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.

Woher kommt die Unzufriedenheit?

Wenn man reist, stellt man schnell fest, wie gut es uns in Deutschland im Vergleich zu den meisten Menschen der Welt geht. Ja, wir sind uns dessen bewusst: Wir haben immer Trinkwasser, das noch dazu ganz bequem aus einem Wasserhahn kommt. Wir haben jederzeit Strom und Internet. Wir haben eines der besten Gesundheitssysteme der Welt, eines der dichtesten und besten Straßennetze. Es gibt ein hervorragendes Nahverkehrsangebot, Züge und Busse fahren nach Fahrplan in dichtem Takt. Unsere Schulen bieten freien Zugang für alle Kinder. Unsere Lehrer sind exzellent ausgebildet, unsere Berufsausbildung ist ein Vorbild für viele Länder. Im Ausland blicken Leute neidisch zu uns und Einige nehmen große Gefahren auf sich, um bei uns ein besseres Leben zu starten.

Dennoch sind wir nicht zufrieden. Man könnte daher meinen wir sind ein Volk von Pessimisten. Dies sind wir nicht. Fakt ist aber, dass sich viele abgehängt fühlen und frustriert sind. Warum? Stellen Sie sich vor Sie sind zu zweit. Die andere Person hat 1000 € die sie verteilen kann. Wenn Sie der Verteilung zustimmen, dürfen sie beide das Geld behalten, wenn Sie ablehnen, bekommt keiner auch nur einen Cent. Ihr Gegenüber könnte Ihnen also 10 € bieten und 990 € behalten wollen. Würden Sie zustimmen? Objektiv gesehen, ist das sinnvoll, denn 10 € ist besser als nichts. Dennoch würden Sie sicher empört ablehnen und lieber auf das Geld verzichten. Wir sind soziale Menschen und wollen wertgeschätzt werden. Passiert dies nicht, entsteht Frust. Schauen wir uns um, passiert genau das. Wir haben zwar eines der besten Gesundheitssysteme, aber nicht alle haben denselben Zugang dazu. Privatpatienten kommen z. B. schneller an Untersuchungen. Wir haben tolle ICE-Züge mit einer verlockenden 1. Klasse, aber nicht alle können sich den ICE leisten, geschweige denn die 1. Klasse. In den Reisebüros hängen Bilder von Traumzielen, die für viele nur ein Traum bleiben. Wir sehen also ständig Sachen, an denen wir nicht teilhaben können. Man fühlt sich abgehängt. Das ist verständlich, denn hätte im Experiment von eben Ihr Gegenüber nur 20 € zur Verfügung, wären Sie mit den 10 € sicherlich zufrieden. In beiden Fällen bekommen Sie 10 €, sind einmal aber unzufrieden, beim anderen Mal erfreut. Zufriedenheit hängt also offensichtlich davon ab, was in unserem Umfeld verfügbar ist und was wir davon nutzen können.

Auch wenn wir objektiv gesehen in einem reichen Land leben, ist dennoch ein Teil unserer Bevölkerung arm. Das kann man sich an einem Beispiel verdeutlichen: Moldawien gilt als Armenhaus Europas, denn 200 € im Monat ist ein normales Gehalt. Eine Fahrt im Stadtbus (ohne Monatskarte etc.) kostet aber auch nur ca. 12 Cent. In Freiburg sind es 2,30 €, also 19 Mal mehr. In Deutschland müsste man also 19 mal 200 = 3800 € monatlich verdienen, damit man auf demselben Niveau ist. Ein Museum in Moldawien kostet im Bereich 25 Cent Eintritt, bei uns im Bereich 5 €. Auch wenn ein Moldawier also rechnerisch viel ärmer ist, kann er dennoch am öffentlichen Leben teilhaben. Für die Beispiele gibt es sicher auch Gegenbeispiele und in Moldawien liegen viele Dinge im Argen, sie verdeutlichen aber, dass es immer der Vergleich mit der direkten Umgebung ist, der entscheidet. Kann man nicht teilhaben, ist man nicht zufrieden. Was nützt eine Autobahn, wenn man kein Geld für deren Maut hat? Gibt es im Land hingegen nur Schotterpisten ist man nicht so frustriert, auch wenn objektiv gesehen die Straßen schlechter sind, denn schließlich müssen alle mit ihnen auskommen. Anders ausgedrückt ist es eine Strafe vor einer Achterbahn zu stehen und Anderen beim Fahren zuzusehen, ohne selbst einmal fahren zu können.

