![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Yerevan III
Nov. 27th, 2018 11:08 pmWhen we had met Tony in Dargett bar on the previous Wednesday, he suggested meeting up with us on the Saturday (10 November) to show us around Yerevan. We jumped at the opportunity as he has been regularly visiting the city since 1988 and so is full of knowledge about its development and how much it has changed throughout the years. When we ambled over to Dargett for our 11am appointment, we thought that he would most likely spend the afternoon with us and head off at about 4pm yet in the end we had dinner together and didn't bid farewell until closer to 8pm. During the nine hours we spent together, in glorious autumnal sunshine, we crammed an awful lot in and got to see facets of the city that only someone with local knowledge could highlight.
Our first stop was the Kond District, which is the only surviving part of nineteenth century Yerevan, with much of the rest of the city's timber buildings already having been destroyed for new developments. This ramshackle quarter of squat concrete tenaments with rotten wooden or steel roofs is under threat from the developers as Armenia's capital is catapulting itself into the nineteenth century. We accessed this area by going through some old tunnels at the top end of Aram Street but not before I picked up another geocache, which was situated outside the post office. Tony did not know what geocaching was, and was delighted to discover the concept, so much so that I believe he has now registered on the site too and is hunting himself. Going back to the tunnels, only one of the two was open, and it was a pleasureable walk through the gentle darkness (the only illumination was a zigzag light) for what must have been something like 750m. At the other end, you could see the wide Hrazdan Gorge, which essentially splits Yerevan in two. The autumn foliage would have made for quite a romantic scene had the tacky funfair not been there, while the cliff edges on the other side of the cavern were rather evocative too. Tony said it was a pleasant hour-long walk to get down to the river itself, which is something I would have liked to have done, had we had the time. Alas, we had an awful lot to cram into the day, so instead we decided to explore Kond.
Kond is the district immediately above the tunnels through which we walked and as I have mentioned, is rather dilapidated. However, there is a real community spirit here, which was evidenced by the number of people talking to each other in the street along with the huge number of flowers and mourners there were in the neat little church, at which a funeral was about to take place. A couple of the locals were interested in what we were doing as we walked around the narrow winding streets, with Tony telling them in pigeon Russian. Everyone was incredibly friendly though and there is currently a political battle to try and save this area so the last vestige of this part of Armenia's history is not forever erased. The balance between preservation and progress is quite acute here, with the latter winning out more often, but with politics moving fast in Armenia, there could still be hope that this area can be saved, preventing Yerevan from becoming 'a city without memory'. However, the amount of building works going on here - and particularly the number of cranes on the skyline - is noticeable and there are many shiny glass-fronted soulless buildings being constructed. One such example of this we saw later in the day as the city's famous gold market is being gentrified, with new swanky modern shops on its ground floor. Fortunately, the first floor is still very much as it was, with a number of market stall holders selling a range of trinkets, while men sit at plastic tables with weighing scales offering to buy any gold which comes in. Tony found one stall here particularly fascinating as they were selling medallions with purple poppies engraved upon them, the purple poppy being a symbol of the Armenian Genocide.
Anyway, once we had exited the Kond, we soon found ourselves back on Aram Street with its huge pedestrian area and astroturf sculptures of a giraffe, horse and carts, and even a piano. I found these quite impressive and it was great to see them for the first time in the daylight, in which their form could fully be appreciated. We then pressed on further north, with Tony determined to find a second geocache which I told him was in the grounds of a nearby church, the church of Zoravor Saint Astvatsatsin. The red brick three-nave domeless basilica with a pointy spire was down a little back alley and was a little gem of a place, particularly as the grounds also contained a small mausoleum to St Ananias the Apostle. Her relics are enshrined in the church so it is a place of pilgrimage for many Armenians, and indeed as we descended into the tomb, there were three ladies mumbling a prayer to the Apostle. The church was built in 1693 and renovated a century later, and is best known for its fresco on the lintel of the western entrance. There was a little bit of construction work going on in the far corner of the neat gardens of this church, and we couldn't go into the church itself as it was closed, but it was a great little find thanks to geocaching.
