Blogger Alexander Lapshin Reports on Abandoned Armenian Village Near Haifa

YEREVAN (Armradio) — Blogger Alexander Lapshin has come across Armenian graves near a small town of Atlit 20km south of Haifa.

Atlit is known for its powerful crusader fortress and a creepy prison, built by the Brits and now turned into a museum.

“Guided by the map, I passed through the whole town and reached a field. A nondescript path led through the fields towards little-known Neolithic era caves. And suddenly I saw two Armenian graves, and not old ones, dating back to 1970s,” the blogger tells in a Facebook post.

He then walked further to come across several dilapidated buildings.

“Only after I searched the Internet, I found out that the site was home to an Armenian village of Barikh between 1924 and 1970. In 1924, a dozen Armenian families from Haifa moved here, looking for a more peaceful place to live. In Haifa, relations between Jews and Arabs were getting more and more aggravated (which ultimately led to the first Arab-Israeli war of 1948) and the Armenians tried to stay away from this,” Lapshin says.

“In 1970, already as part of Israel, the Armenian village of Barikh gradually disappeared. The elderly were dying, and young people were leaving for work in Haifa and Tel Aviv. As a result, there was no single resident in the village in 1971, and only a few graves and ruins remind of this village today,” the blogger adds.