The Armenian Mirror Spectator writes that on October 12, Dr. Charles Chavdarian, a native Detroiter whose family was originally from Keghi, provided an enlightening talk and slide presentation about the caves and caving exploration in Armenia, at a program sponsored by the Tekeyan Cultural Association, at the Armenian General Benevolent Union (AGBU) Alex and Marie Manoogian School.
Chavdarian became intrigued with the subject while traveling in the south of France in 1992, and after reading The Scientific Traveler — a book about prehistoric cave paintings. Following this trip, he became interested in caves throughout the US and Canada, learning about them through the National Speleological Society and a local caving club in the San Francisco Bay Area and by visiting various national parks. He learned how to explore caves in a proper and safe manner from his newfound colleagues.
Chavdarian decided he wanted to do something for Armenia — and this led to his organizing the first official US caving expedition to visit and photograph caves in the Vayots Dzor province of Armenia in 2007. The initial trip involved his family — his wife, Seda, a professor of French at UC-Berkeley, and son, Greg, who is a geologist — and also his caving colleagues, Steven Johnson and James Wilson — all from the Bay Area. He has been to Armenia three times — in 2007, 2010 and 2011 — to continue to explore and photograph the natural, wild caves and also to visit and photograph church caves and cave villages. Chavdarian’s slides helped to educate all as he identified various types of beautiful cave formations that are part of living caves, including bacon strips, pipe organs, stalagmites, stalactites, coral, draperies and flowstone —all com- posed of limestone. The caves in Armenia are also multi-colored, due to both mineralization and organic matter leaching into the caves resulting in colored cave formations. The magnitude of colors in the Armenian caves, which are quite stunning, are, in fact, rarely encountered to this degree in caves around the world. Chavdarian acknowledged the assistance of several cave guides and experienced cave explorers during his trips to Armenia, including Vrezh Nazaryan, Samvel Shahinyan and Smbat Armenia and the exploration of Armenian caves a successful and safe one.
