There’s a story. There’s always a story. The moment I laid my eyes on this carved out name found in the historic Khan’s Gardens, I couldn’t help but wonder – what’s the story? All I got from the locals was that a guy named named İlqar must have been hiding under this tree during a siege in 1957. What siege? What kind of enemy was he hiding from? What sort of a guy was he? What was he wearing? The story kept revolving in my head.

Upon my return, I have looked into the history of Ganja and there was no information whatsoever to either prove or disprove the only fact that was given to me. All I had left was this picture. For all I know the piece of history of a mysterious İlqar was as much of a fiction as any other story I could come up with myself. But for a day there was nothing more real to me than that mystery I promised to myself to unravel. Human beings are such hopeless story-craving creatures. It only makes sense that İlqar translates as “promise”.