I decided to stay in town. The first thing I wanted to do was a visit to the Matenadaran, the miniature depository, as they call it. It is placed at the end of a street, in a privileged high position where the sight of the Ararat is wonderful. It’s collection starts in 405 with the creation of the armenian alphabet by Mesrop Mashtots.
It includes manuscripts in Persian, Arabic, Siryan and other languages. Climbing the street, there is a first group of sculptures, Mesrop Mashtots with a disciple, climbing some stairs at the entrance of the building there is another group of six statues of the most important armenian miniaturists. All of them are huge and with the same monumental style of the other monuments I’ve seen before in the city.I climb the stairs and try to buy the ticket at the door, but for some reason they are sold in the gift shop, some 50m from the door. When I’m entering the building I ask the girl in the door if I could take photos, and she says yes. The first room has 4 columns covered with prints with some explanations in 4 languages and illustrations.
These columns give an introduction on the history of the miniaturism and how they painted and who where the best miniaturists. The manuscripts were in the first floor. Surrounding the stairs there was a triptych, three huge paintings in a blue key-colour. In the first floor there are some old maps, some explanation of how they made the colours and which minerals or vegetables they use for it. There were also some roughly printed copies of some manuscripts. The central room is rounded shaped and has a lot of originals. They have also a lot of translations of literature of other cultures like the Greek (The history of Alexander) and even sometimes the originals got lost and the armenian translation was the key to recover the original. It’s an incredible work and it required outstanding skills. Every master had his own style and it’s not hard to see at a simple first sight. I was taking a lot of photos because I wanted to keep all of this for future inspiration. All of a sudden an old lady started to shout at me : ‘ NO PHOTO, NO PHOTO’ and then in a basic english she asked me for a special ticket, nobody told me I had to buy. I tried to explain myself but she brought another screaming lady so I had 2 screaming ladies. Maybe we are a bit used to ‘the customer is always right’ but I felt they were too agressive. They ask the english tour guide for some help, but she just repeated what the shouting ladies said ‘get the extra ticket’. A nice guy approached and apollogize for the bad manners of the ladies and explained to me that they were old soviet school. On the way to get the ticket I see the door lady who told me I could take photos and tell her that there should be a sign explaining this in english because they showed me some armenian written sign, but I’m not even able to recognize the alphabet.
As many people in the service area they just know some expression about what strictly concerning their work but they don’t speak the language so she couldn’t understand what I was saying. She brings a guard who was able to speak a bit more. He asks what the problem is and after I tell, he offers himself to take a photo of me in the museum! I say ‘no thanks, it’s ok’. But the guard really wants to help and phones some other English guide and hand me the phone. I don’t know what to say ...finally I say ‘it’s ok don’t worry ‘ and the guy offers me his phone number, funny!
On the way back I found a very nice old art bookstore. I felt very lucky because despite the great culture they have the souvenirs I’ve seen were not nice, and there I could find postcards made of old family photos with the people wearing the traditional dresses. In the afternoon I visited the Grigor Lusavoritch church. This is a new cathedral its consecration took place on September 23, 2001. This is the symbol of the 1700th anniversary of the proclamation of Christianity as a state religion in Armenia. It is placed in the middle of a square and it’s easily visible from many corners in the city. Though being much more bigger, the shape and the elements are almost the same. The stage, in the back the altar, the curtain, the tables with the 
yellow candles. It’s made of the Armenian stone and I was so grateful when I got inside, such a nice feeling the freshness of the stone. The sun was really strong outside. I wanted to go to the market but instead I got lost and found myself in a subterranean mall. It had coffee places in the middle, copy brandstores (D & G, Prada), and on one side a huge jewellery place with a ton of small wooden desks and many people buying. Out of there, there was an underground tunnel to cross a big avenue. In the tunnel there were a fast food stand with three standing grills and three standing ladies I almost thought the intention was to grill the ladies. There were a lot of stands with small things like caps, cell phone covers or other accessories everything made of logo fabrics.
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