That morning I strolled across Bukhara with no destination. I wanted only to wander. I moved slowly through the dry city, unexpectedly tender, its warmth lingering long with me. It wasn’t the heat—I bear it well—but the way the city seemed aware of my presence.

When I travel, all I’m really searching for is a sense of belonging. Maybe I’ve learned to long for it. Maybe it comes from being raised in an Armenian family. Or maybe there’s a third reason, waiting for me to uncover it.

I kept walking in soft white sandals hand-crafted by an old man from Samarkand. I still feel connected to Samarkand and I hold the memory of that fairytale city like some precious flashcards. The old man’s hands were thin, precise, so you could easily tell he loved the work for many decades. The sandals had almost no sole, so I felt everything underfoot: the stones, the dust, the heat. Children splashed in public basins—part fountain, part pool—centuries-old oases against this furious climate.

Down a side alley, I found a small Photography Gallery tucked in a quiet courtyard. The photographs were so delicate, so precise, that my stomach ached. They felt almost too intimate—fragments of the city, fragments of people’s lives—captured with an extraordinary sensitivity that seemed to hold Bukhara itself. The works belonged to a Bukharan photographer, Shavkat Boltaev, and his son, Behzod Boktaev.

A man in a skull-cap welcomed me. A woman stood beside him—sun-browned, in a green shirt with three-quarter sleeves that suited her perfectly. There was something familiar in her eyes.

“Thank you for this exhibition. I’m Katrin,” I said.
“Pleased to meet you. What a beautiful name,” she replied. “I’m Zilola.”
“What does it mean?” I asked.
“In Uzbek, it means pure,” she said.
“Katrin means the same,” I said, smiling.
“Behzod is having an exhibition in Moscow now,” Zilola added, gently pointing to the woman standing beside her. “This is his mother, Umida.”
I asked Zilola if I could photograph her.
“Sure. I want to remember you as much as you want to remember me.”

“You’re one of us”, she said, “Truly Bukhari. Just put on a scarf, that’s it.”

I smiled. I often get mistaken for someone from Iran, Serbia, Albania, Uzbekistan, Egypt. I don’t explain it to people who ask me. I only know the face that looks back when I photograph myself in the mirror, and that image is often blurred, so I have no idea what they are seeing.

I reached for her hands, gently touching them as if we’d always known each other. I felt heart-broken as if I would never meet her again. Her eyes seemed to tell stories—mine replied to them silently.

“Be happy, Zilola. I’ll send you this image when I develop it in a few months.”

Something has changed. At the same time, something rushed like the children into the fountain, into that hidden pond, into that water of happiness. For a moment, the feeling belonged to this place. And this place belonged entirely to me. Just for a second.

I photographed Zilola and Umida not for a project, not as proof. To carry the moment with me I photograph only when my heart feels like porcelain—thin, fragile, and close to breaking. When it’s too full to cry neither from closeness nor from sorrow. I photograph to survive the feeling and to share it.