A house built from the stones of Surb Karapet Monastery

Photograph by Anahit Hayrapetyan. A Muslim woman stands in the doorway of her house. The house is built from the stones of Surb Karapet Monastery, destroyed in 1915, Mush, Western Armenia. Snow is falling; beside the house is a large heap of snow, and on the left a stone ruin with an arched opening. The woman wears a long patterned dress and a white headscarf.

The town of Mush already existed in the time of Greater Armenia and was captured by the Ottoman Empire in the 16th century. It is considered one of the early centres of Armenian civilisation and was the seat of a diocese of the Armenian Apostolic Church. Ancient Armenian churches stood in the town until 1960. In May 1915, during the Armenian Genocide, almost the entire Armenian population of the town, about 15,000 people, was destroyed.