Christory Repeats

October 2024

Yerevan's got a vibe about it. People are so warm, able to easily connect, and they seem to be free of the inferiority complex that troubles many Central Asian and other cultures.

Whole populations of people in many places still seem to believe that their own countries are inferior, and that Europe is the epicentre of cultural and social evolution. And so is, Goddess help us, America.

But Yerevanis aren't having any of that.

But first, I have a gift.

Choose your colour.

Won Quy and I spent a few nights together (no, not in that way), and it was really cool to hang out with him. He's a warm and gentle 31 year old from the city of Daejeon in central South Korea, and it was super interesting learning about his culture.

I went to Korea a few years ago, so I have a bit of a sense of the place, but it's really enlightening to have long conversations over days, about the nitty gritty of Korean mindsets, lifestyles and values, and how super different the place is.

It's a pretty tough psychological and social world over there. People are extremely conscious of their appearance (and often very critical of how others look), and having a "good" career and a suitably large cache of high quality possessions, including clothes, is crucial, or you just won't be properly accepted.

I know that South Korea is not, by any stretch of the imagination, the only country in the world to be suffering from this horrible malaise, but it appears that it's particularly poorly afflicted.

And guess what? You won't believe this.

Even though Won Quy listens to a lot of music, (and had some great musical recommendations for me), he had never even heard of Woodstock, Bob Marley or even Prince (among other superstars)!

How is that even possible?

And, if I think about it, how can I even take such a Western-centric approach and ask such a question?

Of course, some of the musicians Won Quy talked about are megastars in Asia, and I wouldn't know them from a bar of soap (which is this weird stuff people used to use before shower gel was invented, and which, for some people, tastes a lot like coriander).

So basically I can't talk, I'm a musical heathen too, according to East Asians.

Wandering Yerevani streets

These women were making huge loaves of a thin local bread.

Typical scene, which could be anywhere in the world. A woman sitting somewhere in public and minding her own business, remains highly vigilant, to protect herself from unwanted male hands, which may try to grab whatever they can at any time.

Not trying to be negative, it's just reality. And of course it's worse in some places than others.

And the fact that it's an ad for Coke says a lot.

Churchkela, a delicious sweet I've mentioned before, which is basically walnuts (or other nuts) draped in a chewy grape-juice flavoured edible case, usually sold in a long string necklace. Super tasty.

Beautiful mosque. Reminds me a little of Uzbekistan. There aren't too many of these around, in this Christian city.

I really need to go here regularly.

A less glitzy part of town

Getting around on the local bus network

Make up your mind, in or out?

Obviously written by a Kiwi

A Long Long History

Armenia has its roots way way back to before the ancient Greek and Roman empires even existed.

The History Museum in Yerevan helped me understand Armenia's incredibly long and continuous cultural path through many different eras.

They were already going strong in the first Stone Age, which predates, by many millennia, the current one.

An extremely mammoth tusk

Early feral

Chips off the old rock

The oldest shoe ever found on the planet, dating back to 3,500BC. Quite incredible really. My shoes are second.

Very impressive colourful tools

Mortars and pestles haven't changed too much in a few thousand years, have they. The ram's head thing is a small hearth for inside a hut.

The Stone Age settlements here looked like this.

Another hearth

Armenia has its own Stonehenges. The stellae found here date from between 3,000 and 1,000BC. They were placed at the source of rivers and springs, as a worship to the water goddesses and gods.

Incredible finds from an early Bronze Age settlement, Lchashen. Try saying that with a mouthful of lavash. The elite in that region were actually buried in huge mounds in these very carriages, along with many of their possessions and important taliswomen.

Can't take it with ya, can ya.

Wall hanging from Erebuni fortress, from the 7th Century BC.

This is what they think it looked like.

Cute cuneiform inscription from the same place

Inscribed shield and bronze party hat

Huge vats for storing wine and water.

They were big enough for humans to go inside to clean them, and were buried underground to regulate the temperature.

