Levon Kapoyan's modest pavilion was located at Marukov's trading house on Millionnaya Street in Akhaltskha.(1) It existed for around two decades and had a branch in Abastuman. Kapoyan's customers were ordinary citizens, as well as travellers and merchants passing through the city. His studio appears to have been quite small in size, but contained various props and painted backdrops with which the photographer tried to embellish his quite humble photographs. Amidst these, Kapoyan’s numerous portraits of Armenian men and, especially women in their extravagantly decorated local costumes are particularly memorable. Today they are of enormous interest as historical, ethnographic documents about the affluent and idiosyncratic culture of Akhaltskha’s Armenian community at the beginning of the 20th century. We have been unable to locate any further biographical information about the photographer in the course of our research.

1) Vsya Rossiya: Russkaya kniga promyshlennosti, torgovli, selskogo khozyastva i administratsii. Torgovo-promushlenniy adres-kalendar Rosiyskoy Imperii [in Russian], A. S. Suvorin, St. Petersburg, 1899, p.663

Vigen Galstyan, 2016