The Tatev monastery

One of the most famous sights of Armenia is the Tatev monastery. There is a famous cableway called  Wings of Tatev to the monastery but in March there are no tourists and it was closed for maintenance. The day before a taxi driver found me, organized a bed to sleep and in the early morning we drove up to the monastery.

Also if you are not interested in monasteries you should go there because the landscape is breathtaking.  (OK, if you don't like monasteries, reconsider to go to another country ;-) ) Driving to the monastery and back are 2000 m altitude. The road was only partly asphalted this explained the quite high price for the taxi. But it was worth it to learn about the country. The driver became a fried and we are still in contact.
It is really crazy how Armenia works or why not. He is a teacher but his salary is too low  to life from that. The taxi brings more money. That is sad because what is a country without natural resources without education? However, as I already learned if you are a clever guy you don't have a chance in Armenia because without either bribing or knowing the right persons you cannot start a business, build a house, buy land etc. I am not exaggerating when I say it is kind of a criminal state. There are people acting out of the laws suppressing others. For example you have to pay for electricity, water etc. like in every country but when you don't get fresh water and complain your family members will get problems. Even teachers might be put under pressure to give your kids bad grades. So even when you don't get the good you are paying for, it is not an option to go to court unless you have monay to bribe a judge. Yes, this affects other countries too, but I haven't seen the level of Armenia in other countries yet. In a further post I will report more about this because now, after 3 years distance in writing this, it still pisses me off.

However, let's enjoy the landscape with Lion Sphere - Caravan.

View over the Vorotan gorge from the monastery.

 

 The building at the lower left is the Tatevi Anapat monastery.

This is the road up from the Vorotan river to the monastery. One climbs 500 m with this street.

The monastery was important for the Armenian society because of its university. In its best times 1000 monks lived there. This is hard to believe because the monastery is so small. Today only a few monks live in the main monastery.
Despite my taxi driver is a teacher he is not interested in history. So it was me who explained him things despite he had been there a hundred times. We arrived early and there were monks preparing some food. I was not shy and asked them. While translating my driver learned this way about the monastery. Since there is a lot of literature, I refer to it and just post some images:

The entry building contains the oil press.
On on top of it is the St. Astvatsatsin church.

The oil press.
 

The spring building besides the entry building.
 

Right side of the Poghos-Petros Church with the Grigor Tatevatsi mausoleum and the St. Grigor Lusavorich church.

The Gavazan. a pillar from year 906.

One of the houses where the monks live today.

 

The monks already ate.

The refectory has no oven, only this open nice to make fire.

 

This hall was mainly used as dormitory

The dormitory is  directly at the big wall.

The main church St. Pogos and Petros

View towards the refectory and kitchen buildings.

Entry of the main church.

As usual the churches are bare.

Ruins of the school building.

I could not resist to ask what they are doing with the cableway and it turned out they are experts from Austria. They had to change a cable. When I remember correctly they were using a short rope to keep the main rope tension and were splicing a broken cable part to replace it. Here is a video from the company that built the ropeway.

Splicing the cable fibers.

Cable to keep the rope tension

Feel the depression in Goris

This post deserves a melancholic song: Mac DeMarco - Chamber of Reflection

Getting from Yeghegnadzor to Goris was hard work because of the bus problem mentioned in an earlier post. In fact it was impossible to get a seat in a bus but also in a taxi. The taxi drivers refused to drive there even not for 50 € (25.000 dram) because this would break their suspensions and thus the car so that they would loose their income. A taxi took me only few kilometers further to Vayk because many bus drivers make there a break to eat something. There young soldiers tried to help me to find a bus without success. Nevertheless I learned a lot about the political situation from the Armenian point of view and they convinced me to visit Nagorno-Karabakh.

I found a big bus driving to Tehran with only about 5 passengers. It was nevertheless hard to get a seat and only after hard negotiations with the help of a soldier and paying 40 € (about a tenth of a monthly average salary)  I could drive with them. They 2 Iranian bus drivers were harsh and I was not allowed to walk around in the bus. I had to sit right besides the driver. Later it was clear why.

The bus started to climb the Vorotan pass and they told me that the last 3 days the south of Armenia could not be reached because the mountain pass was blocked by snow. This is crazy because there was not much snow but the officials have no bulldozer or similar to push the snow from the main street. Just look at this:

Not that much snow.

This is Armenia's main road! The potholes were sometimes so deep that the bus hit the ground and had to move back and forth a while to come out of the potholes.

After the pass the road got better.

From the pass to Goris the road is always at an altidude of 2000 m.

I was shocked. What is this for a government? This is the only road to the Syunik province. A government has to take care for their people but obviously they don't care. Now I understood the taxi drivers. For small cars the potholes where simply too deep. Later in Nagorno-Karabakh I learned that without corruption it is possible to keep the roads in a drivable shape. See one of my next posts.

Right before we reached Goris the bus stopped at a small improvisational gas station. I noted a smell of gasoline in the bus and now I realized why the bus had almost no passengers and I was not allowed to walk in the bus - it was packed full of diesel fuel. Under every seat they packed a canister and also the compartment for the luggage was packed full of canisters. I helped the drivers to unload the many containers which took a long time. We just continued to drive down to Goris when we were stopped like in an action film: a car passed us and then made a full stop. 4 men with guns jumped out of the cars and ran to our bus. When they entered the bus they showed the police cards. After some negotiations I did not understand we could continue.

Some of the unloaded canisters with diesel fuel.

View over Goris. In the background you can see the mountains with the caves.

View over Goris from the caves.

So once again I was confronted with corruption. The people in Goris explained me the system of these fuel stations. The police is collecting bribes because they are of course illegal. The Armenian mentality is hereby very strange. Yes the neighbor countries are enemies but this is not the main reason for the poverty. It is corruption! For example in Goris they told me about a sheriff who took a lot of bribes. In the next elections they therefore elected a person who claimed not to take bribes. He honored his pledge but then the Armenians said: "What a stupid guy. Now he is the boss of the police and does not take bribes to have a better life for his family." and "I wish back the old times where I could drive too fast and just give the police a few drams. Now I have to pay the full fee." In fact they elected another one and now thew are ranting about his corruption. Sorry to say that but this is idiotic.

Goris is a small town famous for its caves. Unfortunately it is also depressing. The streets are dead, all parks are in a bad shape, it is hard to find a restaurant and when the night came the town was completely dark because there was no electricity for the street lights. Here are some impressions:

Most caves near the center of the town are destroyed.

People told me that some inhabitants lived in the caves until the 1930s

One of the main roads.

The Saint Gregory Cathedral.

House of the bishop of the diocese of Syunik

The main square. The building in the middle is the municipality building.

The municipality building.

Statue at the main square.

A park

It was spooky that behind many windows people were watching me as if I am a spy or something. As you can see there was sun but people looked so disappointed from everything. All the talks, the whole town, it was as if I was in a cloud of depression.