Little Hamshen Armenian girl in traditional dress

The photograph shows a little Hamshen Armenian girl. The Hamshen Armenians are a distinct ethnographic group of Armenians that formed on the south-eastern shores of the Black Sea. They live from the Samsun area to north-eastern Turkey and southern Russia. Over the centuries some of them adopted Islam while others kept the Christian faith, yet the Armenian layers of language, culture and identity have survived.

The girl wears a headscarf patterned in red, orange and black. There are coin ornaments on her forehead and around her face, and necklaces at her neck. She wears a dark velvet dress with gold-coloured trim.