Learning how Armenia works

At first some music I heard in buses: Artur Sarkisyan - Derzkaya

I decided to learn the Armenian alphabet before going there. It was hard but very valuable.

The 36 main Armenian letters. Found at a door in Vagharshapat.

The complete alphabet has 39 letters. It has small and capital letters so one has to learn 77 characters in total. It takes therefore more time than the about 30 characters for the Cyrillic alphabet (exact number depends on the language), the 52 characters for the Latin alphabet or the 33 characters for the Georgian alphabet. In Armenia I could read these scripts (plus some Greek):

Meanwhile I forgot most of the Armenian letters due to lack of practice but in Armenia it helped a lot. If you want to travel around you simply need it to see the direction of the buses, to read street names, order food in a restaurant etc. Without Armenian it is hard because Cyrillic is not often used for street signs and information plates, even not in the touristic places. This is for example the plate with the directions of the Metro:

This is the metro station "Zoravar Andranik" and the trains run to "Barekamutiun".

The metro was the second place where I realized that something is strange with this country. As I wrote it was the 100th anniversary of the genocide and therefore they had a very interesting exhibition in the metro stations with stories from survivors. Here are two examples:

Just read it...

...and this one as well.

I made this photo of a sculpture in the metro:

In the Eritasardakan station.

when I got problems with a woman from the metro company. Quickly she and a man came and tried to confiscate my camera. There was no sign that photographing is forbidden and also on the exhibition plates no deny symbols were visible. As a meanwhile experienced traveler I understood the real issue and gave the woman a few hundred Dram and then everything was OK. She acted like a tourist guide, unfortunately in Russian and showed me what I should photograph. That was so ridiculous that I did not take any further photo just to shock her, which worked ;-). Later I read that photographing in the metro might have been forbidden, but googling brings you tons of images. So if this is a real rule (which I still doubt) it is senseless.

The entrance building of the Hanrapetutian Hraparak (republik square) station is interesting:

The view from above shows that is has the form of a flower.

Directly at the entrance should have been the tourist information. But it was closed some months ago. I could not believe it. This was the first time in a country without any tourist information. People told me that the government had to save money. Stupid idea because tourists bring money but the Armenian way of thinking is quite different as you will see.

Well, what to do on a rainy and cold day? A good method to learn about a country is to go shopping as the locals do. Only in terms of hotel prices Yerevan is quite expensive. Fortunately it is always possible to find a hotel for normal prices (30 -50 € the night) outside the center. The other prices are acceptable for tourists but high for the Armenians. In Yerevan the salary of average people is in the range of 300 - 500 € per month but look at these prices and note that 500 Dram are about 1 €:

These are the prices like in the supermarket here around the corner in Germany. But we get a much higher salary.

Outside Yerevan the salaries are lower but the prices are at the same level. That is one of the reasons why so many Armenians have to work abroad, mostly in Russia. This has a strong effect on the whole country as you will see.

The price table also shows that alcohol is cheap. When you go into a supermarket you will be surprised about the large racks with strong alcohol.

1 liter of high quality vodka for 4 €.

Cigarettes are also cheap

I got the impression that countries with problems offer the people cheap alcohol. In Bolivia you can buy pure alcohol for the price of bread and in Cuba it is the same with rum. In many countries alcohol is cheap but when you also see drunken people in the streets during the day it is a sign that the country has problems. By the way, going to Germany gives you the same impression: Cheap alcohol compared to the salaries and many drunken people in the inner cities. So Germans have problems too, despite that they live in a rich country.

Back to the shopping idea. The main pedestrian street was empty:

The Northern Avenue.

and the stores there sell the same overpriced luxury stuff as in the Europe. So that cannot be the real shopping place for average Armenians. The Saint Gregory the Illuminator Cathedral should be visited by a tourist and on the way to it there should be some shopping sites.

Armenian churches don't have much ornaments, drawings and the like. They appear therefore quite functional.

The cathedral and the Andranik Ozanian statue.

The western front.

The north front.

The altar is hidden behind a curtain when
there is no church service.

Place of the holy remains of Gregory the Illuminator,
the founder of the Armenian Apostolic Church.

The cathedral was opened in 2001 but the surrounding was never finished. This is something you will notice in many places in Armenia.

Unfinished surrounding.

Houses south to the cathedral

The area southwest of the cathedral consists of poor houses. The alleys there form a bazar where you can by everything.

Southwest of the cathedral.

And opposite of the cathedral you find the former cinema “Rossiya". It is an impressive, massive building that was run as bazaar in 2015. (In 2016 the "Rossia" mall was opened next door.) It was interesting to walk through a former cinema that is a wild shop for clothes and jewelry. I quickly noticed that people suspected me. I felt that every second market woman made a photo of me with her smartphone. I tried to ignore that and took some photos of the architecture:

The cinema seen from the cathedral.

When you don't know it, you might think it was once a palace of culture.

The former top rank is now used as storage.

At some point I was annoyed by the people photographing me and I made a picture of a person. Bad idea! Suddenly I was surrounded by strong guys grabbing my camera. They forced me to delete every image on which a person was visible, so this is the only image from the bazaar I could keep:

Boring!

I could not understand a word but nevertheless understood that I should leave the place. I tried to leave but could not find the exit. So I came back unexpectedly. Then I saw the reason: They were dealing there. Packs of money were exchanged. Something was smuggled inside of cans etc. I starred at them, they starred at me but nobody said anything.

Welcome to Armenia!