This cauldron was actually super huge. As an idea of scale, it's actually large enough to boil up at least four full-size British explorers.

Armenia as a uniquely recognised nation official emerged in the 6th Century BC, and was specifically mentioned in Greek literature at the time.

Beautiful jewellery piece

An ancient noble's actual coin collection

Glass vases from the 1st Century, not too long after the year Dot.

Bear shaped rhytons, which are vessels for drinking wines and other fluids. Right on.

Christianity came to Armenia not long after the death of Christ, RIP, actually in the Ist Century AD. According to tradition, Christianity was brought here by the apostles Thaddeus and Batholomew, and is the reason why the main Christian grouping here is called the Armenian Apostolic Church. It's also classified as part of the Orthodox Church.

There's even an Armenian Quarter in Jerusalem, which is considered one of the birthplaces of Christianity. I even went there once, some years ago, on the very day after someone tried to rob me by slashing my day bag with a knife. Super luckily, there was nothing at all in the section of bag he slashed.

I'd stupidly put my passport and all of my money and cards etc in another part of the same bag, because I'd taken them out of my money belt in the travel agency I'd just visited, and I assume the crooked travel agent contacted some local ruffians, knowing all my valuables were in there.

Or I could be reading too much into it, and it was a random attempted theft.

Anyway I was lucky.

They were making wine here a very long time ago.

In 301 the Armenian King Tridartes the Great nominated Christianity as the official state religion of Armenia, the very first country in the world to do so. So the Christian tradition here is super super strong, more than in most Christian countries that I've ever visited.

In 387 the Armenian alphabet was created by the ruler Mesrop Mashtots and a very smart group of scholars. The design of the alphabet was so clever that the alphabet's never changed, not right to this day. The new written language helped to unite Armenians from all around the region, and is a significant factor in them maintaining their independent cultural identity over the centuries.

Various Christian art from different periods

Beautiful medieval bible

Armenia was a leader in the region in the production of glazed ceramics, from way back in the 9th Century

Ancient monastery.

There was an incredible exhibition of handmade carpets from different parts of Armenia. I won't bore you with descriptions, but you can enjoy the amazing designs.

There was a woman there actually making a carpet, it's a very slow and drawn out process. This pic isn't her, but was up on the wall. I was too busy watching her and forgot to snap. Basically the carpet is made stitch by stitch, with the wool, on a continuous spool, woven into each new stitch, and then sliced off with a sharp tool and pressed downwards with a special tool to keep it all nice and tight. It's actually really amazing to watch.

Ancient phone cases and cocaine holders

A beautiful craft dungeon I saw outside the museum

Won Quy took this pic of me showing off at the piano.

One afternoon a bunch of hot air balloons whizzed past. I thought I was up the road in Kapadokya in Turkey, which always has loads of these flying around.

Stoned cyclist

A brothel, around the corner from my guest house. It's true.

The wedding dresses of the women whose future husbands visit the brothel.

Earthy mosaic

Geghard Monastry

One day Won Quy and I took a local bus out of the city, to visit some amazing places in the countryside.

It was great to get back out into the quiet of rural Armenia.

On the bus

We took a local bus to Goght, the last stop, and walked the last few clicks to a place called Geghard Monastery, an amazing UNESCO World Heritage-listed complex, which represents the epitome of Armenian medieval architecture.

Rather large puma mama on the hilltop.

Ain't been used for awhile

So great to be in amongst the hills again

Yes, believe it or not, but you can glamp here.

These dogs are actually huge, almost bear-size.

Meditation/prayer caves

Awww, I've really missed snakes. This girl was just a young 'un.

So was she

And her

Local stallholders. Business was unbrisk.

These guys were playing some beautiful traditional music, one playing a traditional reeded flute, a duduk, which is made of apricot wood, and sounds just like the Middle Eastern ney. It sounds a bit gazoo-ish, but is not so harsh.

