Playing House in Yerevan (9 July 2017)

Once I returned to Yerevan after my stay in Gyumri, I quickly moved into a AirBnB I had rented for most of the time I have left in Armenia. My main motivation being that ever since I began staying in Yerevan my cousin has refused to sleep in his own bed. To rebel against their hospitality I got my own studio apartment. A sofa mattress and a fridge of lavash (Armenian flat bread), cheese, sausage, Nutella and beer and I was set to go about playing house.

I knew that I liked Yerevan, but over the past few days I have grown to love it. Yerevan is a city of just over a million people. Not too big and not too small. Just right. Walking around there is something benevolently seductive about the city. There is a slow bustle to the streets. Most people seem to make their way leisurely around at whatever pace they wish. Tall warm stoned buildings line the sidewalk but you are never more than a stones throw from a park or a boulevard reserved for pedestrians only. It seems on every street corner there are people eating and drinking on sidewalk cafes. Every park seems to be made up of about fifty percent lovers, holding each other and speaking softly so only each other can hear. The men who play backgammon don't mind sharing their territory with pairs. It is easy to enjoy the beautiful dry weather that makes 90 degree heat feel more relaxing than anything else. Even if the back of your shirt clings to the seats a tad. If there is anything that Armenia is suffering from a lack of it is a state sponsored siesta. Something that I was perfectly able to implement myself at my own apartment.

At night the city truly comes alive. It is not uncommon to see families playing together in the parks until late in the evening. On my walk to different bars in the area I found many of the children would be up later on the monkey bars than I would be after a few drinks in a pub. Of the bars in Yerevan there is no shortage of diversity either. The basement bar Hemingway, that displays multiple murals of a certain old bearded man and stormy, shark riddled seas. However they use the power of funk music to serve as a lighthouse of positivity among the late writer's portraits and musings on the purpose of life. 

 There is the strangely ethnic lounge Calumet, where the band Rozen Tal rocked the sardine can of people and densely packed Indian art we were all were nestled into. Finally one of my favorites, The Venue. A bar that serves just as well to sit at a table to drink and talk as well as let loose. A place where you can hear everything from Grand Funk Railroad, Red Hot Chili Peppers and Kendrick Lamar. Never light on the liquor it is easy to get swept away there in conversation, in dance or beer pong.

There is still much for me to see in Armenia though. It seems like every nook and cranny of this country is steeped in lasting tradition that sadly is relatively unknown to the world. A notion I was reminded of the other day when I took a tour of the Ararat Brandy factory just outside of the city. The tour consisted of a brief trip through the Ararat Brandy museum. Here guests learn about the process of brandy making. From selecting the perfect blend of grapes to hand making the aging barrels and even replacing the corks of brandy bottles so that the corks don't dry out and allow air to taint the brandy. Of all the long history of the Ararat company I was presented with two things stood out to me the most. In February of 1945, while the heads of the Allied Powers met in Yalta to discuss the plans for a postwar Europe, Winston Churchill was presented with a bottle of Ararat Dvin Brandy by Stalin. He took such a liking to Armenian brandy that he began to import it straight from the USSR. He would import over three hundred bottles a year for the rest of his life. A bit closer to the current era, the Ararat Brandy Company was intensely disturbed by the ongoing territorial conflict between Armenia and its neighboring country of Azerbaijan. In an effort to highlight the conflict the brandy company filled up a special barrel that would only be opened when Armenia and Azerbaijan come to an official end to the hostilities. Here guests were invited to sign anywhere they could find a place to write a message of peace. The walls were coated with well wishes from all over the globe. 

The following day I jumped on a tour bus to take me around to a few historic sites in Armenia. The first stop, Alphabet Ally. Here thirty eight giant statues sit against a grassy hill lined backdrop. One statue for each character in the Armenian alphabet. The Armenian alphabet was first created in 405 CE by Mesrop Mashtots. It was used to create a common link between the Armenian people who at the time were divided between various civilizations. The language spread like wildfire and became a widely visible sign of Armenian culture. After a the quick stop we continued on up the Aragat Mountain Range. Aragat translates to "Ara's Throne" it is believed to be the location that former King Ara's throne was hidden from a jealous want to be lover after he was slain in battle.

As we climbed up the mountainside we passed flocks of sheep and tents of the shepherds who tend them. In these tents live the Yazidi people. A nation of roughly 700,000 without a home, the Yazidis are spread out through the area. Making homes wherever they can in Armenia, Syria, Russia, Iraq and even parts of Europe like Germany and the Netherlands. Adhering to their own belief system that contains parts of Islam, Christianity, Judaism and Zoroastrianism they mostly keep to their own, almost never marrying outside of their faith. In Armenia these people have found a home with welcoming arms. Some Yazidis even serve in Armenia's governing bodies. As we moved through the small Yazidi communities we came to the Fort Amberd. A 7th century fort nestled secretly in the mountains. I took a seat on a rock and began to draw while a few young calfs nibbled at the grass around me. Soon the cows were chased off by a group of children who came and surrounded me. As I drew thy watched silently and when I finished they flipped through my sketchbook before asking me to take selfies with them. 

Back on the bus I tried to paint my sketch as delicately as I could on the bumpy road to the Armas Winery. Here we were treated to a tour of the facility and a tasting of all the vineyards had to offer. We took seats around tables and a feast of cheese, mushrooms and bread was laid out. Each of which was produced right on the winery grounds. Then came the wines. First came Kangun, a white, dry wine that you could taste the apricots, white flowers and herbs so prevalent in Armenia. Next came a special Rose. Made from the Karmrahyut grapes that grow native in Armenia. In most roses, the juice from the grapes is distilled with the skins only for a short while to give it that tint of red. The Karmrahyut grapes however have a deep red juice so there is no need to distill with the skins. What comes out it is a plesant and soft taste that cannot be duplicated in any other rose that I've had. All three of them. Next came a dry red made from that same Karmrahyut grape. The soft finish of the rose became hard and powerful. The red of the wine was as deep as the flavor. Acidic, firm and fully balanced between the taste buds. Lastly a semi-sweet white wine that finished off the the experience with a sweet and fruity taste. Slowly and slightly buzzed we boarded the bus heading back to Yerevan. I passed some mints to the tour guide who didn't want to return to work with wine on her breath.

