San Francisco Chronicle, CA
Oct 17 2004
Armenia reveals ancient treasures, new life
Mountains, monasteries and modern capital
Jane Wampler, Special to The Chronicle
Yerevan, — Armenia
On a clear autumn day, the smell of fresh cement and the sound of
chisels and hammers permeates the capital city of Armenia. Sidewalk
cafes overflow with suited businessmen and couples talk over
demitasse cups of strong, boiled coffee. Fashionable women in rimless
sunglasses and stiletto heels walk arm in arm, sidestepping
wheelbarrows and loose paving stones, and several new luxury hotels
are nearly booked to capacity.
It’s clear that Armenia is making a comeback. Again.
After surviving genocide, 70 years of Soviet domination, a
devastating earthquake in 1988 and millennia of foreign marauders who
whittled this once-massive kingdom to one-tenth of its size, this
Eurasian country of 3 million inhabitants is reassuming its role of
phoenix.
Because it was cloaked behind the Iron Curtain for most of the 20th
century, few Westerners, until recently, have glimpsed of this
culturally rich, mountain republic tucked between the Caspian and the
Black seas. What only the privileged have known, until this past
decade, is that this is an astonishingly beautiful country of high
mountain lakes, snow-capped peaks, ancient monasteries, cascading
rivers and archeological ruins so impressive they ought to be behind
the velvet ropes of a museum.
Perhaps more significantly, for a region of the world more associated
with terror than tourism, many Westerners are surprised to hear that
this predominantly Christian nation — bordered by Iran, Turkey,
Georgia and Azerbaijan — is politically stable and welcoming to
tourists.
Try to buy a single peach from a roadside fruit stand and the old
woman will wave your money away. Ask a farmer if you may take a photo
of him with his crop of newly harvested red peppers, and he will
press a bag of 20 of them into your hand, refusing payment.
The prices are particularly tourist-friendly. At Old Erivan
Restaurant, one of Yerevan’s dozens of eateries that serve quality
Armenian fare , my husband and I enjoy a meal of lavash, tomato and
cucumber salad, a cheese platter, lamb stew and khorovatz (a meat and
vegetable shish kebab) — washed down with several strong Armenian
beers — for under $15.
Drawing on the past
The rebirth of Armenia after the end of the Soviet Union in the early
1990s has had financial help from the approximately 8 million members
of the Armenian Diaspora, 1.4 million of whom live in the United
States (1 million in the Los Angeles area alone). Many are
descendants of those who perished or fled during the 1915-25 Turkish
genocide.
While those who visited shortly after Armenia regained independent
statehood found gutted factories and streets stripped of trees for
fuel, today they find fountains spraying and flowers blooming along
boulevards lined with Russian olive and locust trees. Crowds of
stylishly dressed mothers and children walk down Khanjian Street to
buy roasted coffee beans, potatoes, onions, ice-cream and fried sweet
cakes from street vendors.
But despite Armenia’s forays into modernism and self-sufficiency, the
rich and tragic past hasn’t dimmed. Nor does anyone want it to:
Armenia’s 4,000-year-old history is its main draw.
Many consider this country the cradle of civilization. The biblical
rivers of Tigris and Euphrates originate in the original Armenia, the
16,945-foot-high snow-capped Mount Ararat (now inside Turkey’s
borders) holds what many believe to be the remnants of Noah’s Ark in
its crevasses, and there even is reference in the Bible to Ararat,
the name of the former Armenian kingdom.
In 301 AD, Armenia became the first nation to embrace Christianity
as a state religion (a dozen years before Rome) — another factor
that shapes this tiny republic’s past and present tourist appeal.
A common sight from spring through fall are “monastery tours”:
busloads of people on weeklong organized sightseeing excursions that
shuttle from such Hellenistic pagan temples as the 1st century Garni,
to the 3rd century Echmiadzin (ETCH-me-OTT-sin) Cathedral, home to
the Supreme Catholicos of the Armenian Apostolic Orthodox faith. At
Echmiadzin (think: Vatican but smaller) nonbelievers mingle with
pilgrims to view ancient silver chalices, bejeweled crosses and
religious relics such as a metal spearhead believed to have pierced
the side of Christ.
Travels with Boris
Group tours are plentiful, but if you want to strike out solo,
consider hiring a driver who speaks English to ferry you through the
countryside, or even to the main sites of the capital city. That’s
what we did during a one-week visit in late September. We found our
driver, Boris (a former Soviet-system mathematician now struggling,
like many of the highly educated, to reinvent himself), through the
Armenian Tourism Development Agency, which was happy to supply us
with a list of recommended English-speaking guides.
