7th week: Yerevan, heading south to Iranian border, Wings of Tatev

  

[Text by Susanne - Pictures & Subtitles by Torsten]

We have one more day in Armenia before we will travel on to Iran. It is a warm night, after a long drive across high mountains, hundreds of hair pin curves we reached the Armenian-Iranian border.

After leaving Lake Sevan we took a lot of time to visit Yerevan, the capital of Armenia (BTW: Armenia is about as big as Belgium or for the Germans: as big as Brandenburg, but counts only 3 Million people).

Convoi with Armenian President made us stop at the road site.
Hundreds of policeman controlled the intersections. 

We started at the “Mother of Armenia” a huge statue overlooking the whole city symbolising the fight for peace. Though she had a beautiful young Armenian lady as model in the sixties she looks pretty grim and has unnaturally big arms… ;) We call her the “mad mommy” (German “böse Mutti”) and as she can be seen from everywhere she is handy point for orientation (similar monuments have been also built in Kiev, Moscow, Volgograd, Tbilisi …).

Yerevan: Mother of Armenia

Yerevan: Model for Mother of Armenia

Yerevan: Museum of Mother of Armenia

In the building underneath the statue we visit a sort war museum with pictures about the Nagorno-Karabakh-War in the 90ties. Too many heroes together in one room for my taste… :(

We meet an American-Armenian lady in the museum, she speaks Armenian, but strange enough Torsten has to translate between her and a museum-staff-lady (from Russian to English). Both speak Armenian, but as we read later on in one of our books, there are two forms of Armenian, and both are quite different form each other. One is spoken in the country itself and in Russia by Armenians, the other form by Armenians in the Middle-East and the Diaspora. Both women did not seem to know that, because the situation became very frustrating for both: One accusing the other of not being “a real Armenian”… .

[begin Torstens’ insert …]

When emotions calmed a bit I asked the museums' guide about the role of Russia, since I knew that Russian military supports Armenia in controlling the borders to Turkey & Iran, but stays out from Nargono-Karabakh, where 20.000 Armenian soldiers are garrisoned. Her answers was rather cynical: "Russia supplies both Azerbaijan and Armenia with a lot of military equipment ... but Armenia gets considerable discount."
[end Torstens’ insert …]

We stay for the night on the parking of the 1915-Genocide-Memorial. Its in a green area above the city. When a heavy rain sets in that night the last visitors flee the place and we have a quiet sleep on the parking. The memorial is very impressive. Everywhere in Yerevan we see big posters and signs to remember the 100 years of the Turkish-led-genocide and of course as a big topic, that it is not yet recognised officially by the Turkish government. The language of the pictures can be pretty tough, a “1915” formed by all the “instruments” used to kill 1.5 Million people…

Yerevan: Genocide-Memorial

Yerevan: Genocide-Memorial

Yerevan: Genocide-Memorial

Yerevan: Genocide-Memorial

Yerevan: Pauli in front of sad looking pine tree planted
next to the Genocide-Memorial by ...

... the European Parliament

Yerevan: Remember the Genocide!
http://armeniangenocide100.org/en/

Yerevan: Remember the Genocide!
http://armeniangenocide100.org/en/

We take a bus tour through town and get an overview of wider Yerevan. We can listen to the tour in German, but it turns out that a nice young Armenian women has read the text for the tape and we have a hard time with her accent. Apparently she has also written the text herself so we are told about the “erschütternde Akkustik” of the concert hall or see “gerechtfertigte Architektur” at the University … very funny, but we are still happy that this tour exists.

Yerevan: City Hall

Yerevan: Train Station

Yerevan: Huge Apartment building in the city center 

Yerevan: View from the interrupted stairway
being joined one day with the to the water cascade.

Yerevan: Column as present for the 50th Anniversary
of the Armenian membership in the Soviet Union.
Congratulations!

Yerevan: Modern Art installations at the foot of the water cascades.

It is easy to find your way through the city because it resembles to a chess field.

Next to the great Cascades, long stairs connecting upper town with lower town, we have lunch and use the afternoon to stroll through town by walking.

Yerevan: View on the Water Cascades

Yerevan: Johann & Antonia exploring the Water Cascades

Yerevan: Water Cascades

Yerevan: Blue Mosque

Yerevan: Beautiful entrance to Blue Mosque

Yerevan: Minaret of Blue Mosque

Yerevan: Minaret of Blue Mosque

Yerevan: Cafés surrounded by fountains. Nice!

