In 2015, the British tabloid newspaper Daily Mail published a photo archive of the ancestors of the Kardashian family.
One branch of their family tree escaped from massacres in Erzurum. As for the other branch, it is believed that they avoided the killings by trusting a prophecy of an oncoming war. They had left the Russian Empire for the United States before the bloody events started in the Ottoman Empire.
Thus, the ancestors of Kardashians managed to escape from WWI of 1914-1918, the Armenian Genocide of 1915, and the Russian Revolution of 1917. The publication tells the story of the relatives of the celebrity family.
During the Genocide, the other Kardashian branch that left Erzurum included Hovhannes Miroian, the great-great-grandfather of Kim Kardashian. In 1867, he married Lusiak Chorbadzhian. Their daughter Vardanush (Vartanoosh) was born in 1886. At the beginning of the 20th century – during the Genocide – they fled to the United States.
Daughter of Vardanush, Haykuhi Arakelian born in 1917, was Kim’s grandmother. She, in turn, married Arthur Kardashian, a meat packaging business owner in California. The son of Haykuhi and Arthur Robert, having become a successful lawyer, married Kris Houghton. Into their family were born Courtney, Chloe, Robert Jr., and Kim, all future famous TV stars.
The family of ethnic Armenian Kardashians was a native of Russia. The family, subjected to harassment by villagers due to religious differences, appealed to Tsar Nicholas II. He ordered to bring the family to the village of Karakale, closer to a Russian military base. There, they became close to the local Molokan community.
According to a legend, in the 1850s, the 11-year-old resident of Karakale Yefim Klubnikin predicted a terrible war. He made the same prediction at the beginning of the 20th century, noting that especially difficult times await the Armenians. Klubnikin advised the Armenians to leave as soon as possible because he had a premonition that “the gates of Russia may close”, making it impossible to leave the country.
The ancestors of the Kardashians trusted the prediction and left tsarist Russia. Many sold their homes and emigrated as well, fleeing the impending disaster. And the villagers who did not give importance to the prophecy would pay for it with their lives after a few years.
According to available documents, Arthur Kardashian and his father Tatos were born in Caracal, Romania. In 1913, Tatos went to Germany and from there to Boston. He later moved to Los Angeles.
In the US, Tatos started his garbage collection business. He married Hanna Shakarian who had also fled from Caracal. Their son Arthur was the grandfather of the current generation of the Kardashians.
“One hundred years after the deadly holocaust decimated their ancestral home, the Kardashians have become one of the most influential families in America.
The most famous of which is Kim who has chosen this year, on the hundredth anniversary of the atrocity, to visit Armenia for the first time.
But her lavish lifestyle, the expensive houses, an army of followers who hang on her every tweet, the marriage to a musical superstar would not exist if her ancestors had ignored the warning of a child ‘prophet’,” writes Daily Mail.