Wir mögen erstaunt sein über die Wut im Internet, die vielen Protestwähler bei Wahlen und das mangelnde Vertrauen in die Politik, aber dies ist die logische Konsequenz mangelnder Teilhabe. Je ungleicher Werte verteilt sind, desto weniger kann man sie nutzen, desto mehr fühlt man sich frustriert. Die Frustrierten fragen sich zu Recht, warum sie etablierte Parteien wählen sollen, die Ungleichheit geschaffen oder nicht verhindert haben. Die Lösung liegt eigentlich auf der Hand:

Ehe man etwas Neues erschafft, muss man dafür sorgen, dass alle etwas vom Bestehenden haben. Wenn man etwas Neues erschafft, muss man sich vorher Gedanken machen, wie alle davon profitieren, ansonsten sollte man es lassen.

Übertragen wäre das: Ehe man neue Krankenhäuser baut, muss man sicherstellen, dass alle gleich behandelt werden, dass also alle in eine gesetzliche Krankenversicherung einzahlen, egal wie viel sie verdienen. Wenn es eine Erbschaftssteuer gibt, dann sollte sie so sein, dass jeder prozentual gleich viel zahlt, und keine Personen bevorzugt werden. Wenn man ein Schwimmbad baut, muss man ein Konzept haben, dass es auch von einkommensschwachen Personen genutzt werden kann. Wenn man neue Arbeitsplätze schaffen will, muss man sicherstellen, dass diese auch so fair bezahlt werden, dass man sich davon die Traumreise ersparen kann.
Die Protestwähler protestieren dagegen, dass das oft nicht der Fall ist. Es wird höchste Zeit für alle Parteien wieder Gleichheit und Teilhabe oberste Priorität des politischen Handelns einzuräumen.

Persian new year in Yerevan

It has been now almost 2 years since I have been in Yerevan. I went there in March 2015 by train from Tbilisi.
Why? I was amazed by Georgia and especially be the progress that country made in only 10 years. I heard a lot of bad stories about the times before: police criminals, bribing everywhere, rotten roads, circuit breakdowns etc. Almost everybody told me that I just have to go to Armenia to see how Georgia was before the Saakashvili presidency.

I chose the train that run every second day overnight between the two capitals, see my older post. It was a short night with some Armenian beer but an interesting one. I met Gints, a Latvian journalist who had been in Azerbaijan before. He told me a lot about the politics between Armenia and Azerbaijan which helped me a lot to understand the country. You will see by my following posts how important the conflict with Azerbaijan is for the Armenian society and government.

In contrary to the Georgian beer, the Armenian
beers are not my taste.

Too strong taste and bitter for me.

Let's start with the Armenian capital Yerevan. We arrived early in the morning on a rainy day.

For this situation the song Young-Holt Unlimited - Soulful Strut fits perfectly.

The impressive railway station was empty except of the few passengers from the train. I felt that there were as many taxi drivers waiting for customers as passengers in the train. A short look at the smartphone showed that the inner city was only 2 km away. The hotel of Gints was in the inner city so we decided to walk there to see something. It was a strange walk because one taxi driver did not stop to molest us. Gints speaks Russian but there was no way to tell him to leave us. They yelled at each other louder and louder. The taxi price was lowered bit by bit the closer we came to the center but first when we could already see the Saint Gregory cathedral the taxi driver left us alone.

We found Gint's hotel and I went on to find a hotel as well. This was unexpectedly difficult since the season starts in April and in March many hotels are closed. Moreover the prices were unexpectedly high. A room for less than 50 € was hard to find but asking around was, as always, the solution. This way I met an incredibly nice Armenian and stayed in his large hostel as the only guest. Its location offers great views over the city.

