Six days on a trip to Armenia. Day 6. Última entrega.

We went to Lake Sevan. It is a huge Lake, that has some areas of holiday resort. As it is spring they were just preparing the place for the season. They day was a bit grey so the view was not as great as the previous days. The tour driver had stopped in a peninsula previously an island with a monastery in the higher part. This monastery was founded by Princess Mariam in 874 ad.

At that time it was part of the duties of a Princess to take care of the construction and the sacred art in them. Nowadays there are two churches standing, both octagonal shaped. There is a big amount of khachkars. There were some ruins too. The place was nice but not nicer than the other out of the city trips we made, and actually shorter and less interesting.

Maybe is a trip to make in summer. But instead we have a nice lunch in a fish restaurant, where they served the famous fish from the lake, ´ishkan´ that means ´prince fish´. I had some crab too and a nice carrot salad and all the food was very good. Back in the city I went for a walk and some shoe spotting because thay are incredible in Yerevan. We had a nice farewell dinner with some Armenian wine (a bit rough but ok) and back to Berlin! Bye, bye, Armenia! Nice meeting you!

Six days on a trip to Armenia. Day 5.

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 1700^th 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.

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.

Six days on a trip to Armenia. Day 3

We woke up at 7 am and the sky was so clear that from the window of the hotel room you could see the peak of the Ararat. Incredible! After a nice breakfast, I head to the Cascade. On th way I got lost, by mixing Tamanyan st. with Tumanyan st. The funny thing is that this street lead to a museum in a smaller scale but that could fit the drawing in the map I had. Finally I came across a very nice lady who was able to speak a perfect english and helped my way. The Cascade is a Complex, originally designed by architect Alexander Tamanyan, followed by Jim Torosyan and ended by the new benefactor, Gerard Cafesjian. It is a huge monumental building with more than 500 steps and an incredible view over the city. Before the Cascades there are 2 squares with some of the sculptures of the Cafesjian Collection. It´s interesting to see how Botero´s work blend in with the Tamanian style. On my way in I saw a lot of young couples dating there. But the exterior with the fountains and the stairs are for free. You can climb to the top by the exterior stairs or by escalators in the interior. The whole monuments is constructed with a very light stone (a local stone similar to travertino marble) and as I went almost at midday ot was blinding from the sun and the reflection of the walls and floor. The Complex houses 6 galleries with temporary exhibitions from the Cafesjian Collection. I only took the chance on visiting one, the Galley One which is placed in the entrance next to the gift shop. They were showing a selection of glass art, which was very well displayed andthink it was a wonderful selection. I have to confess I don´t know a lot about glass art but I felt that this exhbition was exquisite. For lunch I could finally find natural yoghurt, that they call madzun, asking half in english and half gesture language. It´s so good. In the afternoon I went to the History Museum. It is placed in the same building as the National Gallery in the Republic Square. The Armenian History is very long so the museum starts with some prehistoric tools and arrows that belonged already to the armenian culture! The Armenian culture is contemporary to the Persian and the Assyrian. They were very advanced. They had very nice fine pottery, we´ve seen a car with wooden wheels and even a diagram of the solar system including the atmosphere concept and the roundness of the earth. They had a special room for traditional costumes. They are so skillfully done and with such a nice taste to combine the different patterns. There were specialists in bobbinlaces and metal belts (which seemed as finely intricated as the lace). They also have flower embroideries as in the Russian culture and many hairdresses with coins and other decorative things.

Back on the XXc. it was heartbraking to read about the genocide. Unfortunatly there were just some texts translated. But the short text about genocide, and the photos were enough to make you cry. The story of the genocide is in the first day, 1,5 million people died, killed or starved in the desert. And still is not acknowledge as a genocide by a lot of countries. Not even the responsibles.

Six days on a trip to Armenia. Day 2

Today we woke up at 7.00. After breakfast we went to see the statue of the Mother of Armenia. Huge statue en a high point made from the tuv stone and the same sculptura style of the main buildings we´ve seen. Until 1967 there was a statue of Stalin in that place. The Mother of Armenia represents peace through strength. She has a sword perfectly perpendicular to her body, holding it in a way that the elbow shows a perfect 90 degrees angle. Though the monument, the stairs and even the fences are very beautiful, there are some tanks in the surrondings that are awful. They are there because the base is the museum of the Ministry of Defense. We had lunch, which was again very nice (I had a salad that was red cabbage, apple, blue cheese and caramelized nuts). Then we went to Buzand Street. This is the street where the past meets the future. On one side of the street the old Yerevan, half destroyed or empty houses and even some famous person house. In front of it huge buildings or big holes in the land like to have space for five floors of subterranean parking. And from there we went to the Market. This is a very nice building with a beautiful entrance. This is an arch with a carved metal work with natural motifs such as animals, flowers, fruits or vegetables. It´s done in a way that lets the light inside the market and with the sum of two floors of big windows it makes the artificial light completely unnecesary. Inside there are several stands, they are mainly green grocery´s, nuts and dried fruits and herbs and spices. In the green grocery´s they have tomato, cucumber, potatoes, cabbage and some beautiful bouquets with these herbs we had the first day. In the nuts stands, there are all variations of dried and glazed fruits (almost alla of them), and some local specialities like de fruit lavash (a sheet made of fruit juice) some rolls made with the fruit lavash and a walnut filling mixed wth cognac or some stripes of half walnuts glued together with some fruit gel. All the vendors try to make you taste some if you eat everything they offer you don´t need to have your next meal. The herbs and species are harder to understand when you don´t speak the language. I bought some very nice mulberrys, dried and fresh, some hazelnuts and some vegetables. One one of the small locals on the side two ladies with a big smile are preparing oriental coffee. The coffee is cooked in some tiny copper pan and then serve it altogether with the coffee milled. It very nice. I wanted to visit some museum but as it was monday they were all closed. So we drive around some streets and funnily in the corner we stopped there was a cage with some three guys playing domino.