 

Walking Through the Past of Gyumri (1 July 2017)

Yesterday morning I took off from my BnB out to a 10th century monastery just outside of Gyumri. My host was kind enough to give me a lift in his 1955 GAZ Volga Star. A Soviet made automobile that looked as clean and well polished as it must have when it was delivered from the factory. As we made our way out of Gyumri it was almost like driving through time. Right in the heart of the city new renovations were everywhere. New sidewalks, men installing windows, even entire buildings beginning to be erected. As we made our way out of town and into the sprawl of Gyumri the Soviet era apartments became more frequent. Grey, dirty and uniform they stood at a attention. Then came skeletons of the apartment buildings that had collapsed in the earthquake that rocked Gyumri in 1988. Mostly all that stood of the giant formations were the exterior elements. The floors had collapsed through leaving a husk of what the building once was. We must have driven past fifteen abandoned and collapsing buildings on the way to the monastery. It was like seeing ghosts in a graveyard. After driving through some countryside we reached Marmashen. 

As the old automobile slowly and carefully made its winding way along the potholed and water logged roads we descended down into a small canyon. Nestled at the bottom, next to the lazy Akhurian River, sat the remnants of five churches. All that remains of the original five are two churches in still standing condition, the nave of another and the ruins of the other two. The rust red stones standing out blazingly against the green hills and shrubbery that accent it. A young Armenian woman came up to me and began to give me the history of the monastery in a spitfire and densely packed assault. After about ten minutes of leading me from one area to another my tour had come to an end. She asked if I had questions and I didn't have the heart to tell her I missed almost everything she had said. She showed me where her stand was for the items she was selling and I promised her I'd be back before I left. I wandered a ways away from the main church complex and began sketching. A shepherd across the river was moving his flock from one hill to another. The soft bleating of the sheep combined with the soothing sounds of the river acted as a tranquilizer for whatever else was happening in the world around me. I was alone with this thousand year old church grounds. Apart from the birds that jetted to and fro around the steeple. Not giving out so much as a chirp of  uneasiness in the mid day sun. Before we made our way back into town I bought a small doll from the friendly woman who had lead me around. She gave me my change, an apricot and a smile as I walked away.

Once we returned to town I made my way out into Gyumri to walk around. I remembered walking around the main square and found my way to a cafe Santiago, Levon and I had eaten at a year before. Trout with risotto and a Gyumri beer to wash it down. After lunch I made my way to the Domik district in Gyumri. After the earthquake of 1988, thousands of people in Gyumri were left without housing. With having most of their possessions destroyed when apartment buildings crumbled they had next to nothing to rebuild with. The local government promised to get these citizens new housing as soon as they could and in the mean time they could live in temporary housing. After all, it was no fault of their own that these people's homes had been taken from them. They weren't in gambling debt or drank their money away. They were just ordinary people who drew an remarkably disastrous, unlucky hand. The temporary housing consisted of developments scarcely better than shipping container with windows. I should not say consisted of, the temporary housing consists of is more apt. After all, the majority of families left homeless after the earthquake still live in these "Domiks". In these temporary homes they are plagued by rodents, freezing temperatures and all manner of ailments that come from living in such conditions. According to data collected by the Tuff Armenia group out of the University of Virginia, many have chronic health problems that they are unable to get treatment for. Many young men who were bread winners for their households have left the area to seek out employment in other areas of Armenia. Sometimes they even go so far as Russia to find a livable wage to send home. 

Last year I spent a day in Gyumri walking around the domiks with Santiago and Levon. The two of them make up part of the Tuff Armenia team that is aiming to bring housing to these families left behind over thirty years ago. Santiago and I would take pictures while Levon talked to the residents. This year it was just me. My aim was to take some photos that could be combined with work I had made last year. Together Santiago and I had spoken of submitting a show to galleries to raise money. However, this time Santiago wasn't with me. I began to feel a bit like a tourist to other people's misfortune. Standing among the converted shipping containers with a camera felt cheap, exploitative even. I decided to make my way back to my BnB. As I walked out a little boy sped past me on a bike. It was the boy in the Barcelona jersey that I had photographed a year before in his family's home. Before I leave Armenia I do intend to return to the domiks, even if just for a day, and try and pull some work together that can be turned into something useful for the people who live there. But in the moment I only felt like I was intruding on the lives of the people who had been so welcoming to me a year past. 

This morning I returned to Yerevan. The train ride took three and a half hours through the Armenian countryside. As the train crested over hills and we rocketed on bridges suspended what felt like miles above valleys, all I could think of was the families I had met last year. Each home was more welcoming than the last. All unloading what seemed like a lifetime supply of apricots and Armenian coffee on us as we moved from house to house. Though almost all they had was robbed from them in a force of nature in the recent past, they had been so quick to amply share what they had with us. 

Here is a link to an article written in UVAToday on the Tuff Armenia Project. You can find out more about the project and the timeline for goals they have set.

https://news.virginia.edu/content/uva-student-leads-work-rebuild-armenian-homes-devastated-earthquake

 

Football/Farewells/Fathers and Sons (29 June 2017)

A couple days ago I was lucky enough to attend a football match in the heart of Yerevan. The Armenian title holders, Alashkert were squaring off against a team from Andorra, Santa Coloma. Levon spent some time earlier that morning trying to get ahold of someone who could tell us how to get tickets. After waiting for call backs and fruitlessly searching for tickets online we received word that tickets would not be necessary. We could just walk right in. So right before game time Santiago, Katie, Lillie, Bethany and myself piled into a taxi for a trip to the stadium. There were police officers everywhere. I had a my green backpack with me and expected a search of some sort, at least a pat down or a once over with a wand. Especially considering how many policeman there were holding up the walls by leaning on them. However we were able to just stroll right through. No one seemed to give us a second look. We took some seats and watched ninety minutes of Armenia's home team playing quality soccer and Andorra's making a mockery of themselves. It seemed there wasn't a three minute stretch of the match when there wasn't an Andorran on the ground writhing in pain. After dominating play most of the game and skillfully dribbling in between downed Santa Coloma players, the Armenians came out on top.