I had to deliver two passports for Italian bikers stranded in Yerevan. Since the german embassies are obviously one of the most unfriendly ones in every capital (I reported here often about this topic), the German business association helped. Their office is in the Marshal Baghramyan avenue so it was the ideal street to start some sight seeing:

This is the Baghramyan statue. Baghramyan was a marshal
of the soviet army and is honored in Armenia as a hero.
The house is the American University of Armenia.

A typical house of Yerevan: red tuff stones
making it the "red city" and architecture
from the 1920/30s.

The presidential palace.

The building of the national assembly.

The Armenian National Academy of Sciences by day...

... and by night.

Yerevan was a mid sized town when it became the capital of the new constructed Armenian soviet republic. In effect is was almost completely rebuilt as planned city under the architect Alexander Tamanian. Therefore the inner city is a unique architectural ensemble. I love it! The architecture lives from strict forms with only few ornaments. One of the most impressive examples is the Republic Square:

  

  

At night the illumination is impressive.

 

3 different styles: An arch of Tamanian's trade unions
and communications building and a new building
partly made from walls from the pre 1920 era.

The National Gallery of Armenia. Unfortunately it was not possible
to enter it because it was visited by soldiers. The next day the same
and on my last day a week later the same and even with a public roll call.

The Rebublic Square metro station has
the form of a rosette, see this satellite image.
 

The inner city contains also some new buildings. This is for example the northern avenue:

View in direction of the Republic Square. 

View to the Opera Theatre.

There are only few residues of buildings from the era before Tamanian's rebuilding. This is an image of the Republic Square from 1916:

Note the small buildings and their simple style. Image from Wikipedia.

In the area south to the square are some old buildings from that time:

This part of the area was already under demolition to be rebuilt.

 

 

We met the evening to go out somewhere. It was hard to find something suitable. It was a normal workday and the only recommendation we got was a Persian hookah bar. Well, it was Nowruz (Persian new year) and so we learned a bit about Persian culture. By the way, the work of the lady that keeps the pipe smoking was impressive. The whole evening she had to suck on the many pipes to keep them smoking or to light them up. I wonder if these people don't get lung cancer sooner or later.

Gints and the large hookah.

Soundtrack meines Lebens

Bevor es hier im Blog mit Armenien, Moldawien, Kirgistan, Kuba usw. weitergeht, erlaube ich mir einen privaten Ausflug.

Zu diesem Eintrag passt

Die Ärzte sind aus traurigem Anlass gerade in den Medien, dabei ist immer die richtige Zeit, deren Musik zu huldigen. Farin Urlaub ist einer der begnadetsten deutschsprachigen Texter. Die Texte sind so vielfältig, dass ich fast jede Woche ein paar Zeilen von seinen Liedern im Kopf habe. Dazu kommt die musikalische Vielfalt der Ärzte, an der nur ganz wenige Bands dieser Welt heran kommen. Die Songs von Farin Urlaub sind für mich daher der Soundtrack des Lebens:

Da ich das Musikhören mit der 60/70er Plattensammlung meines Vater anfing, kam ich relativ spät dazu, aktuelle Musik zu hören. Die Klassenkameraden fuhren auf The Prodigy und Co. ab, aber ich hasste das. Klar, wenn man von den Rolling Stones kommt, ist der Schritt zu hart. (Wenige Jahre später wurde ich dennoch Voodoo people.) Irgendwann wurde ich gefragt, ob ich nicht mit zum Konzert der Ärzte kommen wollte. Na klar wollte ich, denn ich war noch nie auf einem Konzert, dazu noch Open Air. Die Musik wäre mir völlig egal gewesen. Um mich textlich nicht zu blamieren, kaufte ich mir deren aktuelle Scheibe und war begeistert. So eine Vielfalt an Stilen und dazu noch herrliche Texte, die man nicht vergisst. Für jede Lebenslage war etwas dabei. Ich weiß nicht (ob es Liebe ist) hat damals perfekt gepasst.
Das Konzert war toll und danach gehörte auch das grandiose Album Die Bestie in Menschengestalt mir. Ich wusste nie was ich werden wollte, aber, dass es nicht Kassierer wird, stand nun fest. (Was aus Kassierern wird, ist hinreichend bekannt ;-) )
Ich mochte mich noch nie auf eine Stilrichtung festlegen, insofern war und ist dieses Album bis heute in meiner Top 10. Welche "Punkband" veröffentlicht auf einem Album einen Tango-mit-Klezmer-Song zusammen mit einem spanischen Emo-Rocksong? Und der Omaboy wurde später zu Bundi/Zivi-Zeiten wieder Thema.

