A knock at the door came very early. Although we thought we had agreed upon 9am, our host knocked on our door and awakened us at a very early 8am. We gathered our things and took our stuff to the hotel. I was very thankful that the new hotel had a shower, as it had been a couple of days since I had taken one. The water was even warm. Alex and I decided that we would probably have time to see a couple of places outside of Armenia: Echmiadzin and Garni.
We decided to go to Echmiadzin first. I researched the appropriate bus numbers from the French people's guidebook and we were on our way. We decided to stop off at a place near the city center to get something to eat. We chose a relatively nice restaurant, which had the benefit of the waitress speaking English and free wifi. :) We also stopped and snapped a couple of pictures of statues on the way to the center of the city. Then we walked through Republican Square, which was a beautiful circle in the exact center of Yerevan. The buildings had been re-gentrified with new architecture. The architechture was a combination of Russian and Armenian influence from what I can tell. It seems that the new city center was indicative of the new direction of Armenia after the fall of the Soviet Union. I imagine that if I returned in 30 years, I wouldn't recognize it (and I hope I have the opportunity to do so!).
So after our walk through the city center and our breakfast/lunch, we took the bus to Echmiadzin, which was a short ride away. Echmiadzin is essentially the Vatican City for the Armenian church. The holiest Armenian church is located here and we thought it would be a pretty neat place to check out. We weren't disappointed.
In the first church we entered, which was the St. Gayane Monestary built in 630AD and restored in 1652AD, we stumbled upon an Armenian wedding. The church is typically open to tourists and there was no sign indicating that it was closed for a wedding ceremony. Alex was uneasy about going inside, but I thought it was no big deal and might actually be cool to see! The couple was no older than 18 and the wedding ceremony was beautiful. The setting of this church added to the beauty. From what I could tell and what Alex said, the ceremony had similarities to both other Christian sects and Islamic weddings. The church itself was filled with paintings and symbolism. Outside of the wedding, there was a cage full of white doves to be released upon the completion of the ceremony. I think I would like white doves at my wedding.
Anyways, just before the wedding had finished, we decided to wander outside of the church to the main portion of the church area. The largest of the churches was the Echmiadzin Cathedral. This cathedral was built in between the years 301 and 303 AD by St. Gregory the Illuminator. It is one of the oldest churches in the world and the oldest that was built by a state. The building featured the traditional round dome of Armenian architecture with stone and marble on the inside. It also had a large collection of beautiful artwork. It was both similar and different to the many churches one would find in Europe.
When one leaves a church in Armenia (also in Georgia), it is considered disrespectful to turn your back towards the alter. So traditionally one must walk out of the church backwards and illustrate a cross in front of your torso (kind of like the catholic cross before eating). In front of the church was a nice green courtyard with greenery and fountains. Although Lonely Planet advised us not to drink the water, we did anyway.
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I snapped some pictures of the area and then saw a photo of an Armenian soldier being taken in front of the Gate of St. Tiridates. I wanted to take his photo myself so I did. The family there decided that since we were taking their photo, they should take ours. We ended up having a group photo together.
Before we went back we stopped in a convenience store and met these two Armenian women who were very friendly and wanted us to take their picture (so I did). Even though they couldn't speak our language, I felt like all of the Armenian people were very friendly towards us. It's good to know that that Turkish hospitality spreads into the Caucasus as well.
After our trip to Echmiadzin we went back to the city center in Yerevan. I purchased a tourist map to see what we could do there before heading to Garni. There was a mosque on one side of the city that had been preserved. We went inside the complex to find that it was not just a mosque, but a whole center of Islamic civilization when it was in use. There was even a dentist office inside the complex! Although, we could not go inside we could look inside the rooms and take pictures of the courtyard. I found the schooling area especially interesting. Above the classroom sits a picture of Ayatollah Khomeini! At the entrance of the building, it says that donations for the mosques upkeep are made by the Iranian government! This was just another sign that we were in a completely different part of the world and of how close we really were to Iran.
