VAKIFLI.com

Toros Silahlı explores the Hırbani area before picking a spot to wait for wild boar.

Toros keeps pet pigeons on the roof of the home he shares with his parents.

Toros poses for a portrait on the staircase he built for Garbis Kuş’s house.

While enjoying his glass of rakı, Toros talks to his mother, who is visiting his sister in Istanbul, and his niece. Toros also uses Voice over Internet Protocol software to connect with family living abroad.

Toros Silahlı, 40, is a complex man who desires simplicity: a warm bed, a tasty meal, a decent job, a good dog. Love and solitude. But life doesn’t always comply.

He pulls up to the house he shares with his parents, Papken and Siranuş, and his red motorbike squeals to a stop under the porch. He parks and slides off, then walks to the neglected playground across the street. His dog, Şirin, or “Cute,” is tied with a scraggly orange rope to one leg of a rusted swing set. She barks at his approach then settles down, tongue lolling and eyes swirling at his touch. Although incidents of petty theft and trespassing are rare, Toros is training the sweet-hearted dog to be more alert.

“Vakıflı is an easy target,” he says.

A few months ago, someone tried to steal his motorbike. He hopes Şirin can help combat the more brazen of thieves, but the spotted dog can only bark loudly for now. She does, however, recognize a soft touch – especially her owner.

“We like animals,” Toros says, gesturing behind him at the dog. A small marbled kitten lurks in the corner of the porch, curious at the visitors but timid to come closer.

As Toros talks about crime and the teenagers from nearby villages who regularly scream down Vakıflı’s main street on their motorbikes, his mother, Siranuş, sits down at the porch table. She gestures for him to sit as well, but before he does, he pulls a handful of fresh apricots from his pocket. They’re a gift for his mother. Siranuş takes them with a smile and pats her son’s arm.

Toros, generally taciturn and aloof, lets his guard down to smile back at her. She is, for now, the woman he loves the most.

“I keep telling him to get married,” Siranuş says.

Toros looks at her, looks down at the table. He just got out of an 11-year relationship, he says. His ex-girlfriend was Turkish, not Armenian, and she wasn’t from Vakıflı. The love just faded away. So for now he finds contentment with his home, his job and his privacy.

“If you’re not struggling for money and have work, this is a nice place.”

Toros is a carpenter, an artist who specializes in custom woodwork. He’s had business partners before, but he prefers to be by himself, shaving and manipulating wood in silence. Most recently, he worked on the floors, stairs, banister, door frames and front door of the expansive home of Garbis Kuş, the owner of, among other businesses, the local coffee house.

At the end of his work day, if he’s craving company, he meets up with childhood friend Mehmet Yemişen to go hunting for wild boar. But, as is his modus operandi, he sometimes prefers to go alone, enjoying his own company. And occasionally, he caters to his own eccentricity by sitting and allowing the wild boar to pass without firing his rifle. It makes the experience last longer, he explains, and, perhaps, it’s more serene.

His life may not be perfect, but he tries to find bits of happiness in simplicity and seclusion.

“As long as you feed your soul, that’s enough.”

During the wild boar hunt, Toros picks an olive tree as a blind and waits for sunset.

Toros commands his dog, Şirin, to come. Şirin had broken loose from the playground and was running through the village streets.

Toros dances on the Çapar family’s patio to Panos Çapar’s music. Toros and his friend, Vahe Çapar, enjoyed their glasses of rakı.