Das Leben ging weiter und das ohne Die Ärtze. Ich verlor sie aus den Ohren bis mir jemand an den Kopf knallte, dass ich unausstehlich sei, mit meiner "ich bin dagegen" Mentalität. Ich würde den Ärzte Song Rebell verkörpern. In der Tat beschrieb er mich ganz gut und holte mich so aus meiner spätpubertären Phase. Ich ging wiedermal auf ein Ärtze Konzert, das mit 3 Stunden auch das längste einer einzelnen Band bis heute ist. Beim anschließenden Stöbern bei Audiogalaxy entdeckte ich textliche Perlen wie Erna P.: "Erna P. düst langsam weg, im Fernsehen läuft der letzte Dreck". Was für ein Reim! ;-)

Man wird älter und die Welt beginnt zu nerven. Man hat das Gefühl, dass Vieles nicht stimmt und fühlt sich ohnmächtig, etwas zu ändern. Aber hey, "Es ist nicht deine Schuld, dass die Welt ist wie sie ist, es wär' nur deine Schuld wenn sie so bleibt!". "Weil jeder der die Welt nicht ändern will ihr Todesurteil unterschreibt.". Das ist DAS Motto für mich geworden. Man kann wenig bewegen, aber man muss sich trauen und vor allem einmal damit anfangen. Man hat ja leider oft nichts Gesehen.

Mit der Zeit muss ich oft an Lasse Redn denken. Ein musikalisch nerviger Song, der es aber einfach trifft: "Sei höflich und sag nichts, das ärgert sie am meisten." Stimmt.

Bei meinem ersten Konzert als Schlagzeuger habe ich unter anderem Zu Spät auf einer Hochzeit gespielt. Toll, wenn hundert Leute den kompletten Text mitsingen und mit der Hochzeit ist es ja auch wirklich zu spät.

Nach einigen Herzschmerzen stellt man fest, dass Farin Urlaub auch unter eigenem Namen Songs schreibt. Seine Soloalben geben Raum auch für tiefergehende Texte. Es gibt so Momente im Leben, auf die man nicht öffentlich eingehen möchte, daher sind hier ein paar unkommentiert, die mich mitunter sehr bewegt haben:
Porzellan
Kein zurück
Immer Noch
Am Strand
Trotzdem
Krieg, nicht wegen des Songs, aber wegen der unübertroffenen Zeile:
"Ich bin nur ein Mann, aber auch ich hab Gefühle. Ich gebe gerne zu es sind nicht so viele. Wenn ich durchzählen müsste, es sind ungefähr drei, aber Wut und Hass sind dabei."
Petze

Das Leben ist nur manchmal hart; gut die Kollegen nerven. Aber Ich gehöre nicht dazu. Und wer will schon Frauen verstehen?

Wie dem auch sei, ich beende die Huldigung ehe mir Gesichtsverlust droht.

Caucasus conflicts in a nutshell

Today's topic is very difficult and you must stay tough. Thus it deserves a longer piece of good music: 
Thievery Corporation - The Richest Man In Babylon

Wherever you are in the Caucasus you will be impressed by the many different cultural things. The countries and regions are quite small while the culture is so versatile. One reason are the high mountains that made it impossible to stay in contact with other regions in winter time the other one is the location at the border of Europe and Asia. The result is a fragmented region in terms of almost everything. There are different ethnics,

Ethnics in the Caucasus; image source

languages, religions, architecture due to influences from Persia, Russia and the Ottomans. As a sad side effect there are also several different conflicts.

