Wrapping up Armenia

Yes I still I Armenia… but wrapping up.

Yerevan is another city in the spring summer… life just warms up and all becomes lushly green, all squares get covered with cafes and a good number of the immense amount of fountains (1300 at the peak of soviet times) that you see al around the place starts sheltering the heat.

The summer has also brought a lot of colour… and in more than one sense… starting with the outfits of the woman… guau… I guess there is no comparison to the NZ scene… o perhaps the type of clothing and flesh exposure you may see on Saturday night clubbing or pop fashion party with top 40 music from the acid house scene…. But you would not see those girls wearing that on a Tuesday 11 am while waiting the bus… Absolutely incredible…I wish I was brave enough to approach them with a camera and say… please… the world need to know about you girls…

Matching pinks on the VERY tight top, trousers, stilettos (of course!) and handbag… and in harmony with the other friends you go cruising about… Immaculate white trousers that would not be white not even 5 seconds if anyone I know uses them… Green and red flower stamped tight trousers with more flowered tops… complete yellow outfit only interrupted by a brown “schall” on her shoulders…. And is visually obviously g-strings are the most common type of undies…

Of course, men still use black stripy trousers and black satin shirts with incredibly long pointy shoes…. Refreshing exemptions are some trendy Iranians or Lebanese to whom linen and light cloth shirts are a classic… as long they are beige or pastel…

Obviously I’m by far the worst dressed person around… with my pseudo mature surfer look…

It never ceases to overwhelm me how different perceptions over the same thing are… for me, even if visually wonderful… I found it vulgar… and they fund me vulgar… how somebody with more money than them (as all foreigners are rich) pays so little attention to his appearance…

I guess that would be my more lasting memory from that place, the incredible mixture of mysticism, culture and vulgarity I’m surrounded…

Everything is very ancient and the roots of Armenian culture are as old as civilization, the earliest books, religious and scientific analysis comes from around here…so the earliest references to wine, beer, and pot (there is a city named Ganja!) are hosted in manuscripts held in Armenia…

The history of a people without place or own government for centuries made each Armenian his own king and the holder of his peoples history… there are an immense amount of old books (10th to 14th century) that made it till today, because it was the only thing that people would take with them when the decapitating hordes arrived, when they had to go away because they were in the middle of the old world, Ottomans, Persians, Huns, Crusaders, Bolsheviks… named… all been here…

The identity is the only thing they kept… I have seen people cry of emotion when Niri the Japanese girlfriend of my friend Carlos would talk to them in fluent Armenian… they would hold her hand and in tears say: thank you so much! … Strong stuff mate…

The sense of martyrdom is essential to their psyche… so much that Martiros and Martirosyan, are very common names and surnames respectively…

And even today the centre of they geographical identity, the sole symbol of they culture that stand over everything else and that you can see from everywhere is Mt Ararat… a very impressive sight that goes well over 5000 m right from Yerevan’s valley… is in Turkey… after their annexation of Anatolia…

Is very disturbing, even for me, to have a whole section of a country constructed to look towards this most beautiful mountain that is part of your identity since Noah’s ark… and to know that is in the hand of your enemies…

They got they land and opportunity to foster they culture with some pseudo leverage as being the most culturally prominent republic of the old Soviet Union… but then it collapsed and old unpaid bills came back… you know… war with Azerbaijan and so on…

In general terms in “our” part of the world we see what is call development advances move forwards… you know you get better services and infrastructure as time pass by and today you have more than 10 years ago…

This job get to show you the opposite … not often you get confronted with the decadence of “civilization”… was quite bizarre already in Mozambique when you wander around places that 100 years ago had double sided avenues and palaces and today is very hard to get there in 4wds… here the past is very close… so the abandonment feeling is almost post apocalyptic… you go trough whole industrial areas that are completely empty, buildings and machinery sitting there, hectares of glass houses decaying with no better use than an aim of the local children stones….

Personally and as former amateur sports person from Argentina that always struggle to get support and good training facilities the most anguished place was to visit the abandoned high performance competition centre that the Soviet Union had in the mountains nearby for it elite athletes, in order to train them for Olympics and competitions in high places (is at 2500 mts).

It is a huge complex… it must have been sooo fantastic… and after 10 years of complete neglect it just felt so disturbing… massive Olympic size pool with plants growing from the cracked bottom… huge boilers for the water heating cannibalized for parts laying around… a covered 200 m ling pavilion with a tartan athletics track inside rotten away with the hurdles still laying around… the outside track with 2 adjacent areas for training blackened by the neglect… huge gymnastics halls being used by the local fauna…. and nobody around….