By this time it was approaching 1pm and Tony in particular was feeling hungry. He knew of a cafe called Jazzve just up the road from where we were, so we decided to call there and get some food. I had some wraps (of cheese, cheese and ham and cheese and chicken made out of the local wafer thin lavash bread) while he opted for the delight of the khachapuri, a Georgian dish we first sampled in Kutaisi but one which is popular in Armenia too. Wolfie had some cream cheese wraps from memory. We also got to try one of Armenia's most popular fizzy lagers, Gyumri Gold, which is brewed in the country's second city of the same name. Jazzve was very much a Western cafe albeit one named after an Arabian/Turkish brewing instrument which was used to brew coffee in the desert. Essentially, the vessel gets filled with water and ground coffee beans and then buried in the desert sand, with its residual heat boiling the water to create a hot beverage.
Jazzve was a rather nice pitstop but there was much more to see so we ventured out shortly after 2pm, with two possible destinations. The first was the Matenadaran and the second was the Vernissage Market, with us opting to do the latter first because we suspected it would be more lively earlier in the day. As it turned out, we had been to this market before, on Thursday, but it is known for being the place to be on a weekend and there were certainly more stalls than there had been a couple of days earlier. However, in all honesty, it was just more stalls selling the same kind of thing, so it wasn't overly interesting, meaning we only really needed to walk the length of it once before ticking it off as done. It was at this point that we walked to the aforementioned gold market, which was just down the road and very near our hotel, and this I have already discussed. However, on the way, we did get to show Tony the little nineteenth century courtyard where we discovered our first geocache in the city - the one where the local guy told us 'oh you're playing that game' as he helped us find the cannister. Like with Kond, this place is one of the few still preserved from that era, and Tony was beside himself that we had shown him a small piece of the city that he did not know. I think this made him fall in love with geocaching even more.
After a quick break at the hotel to pick up some chargers, we headed to the Matenadaran, which was near the Cascades on the other side of the city. As we headed up the hill upon which it is sat, we walked past the same pipe model sculpture where a geocache should have been. We couldn't find it in the darkness on the Wednesday but as it was daylight, we thought we would try again. Alas, we still couldn't locate the pesky thing, although we did manage to find a needle implanted into it, which was far from pleasant. Further up this road, there was also an interesting collection of murals displaying each of the 39 letters of the Armenian alphabet in alphabetical order. Of course, being a completist, I had to photograph each sodding one. This, and all of our other touring, meant that we only really got an hour in the Matenadaran before it closed, which was nowhere near enough. This manuscript library is a source of considerable pride to Armenians and it's one of those buildings which dominates the city. Indeed, the imposing light grey structure reminds me a little of the main library at the University of Cambridge and this book depository, built in 1957, is the latest in a long line dating right back to St Mesrop Mashtots in Echmiadzin in the fifth century. Outside the building is a huge statue of Mashtots, teaching his alphabet to a disciple - indeed he was such a fan of alphabets that not only did he invent the Armenian one, but he also devised the Georgian one too. Surprisingly, both are quite different. The building also looks right down Mashtots Avenue, which stretches into the distance, a good number of miles away. This aligns with the setting sun, giving a sense of knowledge eminating from this building. The whole place is rather beautiful, which is no doubt why we saw a couple getting some wedding pictures on the steps of the Matenadaran, pictures which we gatecrashed by opening the huge metal doors to the museum as we wanted to leave.
Much of the ancient manuscripts have perished through the ages, largely due to war and looting, but 1800 are preserved here with some of them dating back to the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. There were a number of less interesting printed volumes from more recent times, but some of the coloured illustrated versions of the Bible were breathtakingly stunning. We even saw a couple of animal themed ones, particularly in the basement section dedicated to books from the Armenian area which now forms part of north-western Iran. There are 23,000 fragments, documents, manuscripts and maps in here and indeed I found some of the ancient maps most interesting, simply because they detailed a history that I did not know. This place was so full of riches that some of them were quite well hidden, including a huge statue which I thought should have been pride of place somewhere rather than just right outside the toilets. Anyway, we definitely got our money's worth out of this place (the three ladies in the dinky ticket office to the right of the main entrance were certainly interested in Tony's patoir) and it was just a shame that it closed at 5pm as I would have liked to have stayed a lot longer.