The current political situation is extremely complicated and in my opinion also a result of the way the people in the Caucasus think about each other. This  behavior reminds me of my impressions from the Balkans. To get an overview about the Caucasus conflicts we start with this map that shows the current political situation and the influences:

modified from this image

Abkhazia split from Georgia after a war that was won with the help of Russia. The origins of this conflict are mainly repressions during the soviet time. This point is very important because this affects so many conflicts in former soviet states. It was the usual way for Stalin to suppress people by either killing them, deporting them or by integrating regions that wanted independence into other soviet republics. In this case the Abkhaz SSR was downgraded in 1931 to an ASSR withing the Georgian SSR. (The Soviet Union (USSR) consisted of SSRs which where like US states inside the USA and had the right to leave the union. The ASSRs were the next level below with autonomous rights within a SSR, the AOs were a level below an ASSR with less autonomous rights within a SSR.) Later on the different republics often repressed their minorities while the central soviet government accepted this more or less. The Abkhaz-Georgian conflict resulted in a war ending in a massacre.
Note for travelers: It is possible to go to Abkhazia from Georgia as foreigner. One only needs to contact the Abkhaz foreign ministry via email. Send them a copy of your passport and the date you want to enter. The Georgian authorities doesn't like that but well, they say Abkhazia is part of their country and they therefore cannot forbid you to just visit a province of their country. I tried to go there as as well and even had my permission papers but eventually did not have the time to go there. It was nevertheless fun to fight with the lady in the foreign ministry against her "Soviet service": All replies in a harsh tone without any hello, thanks, dear Mr. or anything standard politeness. I had the feeling that I was not really welcome. After a dozen mails we got in closer contact and it is really sad that I could not meet her personally to talk in Sukhumi. I see now that the website of the ministry is in a much better shape with all the information. So it seems my fight helped.

South Ossetia became also a de-facto independent republic with Russian help. I tried to find out more about the origins and reactions of Georgia against the Ossetians but nobody could explain this. It is hard to understand why they did not simply accept South Ossetia as autonomous region within Georgia as the Ossetians requested. Instead, this war and this war later it is now impossible to cross the border from Georgia to South Ossetia and vice versa. Families are split, many people lost their houses and some even their lives. As a stranger I often asked people for what this was worth it. It is astonishing that so many don't recognize the stupidity of killing each other instead of trying to live together. As I once wrote:

What is really important in life to fight for?
To be loved, having enough to eat and drink, having a family and children, having a place to live, having a job, earning enough money to pay the food and the flat, that all children get a good education and that everybody in the society gets a perspective.

I spoke to many former soldiers, not only in the Caucasus region, and nobody fought for these important things. I heard things about honor, patriotism etc. while they are still living in poor houses, many without a job and their children don't have perspectives for a good future. This frustration often leads to more wars about nothing essential. This is the second important point to keep in mind.

The conflict about Nagorno-Karabakh (often called Artsakh) is a conflict that will most probably cause another war since many countries are involved. To explain this, one needs at first to have a look at the history of Armenia and especially in the one of Artsakh. The former main city Shusha, once one of the largest cities in the Caucasus was destroyed during a massacre at the Armenian inhabitants. The rest of the region remained populated by Armenians (more than 90%). When the Soviet republics were created Nakhichevan was included as ASSR to the Azerbaijan SSR as exclave while Artsakh was not included to the Armenian SSR. It was made an AO inside the Azeri SSR. The decision to keep a corridor of only 5 km outside Artsakh made it an exclave. (I have been there and it is crazy what constructs people create at office desks. I have no other explanation than that they had never been there before the creation.)
What followed were repressive times for the Armenians with things like no Armenian textbooks in schools etc.. The fraction of Armenian population in Artsakh reduced down to 75% (and in Nakhichevan from about 20% to almost zero). In 1988 the Armenians demanded Artsakh to be integrated to their SSR which was refused by the soviet supreme court. The Armenians continued their demands and the results were pogroms like the one in Baku and the Soviet central government intervened in Baku. It is important to remember that that time the iron curtain was not yet fallen and the Soviet union seemed to be in full power. But obviously it already begun to dissolve. A long war followed with the result that the Armenians gained control of most of the Artsakh region and the corridor.