Except in the massive eating and living areas for athletes used by internal refuges of the Nagorno Karabagh war… It just felt what I guess would be the world 10 years after most people died by some apocalyptic reason…

But… then you come to Yerevan, and it is a different world… It must be the most musical city in the world…

Besides having concerts all the time… the quality of the musicians is just incredible… the local conservatory is constantly booming in people… Armenia is the only country in the world who’s number of music students is growing as per % of total population… In the square across the road was the National Armenian Jazz Band… at the style of the big jazz band of the 50’s… not my favourites… but man… those guys were the bomb… they play for 2.5 hrs non stop I was completely into it particularly when they starting playing local jazz that mixes traditional rhythms and instruments with the traditional big band stuff (and I mean big over 20 musicians on stage!)

2 days later similar venue but classical… again mind-blowing… It was Russia day… so big Russian concert with those jumping dancers and all… next day tribute to Piazolla (Argentina’s greatest contemporary classic and tango composer)… and so on… and then incredible international visits… like next week the Kronos Quartet… the most innovative and avant gard contemporary classic quartet in the world … they come here to perform Armenian contemporary composers… and we talking a city with less than a millon people...

It is incredible… you have at least 1-2 different concerts every night and up to four on weekends… plus 2-3 theatre plays… plus marionette and puppets exclusively dedicated theatres with 2 different functions… on children’s plays by Pushkin, Andersen and other classic authors…

I guess that would be one of the issues I will miss the most… and what challenge me the most of this place…. Knowing that the idiot that almost run you over while crossing the streets, stands around eating seeds, let his phone on and starts talking while in training seminar… plays the violin or the cello at a level that most of us would never achieve…

I guess that is the mystic and vulgar dichotomy of the Caucasus…

Mad caucasus and my lucky spring

Thanks again for all the good messages about my dispatches from here… and to those that insist that I should put them in a book… well whose going to buy it… you all have them for the last years already!

Anyway... spring is exploding in Armenia... is quite extreme how a week of warmer weather makes the grass break the dull grey of the earth, and how all the apricots trees (plenty of them in the city) get covered in white flowers... the city feels happier... even if the political situation get problematic…as apparently there is massive protest taking the streets next week (I’ll be in Holland) as the support for the present War President that has forgot the economy if becoming thin (isn’t that happening somewhere else?)

The Southern Caucasus is just a mad place... Georgia has 3 breakaway provinces that do not have any links with the central government and are virtually autonomous region/countries in pseudo state of war with the central government in Tbilisi, and its relations with Armenian are bitter sweet at the moment, as one of the breakaway governors is Armenian in origin.

Armenia has been blockaded since the 90's by Turkey in the west, meaning that border is closed and there is no relationship of any form, the reason for this go back to the Armenian genocide by the Ottoman Turks in 1915, and the support of the Turks to the Azerbaijanis in regards the land disputes with Armenia.

In particular in regards the “Mountainous Republic of Nagorno Karabakh” (Ja! Get that for a stamp in your passport) which is a ethnic Armenian enclave in Azerbaijan that gain independence supported by Armenia and is a country only recognised by Armenia, the actual Armenian president (Kocharian) was indeed the former president of Nagorno Karabakh... so it is all very messy… The Turks do complain loudly about i... but they are in the same situation with Cyprus!

As well there is the Azerbaijani province of Naxiban that is totally isolated form the rest of the country and sandwiched in between Turkey on the west, Armenia on the north and east and Iran on the South... Armenia is a frozen war state with Azerbaijan for the last 10 years, with sporadic skirmishes that leave dead soldiers on both sides... they are supporting/occupying Nagorno-Karabash... And all this mess in the name of what supposedly make us better people... Religion... so this are reason why the Turks still have a long road the be part of the EU...

The real reason why this entire place is not in complete war is the profound and unnoticed influence of the areas more stable country... Iran… Armenia’s best friend and lifeline... but... hey are they not extreme Muslims part of the axis of evil? Well really not...
I remember during 2000 hanging out for coffee in the Armenian quarter in Isfaham where the Armenian churches are 400 mts away for one of Iran biggest Mosques and there are no problems... Iranian took massive amount of refugees at the genocide time...

Iran diplomacy is what keeps this region stable even more perhaps than the money, which millions of overseas Armenians send back here…
This last week (my last one here I’m off to Holland until the 10 of May), has been quite eventful...

I have been working with the Cray fisherman of Lake Sevan... it never stop fascinates me how fisherman are a unique breed with common characteristics beyond countries and at the same some unique particulars that are so specific to where come from... and Cray fisherman are like a sub unit of that mad tribe of people worldwide...