Yerevan: Central Square

Yerevan: Beautiful ornaments at central square

Yerevan: Opera

Yerevan in front of Radio Yerevan Building:

• The Armenian Radio was asked: "Is it true that this little fellow wants to find some sleep in front of your building"
• The Armenian Radio answered: "In principle yes,
  but why doesn' anybody ask his father, who carried him around."

To have a more quiet night we choose the country side and visit Geghard monastery; which is really impressive, because of its big cathedral being entirely carved into a rock. We watch an old lady arriving at the monastery with a chicken and later on see, that the chicken is fed with some salt that has been blessed in a special ceremony by the priest before being beheaded for the soup pot. Afterwards the meat has to be given to strangers to be eaten, under no circumstances the person that wants to be blessed should eat that meat themselves… Well, well, traditions, we hope they help the old lady to get better soon…

Geghard monastery: warn, sweet bread - yummie

Geghard monastery: Chapel built in the rocks

Geghard monastery: Pauli loves the chapel

Geghard monastery: interior of the chapel

Geghard monastery: Chapel from outside

Geghard monastery: Johann exploring the cave around the monastery

Geghard monastery: salt being blessed before it is put
in the mouth of cock ...

... who surely does not like the end of this ritual :(

Geghard monastery: impressive play of light in the dome

Geghard monastery: cross stones (khachkars) carved in the rocks of the monastery

Geghard monastery: symbols more heathen than christian

Geghard monastery: entry to the old monastary caved in the rock
Very impressive!

In the village Garni next to Geghard we hang out and do some hiking. The village holds the only Hellenic temple on the territory of the former soviet union. The evening the kids babysit for us; while we enjoy some quiet time in the restaurant next to the parking.

Garni: need some water

Garni: Hellenic Temple

Garni: Hellenic Temple - play time

Garni: Hellenic Temple

Garni: Hellenic Temple

Valley of  Garni: lava flows forming the 'symphony of stones'

Valley of  Garni: lava flows froming the 'symphony of stones'

Valley of Garni: Invitation during our hike - lecker Vodka

Valley of Garni: keeping the balance

Valley of  Garni: lava flows forming the 'symphony of stones'

Valley of  Garni: lava flows forming the 'symphony of stones'

Valley of  Garni: lava flows froming the 'symphony of stones'

Valley of  Garni: lava flows forming the 'symphony of stones'

Valley of  Garni: lava flows forming the 'symphony of stones'

Valley of  Garni: lava flows forming the 'symphony of stones'

[begin Torstens’ insert …]
When paying the bill I followed an invitation of a man for an excellent (!) Armenian Vodka with peach flavor. During the conversation it turned out to be the brother of a mafia boss who is deeply involved in drug & prostitute business not far from our German home town. Suddenly the vodka tasted so bitter!
[end Torstens’ insert …]

Ah ja and last but not least Torsten got here a hair and beard cut!!! :-))) Gosh what a drama queen… ;-)

Garni: my way to the scaffold

Before: Still happy

Garni: "That short?"

Garni: they love watching me suffering ...

... and so does an Iranian Co-traveller, who we met again accidentally

Garni: instruments of torture

here it goes ...:(

Pauli does not like it either!

Cut-off world-trip-feeling 

they really like that

Who is that?

On our way back we take time for the Genocide Museum, which wasn't open the evening we visited the memorial. What shall I say: it is a holocaust museum, difficult in its content, very modern in its appearance and as we found very open in its descriptions to all views on the historical events. Difficult to see all the pictures of horror and reading about the long story of Armenian suffering.

After the visit we take a break in a new and cooled mall to have some food and talk about the seen impressions over with the kids.