I wrote that there will be another war. Now the arrows in the graphic above come into play. Azerbaijan is a rich country thanks to their natural gas. Azerbaijan sells it to Turkey and Georgia (there is a pipeline crossing Georgia); violet arrows. Russia supports Armenia  (besides Ossetia and Abkhazia) with weapons and also with money and economic treaties; blue arrows. But Russia also sells weapons to Azerbaijan; red arrow. As long as the Russians are supporting Armenia Azerbaijan won't win a war. Therefore Russia has a strong control over Armenia. If Armenia is not doing what Russia wants they risk a war and most probably loosing this war since the Azeri military budget is greater than the whole budget of the Armenian state. Moreover Armenia would like to annul the Treaty of Kars that gave the Kars region to Turkey. The Turkish-Armenian border is closed for almost 100 years. Attempts to open it are blocked by Azerbaijan. They can argue to deliver less gas or to sell it otherwise. On the other hand Azerbaijan needs the money from Turkey and Nakhichevan can only be reached either via Iran or from Turkey via this small corridor. Another aspect is that the Turks are Muslims like the Azeris. But wait, the Azeris are muslims? During the 70 years of Soviet union religion did not play a role. Therefore the situation is like in most former socialist countries that only a minority is really religious. In Azerbaijan only about 20% say that religion plays an important role in their life.
The question is why does Azerbaijan want another war? In fact it is rich but the people there are still poor. Only the clan around President Aliyev benefits from the money. I met in Armenia a journalist from Latvia who just came from Azerbaijan and what he reported is what one can expect from such an economy:

Export trading map from 2009; image source

The money is not invested to help the country. In contrary, Baku is rebuild with skyscrapers where the majority still has to live like in Soviet times. As dictator it is important to have a conflict outside your reign. If people making trouble because of a high unemployment rate etc. you can always argue that this is all only because of the evil neighbor. This method is simple and is proven to work very well by dictators/kings etc. for thousands of years. Instead of buying weapons and building skyscrapers one could build many nice apartment houses for workers, modernize and build up industry, renovate schools etc. But nothing seems to happen.
I now left my objectivity not because I had to scream when I saw the recent fights at the Artsakh border in the news. I tried to enter Azerbaijan before I entered Armenia but was treated like an agent provocateur despite that I did not know anything about the conflicts that time. Since the beginning of 2015 it was no longer possible to simply enter the country as tourist. They told me that I am not allowed to move freely in the country, only in Baku. In Baku however, one cannot go to a hotel one likes. They gave me a list of allowed hotels. I had a look in the Internet and there was no allowed hotel with prices less than 120$ the night. Incredible because the normal prices were about 50$. I also asked if it is possible to travel from Baku to Armenia - a bad mistake. I was threatened that I won't be allowed to enter Azerbaijan if I enter Armenia first (the Armenians don't care if you were in Azerbaijan at first) and if I visit Artsakh I will be banned for lifetime. What the hell!
It might be that now, over a year later, things have changed but how frightened must the dictator be that traveling around the country is not allowed for normal tourists.
What makes me really sad is that the brave Azeris have to suffer the most and that their sons are dying in a conflict that don't change their daily life to a better one.
At last I want to point out that I am not on the Armenian side. I am on no one's side. My point is to stop killing. Let people life like they want, don't look back to see what happened in the past. Past is past and you live now. Fight instead for a better life with a job and good education for your children. Fight against dictators and corruption! Armenia as country is by the way the most corrupt country I have ever been.
A solution could be so easy: Azerbaijan accepts that Artsakh and the corridor is part of Armenia and Artsakh gives the region of Agdam back to Azerbaijan. This would avoid to move people around again (which would only cause more frustration) and with an open border it would be possible for everyone to go to places where his family lived in the past. This worked with western Poland/eastern Germany and now we are even together in a political union. Revenge only lead to counter revenge. One needs to stop this!

There are other conflicts in the Caucasus. Remember for example the first and second war of Russia against Chechnya. The Ingushs and the Chechens suffered from genocides during the Stalin era. After the dissolve of the Soviet Union tensions between the different ethnics in the north Caucasus resulted in violence. The list of clashes shows that there is no end of violence insight.

