasts.

19:02I'm Julia Paul, and for Heart and Soul, I'm in Armenia. I'm learning about the country's ancient Christian heritage, and an innovative project which is using state-of-the-art technology to teach young people how to digitally preserve it.

19:34I'm back in Armenia's capital, Yerevan, and I'm at the Tumo Center for Creative Technologies. Here, teenagers aged 13 to 17 study a range of technologies, including game development. These students presenting their work today have chosen one of the scans of the heritage sites and designed an environment around it.

20:04This centre is large and modern, with islands of computer terminals and a huge screen on the wall showing the students' work. I can see a church from above and then the image rotates and suddenly we're inside. I'm Mary-Lou Papazian, the CEO of the TUMO Centre for Creative Technologies and the Simonian Educational Foundation. I have been here since 2006, so almost 20 years, and was part of building this centre from day one. So how did the scanning project come about? My background is engineering and a little bit of architecture. My husband is architecture, computer science, so we pay a lot of attention to buildings, to cultural heritage, and it struck me.

20:55Like, everywhere you go, there is a church, there is a hot guard. It's amazing, and people don't know the value of those things. I used to take the kids two hours to get to one of those abandoned churches churches to do a picnic because of those walls, because of this history, because of this space. And the more and more you see them, the more and more you're concerned about what is going to happen. We have a lot of young people here even have never been to those places and they don't know what they have. But you cannot just teach those things. You have to be attached to it. So the more you are involved in projects like this, like scanning, 3D modelling, photographing, visiting, understanding their history, the more you get attached to it.

21:46And the more once you're attached, the more you're concerned about them and the more you start thinking about protecting them. Huleika Shishian explains further. We organize a lot of workshops with our teens to actually show them what we're doing. They think at that moment that this is a 3D scanning technical course. But what we want to teach also through these classes is to value that church that was always in their village and that they never looked at because it was some old thing. And just understanding the value of this, the next step of that is to have them also create based on their heritage, to look back, to see what has been built by their ancestors, to see the traditions around them and be able to innovate.

22:30For instance, we organise labs, workshops that focus on using the 3D scans to do something else. So we've organised a game development lab based on the 3D scans and the students created a small video game based on those 3D scans.

22:51And it's the staff and students from that course who are presenting their work. My name is Karine Asloyan, and I am one of the game development workshop leaders at TUMO Centre. The aim of this workshop was to learn game environment design, so we used models given from 3D scanning team. And have any of these young people actually ever been to some of the physical churches that have been scanned? Yeah, it's very interesting that none of them have been in a building which they decided to use in their project. One more interesting part, I didn't tell them which one to choose, but most of them chose churches and buildings from Artsakh.

23:34Do you think many of your students go to church, would worship on a Sunday? Yeah, of course, of course, most of them. I feel it, because if they don't, they wouldn't choose the churches. That's not just a building for them, that's something emotional for them. Really, your course is almost a way of taking this ancient heritage, using modern technology and connecting these young people with their faiths and their culture. Yeah, of course, you understood very well. But for some of those who've worked on the scanning project, it's been not just a way of engaging with their heritage, it's also given them a new sense of their faith.

24:16It was an opportunity for me to see some places and to get acquainted with my culture in a way that I'm not possible to do by myself. Hi, my name is Hasmik Sahagian. Hasmik was a student here and worked on the scanning project, but she's now employed by a start-up that rents space here in the Tumor building. My family had very strong beliefs. They had family trips to visit churches and to see our culture and religious monuments. Growing up, I knew that Christianity is my religion because of the effect of my family's beliefs. When you grow up, you have those doubts, you have those ways to find your way.

25:00And at some point, also Timo helped to understand my religious personality. Before doing this, I used to go to churches very often for praying, for lit a candle. But when you do this for a very long time, we weren't just visiting. During those hours that you spend there, it's like a different experience. When you spend a day, you photograph every inch of it, you know the building from toe to head, and it's, I don't know, it's like your soul gets attached to the building and you feel some spiritual things that you would never experience otherwise. this work of actually creating the church in a computer again I'm just wondering if that feels like it's another way of honouring God like surely you're preserving something it's both another way of honouring God and another way to express your religious belief

26:12Back at Yadaruk, the scanning work is continuing. So you've just moved this tripod and the scanner. You now need to reprogram it for this position, is that right? Yes, I need to set up the inclino-meter again because every time you move the tripod, of course, the planes change even slightly so and ideally we're trying to get it in the grey zone in the very middle of the cross here to make sure that it's completely level with the next laser scanner so that the information is going to connect together in the software a lot more easily. Do you find many people know about your projects if you encounter people at heritage sites?