Torsten and Antonia take some time off in the afternoon to follow a guided tour in the Ararat-Brandy-Distillery while I stay in the car with the boys having fun trying bikablo. ;)

Yerevan: Ararat-Brandy-Distillery

Yerevan: Ararat-Brandy-Distillery

Yerevan: Guided Tour in Ararat-Brandy-Distillery

Yerevan: Guided Tour in Ararat-Brandy-Distillery
Peace Barrel being opened once the war ends
with Azerbaijan on Nagorno-Karabakh

Yerevan: Guided Tour in Ararat-Brandy-Distillery
Antonai signs with lipstick for peace

Yerevan: Guided Tour in Ararat-Brandy-Distillery

Some 40 km from Yerevan we stop for two days at the Khor Virap monastery where we are supposed to have a stunned view on Mt. Ararat and this is the place where it all started with the Armenian Church and their own Catholicos. The first leader of the Armenian church was Gregor the Illuminator, for being Christian he was sentenced to prison in a cave (That can be visited today by climbing long stairs deep into the ground in Khor Virap. The kids loved to visit that cave and hiked down several times…). After the ruling king got sick he remembered Gregor and asked him to pray for him to his god and then, says the story, he miraculously recovered and swore to change his god to the Christian one. That was in 300 a.C., so the Armenians became the first people in the world with Christianity as their own state religion. And Gregor became the first Catholicos.

Khor Virap: mind the steps. Gregor did not have them 1800 years ago

Khor Virap: down in the cave below the monastery

Khor Virap: down in the cave below the monastery

Khor Virap: Inside the monastery

Khor Virap: broken stones on the graveyard
(Johann took the picture)

Khor Virap: hike around the monastery.
We had to hurry up since Mount Ararat sent us a thunderstorm
Background: Armenian-Turkish-Border

Khor Virap: Kids chilling

Khor Virap: monastery during sunset

I like to be in Armenian churches, they are very impressive, but the atmosphere is not at all strict. Everywhere we went we met very friendly and funny priests, making jokes with everyone, being very open and interested. People walk in and out as they like, the priests are always in contact with the visitors, talking left and right, shaking a hand here, stopping for a picture there, very relaxed and they all love Pauli… J There are no seats in the churches, maybe that gives it more that walking-dinner-atmosphere. Every church has the obligatory sign for proper clothing (head scarf for women etc) but no one seems to care, even the ones standing in deep prayer in shorts and flipflops in the middle of the church. The kids have developed their own rituals: everywhere we come they buy candles and then they are gone for a while lighting their own candles and also all the other ones that have gone off…

At Khor Virap we are at 100 m to the Turkish border, we can already see the mosques not far away. It is one valley, but people who live here will most likely never meet each other, because if they ever wanted to visit each other they would have to go via Georgia or Iran, because the border is closed… :(

Khor Virap: Border Fortification to Turkey ... reminds me of something

There are some storms going on these days and Mt. Ararat is hidden between clouds, we decide to wait and are lucky sometime later to see the impressive mountain, where supposedly Noah landed his Ark a bit better.

Khor Virap: view to little Ararat (left) and ARARAT (right)
We saw the mountain free of clowds,
but by the time I got the camera it was all covered again.

We stay on the parking of the monastery being totally alone during the night and sharing the place with souvenir vendors and tourist buses during the day. There are several men selling doves to the tourists for around 1000 to 5000 Drams (so around 1 to 9 Euros), they say you can do with them whatever you want; but actually you are supposed to let the dove fly (as this brings luck or something, say the old traditions…). After some insisting they confess that of course the doves then fly to their homes in the next village, to be back the next day in their cage for more tourists. Wonder what would happen if someone decides to use the well trained dove as a sacrifice for the soup pot… ;)

Khor Virap: view to the monastery

Khor Virap: view from the monastery 

We have some discussions with the vendors to share with us their self-pinched electricity and our battery is happy. Water is scarce in the area, there is no drinking water available here in the villages nearby, only water to wash. The priest gets a bottle of drinking water from his fridge for us, makes using the scarce resource water a whole new experience…

Time runs a bit, at the end of August we want to be in Iran so its time to drive on: further south, easy to find because there is only one road. Since this is the main highway between Yerevan and Tehran we expect some comfort, but oh no, it is rough rough driving, but the landscape is very (!) impressive. We have a hard time finding water to refill and to wash, so we end up washing our laundry on a high pass in pretty cold temperatures, the vendors cool their bottles to be sold in the same water.