We caught a bus towards Garni and then looked for the bus that we needed to change onto. However, for some reason it did not come at the right time. We found someone who could speak English and asked them about it and told them the time we wanted to catch the bus. He laughed and told us we were an hour too late and that we would not be able to make it to Gori that day. I then realized that there was a time change between Tblisi and Yerevan! Even though we actually travelled south west from Tblisis, we were one hour forward (so as to be on the same time as Moscow) when we crossed into Armenia! The entire time we were in Armenia, neither Alex nor I had any idea that we had gone forward an hour! It suddenly made sense to me why the Armenian guy woke us up so early! He had awakened us on time but we just didn't realize it. Also, it is odd to me that, since Turkey borders Armenia, there is a 2 hour jump forward in crossing the border. I wonder if there is any other place in the world where a time zone is essentially skipped.
Oh well. We missed out on that opportunity and decided to see the area where the bus dropped us off. There were some stone statues to look at (and we got to see more of those lovely Soviet apartment buildings). Actually, getting a closer look of those buildings made me sad. They really looked like they were about to fall apart. I would hate to see what the inside of one of those things look like. The area we saw depicted some kind of battle on stone, but we weren't sure what it was or from when it was. Nearby there was a little park with a trail and Alex and I decided to walk along it.
At the end of the trail there was a clearing and we couldn't believe our eyes! It was Hogwarts Castle of Witchcraft and Wizardry!!
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We saw the colors of Hufflepuff, Ravenclaw, Gryffindor, and of course Slytherin. The place looked like some sort of place to bring children. This was here I think before the Harry Potter world was opened at Disneyworld. Anyways, Alex and I decided we absolutely HAD to go inside. The inside was stone and themed as much like a castle as possible. It appeared that it was some sort of restaurant with entertainment (full bar included) so that adults could bring their children to play while they ate. We decided to sit outside, as the weather was not too hot (it is an amazing feeling to sit outside in the month of June and not die of heat exhaustion). We each ordered a beer and were served by a very nice waitress. She wanted us to come visit her again but we told her that we were probably leaving the country the next day. It was unfortunate because she was nice and definitely took an interest in Alex and me.
After our Harry Potter experience, we got on the bus and headed back towards the city center of Yerevan. We took a walk in Republican Square to enjoy the summer evening. We were surprised to see a large group of people gathered around the fountain in the middle of the square and decided to investigate. Within a few minutes of us arriving there (this was at about 9pm or 9:30) music began to play and the fountains became alive. Colored lights shined on the fountains as water sprayed rhythmically with the music. It was beautiful actually. We just happened to walk up as the show started. I even took a video of "Time to Say Goodbye" when it played (most of the songs played were actually songs with English lyrics). By the time the fountain show was over it was around 10:30. One amazing thing I noticed was that at 10pm, it was still not dark outside due to the weirdness of the time zone and how far north we were. Can you imagine twilight at 10 or 10:15pm?! It was crazy!
After the fountain show, we decided to take a walk down to the part where the Armenians had shown us last night. We saw the new street where apartments would be opened above the stores soon. We also saw the Armenian Opera house. One thing we did not see that I really wanted to see was the memorial to the victims of the 1915 Armenian genocide. It would have been interesting, after learning how charged the issue is in Turkey, to see it from the Armenian perspective. Perhaps that will be something for another visit. On the way back, I took a few more pictures of Republican Square and took a picture of the map of Armenia on the side of a museum. The street layout is of that of a circle, which seems odd to me as most of our American cities are rectangles and squares. I later learned that the circular city is actually a specific type of Soviet planning. Cool.
We decided that due to time constraints and the desire to see Georgia that this would be our last night in Armenia. Although we were here a couple of days, I felt like we were able to get a lot out of it and I enjoyed the trip. It is definitely a place I would like to visit again.
The next day before we left, Alex had an interesting conversation with the girl who had helped us and knew English. If you are interested in learning more about it and getting a perspective on Armenia from the people, I recommend reading his blog entry found here: http://adventuresinasiaminor.blogspot.com/2009/07/armenian-conversation.html
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