With darkness starting to close in, we made our way back towards the city centre, specifically the Cascade. On the way, we got to see the inner workings of an old gas powered bus, which was looking a little delapidated on the main thoroughfare up to the Matenadaran. Fancying a drink, Tony took us to a Czech beer bar down one of the side streets near the Opera House, a place we hadn't noticed before. The pilsner here was pretty much how you would expect and I also got some fried cheese balls as I was feeling peckish. After this, we decided to head to another bar, wandering around the northern edge of the ring road trying to decide on a place to go. It was at this point that we thought we might as well get food as this part of town had a high density of restaurants, with Tony recommending Tapastan to us. This was Armenian food with a high end gastronomic twist, infused with a Spanish tapas style. I got the steak in a creamy sauce, fresh orange salad and toast with cream cheese and tomato on it, and I must admit it was probably the most delightful meal we had during our stay in Armenia. This place was quite small with a slight hipster rustic vibe, but the staff were sweet and the bottle of local wine we shared absolutely stunning. It was a really nice way to end our day with Tony, who had been a great host and with whom we really enjoyed our time. We went our separate ways after the meal, at around 8pm, consoling ourselves that we may meet up again in Wakefield a mere fortnight later, an encounter that unfortunately did not happen in the end. Still, we do hope we can meet up again soon.
With the evening free but with an early start, we decided to spend another couple of hours out before heading to bed. Our first port of call was back to Jazzve as I noticed that they served the major local ice cream brand Pink Berry here. You could see their concessions throughout the city, and it was something I wanted to try, so we decided to try their berry surprise consisting of strawberry, vanilla and mint ice cream topped with strawberries, in what was now our favourite coffee house in Armenia. It was far more lively than it had been at lunchtime, with a surprisingly high number of families, including the one right next to our table who had a baby who wouldn't stop staring at me. Anyway, I didn't let this put me off my ice cream, which was creamy and delicious, and certainly something worth trying.
Our final port of call was a bar very near our hotel called Kilikia. The Kilikia brand, named after the Celicia region of Turkey, is one of the most popular brands of fizzy lager in the country and this place had a range of their brews. Unfortunately, the celebration ale was off, but we did get to try their standard lager, their dark one and a special one which tasted a little tangy. All of these beers were adequate enough, but not particularly special, and the smokiness of this basement bar meant I didn't particularly want to hang around too much. Interestingly though it did remind me of the bar we used to frequent with Ralesk whenever we visited Budapest, which brought back nice memories.
Our first stop was the Kond District, which is the only surviving part of nineteenth century Yerevan, with much of the rest of the city's timber buildings already having been destroyed for new developments. This ramshackle quarter of squat concrete tenaments with rotten wooden or steel roofs is under threat from the developers as Armenia's capital is catapulting itself into the nineteenth century. We accessed this area by going through some old tunnels at the top end of Aram Street but not before I picked up another geocache, which was situated outside the post office. Tony did not know what geocaching was, and was delighted to discover the concept, so much so that I believe he has now registered on the site too and is hunting himself. Going back to the tunnels, only one of the two was open, and it was a pleasureable walk through the gentle darkness (the only illumination was a zigzag light) for what must have been something like 750m. At the other end, you could see the wide Hrazdan Gorge, which essentially splits Yerevan in two. The autumn foliage would have made for quite a romantic scene had the tacky funfair not been there, while the cliff edges on the other side of the cavern were rather evocative too. Tony said it was a pleasant hour-long walk to get down to the river itself, which is something I would have liked to have done, had we had the time. Alas, we had an awful lot to cram into the day, so instead we decided to explore Kond.
