Honeymoon Around the World » Jereván

Yerevan

Arpi — Fri, 23 Sep 2011 06:00:01 +0000

We thought Yerevan is a very good, easy to live in town, which we both liked a lot.
One defining feature of the town is transport. They have Metro (like in Budapest), trolleybuses and Marschutka.
The marschutka is a local speciality. These are old microbuses, which were adapted inside, so that more people would fit in. Every marschutka has a number, they travel along the route according to their line number, and you can hail them anywhere along this route. Getting off works the same way, you can tell the driver anywhere that you want to get off, give him the fare, a 100 Dram note (50 forints) and you can go. This is the technical part, this was probably not so exciting, but now come the people! :) At the back 3 complete strangers sit down on 2 seats! This is really serious, it happened to me too, it was a girl who squeezed me in next to her. And the luggage of those standing gets looked after by those sitting down.
This would be utterly impossible in Budapest, but here it works and it is a joy to behold.
Yerevan is a modern city, in downtown the streetscape is pristine.
The inner city has many parks, they are full of restaurants with outside places, where you can find perfectly good wifi – much to my delight.
The centre is perhaps formed by the Opera House and the surrounding sqaures and parks.

The downtown area is modern, you can find anything you want, food, drink, restaurants, pubs, markets, but quite a few fashion shops too. However, McDonald’s is banned! :D Apparently this gets the local youth rather annoyed, if only they knew how well off they are!
The outer suburbs are a bit more rundown, but they are still homely and livable in.

The townscape is dominated by the twin peaks of Mount Ararat. This is the holy mountain of the Armenian people, although nowadays it is in Turkey, but perfectly visible from Yerevan.
On the last night we were invited as guests in Yerevan, we visited Zita’s Armenian acquaintance, Lusine and her husband Laci.
We caught the bus from Yerevan to Tabriz in Iran, because otherwise we would have been unredeemably behind on our planned timescales. Unfortunately we had to stick to our schedule due to our visas and the approaching winter in Tadjik, Kirghiz, Chinese and Pakistani areas. Otherwise we would have literally frozen to our bikes.
After our departure we could admire the twin peaks of Mount Ararat in the first hour.

As soon as we left the valley of the Ararat, the bus travelled amongst higher and higher mountains. Occasionally we could climb 1000m in a few minutes, which would have taken us a whole day by bike. The views were unbeliveable, although due to the speed and looking through windows it felt like we were looking at a movie screen.

Thank you Armenia!
I can only write about Armenia that it was absolutely fantastic, both the countryside and the people. We both enjoyed our days spent in Yerevan, and by the end we felt it was our town too. Should you ever travel in Armenia, we suggest you quickly learn those few words with which you can thank the people for their kindness.

Ejmiatsin és Zvartnots

Arpi — Thu, 22 Sep 2011 06:00:33 +0000

On one of our the last days in Yerevan, we finally managed to visit Ejmiatsin, the Armenian Vatican, the main sight, which we shouldn’t have missed out at all.
We found the church and we admired it from inside and outside.
There was a part for a museum in the church, too. One of the interesting sights – if not the most exciting one – was the tip of the lance, which had been used to thrust through the crucified Jesus to examine if he was dead or still alive.
Zvartnots is just a ruin, but it is really old.
According to the legend, this place could be associated with the name of Saint Gregory the Illuminator, he had a vision here, after which he decided to introduce the Armenians to Christianity, so in 301 Armenia became the first country that took Christianity as state religion.
We admired the beautiful capital.

A text engrossed our interest, which was written into a stone column behind the church. It’s origin is estimated about BC 600. Characters are 2600 year old quite clearly readable and even touchable now.

Rush in Yerevan for Árpi’s money

Arpi — Wed, 21 Sep 2011 06:00:57 +0000

One day in Yerevan I received an sms. My mother sent it telling me to go to someplace where there is Internet access and start reading my emails.
To access my money from the reálhozam, I needed an authorization from the Hungarian ambassador in Yerevan. At the post office they did not accept the blanket authorization we left at home before embarking on our trip. I do not know what this “reálhozam” is, but the money it provides is enough for us for weeks.
Our next job was to find Aunt Ica. We needed her because, if we remembered correctly, the Hungarian ambassador in Yerevan did not speak Hungarian!
When we visited Aunt Ica a few days before, Laci took us to her place. Of course we observed everything but did not pay attention to how we were getting there.
Aunt Ica lives in a high-rise building, way up there; we took pictures from her balcony. On the basis of one photo, we found her place. She of course knew the ambassador and called him immediately. He was able to see us after 4:00 p.m.
We took a picture of the recipe for ”paprikás krumpli” (paprika-based potato stew) found in Aunt Ica’s recipe book.
We visited the Armenian Genocide Monument.
In a park we found a memorial tree planted by [representatives] a district from Budapest.
The ambassador is also an agent for the Gedeon Richter Plc., a pharmaceutical company; as it turned out, we met him in a pharmacy.
Ours was an exciting, action-packed day; we were given a task to tackle and successfully finish in an unknown and strange city. But we also had Laci and Aunt Ica to help. We are very grateful to them.

