On the road to the South of Armenia

I had not much time and I wanted to learn about the country. The capital of a country is often a bubble. So it was time to leave Yerevan.

At first some popular music of 2015:  Romik Avetisyan & KARENCHIK - Сводишь с ума
After the interesting music I heard in Georgia, the Armenian music I heard was disappointing. Either it was this kind of pop or they played songs from the Soviet times.

Getting information how to travel, when and for what price was hard to get. As I wrote there is no tourist information and only few people can understand English. Fortunately I met the owner of the hotel Villa Rosa. It was not easy to communicate because of his English but when you want to, there is always a way! We had a great time and I learned a lot from him about the Soviet time and how he made it from a chemist to a salesman of ArArAt (Armenian cognac). I told him about my plans and he guided me to the a bus station that I would never have found alone. He explained the bus driver where to let me out and the adventure began.

View from the hotel to the new buildings in the neighborhood of Kond.
Kond is one of the few quarters left with small houses. It seemed as if most of the quarter will be rebuild.

The bus left the city passing the airport. Everything looks normal until the airport but then suddenly everything changed: Bad roads, ruined houses, no gardens but dusty places all around. I was a bit shocked of how abandoned the countryside is.

The first stop was the monastery Khor Virap. The found of the Armenian Church, Gregory the Illuminator, was imprisoned in the city of Artaxata for many years. The monastery was built centuries later at the citadel of the extinct Artaxata.

The buses just drive along the highway. There is no stop at the crossing to Khor Virap, except that you explicitly ask for. From the highway to the monastery is no public transport. In the summer months some private taxis are around offering to drive you the about 3 kilometers. I had to walk but that was OK. I was lucky because just when I arrived a military ceremony ended. During the ceremony the whole complex was blocked. The monastery itself is not very special. There is nothing interesting to see and except of the plates for blind people sponsored by USAID there is no information. Very disappointing for one of the most famous tourist sites of a country. the view however is beautiful as you can see in the pictures. Unfortunately one could not see the Ararat despite its peak is only 20 kilometers away.

The monastery complex. In the background you can see
the border to Turkey that is closed now for almost 100 years. Incredible!
Only between 1953 and 1993 there was a single crossing point to Turkey
close to the city of Gyumri.

View from the entrance of the monastery
over the place of the former Artaxata. Note
that the military people were carried there by
the civil buses you see.

The curch.

The only information for tourists in the monastery. Yes, that is only Braille.

The crossing of the highway with the street to Khor Virap.
There is no bus stop, nor a route sign. The bikers are brave.
I cannot recommend cycling there because the drivers are often reckless.

A Khachkar on the way up the the entrance of the monastery.

Khow Virap was the first time that I noticed the Khachkars. These stones showing a cross are scattered all over the country and are important for the Armenians and their culture. The neighbors of Armenia are aware of the importance and many times in history Khachkars were destroyed purposely, see e.g. the Armenian cemetery in Julfa.

I stood on the highway crossing for a long time but all the buses that passed me were full. Some days later I realized the strange transport system of Armenia:

All buses start in Yerevan and drive to a certain destination. They wait until the bus is full before they start. Getting off at intermediate stops is not planned. Of course one can ask the driver but has to pay in most cases nevertheless the full price to the destination of the bus. Therefore usually nobody gets off before the destination of the bus and therefore the buses are full the whole time. Young soldiers who could speak English told me that the best is to get back the Yerevan and then take a bus to my next stop, then get back again to Yerevan and so on. Absolutely crazy bat as I experienced, that was the truth. it is hard to realize that indeed Armenians living e.g. in Vayk cannot just take a bus to e.g. Goris. All the buses bass the villages but don't stop. And if they do in the rare case there is a free seat you have to pay a high price. It is strange that the politicians don't realize that this blocks the development of the country. Affordable transport is a very basic thing that is available in all countries I have been so far. But as you will see in the next posts the politicians don't care in general about the countryside.

If you are a nice looking girl you can of course hitch-hike from all places quickly. I had to wait quite long before I found ways to travel further. From Khor Virap a crazy men and his daughter picked me off. They both could not speak a single word English but he tried to pair me with his daughter anyway while she was so ashamed for her father. Thus we had some funny situations.

We drove a long way to the south and I could tell them that I want to see Noravank. In Yerash the highway ends because the border to Nakhchivan is closed. As also the railway is disconnected. The road gets up to a 1800 meters high mountain pass. The first kilometers of the road is close to the border and I noticed that the driver did not feel well to be so close to the border. There was also much construction work going on to fortify the border. On the way up one passes the former Azerbaijan enclave of Karki. Looking at the map one sees that the border lines once drawn by the Soviets provokes conflicts sooner or later: The village can only be reached by the main road that connects the north or Armenia with the south. The other 2 possible streets to reach southern Armenia cross either a 1900 m or even 2400 meter high pass. Of course one cannot prove this but I sure these strange borders were drawn purposely because the different soviet republics should not unite. Other examples of these kind of borders are the different enclaves of Uzbekistan, Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan, e.g. Sokh.

To get an impression of the landscape.

In the former enclave. Very meager land.

We reached Noravank in the afternoon with beautiful weather (that in general often changed quickly in the mountains).