Armeniaaaaaaaaaaaa

Last week I found it hard to concentrate on school.  On Thursday, I woke up in a great mood. No doubt the warmth from my space heater helped, but I knew the day was special.  At first I thought I had no school.  Sadly, that wasn’t it.  I remembered then that I was headed to Tbilisi that day and to Armenia the following morning.  After school, I went to Tbilisi, where I met a friend and her friend who was also going with us to Armenia.  Since my friend wanted some Western food, we went to Texas Chicken, the international version of Church’s Chicken.  There we met 2 Americans who had just graduated and come over to play basketball for Georgia’s Ministry of Internal Affairs (which includes the police, as well as other departments).  It was interesting to hear about their very different Georgian experiences (well-paid, living alone in Tbilisi apartments, basically no cultural training).  The world became even smaller as I realized one of them had graduated from Loyola, where my cousin works as an athletic trainer.  He, of course, knew her and had great things to say about her.

The other excitement of the night was changing my Georgian laris into Armenian dram.  There are 220 dram in 1 lari, so I felt loaded with 22,000 dram in my wallet.  The next morning we met up with 13 other TLGers, mostly from my wonderful training group, and one American who works in Riga but was visiting Georgia/Armenia and happened to be on our tour.  We took a tour down through northern Armenia on our way from Tbilisi to Yerevan.  The border is about an hour away from Tbilisi.  Once there, we had to get out, get our passports stamped by the Georgians, walk over to window on the Armenian side, hand the man 3000 dram, our passport, and a form, and then wait for our visa.  Since I have no clean pages left, the man hassled me for a minute before putting a beautiful new visa in the back, where visas aren’t supposed to go.  Then I got to walk to another window to get that visa stamped.  They let me in!

Our first stop in Armenia was at Akhtala.  In about the 10^th century, some Armenians grew rich from the copper and silver mines in the mountains, so they built a fortress and…a church!  Both are somewhat in ruins now.  The church actually looks pretty good except the fresco at the front of the church is of the Virgin Mary and Jesus.  A giant cannon (or some other weapon) was used by the gentle Mongols to blast a hole in Mary’s face in the 14^th century.

 Not sure if that or the fact that no one has repaired it since is more bothersome.  Now, the hole seems fitting.  The Mongols blew away Mary’s face in punishment.  They had come to conquer the area but could not find anyone, even in the church.  Then they heard a child’s cry.  They townspeople had hid in secret rooms in the walls of the church (brilliant idea), but the child gave them away.  The Mongols blasted them out of the church and forced the survivors over the edge of nearby cliffs.  Yeah, they were that nice.

After that pleasant thought, we turned to a happier part of Armenian culture: food.  We stopped at a BBQ stand on the side of the road.  They were roasting the meat when we arrived.  I was afraid it would not feed all of us when I was ushered into a boxcar-turned-restaurant.  The table was laden with vegetables (vegetables!!!) and other food fit for a proper supra.  We feasted on food that was very similar to Georgian food (just don’t tell anyone).  It clearly was not Georgian since there was no alcohol, but it was one of the best meals I had had in a long time.  I especially appreciated the fresh veggies.

We also stopped at 2 old monasteries that faced each other.  They were great, and both Haghpat and Sanahin are UNESCO World Heritage Sites.  But, how much can I really say about 10^th century Armenian monasteries? (Yes, this is a sign that I’ve spent too much time in churches in this part of the world.)

We had a several hour drive from the monasteries to Yerevan, stopping only at a great bakery.  We got some “Armenian pastries”, which were basically baklava, but some of the best baklava I’ve ever had.  The bakery also had a huge tone, or kiln, for bread.  One of the guys basically dove into the tone to stick bread on the walls, which was a sight to behold.  (Ok, so tone is the Georgian word, but I didn’t ask for the Armenian.)

We had 2 tour guides because we had 2 vans.  My van was smaller, and we had some great conversations with our tour guide.  She was pretty young and had phenomenal English.  I later learned that her family had hosted a Peace Corps volunteer, and she and had participated in the FLEX program, meaning she had spent a year in a Pennsylvania high school, which explained a lot.  She was a great resource, telling us several jokes about Armenia and Georgia, like “People say Armenians have big noses.  They don’t.  Everyone else just has small noses.” 

She also pointed out that Georgians hate admitting an Armenian invented their alphabet, so they just say “an Armenian invented it”.  The Armenians are incredibly proud that Meshrop Mestots (again, hoping I spelled that right) invented both alphabets.  The legend (according to Armenians) goes that Meshrop had a vision from God and quickly created the Armenian alphabet.  That night he was very tired and wanted to eat his dinner in peace, but the Georgians came to his door, asking for their own alphabet.  He refused but they kept begging.  He finally threw his dinner (spaghetti or soup, depending on the storyteller) on the wall and said “there is your alphabet”, meaning either the shape of the spaghetti on the wall or the dripping soup on the wall created Georgian letters. 

She talked a little about the Armenian government (corrupt), the horrible situation Armenia was in during the collapse of the Soviet Union (a 1988 earthquake devastated the country and the early nineties were filled with a terrible war with Azerbaijan), and the generally confusing political situation of the Caucasus.  Armenia doesn’t like Azerbaijan or Turkey, but it gets along with Georgia (which it better, since the only other border for the small land-locked country is about 35 miles with Iran) and with Russia.  Of course, Georgia doesn’t get along with Russia, but gets along well with Turkey, etc, etc.  This caused one of my friends to remark that it was like Melrose Place.

