That morning I walked through Bukhara with no destination. I didn’t want to visit any mosques or madrasas. I wanted only to wander. I moved slowly through this dry and paradoxically tender city, which pressed an imprint of unbearable warmth onto me. It wasn’t the heat as I tolerate heat easily but the glances of the surroundings.


That’s all I look for when I travel: a moment of belonging. Perhaps I trained myself to crave it. Or I was raised to seek it as coming from an Armenian family. Or maybe there’s a third, perfectly calibrated reason I’ll doubt again after a few more rotations of my own axis or the sun’s.

I kept walking in soft white sandals made by grandfather from Samarkand. I'm still connected to Samarkand and I hold the memory of that fairy tail city like some precious flashcards. Grandfather’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 lifelines 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, my stomach ached as if it couldn’t accept them. It was the Bukharan photographer, Shavkat Boltaev and his son, Behzod Boktaev.

I paid the entrance fee. A thin 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. Her eyes were wide, familiar.

— Thank you for this exhibition. I’m Katrin.
— Pleased to meet you. What a beautiful name. I’m Zilola.
— What does it mean?
— In Uzbek, it means pure.
— Katrin means the same, — I smiled.
— Behzod is showing in Moscow now. 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.

Then she said:
— You’re one of us. Truly Bukhari. Just put on a scarf—that’s it.

I smiled. I often get mistaken for someone local from Iran, Serbia, Albania, Uzbekistan, Egypt. I don’t explain. I know only 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 stroking them as if we’d always known each other, as I would miss this lady. I felt heart-broken as it will never happen again. Her eyes seemed to speak stories that mine answered silently.

— Be happy, Zilola. I’ll send you this photo when I develop it. 

Something in me went completely still. At the same time, it 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 for proof, but because it made complete sense. To them to stay with me. I photograph only when my heart stretches like porcelain. When it’s too full to cry neither from closeness nor from sorrow. I photograph to survive the feeling and to share this.