Sightseeing above Yerevan

After the arrival in Yerevan and the first walk-trough it was of course time to climb up the famous cascade.

You should listen to KC Lights - Sundown when you are sitting on it watching the sun go down.

Yes, the weather was horrible

Closeup of the big lady.

Some days later with almost perfect weather.

The cascade contains the Cafesjian museum of art.

This is the topmost and missing part.

One can see that the construction was never finished.

View to the opera.

At the right is the Karen Demirchyan Complex,
on the hill in the middle of the image is the Tsitsernakaberd.

I had not enough time to visit the Tsitsernakaberd. It was the 100th anniversary of the Armenian genocide and when you travel in Armenia you will stumble over this topic in any case several times every day. I will talk more about this in a future post about Shushi.

View to the TV tower.

The typical view of the Ararat. Most of the time it is too
misty to see it clearly. I could never see it.

After you made it to the top of the cascade you are at the entrance of the Victory Park. Meanwhile I have been in other former USSR countries and I am amazed that every city there has its own permanent amusement park. Even the smaller towns have this.

Interesting monument in the park.

Not many people because it was a normal week day and quite cold.

Some action.

Looks a bit strange but well, it is the victory park.

The Mother Armenia statue.

View down to university building. At the right border of the image is
the famous Matenadaran manuscript museum.

Such a nice view but the former Arazul
restaurant is abandoned.

The park contains the small Areni lake.

When leaving the park to go down the cascade look north and you will see these impressive blocks:

Wow!

Entrance of the victory park.

I saw the blocks and was searching for a nice place to take a picture. I went down the street and was suddenly verbally attacked by a man. I could not understand anything but it was clear that he wanted me leaving the street immediately. He took a pistol and then called somebody with his cell phone. I kept cool and went down the street because it is a public street and I hate that people who think they can make their own laws. A minute later a big Mercedes car came, man with pistols jumped out and guided it into this complex:

I could not resist to photograph the entrance of the complex
before I had to run away.

The complex from behind.
 

Another building in the neighbor complex.

This was the first time I got the impression that Armenia is a special country where rich people can do what they want. Sadly I got the right feeling. Armenia has huge problems. That the rich people are corrupt is one of the reasons. More about this will follow.