This morning Santiago, Katie and Lillie all made their way out of Yerevan and back home. I left as well, heading to the second largest city in Armenia, Gyumri. The driver who typically would be recruited to take me from A to B could not make it this morning so he sent his son in his place. He looked to be in his thirties, still carrying a goofy schoolboy grin. The boyish manner matched with the black and white paisley shirt he wore might have made him look younger if it wasn't for the bald spot forming on the back of his head. Apart from appearances he was remarkably similar to his father. As soon as we pulled out music began to come through the speakers. It wasn't ABBA or various other 80's hits though. Rap began to thump in my chest. The car was filled with what almost sounded like what a Russian Geto Boys concert would be like. As we drove down the bumpy hills to Gyumri we tried to make conversation with each other as best we could. Him speaking Armenian an Russian. Me speaking English and English. After about an hour we pulled off at the same gas station his father had stopped at a year before on our trip to Gyumri.

 As I walked around outside taking pictures he bought me the same coffee as his father had. It was comforting in a way. I had never met this man and I was going off on my own to a town where very few people would be able to communicate with me unaided by a translator and yet I had been exactly here before. Same gas station, almost the same driver, music blasting as we scurried through the Armenian countryside and the same coffee his dad would buy for me. The only thing missing were the cigarettes and jokes about sex workers told only with the hands.

Once we got to Gyumri, my driver dropped me off at a BandB. A small woman met us on the street and lead me inside. In typical Armenian fashion, food began to seemingly pour itself onto the table. It seemed every minute there would be a new dish or drink for me to enjoy. Gata (Armenian sweet bread) came out first. Followed by a large class of something that had consistency and taste of yogurt and some hazelnut wafer cookies. I had finished a piece of gata when Turkish coffee, chocolate and apricots all appeared before me. I looked up for a second and by the time my eyes were back on the table lavash (Armenian flat bread), cheeses, sliced tomatoes and cucumbers were all waiting for me! My host joined the table across from me. Pouring herself a Turkish coffee and breaking off a small piece of the mountain of chocolate sitting in front of me.

Not long into the shared silence I was expecting when there is a considerable language barrier, she pulled out her phone and began to type away at a translator. I did the same. Soon we were talking as naturally as two people can. Her talking into her phone in Russian and it relaying the message to me in English and myself typing a response into my phone in English and replying to her in Russian. I was blown away at how easy and almost innate this was. We were just sitting there, drinking coffee, having a conversation. She told me she had lived in Gyumri since she came to the city as a bride. Once here she picked up teaching math at a local school. She had been working the day when the earthquake struck in 1988. I asked her if it was scary. She said the ground rolled in waves like that of an ocean, all the glass exploded out of the windows in the school and the children were caught in the middle of all of it. "It feels like yesterday." she said. I imagine that events as colossal as that must always feel like only a few days ago. I told her that the effects of the earthquake are very much part of the reason I first came to Gyumri. I explained the work of Levon and his Tuff Armenia team. She listened but seemed skeptical that much change could truly happen at this point. Thirty plus years after the event. I asked her if she thought the local government did enough to help out after the city was rocked. She didn't need her translator for the answer. She chuckled, "нет" and mimed taking money from someone and putting it into her own pockets.

 

Jameson, Cards, Prayers, Wishes and Weddings (24 June 2017)

The other evening I went with some new friends to a local bar in Armenia. After stopping in at a brewhouse for dinner and flights of beer we made our way on through parks and alleyways and finally down a flight of stairs to The Venue. I had come to this place last year. Then it had been seemingly filled to bursting with dancing and singing Armenians. Dancing their traditional dances of which I knew none and singing System of a Down songs, which I also knew none. It was raucous, it was wild, it was beautiful.  It was that free cry of expression which I think we all yearn for at some point.  The only tradition I came away from that night with was a firm grip on the fact that if you finished a bottle of liquor in the bar you got to sign it and it would be displayed above the bar. That was the tradition our group intended to carry on. When we got to the bottom of the stairs and through the door to the Venue, we were greeted by a scene I wasn't expecting. Everyone was seated quietly in the deep couches and high barstools. Silently they listened on as a trio of musicians played out soft music to the crowd. A man with a full grey beard and bright wrinkled eyes sang softly in Armenian while he strummed his guitar. A tall woman with bright red lipstick poured all she could into a flute, leaving her lipstick on the mouth piece. The pianist bounced around on his stool. Mouth popping open joyfully with every note. When he switched his keyboard over to the sound of an organ he began to make sounds as he played as soulfully as he could. We were seated right next to the stage and worked our way through a bottle of Jameson. By the end of the evening we were dancing and singing as much as those Armenians I had seen a year before. Our bottle sits above the bar now. For the time being here will be solid evidence that Levon, Santiago, Katie, Lillie, Bethany and Eamon had a night to remember there.

