There are lesser-known names who do the hard work of documentation to construct the building of history. Sargis Darchinian took that role for the Armenian community of Georgia.
Sargis Darchinian was born on September 5, 1947, in Tbilisi (Georgia). He graduated from school in 1966 and, simultaneously, from sculpture and modeling at technical school. In 1967 he started working at the jewelry factory as designer and engraver.
He started photography during his adolescence, and gradually went into documentary photography, contributing to various Georgian publications. In the early 1970s, he met Alexander Arutiunov, a well-known Armenian photographer of Tbilisi, and, following his advice, focused on photography of architectural and historical type, as well as օf “urban types.”
Throughout the years, Darchinian not only collected material related to the history of the Armenian community of Tbilisi and of Georgia in general, but also took practical steps to save that heritage. In the 1970s, he toured throughout Georgia and Armenia with Arutiunov on motorcycle, researching and taking series of pictures. After suffering a car accident in 1979, Darchinian was not able to make long trips anymore and limited himself to photographing and documenting the environment of Tbilisi. He studied 12,000 private houses belonging to Armenians in Tbilisi and made a detailed documentation of the history and architecture of the two Armenian neighborhoods of the Georgian capital, Sololak and Havlabar. Many articles and books were written based on his valuable archive, especially several volumes published by Research of Armenian Architecture, headed by late researcher Samvel Karapetian.
Darchinian did not limit himself to historical photography. Especially in his work of the 1960s through the 1980s, he also worked in documenting daily life. Darchinian’s artistic education and sensitivity toward the fleeting moments of life came afloat in these pictures. Those pictures with a certain nostalgic nature brought the attention of the readers in Armenia, where they were frequently printed in journals like Garun and Sovetakan Hayastan.
Darchinian passed away on October 2, 2013, in Tbilisi and was buried in the pantheon of Khojivank, dedicated to Armenian writers and public figures.