Garni and Geghard

Arpi — Tue, 20 Sep 2011 06:00:41 +0000

We devoted one day to visit two churches east of Jerevan, Garni and Geghard. We didn’t know much about them, but all the maps marked them as great tourist attractions.
We took Marschutka, which is the vehicle of local public transport.
The small bus out of the town, along the beautiful, barren mountainside as far as the town Garni.
The church itself looks like the Parthenon in the Acropolis in Athens and it’s setting is fascinating.
It is on the edge of a steep valley and if you stand beside it you have beautiful views in all directions of the valley and the surrounding mountains.
The Marschutka does not run from Garni to Geghard, so we took a taxi.
Already as we turned into the steep, rocky valley we saw that the side where the cloister stands is unique.
The main church built opposite the rock face is relatively new.
The older churches are hollowed out from the rock, and they open from the main temple.
The symbol of Geghard is the lion in the company of an eagle.
There was another temple on a higher level, we could enter it only from the outside climbing up a small flight of stairs.

As we were going up these stairs, we heard the sound of a choir singing.
If you go to Jerevan, you must visit the Geghard Cloister, because it is enchanting.

How can you get into „Good morning, Armenians!” programme of the ArmeniaTV?

Arpi — Mon, 19 Sep 2011 06:00:49 +0000

We met with the Hungarian family by caravan in Jerevan. (post: Soso and the Hungarian family travelling in a caravan) Nelli and her daughter, Diana, the Armenian hostesses gave a really delicious dinner for the gathered guests.

Nelli, the hostess commened us ti the „Good morning, Armenians!” (Bari Luys Hayastan) live programme of the ArmeniaTV.
We were invited to aunt Ica at the evening before the television programme.
Aunt Ica is a grandiose woman, who worked in the Soviet period by a company, which had plants in all Soviet states. She met the man who is her husband now in Armenia.
Aunt Ica cooked and baked lots of delicacies, when we were by her. There were chicken rissole with mashed potatoes, pancake and dumpling with plum.
Dumpling with plum is the favourite food of Zita.
In the morning, we arrived to the studio in time, we quickly got acquainted with the presenters then we pushed our bicycles to the studio. In fact it was fun to be on TV. After taking part in a live show I may not be so excited next time.
We downloaded the record from the archives of television of course, we cut out the newsreel, the commercials and the clips from it.

While we were on our way home we sew the beautiful double mountaintop of Ararat.

Laci’s story from Armenopolis to Yerevan

Arpi — Fri, 16 Sep 2011 06:00:21 +0000

On our first day in Yerevan we went into town, to the Matenadaran, Laci’s workplace, where they keep the oldest manuscripts in the world, where they archive them and exhibit some of them.
The Matenadaran, and in front the creator of the Armenian alphabet and his pupil.
Laci lives in a very modest little ground floor apartment in one of Yerevan’s Northern districts.
Laci has a dog, Jack, that is barking all night and keeps the whole house awake.
In Laci’s apartment (like in several Yerevan districts) you only get water in the morning and between 6 and 10 in the evening. This restriction made me think, how much we waste water. Eg. after taking a shower the waster water, which is only slightly soapy, could be perfectly OK to use for flushing the toilet, instead it goes straight into the sewers. I heard it somewhere that in 20 years a litre of water will be much more expensive than a litre of petrol…. I’ve no idea where the truth lies, but I fear we will see.
Laci was 13 when he found out in Szamosújvár (latin name: Armenopolis) that his grandmother is Armenian, which means that he has Armenian ancestors. In the attic of the church in Szamosújvár he found a large number of very old and very valuable manuscripts, took photos of them all, brought those photos to the Matenadaran in Yerevan where they keep the ancient manuscripts. He also made a new map of the cemetery in Szamosújvár. Finally, two years ago he made a brave decision, bought himself an aeroplane ticket to Yerevan, because he always felt, ever since he discovered his Armenian ancestry, that his place is in Armenia.
He got a job archiving manuscripts in the great archive, the famous Matenadaran.

After studying for a year and a half, he managed to learn to speak Armenian almost as well as a native speaker. Laci’s great dream and mission is to save those Armenian manuscripts he found in the attic space of the church in Szamosújvár and to exhibit them in an Armenian muserum in Szamosújvár.
We were very happy to spend 8 days with him, that he shared his apartment, his stories and his life with us. During this time we felt that Laci enjoyed our company as much as we enjoyed his.
He spent several nights telling us about his adventurous and very exciting life, and on this page I wanted to give a short account of the life of an interesting and valuable man with whom – to our great delight – we were brought together on our journey.