Entering the monastic grounds

The monuments and buildings here date way back from the 4th to the 13th Centuries. It's early carnation was built into the cliff face and rock, and over the years it was re-flowered, with the main church and buildings built in the 13th Century.

Never seen Armenian braille before.

The main church was beautiful, especially knowing its age, and the obvious devotion of many of the Armenians who visited while we were there.

Entering some of the dark stone chapels, shrines and caves reminded me so much of some Hindu temples in India, many of which were built around the same time. It was an eerie feeling, with no artificial light, and few windows.

This site predates Christianity. Pagans once worshipped their nature Goddesses and Gods here.

A representation of the spear thrust into the hapless Saviour of the World, Jesus Christ, (which is what he probably said as a Roman soldier dug it in to his body as he was hanging by his hands, with metal nails through them, on a wooden cross on a hill in Golgotha, just outside Jerusalem, a place which Christians call Calvary).

Poor bugger, with his power and connections he really should've called in the calvary.

Luckily, despite not being willing to save himself, Jesus, who was (is) the Son of God (and is also God at the same time, along with his Father and the Holy Spirit), and who is also the result of a sex-less conception, has apparently saved us all. From ourselves, I guess. Or maybe from that mean Devil, and from an eternity of damnation in the flesh-sizzling fires of hell.

Which is basically what the earth will be like in a couple of centuries anyway, given the current trajectory of global heating.

The beautiful art all around the complex is testament to the incredible faith and devotion of the monks and lay people over the centuries.

Eventually Won Quy and I wandered back to Goght, and bussed it to a place called Garni.

Trippy Soviet-era sculpture

Garni Gorge and Temple

After getting off the bus Won Quy and I descended steeply into a huge gorge, and were absolutely gob-smacked at the geographical marvels that awaited us.

This incredible rock formation, which the local Tourist Authority unapologetically dubs the "Symphony of Stones," is really quite incredible to see, and reminds me of  a place in Australia called Sawn Rocks, in Mt Kaputar National Park in NSW. But this, by comparison, is huge in scale.

The rocks here were formed in this way about 40 million years ago, when lava flowed down from volcanoes high above, and then cooled and crystallised quickly in the gorge, resulting in thin hexagonal and pentagonal columns that are now held in place by the surrounding rock.

It's a magnificent sight, I gotta say.

After that natural visual feast, Won Quy and I ascended the gorge up a steep track on the other side, eventually emerging at another great wonder of this region.

Garni Temple

You wouldn't expect to find an ancient Greco-Roman temple out here.

Would you?

Well I wouldn't anyway, and this place is actually recognised globally as one of the most easterly currently existing buildings of the ancient Roman Empire.

It's really a long way from Rome to here, over 4,000km in fact, as the overladen horse canters.

It was built in the 4th-3rd Century BC, dedicated to the Sun-god Mihr, and it somehow survived the widespread destruction of pre-Christian temples that occurred everywhere else in this country. Scholars aren't sure exactly why that happened.

It turns out that it was actually destroyed anyway, in an earthquake in 1679, but was later reconstructed using exactly the same building techniques as the Romans first used to build it, to retain its architectural and visual integrity.

Rather impressive, if you ask me.

There was a palace next door. Once upon a time.

There were also stunning views of Garni Gorge, way down below.

So, after a full day of lots of walking, talking and gawking, Won Quy and I wandered off back to the bus stop in Garni.

We stopped for pastries. This woman is making lavash. It's absolutely delicious hot off the presser.

Heading North

Eventually it was time for me to leave Yerevan, not because I wanted to necessarily, as I could stay for way way longer, but because my English friends will be arriving in Tbilisi in about a week, and I'd like to see some other parts of Armenia before heading back to Georgia.

It was raining. Heavily. I guess the rainy season has started, hmmmm. My flat shoes were saturated in no seconds flat, and I strolled all the way to Kilikia bus station only to be told I was at the wrong place to get the marshrutka to the place I wanted to go.

