10th of May
Rainy morning today. OK breakfast and then smooth drive to airport. Again we get photographed several times by automatic cameras on the way. Big brother is watching you! Security check is easy and the 2 border police men love our plane. We take pictures with them and they are over the moon!! After taking off a smooth but long flight: the conflict in the Ukraine has also an impact on us since our originally planned route was over the Crimea Peninsula. Things change during the 9 months of preparation time! So we are cruising over the Black Sea towards the Turkish coast, from there East to Yerevan. So the flight is quite a bit longer.
Furthermore the authorities in Azerbaijan would not let us fly into Baku from Armenia since they are not best friends with each other. Therefore we have to change our schedule and fly to Erevan first, then to Tbilisi in Georgia and entering Baku from there. We guess that many of the people in our region are not aware of all these conflicts here – but we are now…
The landing in Yerevan is very smooth again (compliments to Captain Frey) and the handling is one of the best we ever experienced: we are out of the airport within 20 minutes with plane filled up and immigration/customs cleared. The webmaster realized that he informed the sightseeing agent her that we are arriving 3 hours later due to the detour; but he did not inform her that we are arriving a day earlier… So we take a cab into Erevan, check in at the hotel (which is quite nice) and go for a walk-about on our own. What a difference to Chisinau! The city is much wealthier, nicer and a lot of Western shops (from Armani to IWC). What impressed us the most are the street coffee shop culture of Yerevan! There are cool coffee shops in the streets everywhere and we never heard so much chill out music in public! We wander around the city center up to the Opera and back. It is very clean and there is an interesting mixture of old Soviet buildings (a minority) with modern buildings. People are well dressed, friendly and well educated. Later we learn that Armenia is actually like two countries: Yerevan and the rest.
In the evening we have an Armenian Brandy at the hotel bar (10 years old – to be drunk before dinner) before we go to an Armenian restaurant. There we have some of the best fish (sturgeon) we ever had!!! The vodka ( on the house) and the 20 year old brandy ( on us) is also very nice.
So after that back to the hotel; the first two days went really well!
11th of May
At 09.00h we meet our guide Nur, a young friendly Armenian born and grown up in Syria. First we drive over quite hairy roads to visit Khor Virap Monastery, an important pilgrimage site for Armenians within view of magnificent snow-capped Mount Ararat (5,137m), located just across the border in Turkey The monastery (its Armenian name meaning deep dungeon) is one of the national symbol of ArmeniaIt is also significant as being the place of Gregory the Illuminator’s 13-year imprisionment, after which Gregory, by converting the King Trdat III to Christianity in the year 301, made Armenia the first country to adopt Christianity as its official religion. On the way back we stop at a nearby cemetery; interesting witness of the recent past.
We also visit St. Hripsime Church, built in the 7th century, another masterpiece of early medieval Armenian architecture. There is a service going on and it is very impressive to watch. Then excursion to Armenia’s „Vatican“, Holy Echmiadzin, a UNESCO World Heritage Site featuring the world’s earliest Christian churches, including Echmiadzin Mother Cathedral, i.e. the mother church of the Armenian Church, originally built by Saint Gregory the Illuminator in 301-303AD, when Armenia had just become the first official Christian state in the world. Lots of people and again a service that impresses us. The ruins of Zvartnots Cathedral are worth the visit and there we meet a young Armenian girl who speaks perfect Swiss German; she leaves in Ober-Weiningen and is visiting her relatives here in Armenia.
Finally Lunch in Garni village after one hour driving through the country side. At a local house we watch traditional Armenian bread making in Tonir (underground earth-stove) and have it for lunch afterwards. Later we are heading towards Garni Pagan Temple, the only Hellenistic Temple in the Caucasus. and former USSR. Gracing the hillside the pagan temple was dedicated to the God of Sun, Mithra. It was built in 77A.D. Proceed to Geghard Monastery (UNESCO) carved out of a huge monolithic rock. Geghard is an incredible ancient Armenian monastery, partly carved out of a mountain. It is said that the Holy Lance that pierced the body of Christ was kept here. The architectural forms and the decoration of Geghard’s rock premises show that Armenian builders could not only create superb works of architecture out of stone, but also hew them in solid rock.
Back in Yerevan, we take a short panoramic tour, with sights such as Victory Park, featuring a huge monument of Mother Armenia (the biggest statue of Armenia) and fine views of the city center; Republic Square, a fine example of Armenian architecture and town planning.
Back in the hotel a quick rest before the pilots head for dinner. The webmaster tries to upload the webpage; but now luck. Nobody knows but… (maybe Armenian government officials??). Sorry folks!!
One of the world’s oldest civilizations, Armenia once included Mount Ararat, which biblical tradition identifies as the mountain that Noah’s ark rested on after the flood. It was the first country in the world to officially embrace Christianity as its religion (A.D. 301), twelve years before Rome.
In the 6th century B.C. , Armenians settled in the kingdom of Urartu (the Assyrian name for Ararat), which was in decline. Under Tigrane the Great (fl. 95–55 B.C. ) the Armenian empire reached its height and became one of the most powerful in Asia, stretching from the Caspian to the Mediterranean seas. Throughout most of its long history, however, Armenia has been invaded by a succession of empires. Under constant threat of domination by foreign forces, Armenians became both cosmopolitan as well as fierce protectors of their culture and tradition.
Over the centuries Armenia was conquered by Greeks, Romans, Persians, Byzantines, Mongols, Arabs, Ottoman Turks, and Russians. From the 16th century through World War I, major portions of Armenia were controlled by their most brutal invader, the Ottoman Turks, under whom the Armenians experienced discrimination, religious persecution, heavy taxation, and armed attacks. In response to Armenian nationalist stirrings, the Turks massacred thousands of Armenians in 1894 and 1896. The most horrific massacre took place in April 1915 during World War I, when the Turks ordered the deportation of the Armenian population to the deserts of Syria and Mesopotamia. According to the majority of historians, between 600,000 and 1.5 million Armenians were murdered or died of starvation. The Armenian massacre is considered the first genocide of the 20th century.