Thanks and goodbye from Georgia

This post is for all people who made this trip possible. Many thanks Zaira for a nice city tour, background information and help with logistics.

Thanks for showing me cool locations like this one.

Zaira - always busy ;)

Many thanks also to the other ladies from the office of the  Deutsche Wirtschaftsvereinigung (DWV) in Tbilisi. Zaira and their team made it possible to meet business people working in Tbilisi. This was a very interesting insight.They amde it also possible to watch the game of the German national football team in the impressive Boris Paichadze National Stadium stadium for only 10 Lari.

Just to prove that I was there.

  

The talks with the business men were more interesting than the football match because the Germans were too strong. The funny thing is that I ended up in a bar with French diplomats. Many thanks to the 2 ladies from the French embassy for 2 cool evenings!

Many thanks also to Keti from Batumi (I met so many Ketis ;-) ). It was a lot of fun to explore the student life in Tbilisi. I also enjoyed the interesting talks about the society, art and politics.

Keti and her boyfriend.

Georgia was the first country I visited for the first time in 2015. Armenia, Karabakh, Ukraine, Transnistria, Moldova and Cuba followed. So I had an incredible input. It is not fair to rank countries. All I want to say that it impressed me the most. The people are friendly and the landscape is absolutely incredible. (And I even missed the high mountain part.) Georgia is a small country and its diverse landscapes remind me of the beautiful Albania.

It impressed me a lot that it was possible to turn one of the most corrupt countries into a country without visible corruption that quickly. There is still a long way to go but the Georgians can be proud of what they already achieved.
The Georgian society still needs more time to modernize in my opinion. The patriarchy society is a outdated and I had the feeling that the younger people don't want this anymore. What scared me is the religiosity because it felt so unreal. I have seen a lot of priests in expensive cars while there is still poverty. That the catholicos-patriarch is treated like a saint despite he held this position also in soviet times is hard to understand.

Tbilisi is one of the foreign cities where I can imagine to live. It has everything: mountains, a lot of culture, many parks an acceptable transport system, great architecture. It is also not far away from the sea and the plane connections are cheap and good. Of course life there is not that easy with an average Georgian salary and the Georgian language is difficult to learn. Reading the Georgian script was unexpectedly easy - as easy as Cyrillic.
Tbilisi is a very good place to go out and get connected. I met a lot of foreigners in the many bars and pubs.

In Tbilisi you can even buy flowers at a rainy day at midnight.

Fun with people from Italy, USA, England and Germany.

All in all Georgia is one of my top countries and I would like to come back!

Riding around Tbilisi - part 2

Here we are, at the "History of  Georgia" monument at the mount Kenisi.

Stairway to "Stonehenge".

While enjoying the view from there one might listen to Dimitri from Paris - La Vie

The monument is massive - 20 meters high pillars with reliefs and also large bronze statues of Georgian saints. The monument was built from 1985 until 2005 and was not completely finished. The artwork is from the famous sculptor Zurab Tsereteli who also created the mosaic at the bus station from my previous post, the monument "St. Nino" at this position, the monument "Man and Sun" at the entrance of the airport and some smaller ones in Tbilisi. Here is a list of all the many sculptures and monuments Tsereteli created.
Here is a nice slideshow with images of sculptures and monuments in Tbilisi.

There was almost nobody at the monument and also the Tbilisians I asked were never there nor did they know what this monument is about. I asked the bored policemen at the stair up to the monument but even he did not know anything (or said that he does not).

The unfinished part.

Besides the pillars is this group of saints.

Some scenes are from the Georgian Chronicles, some are from the bible.

This church is part of the monument complex.

The mount Kenisi is more than 200 meters above Kura river so that one can enjoy interesting views:
 

The huge Gldani neighborhood.

View over the Kura towards Mtskheta.

The Tbilisi sea.

The Tbilisi sea might look nice here but when you go closer it is disappointing. Its coast is as bald as the surrounding hills. I miss vegetation.

Back in the inner town I relaxed a bit in the Garden of the Democratic Republic of Georgia:

The spring began.

The Freedom Square around the corner.