Kond is the district immediately above the tunnels through which we walked and as I have mentioned, is rather dilapidated. However, there is a real community spirit here, which was evidenced by the number of people talking to each other in the street along with the huge number of flowers and mourners there were in the neat little church, at which a funeral was about to take place. A couple of the locals were interested in what we were doing as we walked around the narrow winding streets, with Tony telling them in pigeon Russian. Everyone was incredibly friendly though and there is currently a political battle to try and save this area so the last vestige of this part of Armenia's history is not forever erased. The balance between preservation and progress is quite acute here, with the latter winning out more often, but with politics moving fast in Armenia, there could still be hope that this area can be saved, preventing Yerevan from becoming 'a city without memory'. However, the amount of building works going on here - and particularly the number of cranes on the skyline - is noticeable and there are many shiny glass-fronted soulless buildings being constructed. One such example of this we saw later in the day as the city's famous gold market is being gentrified, with new swanky modern shops on its ground floor. Fortunately, the first floor is still very much as it was, with a number of market stall holders selling a range of trinkets, while men sit at plastic tables with weighing scales offering to buy any gold which comes in. Tony found one stall here particularly fascinating as they were selling medallions with purple poppies engraved upon them, the purple poppy being a symbol of the Armenian Genocide.
Anyway, once we had exited the Kond, we soon found ourselves back on Aram Street with its huge pedestrian area and astroturf sculptures of a giraffe, horse and carts, and even a piano. I found these quite impressive and it was great to see them for the first time in the daylight, in which their form could fully be appreciated. We then pressed on further north, with Tony determined to find a second geocache which I told him was in the grounds of a nearby church, the church of Zoravor Saint Astvatsatsin. The red brick three-nave domeless basilica with a pointy spire was down a little back alley and was a little gem of a place, particularly as the grounds also contained a small mausoleum to St Ananias the Apostle. Her relics are enshrined in the church so it is a place of pilgrimage for many Armenians, and indeed as we descended into the tomb, there were three ladies mumbling a prayer to the Apostle. The church was built in 1693 and renovated a century later, and is best known for its fresco on the lintel of the western entrance. There was a little bit of construction work going on in the far corner of the neat gardens of this church, and we couldn't go into the church itself as it was closed, but it was a great little find thanks to geocaching.
By this time it was approaching 1pm and Tony in particular was feeling hungry. He knew of a cafe called Jazzve just up the road from where we were, so we decided to call there and get some food. I had some wraps (of cheese, cheese and ham and cheese and chicken made out of the local wafer thin lavash bread) while he opted for the delight of the khachapuri, a Georgian dish we first sampled in Kutaisi but one which is popular in Armenia too. Wolfie had some cream cheese wraps from memory. We also got to try one of Armenia's most popular fizzy lagers, Gyumri Gold, which is brewed in the country's second city of the same name. Jazzve was very much a Western cafe albeit one named after an Arabian/Turkish brewing instrument which was used to brew coffee in the desert. Essentially, the vessel gets filled with water and ground coffee beans and then buried in the desert sand, with its residual heat boiling the water to create a hot beverage.
Jazzve was a rather nice pitstop but there was much more to see so we ventured out shortly after 2pm, with two possible destinations. The first was the Matenadaran and the second was the Vernissage Market, with us opting to do the latter first because we suspected it would be more lively earlier in the day. As it turned out, we had been to this market before, on Thursday, but it is known for being the place to be on a weekend and there were certainly more stalls than there had been a couple of days earlier. However, in all honesty, it was just more stalls selling the same kind of thing, so it wasn't overly interesting, meaning we only really needed to walk the length of it once before ticking it off as done. It was at this point that we walked to the aforementioned gold market, which was just down the road and very near our hotel, and this I have already discussed. However, on the way, we did get to show Tony the little nineteenth century courtyard where we discovered our first geocache in the city - the one where the local guy told us 'oh you're playing that game' as he helped us find the cannister. Like with Kond, this place is one of the few still preserved from that era, and Tony was beside himself that we had shown him a small piece of the city that he did not know. I think this made him fall in love with geocaching even more.
