his first works in literature started in grigor artsruni's "mshak" (մշակ) newspaper, which was published in tiflis. he would write articles under the pen name "haygag" (հայկակ) about various aspects of armenian life in constantinople, all of which were flavored with satire. by 1878, he had already become a regular contributor to dailies and periodicals, mainly in "masis", of which he was an editor (1884-1893) alongside famed armenian writer and politician krikor zohrab. his articles became very popular among caucasian armenians. in 1884, he visited tiflis on the occasion of the election of a new catholicos in echmiadzin where he was received as a renowned writer. there, he had the occasion to meet eastern armenian authors raffi, proshian, aghayan and others.