“I was exiled along with 966 people…out of those 966 people, 8 returned. Out of those 8, I am the only one left.”

- Khatchik Nikoghosian

“I returned from the Gulag in this condition. My feet haven’t touched the ground in 45 years.”

- Mamikon Vardanian

The skull of a prisoner executed in the Stalin-era was recently discovered along with other remains in the suburbs of Yerevan.

“The death of one man is a tragedy, the death of millions, only statistics.”

-         Joseph Stalin

Left to right: Vaghan Ter Hagobian, Zareh, and Hovik Hoveyan shooting an interview with Aramhrach Zohrabian, an eyewitness to events during the Great Terror.

Shooting an interview with a Cossack Ataman near the port of Magadan in Kolyma, the final destination of millions who arrived by ship for interment in the labor camps. Kolyma was one of the most distant, and most infamous, regions of the Gulag. Her tragic past seems omnipresent in the desolate atmosphere of this bleak, but overwhelmingly beautiful land.

Zareh with Galina Nersessian and her family in the village of Tyagun in the Altai region of Siberia. Tyagun had been built by Armenians permanently exiled to Siberia in 1949. Galina’s father was one of them. Her husband’s family had been exiled from elsewhere in Russia.

Eric Bogosian with Dr. Ronald Suny and wife at the premiere of Enemy of the People.

Zareh and Vahag in Magadan, Kolyma, enjoying the hospitality of the small local Armenian and Georgian community who made them feel so welcome, so far away from home. Production manager Gevork Avedissian had the entire team wearing the same clothes in order to avoid suspicion and mile-long lines at airports!

Ronald Suny, professor of political science at the University of Chicago, introduces Enemy of the People at the New York premiere.

Zareh at the New York premiere of Enemy of the People.