Six days on a trip to Armenia. Day 1

We arrived at around 5 am. The airport is being renovated, so what i saw first was a very modern coloured glass structure. But leaving the building, through some construction place, you can find some examples of this soviet architecture. Our pick up was a crunky old white lada.As a former country of the URSS thay hardly speak english, as we arrived very late we wanted to have some small breakfast later than the closing hour. When we were heading to the elevator, a short guy with three ¨girls¨. Funny!

10.00 am we woke up shower and had a small breakfast. First stop: Khor Virap.

It´s a monastery built in the place where Saint Gregory the Illuminator was kept in a pit for 12 years. He was the responsible for the conversion of Armenia to the christianism in 301, making it the first nation to adopt this religion. On the way there we saw an old movie theatre from the soviet times and a lot of very funny gas station, a bit pop style. People en Yerevan drive worse than in Buenos Aires and the roads are pritty destroyed. As a mountain aerea, the land tend to move in some places. Bumping and jumping the landscape is amazing anyway and the view of the Ararat or even other mounts nearby is breathtaking.

Inside the monastery there is a church, a small building where thay cooked the lavash, the place where Saint Gregory was kept captive and some building I guess are for the use of the church. Fortunately we could attend to a service. The church is very small and has two chambers communicated through a big arch. In the first there are two tables where the believers light thin yellow candles, there were a couple of men taking the short ones and the rests with the bare hands, and one of them had a great moustache, bigger than Dali´s. In hte other chamber the action took place, a small but fabulous sounding choir sang almost all the way while the priest, the altar boy and another man where in a stage performing different parts of the ceremony. There was a curtain closing and opening every time. The three wore shiny embroidered gowns.
Out again in the fresh air a crowd of teenagers, dressed up like for a party, black and white only but everything shiny, very shiny, very synthetic fabrics. All of them wore a rosette bow in their chests made from flowers, laces and ribbons. The girls wore lots of make up and high hairstyles. They are the kids who finished High School, this celebration is named ´The last drink´ but apparently they don´t drink but they just eat a lot and after that they dance...Looking at the Ararat I asked where the border was, and the answer was pointing just at the foot of the small mountain the monastery is, ¨that´s a dead zone¨.

Behind the dead zone there was the Arax river and the Ararat mount, two sacred sites. In 1915 the Armenian people were separated between western Armenia belonged to the Ottoman Empire while Eastern belonged to the Russian Empire. With the I World War the turks used the liability of the armenians to ally with their brothers in the Russian Empire as an excuse to do an ethnic cleansing, 1.5 million people is suppoused to be killed or have left to starve in the dessert. Armenia was a country again in 1918 but the Ararat and the Arax river remain in the hands of the turks.

I have to confess that even being an atheist, it´s easy to understand the religious feeling the Ararat produces. I´m sorry for the photos but it´s the best I could do. Going down a little there was a kind of balcony with a roof, a sink and a strange metal table. There were some dots in the floor, ¨that´s blood, they do sacrifices here¨. If thay have something to be grateful for they do ¨Matagh¨, there are 2 ways to do it. One is by sacrificing the animal, previous blessing from the priest, and after dead the animal is given to 6 families as food. The second is by putting some salt in the mouth of a bird and free it. We visit some of the other peaks nearby, there are some beautiful wild flowers and lots of different colours of stones.

It was already lunch time so we head for the city again, on the sides of the road, they were selling cherrys, but instead of putting them to a bag they tied them up with a thread to a thicker one. The Armenian are a bread eater people. They have they sacred bread ¨lavash¨wich is a very thin bread baked in the walls of a toneer dug in the floor. They eat everything putting it into the bread and rolling it. Thay also have avery nice selection of herbs they eat straight from the branch, tarragon, purple basil, parsley, dill, and some others I don´t know the name. The food was quite nice, simple but tasty.

Then we visited the arch in honour to Yeghishe Charents an armenian poet, who was executed by the Stalin regime. This arch frames one of the most beautiful sights of the Ararat. Being a Sunday there was a school trip. Abunch of colorful kids who stand in order and started to sing the national song with such a strong spirit that some of the armenians

with us started to sing as well. On the way back, it started to rain with sun. The biggest, strongest and most beautiful rainbow I´ve ever seen. Heartbraking, that beautiful it was.

A couple of days later I learn that it was in the Ararat where Noah landed after the flood. He made a sacrifice to ask God not to flood the Earth again and He set a rainbow as a sign of the commitment.