Six days on a trip to Armenia. Day 4

We planned to go to Garni and Geghard but the group trip had already left when we got to the travel agency. They offered us a private tour at 15.30. As it was still the morning we decided to go to the Sergei Paranajov Museum. Aparently he was an artist, filmdirector and a teacher. I haven´t seen any of his films. The museum which apparently is located in the high end of Dzoragiugh str. From the balcony there is a wonderful sight of Yerevan. Sergei Parajanov was born in 1924 and in 1963 he shot his first world known feature film, which was also the beginning of his problems. His movies were often closed and he spent some time in prison. During this period he developed his love for the collages. And this is what you actually get to see in the museum. The collages are made with any kind of material, most of them have a golden part, fabric or laces. There are some interesting shattered glass pieces. But mainly it´s quite disturbed and chaotic. There are also dolls and puppets, some sketches from the movies or the costumes on the movies. But the most impressive for me, was an altar with a big photo of him by Kodak, with a sign saying MAESTRO. I´m not going to judge the movies because I haven´t seen them but, from what I´ve seen it was more about the character than the ´Art´. There was a piece that was a photo of himself holding a broken photo named: ´photo of my father tore in a moment of rage´... I hadn´t take any pictures but if you are curious Sergei Parajanov Museum.

For lunch I wanted to have some armenian food. On the first day Tygran told me that they ate the tarragon with cheese and bread. As i´m not able to eat bread i bought some cheese (it comes like in thin threads) some tarragon and made my own celiac armenian speciality with corncrackers. As a dessert white yoghurt with mulberrys.

Then we went to Garni. This is a Greek Temple from the 1st c. devoted to Mitra.

After the conversion to Christianity in th 4th c. it became a summer residence for Kings. Next to the Temple there are some ruins of a church and bit further some Roman bath building. The Temple was damaged many times, first by the Arabs,

reconstructed in the 10th c. then in 1638 by the turks and an earthquake

buried it completely in 1979. In the ´70´s it was restored. The building is made of stone and it mixes two styles and it has a lot of carvings.The day was so beautiful we could really enjoy every meter of the way. I found

particularly fascinating some cuts in the mountains as if some part fell so it looks like a muffin of earth with a grass frost.As every important monument in Armenia it´s in a canyon surrounded by a marvelous

landscape. at both sides of it it´s possible to see and hear the sound of a river. The Armenian seem to have an issue with stairsteps. In the hotel the steps are so short that i´m afraid to fall, and in the Temple they are twice as high as a normal one.

It probably strengthens the feeling of superiorness.

The Geghard monastery was built in the 12-13th c. It´s a building half carved in the rock. The name comes from thelance used by a Roman soldier to pierce Christ´s body. The entrance is not carved and t has some of this candle tables.Then there was an arch communicating with a special place for the spring water. There was another one that homes the Proshyan´s sepulcher. On the roof there is a hole which comunicates with a higher chamber known also as Gavit. There is a further chamber after this , it´s the structure of the church, there is this stage with the curtain, some more candle tables and with a sink and some small lower place to reach the spring water.

The Gavit was often used for classes and to play music, so the hole was made to let the music reach the sepulcher. In the whole complex there are several khachkars (stone crosses) which were presents of the wealthy people. Coming down from the monastery we saw some caves, some even with carvings in the entrances and the sound of the cascades mixed with these floating pieces of earths were a heavenly experience. In the parking lot there was a line of ladies offering some armenian cake or bread, dried fruits, the fruit lavash and some musicians played some folk music. I was quite thankful for that comparing with Garni where they played Celine Dion.