The following day was mostly spent reserving the little energy we had spared from the night before for a trip out today. I was picked up this morning by a cab playing Louie Armstrong's Go Down Moses as he rocketed through the morning traffic in Yerevan on the way to meet up with the group. Not long after the last warning to the pharaoh, we were all in a van cruising along to the historical sites of Garni and Geghard. Garni is a first century CE temple that has been inhabited on and off since its construction. A temple was built, kings moved in, the town grew, kings died and so did the town. In the 1600's the temple itself came crashing down after an earthquake. It was largely left alone for some time, only being mentioned in passing by a handful of European travelers. Not till a couple centuries later did permanent residents return to the area. Markers at the temple say it was Armenians seeking safety from some persecuting power. A story that is sadly all too similar in Armenian history. A town grew and the temple was rebuilt to its original form. To this day Garni stands on a cliffside surrounded on three sides by the ravine the Azarat River that has carved through the landscape over time. It is the only standing Greco-Roman structure to survive the rule of the Soviets in all of the former USSR. 

Walking around the grounds I ran into a small group of boys playing cards. They'd shuffle, begin slapping down cards and continue on for a while before someone would be caught cheating or play a hand that blew everyone else's away. Then the cards would be tossed down and the slaps would be directed at the offender as they all laughed and carried on as boys do. They'd be back into a new round as quickly as the last had ended. 

Soon we were off to Geghard, a Christian temple built in 1215 to be part of the mountain side. To step onto its grounds is nothing short of breath taking. Nestled in the Azarat river gorge, a temple sprouts out of the mountain side. Parts of it even receding into the cliffs. Dark caves turn into beautifully carved rooms where you can hear the echoes of time. Geghard translates to "The Monastery of the Spear" named as such for the spear that is believed to have wounded Christ as he hung on the cross in his dying days. It is believed that the Apostle Jude brought this spear to Armenia after Christ's death. Along the exterior of the chapels you can find little niches carved out of the stone walls and it is believed that if you can toss a stone into the small holes you will have a wish granted to you. Children work at the walls in a frenzy of stones flying through the air. Most with too much power behind them and they come rocketing down into the crowd as fast as they flew up. Every now and again though someone will land theres neatly into the small pile of stones that already sits in the niches. Adding their wish to the rocks that had been thrown before. 

If you walk through the courtyard you can find your way over a bridge to a grove of trees. Each branch tied with dozens of strips of cloth from the thousands of visitors the monastery hosts each year. Each strip holding some intimate prayer or wish from someone who had come before. We made our way through the trees towards a small peak overlooking the grounds. When we came into a clearing on our way up, we crawled past a couple who sat together quietly enjoying the time spent with each other. As we passed they offered us coffee to take up to the top. They poured some into a small plastic cup that we carried up to the outlook as delicately as we could. At the top the group of us sat for a while talking and sharing the coffee. After some time we made our way back down. On the way out a crowd had gathered in the parking lot as a newlywed wife and her groom made their way slowly into the chapel. The crowds stilled as they moved past. They moved through grinning at each other with their family tailing behind them walking proudly in their Saturday best.

On the drive back I asked my cousin Levon what the the strips of cloth tied to the trees had meant. He told me he had been told a few things. One person had said you tie a strip for the passing of someone you love. Someone else had said you tie a strip for the birth of a new love. As we drove through the beautiful Armenian countryside I couldn't help but think of the newlyweds we had seen. Had he wished for her hand one day by tossing a rock into one of the small holes on the church walls? Did they stand together in the grove of trees that sat next to the Azarat River? Did they tie a tiny strip of cloth to a tree branch dotted with countless other tears of fabric as the water whispered blessings behind them? From the looks on their faces as they caught sight of each other out of the corners of their eyes as they parted the crowded church grounds, I think they might have. 

 

Yerevan: Running Over the Same Old Ground (21 June 2017)

I landed in Yerevan, Armenia yesterday around two pm local time. I grabbed my pack from the baggage claim and made my way out of the airport. Not knowing who would pick me up I scanned the crowd gathering around the the exit of the airport. I couldn't find who might be picking me up. Then I heard it. "Eamon! Eamon!" I spun around to find an old familiar face. The cab driver who had driven me around last year was standing there holding  sign reading "Eamon Burke" a grin on his face and a cigarette clutched between his fingers. We hopped in his black cab and made out back to the main area of Yerevan. We weren't in the car more than two minutes before he was passing smokes to me and turning the radio up on obscure 80's dance music that most people who grew up then would struggle to place. It felt exactly the car trip I took with him last year towards the end of my stay in Armenia. The only difference was ABBA had been temporarily replaced. As we made our way through the bustling streets of Armenia we passed under a banner that hung over the street. "Welcome Home" was all it said.

This morning I made my way to the Armenian Genocide Museum and Memorial. A little under three miles away so I chose to start early to avoid the midday heat. I walked through the familiar parks outside of my cousins's home. The pedestrian tunnels to void the city streets where the only change was new graffiti on the walls. Most notably lyrics of Tupac Shakur urging me to "Keep your head up". After about a mile and half I began to walk down a road that winded down along the valley next to the Hrazdan River which divides the city. Trees that reminded me of cottonwood trees out West lined the road and their wispy, white seeds created almost a haze in the morning light. Dotted along the street were cab drivers. They busied themselves washing their cars in preparation for the day's work. I passed through largely unnoticed. It seemed like most were still coming to terms with the dawn that passed a number of hours ago. They worked. Most in an isolated silence. Some humming or singing along with the radio that danced out of their car windows. My Heart Will Go On became stuck in my head all day while passing down the road. Courtesy of a eccentric Armenian who was hastily sudsing his car while getting about as much soap on his white polo shirt as his white car. 

The Armenian Genocide Museum and Memorial are beautifully laid out. The museum is built as a spiral leading you further down into the horrific events that seemed the engulf the Armenian people from the late 1800's through the 1900's. Each step was greeted with a new story, a new face. The portrait of starving Armenian orphans being driven from their homes into the desert. The faces of the Ottoman political party of the Young Turks, the main perpetrators of the genocide. The story of a young woman named Aurora Mardiganian who miraculously escaped the genocide and found her way to safety. She would later write a novel titled "Ravished Armenia" which would become a silent film in 1919. As you walk around the galleries it is easy to become enveloped in the past. You may ask yourself why these things that happened over a century ago matter today. How all these black and white photographs and old stuttering movie clips play into the world we live in. One of the last stops out of the gallery is focused on the world reaction to the Armenian genocide. To this day only a handful of counties recognize it. As you climb the steps out of the museum galleries, out of the horrors of the starving children and the ravaged women, you pass by a quote on the wall. "Who, after all, speaks today of the annihilation of the Armenians?" a question posed by Adolf Hitler. 