So I Yandexed it to another side of town, and hung there, waiting for the shared vehicle to leave, which it did maybe an hour later.

Local coffee

With local sediment.

It was a fairly straightforward trip of only a few hours.

When we finally arrived in Gyumri I walked from wherever it was we got dropped off towards my little guest house, not too far from the centre of town.

The poorer part of town. It's funny when you arrive in a district like this, thinking the whole place is like it, and then suddenly stumble upon ritzier places.

Gyumri is famous in Armenia for a very unfortunate reason. In 1988 it was unlucky enough to be at the epicentre of a major earthquake, which basically flattened the whole town. Almost all of the buildings were destroyed, and it's taken the region decades to recover, not only from the loss of the buildings and the subsequent crashed economy, but from the loss of loved ones. It must've been so bloody sad for everyone.

An unrepaired remnant of the quake. There's a few around still.

Beautiful old buildings, all of which have been repaired, or even totally reconstructed.

I'd like to buy myself some lincherie one day, maybe it protects your nether regions from all those violent rascists.

Flaking infrastructure

I guess that's one place to put your mains water and gas pipes in an earthquake-prone place.

This is my street.

As usual, the cosmos provided me with the most beautiful people to share time with in this authentic, untouristed town. Astrid and Mahesh, a French couple who now live in Bayonne, in Basque country in France, were staying at the same guesthouse, and we had a warm and super easy connection right from the get go.

I just love that.

Sometimes I feel like the luckiest man alive. I don't care if that sounds super cliché-ish, because I feel it anyway. I keep meeting the most amazing people all over the place, it feels like they just drop from heaven right in front of me, and are happy to hang with me for awhile, to reinforce to me how amazing humanity actually is.

I honestly could never have dreamed I could be so blessed in my life.

Mahesh and Astrid recommended a local eating place called Gwoog, I love the name, it sounds like it was created in the brain of one of the Dr Who writers.

I ordered this local specialty called panrkhash, (which just auto-corrected as park hash), and the dish is basically a bowlful of cheese. The locally made cheese, panr, is similar to Indian paneer, but this one has a much stronger flavour, and is quite stringy. The panr is interspersed with soft soaked lavash bread, and then covered in fried spiced onions, and the whole thing spiced up in a particular way.

It's delicious.

And I've never had a dish like it anywhere, ever.

I'm constantly amazed at how many different food dishes have been concocted around the world, often out of many of the same ingredients.

I also ordered pochinz, a local sweet, made from wheat that is roasted before it's milled, and butter added, and then served with delicious local honey on top. The whole thing is really delicious, with quite a unique roasted flavour, and a consistency that tastes a little grainy.

The house red was pretty nice too, I might add. A local drop.

It was pissing down, by the way. Pretty much all day and all night. Although it rained a little in Yerevan a few days ago, today was the first day of solid and consistently heavy rain that I've experienced in many months. As I left my guesthouse in Yerevan this morning my shoes were saturated within a minute or two, and my socks and feet remained wet and cold all day, as I was out the whole time.

It was still raining at night, the ancient guttering system here directing roof water from their gutters right onto the middle of the pavements, which basically formed creeks. The hillier pavements became torrents, as the water accumulated further down the hills. I don't know why it's so hard to dig drains here, and redirect the water onto the roadways where no one walks.

Small Town Armenia

As much as I love Yerevan, it's so great to be in a smaller place, a place where there's few non-Armenian tourists, and which is so small that the outskirts are within easy walking distance, and they sport beautiful views of the snowy hills that surround the town.

For my last week or so in this country I plan to stay in some smaller places, before returning to the Georgian capital of Tbilisi, to meet Brad and Rich, and, of course, my faithful bike Black Bewdy.

Armenia is a beautiful place. Outside and inside.

I've met some amazing people here, locals and others, and I'll tell you all about more of my incredible times with them in the next episode of my hugely successful hit blog.

And yes, in keeping with local tradition, the amazing experiences I'm talking about probably involved way too much vodka❤️

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