Armenia Notes

The weather in Yerevan has been cold and drizzly- all the more reason I don’t feel guilty now for curling up in a corner of my rented apartment, writing, reading, and sipping on Ararat brandy that smells of harvest fruit and late summer. I switched from Nescafe to the world famous brandy at some point between Mario Vargas Llosa’s “Conversation in the Cathedral” and Richard Neustadt’s “Presidential Power.” It is said that Churchill was so impressed by Armenian brandy after he was given a bottle by Stalin that he had regular shipments sent to him in England from then on out. In that case, I had to try it.

Rachmaninoff’s Piano Concerto No. 3 is on repeat- it just fits the atmosphere. At some point I’m going to read Lenin’s “Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism.” It gives me some odd pleasure to read it in a former part of the Soviet Union. It gets brought up so much in everything I read I feel rather dumb for having never cracked open the 120 page or so book.

The apartment always smells of spices. The owner, away in Germany, has an obvious fetish for spices- tens of reused Nutella containers are stacked one upon the other, each filled with a different spice and meticulously labeled in Cyrillic letters. From what I gather from the neighbors, he is known as “the doctor.” His brother, who rented the apartment to me for the week, must also be a doctor and happens to work for USAID in Yerevan. From the balcony I can see across into Turkey and Mt. Ararat that is still half covered in snow. Its peak reaches far above the clouds and cannot be seen. It is a rather imposing mountain.

The Armenians consider themselves the descendants of Hyak, the great-grandson of Noah. And Armenia is considered to be the first country to adopt Christianity as the state religion- in 301 AD. Getting here was a small adventure in and of itself. I flew what I will refer to as “Ghetto Ukrainian Airlines” where they had to announce at least three times that yes, this was in fact a non-smoking flight. If you decide to smoke the police will be waiting for you as soon as we land in Kiev. The inflection in the flight attendant’s voice almost made it seem like she ended the sentence with “where you will be promptly taken away to the back of the airport and shot on the spot.” I was taken aback by the vigor and force of the announcement- it exceeded the threats required to keep Egyptians smoking on aircraft. I had 50 minutes to transfer in Kiev and as I entered the congested and smoke filled airport I found what looked like acres of people waiting in line to go through security to make their transfer flights. The backup was caused by a single security point used for all transfer passengers- this was making the Cairo airport look pretty good. Over the course of a half hour I worked my way through the crowd as thick as Bourbon Street during Mardi Gras- perhaps the smoke, dirt and grime of the airport was momentarily taking me back to those New Orleans nights I can’t remember. I was the last person to run to my gate and hop on the bus that was taking passengers out to the aircraft. As far as I could tell, I was the only non-Armenian on the flight.

I knew my arrival in Armenia would not necessarily go as smoothly as I might hope. My tourist passport only had about half a page of room and I was hoping the Armenian visa would be the size of a Turkish visa- slightly larger than a postage stamp. I already had an appointment at the US embassy my second day in Armenia so I could get a new passport or pages. Of course, the Armenian visa is the largest I have seen yet to date- it is nearly the size of an entire passport page. Before long I had my own small crowd of Armenian officials trying to resolve the situation of where to put my visa.

“Can’t you be like Israel and just stamp a page or something?” I asked.

“No. no. We can’t do that.”

“Well there are these two amendments pages in the back. What the hell are these for anyway? Just put it on that.”

“We aren’t sure if that is acceptable.”

“Is that acceptable to you? You are the immigration officer.”

Finally they called someone at the US embassy who promptly told them to put it on the amendments pages. After my hour delay I grabbed my bag and headed through customs. Not so fast- we want to see your baggage tickets. Really? I went searching through my disorganized pockets. I didn’t think my baggage tickets had ever been checked in US customs, let alone Armenia. They were not joking around here in Armenia. I would learn that once again at the library at the American University in Armenia- rules in Armenia are meant to be followed (to use the library I had to put down a 15,000 dram deposit as a foreigner).

The day I arrived was Iranian New Year. Thousands of Iranians were in Yerevan celebrating in manners illegal in their own country. My cab driver made a few complaints about the Iranians in broken English. Then he moved to a few phrases about Obama that included the words “nigger” and “Mickey Mouse.” I couldn’t make any sense of it really- except that he did also make fun of Sarkozy and the French and somehow managed to also associate them with Mickey Mouse. I found it interesting that a people who had been subject to a brutal genocide seemed to be as racist as ever- but alas; he was just one taxi driver. And taxi drivers in all countries are always dynamic, to say the least.

Armenia is a poor country that is still filled with old Soviet architecture and sculptures. I have likened it to walking into a 1980’s B-action movie with the Russians. I went to the local “super market” to get some things for the apartment. I found a small shelf of produce, another of dairy, a small deli set up, and bakery. The food section of the market was about the size of the aisles at 7-11. The other side of the store was Walmart sized aisles. One side was nothing but cartons of cigarettes, the other vodka and brandy. There was one other similar sized aisle with chocolate and panty hose. So, in Armenia, at least at this market, the grocery store is 75% cigarettes, alcohol, chocolate, and panty hose.

I will end my beginning notes on Armenia here…