After the sad but incredible museum trip I began to make my way slowly back to the apartment. Along the way I passed through a long pedestrian tunnel where a man sat busking to a crowd of no one. His guitar and voice echoed off the walls of the tunnel that seemed to stretch on for miles.  I listened to him for a while before we began to talk. He asked where I was from and what I wanted to hear. After some indecisiveness on my part he began to play saying he knew what I wanted. A slow tune sung out from his guitar. He sat in this dark tunnel and strummed a quiet storm that bounced off the walls. "So, so you think you can tell heaven from hell? Blue skies from pain?" he asked the air around us. I kneeled down next to him and we both continued on. Singing Pink Floyd as a handful of people passed before us. At the end he took a swig from his flask and I tossed him some money and went on my way. Slowly I made my way back to my cousins home. Giving myself ample time to do some wandering and chatting in broken English and unknown Armenian along the way.

It feels good to be back in Yerevan. Running over the same old grounds as I did a year ago. Finding the same faces as before. It does feel a great deal like the banner from the airport suggested. It feels almost like coming home. 

 

Last Day in Armenia (4 July 2016)

Today was my last day in Armenia sadly. Last night Sylvia helped set up a trip to Lake Sevan for me. It's about two hours away from Yerevan. The driver who took Levon, Santiago and I to Gyumri would be driving me again. Just me this time. I met him downstairs a 9 am and soon we were off. H brought his mp3 player and gave me a sampling of Armenian music. Driving through the beautiful hills of Armenia listening to the Armenian variants of the Beach Boys and Donna Summers. The hills were cut through to make way for the roads and in the exposed rock veins of obsidian glittered black in the mid morning sun. It looks almost as if the mining companies and cut straight through the heart of the hills and the veins of ore burst and were spilling their black glassy contents down the rocks. They looked like streams of darkness flowing down the rocky road sides. It was so beautiful to see.

We made it to an old cemetery called Noratus. It is home to over 800 khachkars, some dating back to as early as the 9th century CE. They stand as solid stone giants. Surrounding two old chapels built in the 13th century CE and abandoned not long after. Now the main inhabitants of the grounds are sheep that range and graze on the grass that grows from under the colossal rocks and the old women who wait and sit, knitting woolen gloves to sell to passerbys. After wandering around the old graveyard I headed to the newer monuments that stood next door. Row after row of gravestones and statues. Almost all featuring the portraits of the people who lay below the ground beneath stones laid over them. As I walked around I came across three men digging a hole for a new member of the community. They worked with picks and shovels knocking away rock and earth to reach six feet deep. I met them when they were at their shoulders. They worked as we talked. They offered me cigarettes and we smoked as they rested. Oram, Arta and Valik. We spoke in broken English for a while as they told me of their relatives in Glendale, their favorite sites to visit with their family. 

After a while I left and went off to Sevanavank, an chapel built in 305 CE. It sits on what use to be an island in the vast Lake Sevan. Since then it has become a peninsula that stretches out into the lake. Steep stairs climb up to the hill where the church sits. It is settled with the beautiful water on three sides, seagulls calling out above your head, wild flowers sprinkling the grassy meadows around it, bulbs of purple and yellow standing out against the stone walls of the church. We left to head to lunch. A wonderful spot sitting right on the lake. We ate outside on a porch so low you could almost feel the waters of Lake Sevan splashing your feet. When I say we ate I mean we feasted. Salads, cheeses, barbecued lamb and lavash bread to wrap it in. We ate in silence, drinking our beer and soaking in the wind off the lake. I studied his features. Crosses tattooed on the knuckles of one hand, an M dyed into the skin on the other between his thumb and index finger. His pinky nails had been left untrimmed for some time and the smoke from his cigarette only occasionally cleared to see the blue of his eyes. Nestled into his wrinkled olive skin were two swirling lakes with black voids in the center. His peppered hair blowing around in the gusts. He was an incredibly kind man but you could see he was weathered. 

On our way back he continued to play songs from his mp3 player. Songs would split the silence and as ones came on that colored the interior of his car grey with sadness he would listen for a while before changing them. After a song I never expected to hear came on. Agnetha Fältskog came busting out of the speakers. Hasta Mañana by ABBA hit just as the realization of this is my last day hit me. I was struck by the strangeness of the moment as she Agnetha sang "Hasta mañana till we meet again, don't know where, don't know when." My mind became flooded with everything that has happened this week. The sites I've seen and the places I've gone to. The chapel carved into the side of the mountain, the pagan temple left standing against all odds. "Hasta mañana till we meet again, don't know where, don't know when." The road stretched on line by cypresses on each side. The people I've met and spent time with. The women in Gyumri, struggling to make a home out of a broken dream for their families. The men digging the grave for someone I'll never meet sharing stories of their families. "Hasta mañana till we meet again, don't know where, don't know when." Levon so driven to make a better life for the people that no one else seems to be able to. Sitting on the balcony with Hilda nightly too deep in conversation to realize 3am had come and passed. Sylvia striving to change the pace of a nation starting with the children. Vasken working without pay day in and out to better Armenia for the future. To everyone I have met, the people I've seen I can't thank you enough. Hasta mañana till we meet again. I don't know where. I don't know when.

