Quite possibly the only thing you know about Armenia is that they have a disagreement with Turkey about the use of the word “genocide”, and if you know more you can have an extra glass of wine tonight. The main historical things to know about Armenia are that it is an ancient nation and the first christian one dating from 301; that it has been almost continuously either been ruled by another power or has been fighting a war; and that between 1915-22 the Turks caused the deaths of about 1.5 million Armenians while doing some ethnic cleansing. The Armenians say this was genocide and the Turks hotly deny it.
They certainly do not like Turkey as indicated by a sticker I saw on a car which showed two smiling cartoon boys peering enthusiastically on the Turkish flag. Apart from all the deaths, the Turks also cunningly got hold of the Armenians beloved Mt Ararat which is easy to see from their capital, Yerevan, and this is apparently like having a never healing wound. Right now they have an ongoing fight with Azerbaijan about an area called Nagorno-Karabakh which is ethnically Armenian so the Armenians fought a war with the Azers and currently still hold it. Although they try to balance between Russia, Iran and the USA, a tricky thing to do, the Armenians really are largely reliant on Russia economically and militarily.
Depending on what cultural followings you have you will know about some Armenians. – Agassi, Kacharturian and Kardashian to mention a sample. The body shape of the latter is not common in Armenia. The population has dropped from a bit over 3 million to about 2.8 in the last ten years due to economic immigration and there are an estimated 10 million outside the country. Remittances are very important when a good wage is US$300 a month and unemployment is over 30 percent. As with all the ex Soviet countries it became independent in early 1990s and the communist bosses renamed themselves and hoovered up assets and political power. It is a democracy but only one party has ever been in power.
I flew into Yerevan from Dubai on Flydubai which is an airline for very short people. I have to say that Armenia has one of the easiest and cheapest visas I have come across and getting through the formalities on arrival was a breeze. Yerevan is a very likeable capital, about 1.2 million people, with a central area that has lots of trees, parks, cafes, bars and statues. There isn’t really anything old and touristy so I went to the Armenian Genocide Memorial which was impressive and quite briefly to the bronze age stuff in the History Museum. Then I concentrated on food and wine.
The sights outside of Yerevan that one is directed to are mainly very old churches and monasteries, which I dutifully have seen. Most of them are in isolated places, usually in the mountains, and the differences between each of them have to be pointed out. The most interesting bit was a monastery that was built over a small dungeon where super saint St Gregory was incarcerated for thirteen years with only snakes for company. The then king, Trdat 3, was going crazy so Greg was hauled up out the pit and cured the king who gratefully turned the state religion to Christianity in response. That was 301 AD. And I got to climb down a slippery vertical ladder, which was not designed for the digitally challenged, to experience this place. When I made it to the bottom I found three nice Indian people so we had a discussion about the recent cricket test. All the tourist attraction churches and monasteries were constructed between the ninth and twelfth centuries, just in time for Chiingis/Gengis and his horde to come and make a mess of them.
I did two days of trips out of Yerevan with the same careful and interesting driver. At 18 he had gone to join some of the diaspora in the USA and without the necessary documents he got a job in LA and became a jewellery maker. Subsequently he got married, had two children, bought cars and an apartment, always using another Armenian’s name, and he never had a driving licence. After twelve years and with children getting to school age he decided to try and become legal which eventually meant he had to return to Armenia and start again with the application. As well he had to pay a US$5000 fine on arrival in Armenia for having avoided his army conscription. A couple of years later while still going through the immigration hoops he got an email form his wife asking for $2700 being his half of the cost of his divorce and has never heard from his children since. He is an intelligent thoughtful person but given to believing stuff that he sees on the internet and we had long conversations with me politely explaining why much of it was nonsense. He told when were finished how appreciative he was for having someone as wise and educated as me as his client and he had learnt a lot. What a sound person.
After Yerevan I headed north for Georgia and stopped a night in Vanadzor, a place of about 80,000 people. It’s a good example of what life is like outside of the capital. Almost all of the industrial plants from the Soviet times look like they have been the recipients of a nuclear explosion, derelict, rusting and stripped of anything of value. There are lots of long unfinished building projects, a few flash new places and plenty of small obviously struggling businesses. Most of the housing is in decaying apartment blocks. It’s another place Kay would not want to live in. Near by is the Debed Gorge which was a magnet for monastery builders because of the spectacular scenery and steep cliffs that could be fortified. On my way to the border with Georgia I looked at four of them in the company of a Polish chap who took a real Bible with him and spent much longer than me at each one. He was with me because I had hired a taxi and he was available to pay half the cost. The taxi driver was about fifty and not small, one of those guys whose neck is as wide as his head and his name was Ashot. I remember because it was cleverly on the back of his car in small silver letters the same size as those that said Mercedes. He was quite happy to tailgate police cars before ripping past them and when we were behind trucks I think the front of the car was under the back of the truck. I can’t be completely sure because although I started out in the backseat intending to take turns I quickly decided to stay there.
I have to mention agriculture so Colin doesn’t feel left out. There is not a huge amount of flat land where I have been, but what there is is cropped and it has recently been harvested so everything is brown and bald, waiting for winter snow. There is some market gardening, lots of grape vines and large areas of walnut plantations. It all looks small scale and there is not much machinery to see. Although we did pass one new huge tractor with the biggest and meanest looking plough arrangement I have ever seen, obviously someone has relatives who have done well in the U.S. In the hilly areas there are nomadic people who are presently driving their stock down to winter in mean villages. Apparently they are not Armenians because Armenians do not deal with livestock, apart from eating them. It must be true because I haven’t seen any stock in the cultivated areas.
The roads vary from great to not so good which is better than expected, and the driving behavior is reasonable. In Yerevan you can step onto a pedestrian crossing with complete confidence that no driver will try to crush your toes. That was a surprise. There are lots of traffic cops who I have been told are only a bit corrupt and when they are patrolling they must have their flashing lights on, which is a good idea because you can see them from way off. The reasonableness of drivers led me to think that maybe this was a place where people know how to queue properly, but when I asked about that the response was a gesture in the shape of a semi circle. On my way to Vanadzor we had to stop for gas, I assume cng, and I was ordered out of the car while filling took place. In the forecourt was a little building that appeared to have two atms inside and I had seen these before and wondered why they had signs with “bet” written on them. And yes, they were automated self serve TAB equivalents. I watched three young layabouts put their cards in and then instantly watch their money fly away.
Armenia was an add on to the main attraction which is Georgia but my short stay has been worthwhile, although I probably wouldn’t enthusiastically recommend it to any of you. Equally I wouldn’t do it for Dubai either which I spent a couple of days in on the way over. As far as I am concerned it has two good things, the Burj Khalifa which is stunning (the tallest building anywhere) and a very nice metro. Not long after I started looking around I suddenly remembered the gist of a poem from my school days. Ozymandius by Shelley which you can Google. Quite how my brain suddenly reached back that far is a mystery.
Hajogh.
Dennis.
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