The further we go, the more we get the feeling of entering the end of the world: poverty cannot be overseen anymore, infrastructure is in terrible state and we wonder what job people might have here since all industry seems to be broken after collapse of Soviet Union. People we meet are helpful and somewhat friendly, but none of them smiles, most look depressed, a lethargic atmosphere seems to lay over southern Armenia. But, ha, it is like in the Astrix-Story, there is one little village where everything is different. Already more than 200 km (!) before the turn we see signs on the road inviting to the “Wings of Tatev” a cable car leading to one of the oldest monasteries in Armenia. The cable car was built in 2010 with money from a foundation founded by Diaspora-Armenians. And that cable car (record in Guinness book for world longest reversing cable car) is a real attraction: a modern visitor center, a chique restaurant, an impressingly long cable car spans above the long drive through a huge gorge to the monastery, all perfect, thought through to every detail. And it has become a real tourist magnet: generating some 45 work places (Torsten asked the details) at the cable car itself. We hope so much that more of this comes for Armenia. To be honest this was the first time that we really spent money at a sight in Armenia. All the other attractions were for free, no entrance fee, nothing. 

Wings of Tatev: Excellent restaurant. Rare experience in Armenia.

Wings of Tatev: taking the cable car

Valley of Tatev: village on the edge

Valley of  Tatev: abandoned village

Wings of Tatev: Pauli impressed

Wings of Tatev: Pauli impressed (cont.)

Monastery of Tatev: Antonia before the photo shooting

Monastery of Tatev: Antonia before the photo shooting

Monastery of Tatev: Isn't she beautiful!

Monastery of Tatev: and here the 'official' picture

Monastery of Tatev: one of the most important religious places in Armenia

Monastery of Tatev: Chapel

Monastery of Tatev: smile!

Monastery of Tatev: Candles!

Monastery of Tatev: lighting and blowing down ;)

Monastery of Tatev: ...

Valley of Tatev: abandoned monastery

Valley of Tatev: old way to the monastery

The long haul from Goris to Meghri takes us two days. The landscape is very impressive, high rough mountains and rocks and very few villages. Partly the road goes on the borderline to Azerbaijan. We see a lot of diesel trucks coming from Iran, they all take the hundreds of curves on their way up North. What a drive! And last but not least our brake decides to quit working as we arrive on a 2500m passage… :( We have made it fine at the end, found a helpful hand at Agarak, next to the Iranian border to fix the problem. We will hang out in this little Garden of Eden at the end of the world tomorrow. We walked through a grove of walnut-figs-pomegranate-wine-trees today and they all taste delicious. Before leaving home we had all watched together a little film about the pomegranate farmers down here, very impressive, but making a living at this place at the end of the world I don’t want to imagine…. 

Goris-Meghri: Iranian Oil Turcks from the Shah era
Only one of us can pass the curves at a time

Goris-Meghri: 160km of uncounted hairpin turns

Goris-Meghri: Difficult Drive

Just behind Kapan: Gigantic mining waste tip ...

... the bulldozers are impressive

close to Meghri: Armenian-Iranian border fortification

Agarak: the boxes need to be moved so we can tip the cabin - heavy work!

Agarak: tipping the cabine to chek the problem

Agarak: pressure hose being melted from the engine heat

Agarak: somewhere on this pile is the solution for our problem

Armenian-Iranian-Border: Pomegranate ...

... and here the tree

Armenian-Iranian-Border: kids climbing on an old buldozer
celebrating our arrival

Armenian-Iranian-Border: sitting on the top of the bulldozer
for some internet access

Armenian-Iranian-Border: Beautiful landsacpe
with overlapping mountain massives

While Armenia in General is already trapped between closed borders of Turkey in the west and Azerbaijan in the East it’s all even more claustrophique in the South of the country:

• In the West border to Azerbaijan Exclave of Nakchivan (transit roads to Azerbaijan via Iran)
• In the East Azerbaijan territory bot controlled by Armenia keeping the link to Armenian Exclave Nagorno-Karabakh
• In the South border to Iran

conflict-filled region: Nakchivan, South-Armenia, Azerbaijan & Nagorno-Karabakh

We will see how Iran lets us access internet and let you know more news next week!

P.S.: Milk and milk products become very rare and really expensive. We try to break Pauli from his habit of drinking milk … so far without success :(

Georgian Lari

Armenian Dram

Mall in Yerevan: endless aisles of Vodka

Still no Selfie Stick ;)

Yerevan: Laundry service at Sunday for a profound cleaning
of our clothes

uninvited guests for lunch

Dinner impressions

Gift from loacl: Figs and plums

Bottles to be emptied before Iran: No Worries, we made it!