 

Vardavar in Yerevan (3 July 2016)

Levon and I woke up, donned our clothes and headed out into the madness of Yerevan. It is Vardavar today. It's an ancient tradition often associated with Astghik, the goddess of love, beauty, water and fertility. Now the festival takes place ninety eight days after Easter. People celebrate by creating the biggest drainage problem Armenia experiences once a year. The people wake up early, they grab water bottles, buckets, super-soakers, the containers ice cream comes in, anything at all that can be used as a weapon in the upcoming battle. Once they are ready everyone heads out into the streets to dump ludicrous amounts of water on anyone unlucky enough to get caught in their warpath. As Levon and I walked to the city center, I have never been more acutely aware of all open windows on the floors of buildings towering over us. Knowing that every step I take leads me closer to being drenched in water from unseen foes. We would stick to the trees, try to stay under cover or out of range. They would probe us. As we walked a gallon of water would rain down to our left, a balloon would burst to our right. But more frightening than the rain of balloons from above were those packs of insidious people that stalked the ground. Multiple times I witnessed first hand a pack leave weaker members to the beasts as they were set upon. Water would fly everywhere as screams of elation filled the air. By the time we got to the park, pandemonium had erupted. There was no law, no safety. Police officers cowered in their cars full of fear, children ran manically into the fury. Water flowed in the streets like...water. I cannot describe the incredible scale that these water battles took on and I am left bewildered by the realization that people were literally participating in the festival all day. 

Levon and I went back to his home after a while. Still being ambushed by people and then in turn attacking back. What beasts we all became. I sat on the balcony and dried off for a while. Before heading to the Sergei Parajanov Museum. Sergei was a very well known and respected artist and film maker in Armenia. After he came to fame on the international stage for his film Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors, he became a target of the Soviet system he worked under. All of his projects from 1965 to 1973 were banned by Soviet film administrators. This all culminated with his arrest in 1973, on charges of rape, homosexuality and bribery. After being released in 1977 he was still kept out of the film industry and wouldn't be able to complete making his work until 1980. 

Sergei Parajanov has to be one of the most artistic souls I have ever come across. His house (now the museum) is filled with his art. Art from his youth which centered around the troubles of his family, art from when he was imprisoned that evoked heavy emotions with subjects of his fellow inmates and finally art from his relief and his subsequent films. He had a whole series on the Mona Lisa, which he almost had a love affair with one could say. She was an enigma to him. It stemmed from seeing her tattooed on a fellow prisoners chest one day in a work camp while they were breaking rocks. When he raised up his pick she would smile, when he brought it down against the rock she would grow sad, when he was relaxed so was she, his pain was her pain. His work was so expressive and beautiful and strange for Soviet Armenia and it was a such a phenomenal pleasure to see a glimpse at his genius.

After the museum I went off to a Yacobian family gathering with Levon's family. We drove up to a hill overlooking Yerevan and got out of what is easily the most impressive house I have ever stepped foot in. We were greeted immediately by a large guard dog, a German Shepard, running up to us howling and ramming his butt into us looking for petting. The Yacobian family was incredibly welcoming to me. I even found myself in family photos  practically in the front row. We feasted, I learned backgammon, we drank, we celebrated a wedding. I can't thank the Yacobian's enough for their hospitality. 

 

24 Hour Day in Gyumri (1 July 2016)

We woke up early on Thursday to get on the road quickly. It seemed no sooner was I out of bed that I was on the road to Gyumri. I sat in the front seat with our driver while Levon and Santiago dozed off in the back. He only spoke Armenian and I can only use English so there wasn't much conversation between the two of us on the two hour trip. This wasn't too bad though, I was mainly glued to my window watching the landscape pass by sporadically taking photos every time the car slowed down. I would shoot photos and he would drive a long, every 15 minutes or so taking a cigarette out of his pack and hold it to his lips while he tried to light it while hiding the flame from the wind rushing in our windows.

We soon got to Gyumri and began walking around. In 1988 a horrific earthquake struck the region and collapsed over 320 buildings, leaving a lot of families with no place to live. Levon and Santiago are working on a project called Tuff Armenia. Their goal is to eventually build or create a space for these people effected by the earthquake to live in. Thursday we spent the day walking around the neighborhoods of homes of the people and witnessed firsthand the destruction of not just the homes but the lives of the poor people who fell victim to the earthquake. 

After the earthquake the government erected what is almost a shanty town in which they left the people to live while they built new homes for them. Twenty eight years later and the families are still waiting to have a safe place to live. Many of the "homes" the government have provided are little more than shipping containers with doors. Some were even old gas tanks that were cut and half and turned over to provide shelter. These shabbily made houses are sweltering in the summer and freezing in the winter. We met with one family who squeezes nine people (seven women and two kids) into a small house that had two beds in it. They said in the winter they burn everything just so they can survive. They showed us a closet of cardboard boxes, cloth, paper scraps, even shoes. All of which would be burned in the winter to provide some heat to them. It is not out of a want of comfort that they do this but necessity. We stopped in to visit several families and each one would present us with coffee, apricots, chocolates, whatever they had. These people live in the margin of society. It seems like most people are quite content to avert their eyes from the neighborhoods of metal homes rather than look into fixing it. Since 1988, a shack and some money are all these people have gotten to help them. The government states that if anyone does any work on the structures they provided to the families they become private residences and as such won't be eligible for assistance in finding a new place to live. After twenty eight years, how could you not perform maintenance? Still many were hesitant to. In many houses you could see through the roof where it rotted and rusted into dust. Holes were plugged with styrofoam for insulation. Mice come in the night and eat up the food the families have before scurrying out of the cracks in the foundations. Many don't even have toilets and showers cost 1000 dram. The family of nine said the government gives them 28,000 dram a year to live off of. 

Levon and his team are trying to do what the government seems to be unable to, help. It was a very emotional time meeting the families. Conversation would give way to tears. Then anger would boil over and more than once the people would begin yelling about the corruption in the government. Many people had so many questions. "What can I do" "When will be able to live?" I could see the frustration in Levon's face because he did not have the answers they so desperately needed. But he's trying to find them. After we left each family he would turn to Santiago and myself and explain what the family had said, what they had been through, what they were in need of. He would go through each situation with us trying to contain his own anger at the situation. 

