I am not usually a big fan of cemeteries....not really a mystery for someone in his 60's. But when I was walking around in my future "permanent site" of Dilijan last week, I stumbled upon these grave stones. I felt a strange connection with the lives of the peoples whose faces I saw. That evening as I read another chapter on my book on Armenian history, I came across the following quote. It seemed to confirm the feeling I had that these were special places. "And perhaps for the Armenians, whose history has been no more than a continuous quest for order, a struggle against an unimaginable chaos, these marshalled plots are cherished more than most. To own a grave is to own land." For people whose history has been over 600 years of being forced from their lands, I am sure the relatives of the deceased found much joy in providing their loved ones at last a piece of Armenia to call their own.