Lake Sevan is quite high so you still have snow storms up there, and being in 6-7 mts boat/barge that incredibly still floats, lifting craypots under a blizzard surrounded by 3 cigarette-to-face welded fisherman talking about how we do it in NZ, and what is the best bait, and why it should have a escape hole for juveniles, and how big they were and the fuc. government, and the price squeeze of the companies... and so... in a mixture of armenian-russian-german language melange, under the constant warming of various bottles of vodka, was at the same time bizarre and way to familiar...

Coming back and loading all in a truck and drive back to the factory singing at loud heavily accented voice “Hotel California” (that by some reason is the only song in English that EVERY one knows and sings VERY loud) out of the a destroyed tape recorder, while the snow piles up on the lake border road driven by mad Lada racers... and stopping at a shed that only sells cigarettes and vodka for my to replenish their stock... to keep driving and stopped by corrupt policeman looking for nice Cray dinner for the night, and as get as well a Vodka zip, while we all sing for 3rd time in an hour “Hotel California” and the policeman tap my head saying something like “he looks alright for a foreign wanker”, as I’m really drunk and cant stop laughing form the bizarreness of the situation and the fear that all can go wrong at any moment... and that fragility and extreme of life is a bit addictive, but at the same time tiresome.

A big headache later I come back to home in Yerevan in the pretentious comfort of the EU Range rover as on Fridays I have been running a series of 10 seminars for the ministry inspectors.

So I go and did my usual gondola trip up and down the hill and read below what happened in the immediate trip, after the one I took...
I still a bit freaked out... and very much looking forward to see my family next week.

I know I’m a very lucky person... but yesterday was my lucky day...

THREE DIE, SIX OTHERS GET INJURIES IN FUNICULAR ACCIDENT
YEREVAN, APRIL 2: Three people were killed and six others received heavy injuries when a funicular railway car fell on the ground today. The accident occurred at 2 pm when the car was taking passengers to Nor Nork borough from downtown Yerevan. Another car that was sliding towards the center did not fall down due to braking system. The injured were rushed to hospital. An official of the emergencies department said the accident may have been caused by the obsolete machinery.

East meet Europe

I just have been watching “The Music Room” a program on CNN trying to be cool (it doesn’t work), but was about "Music in NZ" ... I have seen in succession King Capisi, One tree hill, Salmonella dub, P money, and so on... the presenter was being filmed at the entrance of Simunovich Fisheries, a door I crossed 1000 times... It was all so familiar but weird... from here… cold Yerevan…

Where funnily enough I’m not very used to not to be seen as a foreigner… everyone come and talks to me in Armenian, and kind of get offended when they realize that I have no idea of what they going on about… is very weird… in most other jobs.. tends to be very obvious my foreignness… but not here… at least not to them…. Not one person comes and offered me a menu in English… all Armenians I meet, later on come and tell me you look so Armenian… you look like my cousin Sevan… and so on I'm kind got use to it...

But.. I'm not getting use to the cold… geez... 1 degree C at lunch time… there is no need for that … however I'm kind of understanding the little things associated to it… like why most cars have all this cats footprints on the bonnet… because is warm there! As soon as a car parks… al cats from around come an lie there… is very funny for me!

It has only been one day since I'm here that I was able to walk the streets without my fleece jacket!...

Went to the Armenian equivalent of the Vatican... Which was cool... but quite “sanitized”.... very interesting painting, carvings and illustrated bibles…but it is funny, because on one side they have the spear that went on the side and “killed” Jesus (yeah man!!!) is not in display but is Armenia’s most treasured possession… and then all “priests” have a very Muslim looking beard and hat… on top of that one of the various religious icons they use is like a fake hand (like a prosthesis) in which the thumb and the “ring finger” are touching each other, meaning of circle of life that you see in the meditating Buddha statues in Sri Lanka…. Very weird…

Even if Christians I find my self more convinced that this is much more the middle east than Europe, even if local would get mad if the hear me… I don't know I just get to see it in the obvious issues, but as well in details… that perhaps only make sense to me, the combination of the fringe and the colour of the dresses of the waitresses in a restaurant… Their ideas on what we like… The plates of carefully sliced fruits… That all waiters/waitresses have an ID with their photos… That tea is called chai… that not one would ever dare to bring milk with the tea… and of course a slice of lemon...