The car ride back to Yerevan was quiet. Levon and Santiago let exhaustion take them in the back seat while I sat wordlessly in the front with our driver. After thirty or so minutes had passed we began a conversation of charades. Laughing and trying to mime jokes and observations to each other. More than once he would hit my leg, point out to something in the distance and pretend to take a picture. When a truck would let out a big black cloud of smoke we would hold our breath exaggeratedly as it whisped over the windshield. As we entered the city he would point out which of the women on the side of the road were prostitutes by repeatedly jamming his index finger in a little hold he made with his other hand. He would offer to pull over before chuckling heartily. After some time of this he pulled out a cigarette, held it between his lips then handed another to me. I am not a smoker but it felt rude of me to decline. We couldn't share a language so instead we shared laughs and smokes all the way back to the city.

When we returned Santiago and I went out for a beer while Levon did some work. We drank until Levon joined us and from there we left to take Santiago to work. Once we got to the architecture office where he interns. We didn't stay long before we grabbed the metro back into town. The metro system is Yerevan is very easy, even for those of us who can't speak Armenian. There is one line. You either go North-West or South-East. Each subway train has two cars and they move between a handful stations. The intriguing part of the Metro is that it is built in an old Soviet bomb shelter so it is deep in the earth. The escalator down to the subway platform is almost a minute long of slowly descending.

From there we headed to grab a quick dinner while we watched the symphony that plays over the loud speaker in the main city square while the fountain dances in perfect timing with the music. A show that is performed every night at 8pm. After a while Levon and I went off to a bar to drink and watch Portugal play Poland. We were joined by Hilda (Levon's sister) and one of Santiago's coworkers.  We all would sit up in our seats any time Poland had possession and jeer when Ronaldo flashed across the screen. It was a bitter ending to our time at the bar. Levon went back to his house and I accompanied Santiago to another bar. From the street I could hear a murmur Armenian music playing and the crowd cheering together. As we walked down the steps the murmur became an exclamation as we were greeted by a swarming flurry of people dancing together to Armenian music. The atmosphere was infectious and it filled me with such joy to see these people (many of whom were from Europe, South America and the US) celebrating their culture. The girls would whirl and the men would perform choreographed dances. I did not know the moves but a couple of girls attempted to instruct me before they realized I was a lost cause in terms of Armenian dancing. 

I left Santiago  and headed back to Levon's. The streets were dark as I stumbled back. I was so worried I made a ruckus when I opened the door to be greet at 2am by Levon's sister and grandmother. I sat out on the porch for a while talking with Hilda before she retired and I waited for the sun to rise over Yerevan. I went to bed finally at 5:30 ending the longest day I've had in a while. 

Here is a link to the Tuff Armenia Project. A team from UVA working to help these people in need by any means they can. You can donate to the cause or share it to bring some light to this issue that has been pushed into the shadows for too long.

http://armenia.eswb.org/

 

New and Old Architecture in Armenia (29 June 2016)

To start the day I woke up rather groggily to make my way to Hyur travel agency not far from where I'm staying. My exquisite hosts continue to outdo themselves with my lodging by finding then in turn booking a tour of two of Armenia's most beautiful sites of antiquity. Garni and Greghard. 

The tour bus left at 10 o'clock and it wasn't too long of bumbling down Armenian roadways out of the city of Yerevan that we stopped to soak in the views of the Ararat Plain. Miles and miles unfolded before me and I was quite anxious to begin taking the pictures I wanted to. I made my way to the cusp of the plateau only to realize I had forgotten my memory card for my camera back in Yerevan. But soon we were back on the road to Garni and I was too absorbed in the history our tour guide was relaying to kick myself too much. When we arrived at Garni, we toured the grounds and our guide explained every little piece of its history to us. Garni was originally an ancient fortification that was believed to be impregnable, and given its placement, I could see that to be the case. It is sitting almost on a peninsula jetting out into an incredibly steep valley below. An enormous wall separates the grounds from the rest of the world. Right as you entered the site you are greeted by a large slab of rock propped up. The inscription on the rock was in ancient Roman and told of a gift from the Emperor Nero to the people of Armenia. He was repaying a debt he felt the Roman Empire owed them, a debt of some 1,000,000+ gold coins from Rome's treasury. We walked on to the large temple at Garni, the only remaining Pagan temple in Armenia. Somehow, this ancient, beautifully decorated temple had survived close to two thousand years. It has remained standing through countless attacks from enemies, the creation of Armenia as the first Christian state, Soviet rise and fall and earthquakes that crumbled the structures around it. I was blown away by the beauty of Garni nestled in its quiet fortitude standing on her rock in the valley. But I had no idea what I was in store for. 

From Garni our bus set out for Geghard, a beautiful church carved into the rock of hill in the 4th century CE. From the outside of Geghard all you can see is a wall and a beautiful valley with a river flowing below you. But if you look closely at the rock face as you walk up to the monastery, you can see the beauty truly begin to unfold. Nestled away and almost hidden from view are little rooms carved into the wall of the canyon. Windows and elaborate, interlacing designs weathered by time adorn the walls. As you walk through the main gate of the enclosure a beautiful church stands before you. I say church and it is a church in stature, but in it's presence it feels more like a cathedral. Half of it is built standing out from the rocks and the other half of the church is carved out of the rock. There are a number of various cambers to the church. In one a skylight casts rays of sun through the light dust of a beautifully carved round room. It would be easy to think this room is just that until you hear someone sing in it. I was lucky enough to hear a group of girls singing old Armenian songs to the small crowd gathered in the room. I cannot do it justice, the acoustics of the room transformed these four teenage girls from America on vacation into a choir of angels that I believe heaven would struggle to match. The sound filled the room, your ears, your soul. It lifted you up to the point you were almost accidentally standing on your tiptoes. I could only part with the room when the singing stopped. In another chamber a spring from the rock empties itself into a small pool, people travel from all over to visit this spring for its spiritual significance and a line formed to only stick your hand out and take a sip from it. Everyone was so quite and peaceful. Waiting their turn to taste this pure water. The silence was only broken by the steady stream, flowing down to the pool, along a small channel that ran the length of the chamber and darting back underground. One of the final rooms was the actual church. Candles lined three of the four walls and their lights flickered and danced along the columns, in and out of the carvings only scattering to the darkness where light could not bend to keep up.

