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Armenia
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| Echmiadzin Yerevan |
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It's already two days that we are Yerevan, but except for some nocturnal walks we haven't seen much
of the itself. This needs to be changed. However, before spending several hours in the capital,
we are heading to Echmiadzin, the religious centre of Armenia.
The night before we noticed, that we have everything but enough time to explore the small country country.
There are numerous interesting places around Yerevan and of course in remote areas of Armenia. Due to
our lack of time, we cannot see Nagorno Karabakh. And we have to choose between the temples of Garni,
the fortress of Geghard and Echmiadzin. Anait has told me, that all of these places are a must-see. We have to
skip two of them so that we would have enough time for Yerevan. To get to Echmiadzin, it's not necessary to go to
the bus terminal. Old buses start from the city centre and run along a surprisingly good road. Actually it's
the first road in that region without large holes. Halfway, you can see the International Airport of the country
on the left side. Not just along this road but also elsewhere, countless "vulcanizers" can be seen. They also offer
simple car repair. A phenomenon, which is not limited to Armenia - this can be seen in many other poor countries.
Since almost all cars are rather old and new tyres unaffordable, many people try to make their living on tyre and
car repair. But the garages sometimes seem to outnumber the cars, so competition is fierce.
Meanwhile, Gregorius had a vision of Jesus Christ showing him where to build a church. He also received the
title "Gregorius the Enlighted". At the same time, the town was renamed into "Echmiadzin", which means
something like "parturition of the one and only conceived". Before Armenians
converted to christianity, the animistic pagan cult was widespread - as in other nations around the region as well.
To avoid the return to paganism, the first church of Echmiadzin was conveniently built atop an old pagan shrine.
But the shrine was not entirely destroyed, remainings of it can still be seen.
Since christianity was introduced in Armenia, Echmiadzin was a holy place and the spiritual centre of the
country. A country full of religious places. And Armenian churches are not limited to the present-day country.
There are some important churches left in Turkey, with a handful of them concentrating in Ani near Kars,
which is just a few kilometers behind the border. Since there's a large Armenian diaspora, Armenian churches can
be found in many countries (see also pictures of Armenian churches in
→L'viv (Ukraine),
→Tallinn (Estonia).
During our long walk through the city we discover the main post office, where we can finally get rid of all our
post cards. € 0.5 for an international postcard is not too expensive. We also have a look at one of many groceries.
A bottle of the famouse Armenian cognac shall be a fine souvenir. It's a little known fact that even
Charles de Gaulle let the Armenian cognac import regularly - for his own pleasure. I can understand him. It's an
excellent drink, but even in Armenia it's not a bargain - a 0.5 l bottle of 10 years old cognac costs around € 10.
After exploring the entire old city centre, we move to the Genocide Memorial. Since it's boring to simply follow a road,
we choose a rather adventurous way through the deep and dry gorge. Halfway we pass the quite modern stadium of
Yerevan. Not far from the stadium there's a huge market full of clothes, fridges, VCR's, plastic lighters and more - almost
all of it made in China. Another stop on the modern silk road between China and Europe.
Not far from the market, on the top of a hill overlooking the city, we finally find the Genocide Memorial.
We walk some hundred meters further away from the monument and discover a strange-looking, huge building. This turns out to be the Palace of Culture. It's an interesting but unfortunately crumbling example of modern Soviet architecture. Many of the dusty windows are broken, the doors are locked with planks and chains and parts of the facing are missing. I'm pretty sure that the building is abandoned, but later in the evening Anait will tell me that there are still concerts and other events taking place inside. 
At seven in the evening we have an appointment with our nervous Armenian friend we met two days ago.
That's why we go back to our accommodation at around six to relax a few minutes before going out again.
We don't have much time for that, because he already turns up before half past six. As I soon find out, he studies
history and is highly interested in the history of Europe and the Far East. He's trying hard to talk in English all the
time. But somehow he's weird. I decide to test him a little bit and ask him for the name of the first German emperor.
Indeed, he knows the name. After a while we start talking about Germany. Before, he understood "German emperor".
Now he doesn't have a clue what the word "Germany" means.
"Germany!" "What?" "Germany! German country!!!" "Sorry, I no understand! Little English!" ...Say what! And so I say the name in Russian. "Germaniya!" "Aaah, Germaniya! That's Germany in English, right!?" and so on and so forth. Selective knowledge so to say. At around seven we go out and walk up the cascade - a nightmare in concrete and in ruins.
Little later, we stand in front of "Mother Armenia" - a giant monument. In contradiction to "Mother Georgia" (see →Day 5), all she has in her hand is a sword. No wine. I prefer Mother Georgia. And the monument is surrounded by loads of war equipment. By the way, Mother Georgia's and Mother Armenia's sister can be found in →Kyiv (Ukraine), last picture. It starts to rain and we are hungry. He leads us to a simple restaurant. The young waitresses seem to be pretty interested in us and start asking about this and that. Obviously, our friend very much enjoys the attention. He doesn't let me answer directly - althoug I get the questions. Could it be that he brought us here to show off!? It's only a faint idea, but... Our dinner is something typical Armenian and also a pizza, the latter is extraordinarely bad. Needless to say that we want to pay his dinner, as well. For him, this seems to be clear as day. He doesn't even say "thanks" or something. After the not really satisfying dinner, we walk back to our apartment. Halfway, we get short and strict commands when we cross streets etc: "Now go!"..."Stop, stop!"..."Come here! Quick!". Now I'm really annoyed, and all I want to do is getting rid of him. At a kiosk, I want to buy a bottle of wine for Anait to thank her for the good time we had. The most expensive one costs € 3, which is of course comparetively expensive. Our friend doesn't know anything about wine, and still he's trying to assist us. "Who's that for anyway" he asks, and I tell him that it's for Anait. "I see, for a woman. In that case, the cheapest one will do, right!?" ••• I'm very happy when we finally arrive our apartment. Yes, our Armenian is friendly. But very weird and very annoying. I'm pretty sure that Armenians think the same of him. Unfortunately this is our last night in Armenia. Way too short. Again, I'm talking with Anait about many different things for hours, and I agree that we would have to come again to Armenia. |
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Yerevan, also known as Jerevan, Eriwan or Erebuni (named after an old fortress) has around 1.1 million inhabitants,
which means that it's by far the biggest city of Armenia. The town dates back to the 8th century BC. Yerevan
covers a pocket of the Urartian plateau and is surrounded by hills and gorges on three sides. This offered protection, and
together with the fact that present-day Yerevan was a crossing point of several trading routes, it favoured Yerevan's
developent as an important city.
Many merchants passed the city on their way from Asia to Europe and vice versa. The town changed hands not just once.
In 1828, the Russians took over from the Persians. Around the year 1920, the architect Alexander Tamanian
remodelled the city centre. I'm not a fan of remodelled old city centres, but personally spoken, Tamanian deserves a prize.
The centre has a clear structure, there's a lot of green and everything is easy to naviagte. As a matter of fact, there are not
many historic sites in the city, but it's a convenient and beautiful place to be. Definitely not worth a prize is the Great Cascade.
The reason for this megalomaniac and and nowadays partially broken orgy of concrete was the 50th anniversary of introducing Soviet
Socialism to Armenia. Water is supposed to run down the giant stairs, but due to an enduring lack of water, the flow was
stopped once and forever during the 1990ies. Today, the structure is in ruins. All in all, Yerevan is a very modern and
cosmopolitan city and a great place to spend a couple of days or even to live in.