Socially I got into some circles and I found my self "busy" during evenings... I went for an "audition" at the Buddha Lounge Bar a nice bar/club/restaurant copied to one in Paris where the "pseudo-alternative" crowd hangs out... and the guys was so keen that asked me to keep playing so I did a 2 hr set and I can go and play anytime I want they said, so I chose to be the resident DJ on Fridays... So I have the weekends free…

I normally eat at an Iranian Restaurant around my corner that cater students (many here), and it is a happy place with people talking to you and being friendly, besides cheap... so last week went there, and at the moment I'm getting is another 2 people comes in... and they are speaking Spanish... an Argentinean-Armenian composer (whom I knew about) and a Mexican anthropologist .... so they invite for dinner as it was the Mexican guy b'day... so other people started coming... 2 airport Argentineans (an Argentinean Armenian owns the airport!), Ecuadorian political scientist with NewYorican water economist wife..., various half Armenians from different parts, a Bask accountant-diver (?), a Norwegian social psychologist and her Norwegian political scientist flatmate, the German and French embassy officers, a Swiss-Italian development officer, the Canadian French microbiologist-filmmaker, and so on... so I was in my sauce... after they finish we went to the Mexican flat and had a pipe... and so on... So this crew kind of adopted me, so I got invited to quite a few parties and dinners lately and now besides having the Buddha gig... I’m now the DJ in the “Spanish Society” radio program at a local FM... bizarre....

I hate my job some days... I hate not being with my family... But destiny tends to pull some tricks on me of take me into strange situations... If I was Muslim and taught that my destiny and life book ahs been already written by Allah...

Well… I would strongly suspect that Allah does drugs...

Yerevan

Armenia in my mind was like the Atlantis.... Kind of place that we all heard off... But nobody really knows if it still exist or where it is supposed to be... This is the Caucasus from where the word Caucasia come from...I have been described like that... but I don't know why... in any case this was the backwaters of the Soviet Union... land of the lawless... as soon as the CCCP went down this guys got independence and went to war wit the neighbors for chunks of Christian land in Muslims countries... in theory Armenia and Azerbaijan still at war..

By day downtown Yerevan seems very Russian with non Russian looking people... (I have not been to Russia, do) ...men in cheap leather jackets and pointy mocasinos... pelt hats... many in fake adidas anoraks looking like iranians/turks ... but Christianity seems to make them look a bit different... women are into very tight clothes under colour leather jackets that come down to their knees, a lot of light blue make up around the eyes and the concept of hair coloring has some how new meaning for me.... There is a bit to much yellow and contrast with the very dark black from the eye brows( and the very white skin)... and by no doubt masters of equilibrium and frostbite control as per the very tight and pointy stiletto kind of boots they use to wander trough the snow

all sort of soviet cars of which ones i only recognize the nivas and a few others, and of course as it is a free country... BMW and Mercedes... meaning that you have either $ or are in politics (normally related)... and is very important for you to show off...

Again I'm a giant walking the streets in disbelieve of the anarchy of traffic.... the old part of the city seems to have been very posh at some stage... the Architecture is monumental... still much more to see... young (teenage) soldiers playing in the snow with uniforms that make them even younger... kebab houses shining... the poster of lord of the rings in Russian and Armenian... (Pity I did not had a digicam)... cheap latino music in Spanish pouring from underground clubs...

on the other side... on a Wednesday night I could go to a opera, a chamber music concert or the visiting Iranian Philharmonic playing with the local one (over 400 musicians on stage)... Pretty much every night is something and we talking a city of Auckland population

Is quite tripy to go on a Volga car (big) trough the hills from outer Yerevan... trough industrial areas with melting snow, down driveways into government buildings looking empty.... The ministries are incredible... Ruskis master the art of institutional architecture....

The office I' be working is a bit out of town, but I can take either a buss or a gondola (sic) to get there... yes the gondola is again very Russian in design...ugly but able to still work after 20 years of minimal maintenance ...

Yerevan is the lowest part of the country, (1000mts) and is surrounded by hills...there is as well a underground metro... so the stations that are under some of the hills have the longest mechanical stairs I have ever seen... one of them must be 250 mts at least... is hard to see the top when you get on it...

Food is varied and meaty.... I went to a place last night aptly named Caucasus Tavern which by some reason was full of Armenian army soldiers... they bring you a small glass of vodka, you pour a bit on your hands to wash then and disinfect... then u dry them and drink the rest.

Then some short dark dressed girls with the faced of experience pass and leaves you with a plate of different types of salad leafs, mushrooms, capsicums and flat bread...
so u get the leaves an much it cow stile.... And make some rolls with the bread ands the rest, and the chunks of bbq meat come and you keep making rolls, and wash down the whole thing with red wine...

By the way, I got the flat, move in on Tuesday, is on the 7 floor, nothing flash, kind of big, close to a park, the bazaar, republic square, etc

Saturday morning... watching muz.ru tv... sort of Russian own mtv... but very cheesy.... Glitters and tits seems to be big in Russian tv...

and all under 30 cm of snow.... but that does not seem to bother the mocasino man and the stiletto woman