“Football is my life, Football is my soul. I could play football all day long without getting tired,” says 16 year-old Gurgen Safaryan. The Safaryan’s are the only Armenian family residing in Kuzguncuk, a neighborhood in the Üsküdar municipality on the Asian side of the Bosphorus in Istanbul   Gurgen is the eldest son. He was only two and a half years old when the family left Yerevan thirteen years ago and resettled in Istanbul. The family’s second child, Haykoush, was born in Turkey.

42 year-old Aram Safaryan, the boy’s father, has been working as a guard at the Armenian St. Gregory the Illuminator Church in Kuzguncuk for the past eleven years.

The church was built in 1835 and renovated in 1861. Divine Liturgy is performed on Wednesdays and Mr. Safaryan says that interested passersby often pop in to see what’s going on. The Safaryan’s live in a house next to the church.

“The mosque is right near the church. I’m the guard here so say when the dog barks at night I get up to take a look around. The mosque is right there in front of me. I’ve caught some guys trying to rob the mosque as they were breaking the door in or during the period when mosques were targets to be burnt. You are right, this is a church and that is a mosque, but for me there’s no difference. There’s that Armenian saying of ours – One shouldn’t throw stones at the spring from which they drink. I live here, eat and drink here. I raise my kids here. They even wrote about me in the papers and on T.V., saying I’m the only Armenian in Kuzguncuk,” stated Aram Safaryan (There was no mosque in the center of the neighborhood until 1952, when the Kuzguncuk Mosque was built in the courtyard of the Armenian church with building funds that included donations from the Armenian congregation – Wikipedia) Mr. Safaryan says that the neighborhood was mostly populated by Armenian, Greeks, Jews and some Russians up until the 1940’s. There were very few, if any, Muslims. Over time, the Muslim population slowly increased and the Christians left. Thirteen years ago, when Aram Safaryan arrived from Yerevan, he hardly brought anything with him. “I have nothing from Yerevan, no pictures or such. I was living in my brother’s house there,” he said. His wife Garineh works at the Getronagan Armenian High School in Istanbul established in 1886. She graduated from Yerevan’s Pedagogical Institute but cannot work as a teacher in Turkey since her diploma isn’t recognized there. “I work in the library performing secretarial and clerical work in addition to serving light refreshment to visiting guests. But I’m also taking special classes to get my diploma here. I’ve already got my high school equivalency diploma and now am attending college classes,” Garineh says. 16 year-old Gurgen has tried his hand at several sports activities – track, chess, basketball, tennis, but has chosen football as his main focus. He’s been playing with the Fenerbahçe Sports Club, nicknamed the “Yellow Canaries”, on the youth team and will join the ranks of the 17 year-old squad once he passes the grade. After that he has ambitions of playing with the Turkish national team. Gurgen is the only Armenian playing at Fenerbahçe. “There have been many competitions with other squads, at our age group and even younger. We often play with teams coming from Europe. In 2005, the UEFA Champions League Final was played in Istanbul,” says Gurgen. He confesses, however, that becoming a world-class player is second on his list of priorities and is simply a hobby. He wants to get accepted at a good university and become a computer programmer. : All the classes at the Aramian H.S. where Gurgen goes to school are in Turkish, except for Armenian language and Armenian Church history. He’ll graduate in four years. Gurgen has visited Armenia on several occasions after the family moved to Turkey. Yerevan seems to have left a positive impression on him. “I just went back again in August and everything seems to have changed; new buildings, new cars. It’s a big difference from when I visited in 2002. Back then Armenia looked like it was going through some rough times. Now, just by looking at the way people dress, you know that things are progressing in Armenia," Gurgen says. One of his dreams is to start his own business and open up a place in Armenia. He would like to travel back and forth to Armenia. Moving there permanently is another matter.