After a quick break at the hotel to pick up some chargers, we headed to the Matenadaran, which was near the Cascades on the other side of the city. As we headed up the hill upon which it is sat, we walked past the same pipe model sculpture where a geocache should have been. We couldn't find it in the darkness on the Wednesday but as it was daylight, we thought we would try again. Alas, we still couldn't locate the pesky thing, although we did manage to find a needle implanted into it, which was far from pleasant. Further up this road, there was also an interesting collection of murals displaying each of the 39 letters of the Armenian alphabet in alphabetical order. Of course, being a completist, I had to photograph each sodding one. This, and all of our other touring, meant that we only really got an hour in the Matenadaran before it closed, which was nowhere near enough. This manuscript library is a source of considerable pride to Armenians and it's one of those buildings which dominates the city. Indeed, the imposing light grey structure reminds me a little of the main library at the University of Cambridge and this book depository, built in 1957, is the latest in a long line dating right back to St Mesrop Mashtots in Echmiadzin in the fifth century. Outside the building is a huge statue of Mashtots, teaching his alphabet to a disciple - indeed he was such a fan of alphabets that not only did he invent the Armenian one, but he also devised the Georgian one too. Surprisingly, both are quite different. The building also looks right down Mashtots Avenue, which stretches into the distance, a good number of miles away. This aligns with the setting sun, giving a sense of knowledge eminating from this building. The whole place is rather beautiful, which is no doubt why we saw a couple getting some wedding pictures on the steps of the Matenadaran, pictures which we gatecrashed by opening the huge metal doors to the museum as we wanted to leave.
Much of the ancient manuscripts have perished through the ages, largely due to war and looting, but 1800 are preserved here with some of them dating back to the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. There were a number of less interesting printed volumes from more recent times, but some of the coloured illustrated versions of the Bible were breathtakingly stunning. We even saw a couple of animal themed ones, particularly in the basement section dedicated to books from the Armenian area which now forms part of north-western Iran. There are 23,000 fragments, documents, manuscripts and maps in here and indeed I found some of the ancient maps most interesting, simply because they detailed a history that I did not know. This place was so full of riches that some of them were quite well hidden, including a huge statue which I thought should have been pride of place somewhere rather than just right outside the toilets. Anyway, we definitely got our money's worth out of this place (the three ladies in the dinky ticket office to the right of the main entrance were certainly interested in Tony's patoir) and it was just a shame that it closed at 5pm as I would have liked to have stayed a lot longer.
With darkness starting to close in, we made our way back towards the city centre, specifically the Cascade. On the way, we got to see the inner workings of an old gas powered bus, which was looking a little delapidated on the main thoroughfare up to the Matenadaran. Fancying a drink, Tony took us to a Czech beer bar down one of the side streets near the Opera House, a place we hadn't noticed before. The pilsner here was pretty much how you would expect and I also got some fried cheese balls as I was feeling peckish. After this, we decided to head to another bar, wandering around the northern edge of the ring road trying to decide on a place to go. It was at this point that we thought we might as well get food as this part of town had a high density of restaurants, with Tony recommending Tapastan to us. This was Armenian food with a high end gastronomic twist, infused with a Spanish tapas style. I got the steak in a creamy sauce, fresh orange salad and toast with cream cheese and tomato on it, and I must admit it was probably the most delightful meal we had during our stay in Armenia. This place was quite small with a slight hipster rustic vibe, but the staff were sweet and the bottle of local wine we shared absolutely stunning. It was a really nice way to end our day with Tony, who had been a great host and with whom we really enjoyed our time. We went our separate ways after the meal, at around 8pm, consoling ourselves that we may meet up again in Wakefield a mere fortnight later, an encounter that unfortunately did not happen in the end. Still, we do hope we can meet up again soon.
With the evening free but with an early start, we decided to spend another couple of hours out before heading to bed. Our first port of call was back to Jazzve as I noticed that they served the major local ice cream brand Pink Berry here. You could see their concessions throughout the city, and it was something I wanted to try, so we decided to try their berry surprise consisting of strawberry, vanilla and mint ice cream topped with strawberries, in what was now our favourite coffee house in Armenia. It was far more lively than it had been at lunchtime, with a surprisingly high number of families, including the one right next to our table who had a baby who wouldn't stop staring at me. Anyway, I didn't let this put me off my ice cream, which was creamy and delicious, and certainly something worth trying.
Our final port of call was a bar very near our hotel called Kilikia. The Kilikia brand, named after the Celicia region of Turkey, is one of the most popular brands of fizzy lager in the country and this place had a range of their brews. Unfortunately, the celebration ale was off, but we did get to try their standard lager, their dark one and a special one which tasted a little tangy. All of these beers were adequate enough, but not particularly special, and the smokiness of this basement bar meant I didn't particularly want to hang around too much. Interestingly though it did remind me of the bar we used to frequent with Ralesk whenever we visited Budapest, which brought back nice memories.
