Chris in Albania: Rememberances of Armenia- August 2004 pt 2- goin' on down south

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Rememberances of Armenia- August 2004 pt 2- goin' on down south

John and I went to his "Mid-service training" over the next few days in a place just outside of Yerevan. It had been a vacation spot of the Soviet elite back in the day, but was pretty much abandoned now. On clearer days, we could have seen mount Ararat from there, but it was so hot the entire time is was in Armenia, I didn't see it too well. You could however see the nuclear power plant (which sits on a fault-line) from the now vacant Soviet summer homes.

So I learned a bit of what to expect from my upcoming Peace Corps experience from the Peace Corps volunteers. The main points: don't expect to get too much done, expect frustration, but enjoy yourself, meet people, live it up.

These guys cooked horovats (shish-kabab type things) for the PC folks at their meeting. We went down and talked to them for a bit and they gave us some right off of the grill.

A few days after John's Mid-Service Training, we picked up our friend Mark at the airport and headed down south. John had spent the first three months in the village of Shake, near the town of Sisian, and we were going to spend a few days with his host family from that time.

On the way down, we stopped at Khor Viarp (spelling?). Kora Viarp is in many ways, with Mount Ararat, the symbol of Armenia. Mt. Ararat can be seen towering over the landscape, a huge lonely mountain. Ironically, the mountain sits in Turkey. This irony is fitting, given Armenia's history and the horrors Armenians faced at the hands of the Turks 90 years ago. Mt. Ararat is the back-drop for the church at Kora Viarp. It is the historic dungeon home of Gregor the Illuminator, who was placed in a dungeon for many years (I think it was 30 years). In the year 301, the king freed Gregor, who in turn converted the king to Christianity, making Armenia the first nation to be officially Christian.

We then traveled south the Sisian and Shake, the land on the way was dry and got more mountainous. Sisian and Shake were green though, with rolling hills and expansive mountains all around.

This ancient chaple overlooks the village of Shake.

We spent a few days with John's host family, they were great.

This is John's host family (and John, Mark, and Manet):

The family was a farming family. Geyvorg and his brother (who I only know as "the cornel") worked together on the farm. They had barley and other grains, honey, and even a number of huge pools for fish farming. Geyvorg lamented that the Soviet era was over, he said his life was much easier then. He said that he has to work twice as much to survive now. It was true, we did not see him most days until around 9 or 10 at night. He still spent a few hours with us and he and his wife were wonderful hosts.
Extracting honey at the family farm.

Mark had a cold while we were there, so he was given many home remendies, including snorting vodka and separately snorting honey (shown here), the honey didn't really help matters much.

We spent a day a little further south at Tatev, which was the only church we saw that had a full living spance for a large number of clergy. It must have been a school. It was beautiful the valley below was amazing. It must have been an inspiring place to be in the priesthood. Check out the pictures labled "Tatev" in the Armenia photo album on the right.

March 14, 2005 | Permalink

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Chris in Albania

Rememberances of Armenia- August 2004 pt 2- goin' on down south

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