The next morning, we took a walking tour around Yerevan.  Yerevan is quite pretty, and I learned a lot.  The part that was the most fascinating to me (as always) was when our tour guide talked about the early nineties.  As I mentioned above, Armenia had a rough start.  Even before the Soviet Union collapsed, a part of Azerbaijan that was full of ethnic Armenians called Nagorno-Karabakh started making noise about independence.  It tried to declare independence after the fall of the Soviet Union.  Armenia fully supported this effort, and Azerbaijan refused to allow the area to secede.  A war between Armenia and Azerbaijan ensued.  According to our tour guide, that time was terrible but all of Armenia was behind Karabakh.  Even in 1988, when the earthquake devastated the country, people cared about Karabakh’s freedom.  A senior party official at the time (I can’t currently remember who, but he was Armenian) flew to Yerevan  after the earthquake happened to inspect the damage.  He helped pull an old man out of the rubble a few days after the earthquake.  The man’s first question was “Is Karabakh free?”  Finding out the answer was “no”, he said, “then put me back in the rubble”.  (That is at least the story as told by my tour guide, to the best of my memory.)  Our tour guide, who was probably late twenties or early thirties, remembered working as a child to help support his family during the early nineties.  For years even Yerevan had no gas or power or had them for only an hour a day.  Years.  The country suffered incredibly, but our tour guide said the country did not care, it cared about Karabakh’s freedom.  The war never ended, but they reached a cease fire that has led to an uneasy peace ever since.

Armenia is a country that has been fought over and conquered for centuries.  It claims to be the oldest Christian kingdom.  It did adopt Christianity before Georgia, but Georgia also claims to be the oldest Christian kingdom, I think because Georgia actually was a continuous country while Armenia was often ruled by others.  Someone pointed out, as a result of all the wars fought in this country, Yerevan lacks an “old town”, probably because the city has been destroyed and rebuilt too many times.  That afternoon, some friends and I climbed around the Erebuni fortress, which dates from 782 BC.  Or at least, on that spot, there was a fortress built in 782 BC.  The fortress we climbed on looked like ruins from the 1950s, when they excavated the site.  Still, it was fun, and 782 BC was a long time ago.  This is considered the founding of Yerevan, even though the city has gone through many reincarnations since then.  It has been a continuous settlement since that time, but it is actually Armenia’s 14^th capital. 

After the fortress, we walked around the city to Cascade, a contemporary art museum.  The outside is a work of art as well, and we enjoyed climbing the steps.

Cascade

 Going a bit farther, we hit the “Mother Armenia” statue.  Tbilisi has a “Mother Georgia” statue with a sword for enemies and glass of wine for friends.  “Mother Armenia” just has a half-sheathed sword, which apparently Georgians say is because Armenians have no friends, just enemies. 

Mother Georgia, in Tbilisi

Mother Armenia

At the base of the statue (before “Mother Armenia” was erected, this had been a Soviet statue of Lenin or Stalin), there was a tank other military items that my friends and I had fun investigating.  That find was actually my favorite part of the trip.

This makes 3 countries where I've climbed on Soviet tanks.  I doubt Georgia has any to plan on, though.

Having heard that there was a “street of BBQ”, a big group of us went that night in search of it.  We found a few shops but were expecting more.  We eventually realized that there were only a few places and went into one of them.  The place could not fit all 11 of us at one table, so the woman ushered us downstairs (we were basically her only customers), where there was an empty room with 2 tables.  She and the other workers brought down several chairs (which weighed a ton), put a tablecloth on the tables, and told us to sit.  Since there was no written menu, I got to translate for the group our order, which basically amounted to a feast.  We had pork kebabs, “kebabi” which are kind of like a special type of sausage, chicken, cheese, assorted greens, lots of bread, tomatoes, and other veggies.  It was a lot like the night before and every bit as delicious, made even better by our hunger.  Having expected little when I walked into the restaurant, I was very pleasantly surprised by how delicious the feast was, and how much fun it was in our impromptu (again alcohol-free) supra.  We had very little idea of what the bill would be, but it amounted to about 3000 dram a person (~$8.50).  It was amazing.  We then bought some pomegranate wine to enjoy at the hostel, since that is one of Armenia’s signature drinks.  I liked it, but then again, I love pomegranates.

Some of us were worried about catching our marshrutkas home from Tbilisi so got up for the 8:30 marshrutka (mini bus) to Tbilisi.  As usual with a group of us, they stuck most of us in the back.  This is the worst place to ride because 1)you are a bit higher and can’t really see out the windows, and 2)you feel the lack of suspension on the twisting, bumpy roads a lot.  We suffered through it.  At our one stop, we all got tea or coffee.  Some of our traveling companions had a big water bottle full of a clear liquid.  When I saw that they were grabbing shot glasses, I figured it must be chacha (homemade alcohol) or the Armenian equivalent.  I first declined their offer of a shot.  Then one of the guys poured a shot onto the tablecloth and set it on fire.  I had heard of this being done to show the quality of the chacha, but I had never witnessed it before.  It burned for a while, since, according to my new friend, it was 80% alcohol.  One of the guys in my group accepted, then another, and then the third and I decided we might as well.  It was only my 2^nd shot of chacha (they have all been forced to drink plenty of it in the last 3 months), and it makes vodka look easy.  Still, it felt very Georgian (turns out our new friends were Georgians), and it did make the rest of the ride a bit easier.  They let us across the border again, hoorah! 

I had a great time in Armenia and will go back if I get the chance.  It was especially interesting coming from Georgia since the two countries have a long, intertwined history, which I think you’ve had enough of for now.