Patvakan’s known photographs tell us very little about the photographer's work. Written in Russian, his earliest stamp indicates that he was an itinerant photographer. Moving to different regions of the Caucasus, Patvakan was offering his services mainly in those settlements where there were no permanently based photo-studios. For that reason, the portraits made by this photographer are quite interesting from an ethnographical perspective as they provide some visual idea about the inhabitants of Russian Empire’s remote provincial and rural communities. In the 1880s, Patvakan already had a stable base in the city of Armavir, where his studio operated at least until the mid-1890s.

Vigen Galstyan, 2016