Armenian journalist Paul Vartan Sookiasian, who was born in Philadelphia, United States, and has been living in Armenia for the past three years, visited his ancestral homeland of Malatya for the first time in an effort to rediscover traces of his family history.

His great-grandfather, Toros, died in Malatya in 1913, while his son later emigrated to the United States. Sookiasian, who has been researching his family history for more than a decade, visited a historic church where, according to him, his ancestors had once been.

He also toured the Boztepe district, where his family had previously owned property. Despite the major changes in the city and the disappearance of the old houses, the journalist noted that he was able to imagine the environment in which his ancestors had lived.

For Sookiasian, the visit was not only a discovery  of his family’s past but also a restoration of his connection with his ancestral homeland.