After leaving Geghart (which was quite a chore in itself) we made our way to a small orchard. Apricots and cherry trees littered the grounds while women worked to bake a special native bread called Lavash. The bread is much like pita bread except it is cooked along the walls of an oven dug into the ground. Dough is laid out on these things quite similar to pillows then pushed with the most graceful force alongside the walls of the oven. I enjoyed a lunch of lavash wrapped around goat cheese and various fresh spices still on the stems. After our meal I wandered the orchard sampling some of the fruit. I must have eaten all the cherries off of one of the trees they were so delicious and juicy. You could pull on the fruit and there would be a little pop of their deep red juice as it separated from the stem. They tasted so fantastic I didn't even want to spit the pits out.

Once I returned to the city I took a GG (the equivalent of an Uber) out to the AYB School where my host Sylvia works. She showed me the elementary school and then took me up the street to the facility where the middle and high schools are located. Astounding cannot even begin to describe how it was. The design of the buildings was quite nice. A modern look nestled just outside some of the oldest buildings in Yerevan. But that wasn't what sold it for me. Walking up there was a tube that snaked from the outside wall of the third floor down to the second. It was a slide. And this wasn't even the only slide students can use to get to one floor from another. There was another indoors. If I was a staff member there I'm not sure I'd be on time to my own class if I had unlimited access to slides that take you between floors. This isn't even where the magic stopped though. Every classroom is as close to state of the art as you can get. A beautiful theatre that at the top opened into the art studio, a robotics lab where students never use kits to build what's in their head, a fabrication lab where students work to create planes, 3D models and even award winning sumo wrestling robots. It is truly as Sylvia described it "The Google of schools". The vision of the school was something I believe a great many school systems couldn't have even if they were looking through the Hubble telescope. 

The last building I visited today was home to the headquarters of The Armenian General Benevolent Union (AGBU). It is a five-story structure with a roof terrace right in downtown Yerevan. The first three floors all are designed on the outside to mimic the design of old government buildings. Beautiful and colonial in a dark grey stone. But the top two floors spring to life out of the grey with two floors of almost pure glass. Once inside any trace of the old architecture is lost and it gives way to an incredibly open space with so much natural light and air if it wasn't for the hazy blue steps next to the reception desk you think you'd walked right back outside. Every floor had seemed to be the model of what an office could be. Open doors and walls of glass, everyone was accessible and it seemed eager to be so as well. To top the day off I got to sit on a screening of an old 70's spy movie, The Serpent. French, British, American and Russian spies all struggle to uncover the truth. It seemed like there would be no resolution, spare for one Armenian lab technician who found his way to the truth just in time.

 

First Day in Armenia (26 June 2016)

 I woke up this morning to a captivating view of Yerevan. As I stood out on the balcony, I shown all the city had to offer by my wonderfully hospitable hosts Vasken and Leon. The Mother of Armenia, the monument to the Genocide, Mount Aragats and so much more stretched out before me. There was so much to see I stayed out on the porch for some time just trying to soak it all in. 

Leon was kind enough to take the morning off from work to take me to breakfast and get me oriented in the city. On our way to the ArtBridge Cafe we passed what was described to me as an existentialist cafe. I have not investigated it any further yet, but I can only hope to take a break from this truly lovely trip at some point to contemplate the soul crushingly meaningless nature of existence and man's futility to justify our continued being. Despite this, the apple/raisin/cinnamon crepes at ArtBridge though was enough to put a smile on Jean-Paul Satre's face. 

From breakfast I wandered the city. The picture above is that of an old Armenian church undergoing restoration. The smaller one wrapped in green is actually one of the only (if not the only) churches in Yerevan to survive the Soviet era. It managed to outlive the Soviet state by hiding. The chapel is remarkably tiny and to make it so the Armenian people could continue to attend church (which was strictly against Soviet policy) they built numerous buildings around the church to hide it. When the USSR came down, so did the buildings. Now they are actually augmenting the small chapel with larger areas of worship around it (as you can see on the right).

I walked to a beautiful set of steps that climbs up a large hill called the Cascades. The Cascades are about as wide as a four lane road with beautiful flowering gardens on either side. The steps are tiered so there are a few stops with fountains and beautiful sculpture gardens at each break. There is also an art gallery at every stop nestled under the stairs. 

At the top of the Cascades I crossed the street into a public park. There were quite a number of fair rides that were overgrown. Signs asking for 300 dram to ride a merry-go-round with no one staffing it. Plants and ivy growing up along the tracks of a cart ride. It seemed almost like walking through a long forgotten place for bits of time. But then around the corner, life sprang into view. Kids were running with ice cream in their hands, old men played chess and lovers sat with their arms around each other enjoying the shade on the hot day. People were even enjoying the rides that looked as though no one had taken a ride on them in ages. There was a burst of life in what was otherwise seemed a bygone scene. Further down the path Mother of Armenia towered over the trees. She stood there, sword in hand facing Mount Ararat (a national symbol of Armenia that now lays beyond Turkey's borders).

Yerevan is such a beautiful city. There are so many nooks and crannies I believe no one has seen all of it. Hidden gardens tucked away behind soaring buildings and tunnels decorated with beautiful murals running through them. Areas so low and busy you feel as if the city will engulf you if the bustling cars don't first and spaces so high and open you can see for miles and miles past the sprawl of the city.