Yerevan, Byurakan

This post should be entitled Kylar returns to the Motherland. I had decided somewhere in Jordan that it would be a good idea to go to Armenia on my way home since it was quite close and I wouldn’t have the chance to fly across the world to go there for a while. So after parting ways in Cairo, I flew to Istanbul then boarded the most frightening Armavia flight to Yerevan. The 2 hr flight was delayed and then had an unscheduled landing so instead of arriving at 10pm I arrived around 1am. The poor guy the hostel sent to the airport didn’t seem to mind… I stayed at Envoy Hostel, which was great, so you should look it up…

Anyway, I can’t quite remember what I did there since I’m sure I didn’t do a whole lot. I saw a few museums, especially memorable were the Sergei Parajanov museum, which was in memory of the Soviet Armenian avant-garde film-maker. I also saw the State Art Gallery, which was very funny. About 100 attendants in each room gossiping and playing music whilst old artworks fell off walls. Lot’s of marble and chandeliers though. I also saw the very cool Arshile Gorky museum, who was an Abstract Impressionist, and rather good, in a huge, ancient house.

The rest of the time I spent wandering around, going to a park which was closed but also quite scary, seeing the Opera House and eating. I have never eaten so well since the guys at the hostel had what bordered on an obsession with khorovatz, which is an Armenian meat dish that comes in many varieties and is really nice if also very meaty. I ended up seeing some bands too, two pretty good jazz bands, although apparently I missed the best jazz club because it was only open one night a week when I wasn’t there.

There are a whole lot of new buildings in Yerevan and the footpaths were clean, and surprise, after such a long time, the traffic wasn’t completely out of control! I hope they keep up some of the wonderful old buildings that are still there, especially some of the early Soviet buildings (also here) which are grand and cool too.

Anyway, I managed to leave Yerevan and take a bus to Byurakan to stay with the family of one of the hostel staff who was very accomodating. I stayed for one night and it was great to see an Armenian village. I got off the bus finally figuring out where I was supposed to get out. It was a small village square with a shop and a few backgammon boards and a running tap stream thing that said 1952. It started to snow and a Lada drove by. Finally  a friend of a cousin of the family took me along the road to their house, which has a huge sloping backyard to the cliff that overlooked the river. The town itself is famous for its very old church and a large Soviet observatory.

If I’d eaten well in Yerevan, I ate even more in Byurakan. Some of the most delicious things were put in front of me, and being full was no excuse, at least to them, to not eat. I fell asleep near the stove that night after a long, broken conversation with some other family members who were visiting from Yerevan for the night. In the morning I went to the observatory and back to Yerevan. The last night I was there an Australian-Armenian I met and someone from the hostel took me out to eat khash, which is a famous Armenian stew, and it was good.

Then home. Hope you enjoyed reading.

The view across Yerevan to the Opera House from Mother Armenia statue.

Basically everything is still in Russian, although that is changing in the capital now.

It’s winter so the park has been packed away, so to speak.

Soviet bathrooms look fun.

More amusement rides. A policeman asked me what I was doing taking photos of this. I don’t think he understood the humour.

When Stalin’s statue was pulled down it crushed two people. He killed from beyond the grave goes the joke. Now it’s Mother Armenia.

The snow in Yerevan after I saw the Scripts Museum.

The central train station.

The village of Byurakan.

The view from the backyard of the house I stayed in.

The magnificent reminders of a generation of Soviet landscape designers.

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