We chose several sites, all southeast of Yerevan, for a 2- 1/2 day
excursion. They included the famous dungeon of Khor Virap; Noravank
monastery; the historically and spiritually significant Tatev
Monastery; the Bronze Age celestial observatory, the Zorats Stones;
and a natural wonder, Devil’s Bridge. Boris was more than willing to
pack an overnight bag and accompany us.
Something to keep in mind: Although the map shows Armenia to be a
small country, getting from point A to point B can take longer than
you anticipate. There are no super highways here. And it takes time
to wait out cattle crossings, to dodge potholes and to wind up narrow
mountain roads.
On the first morning of our excursion, we emerged, bleary-eyed from
the Congress Hotel in Yerevan. Boris was waiting for us, polishing
the windshield of his red Niva, a Soviet-made SUV. Within an hour we
were watching Mount Ararat turn an orangey pink and by 10:30 a.m.
Boris announced what would become a comforting ritual: a coffee
break. He pulled the car over to the side of the road and removed
from his trunk a small propane stove, a bag of powdered coffee, sugar
and three small china cups.
While we took in the views, Boris set out the coffee with sweet cakes
(kizgiel, baked early that morning by his wife, Jana) and jam for a
makeshift picnic on the roadside rocks. We drank our coffee in the
squat position, like Boris, and poured the remaining hot water over
our jam-stained, sticky fingers.
Khor Virap is an eerie place with two claims to fame: The church
complex was built atop the well where St. Gregory the Illuminator had
been imprisoned (depending on who is telling the story) for 12 to 17
years only to emerge and baptize the King and Queen of Armenia and
herald the introduction of Armenia as the first Christian nation.
Climb down into the narrow pit on a ladder and when you’re through
imagining Gregory’s claustrophobia, climb back out to the blazing sun
and get the closest view of Mount Ararat in all of Armenia — the
Turkish border is within walking distance from here.
Noravank, perched on a forested cliff top, high above a river gorge
and surrounded by caves, is a 13th century monastery surrounded by
dramatic red rock outcroppings. On a bright afternoon, there was
nobody else wandering the compound. A hawk circled overhead in the
clear sky. We wandered the church grounds and tracde khatchkars
(“cross stones” — unique and elaborate crosses carved on tufa or
basalt tablets found primarily in Armenia) with our fingertips.
There was no shortage of natural beauty on this journey. We hikde
along the verdant banks of a stream below the monastery and, on the
drive out of the gorge, noticed many caverns tucked into the
outcroppings. In one of them, an enterprising man has converted the
cave into a clean and comfortable restaurant. We weren’t the only
sightseers who found him: As we ventured into the cozy grotto, we saw
him shuttling pitchers of red wine, hard-boiled eggs, barbecued pork
and grilled vegetables to a table of raucous Russians, the largest of
whom was wearing a drunken grin, a traditional sheepherder’s cloak
and crooked hat.
About this time we discovered that Boris perceived his job as more
than driver. We were his charges, and it was a role he assumed
gravely. He was protector, wrinkling his brow in concern as the
sheepherder and his friends loudly insisedt that we share a mug of
wine, and negotiator, finagling the best price for our hotel room in
Sisian later that evening.
Shades of Stonehenge
The next morning, we left our cold and dank hotel shortly after dawn
because we were eager to see the Zorats stones — or Zorakar — in
the day’s first light. This circular arrangement of stones, thought
to be a celestial observatory, is similar to England’s Stonehenge,
but older. The Bronze Age phenomenon lies on a barren rolling plain
just outside of Sisian, and, like most other natural and manmade
wonders in Armenia, is startlingly unprotected and un-commercialized.
Only the snowcapped mountains, which loom over the windy field, stand
guard. We wandered through the deserted site of lichen-covered stones
and peered through holes that the ancient cosmographers might have
drilled to better view the heavens.
The road to Tatev is bumpy, but it soon opens to reveal a lushly
wooded canyon — the monastery perched on top like a crown. Indeed,
this 9th century complex was viewed as something of a prize to
invaders who attacked the site in numerous bloody waves. Other than a
caretaker (an old woman who appeared periodically to gather pears
that have fallen beneath a courtyard tree) we were once again
practically alone, free to explore the faded frescoes in dark rooms;
to consider the grisly remnants of a fairly recent chicken sacrifice;
to climb the lurchy heights of the fortified walls, and to imagine
the 13th century Mongols who, historians say, pushed Christians into
the gorge.
Our only disappointment was Devil’s Bridge, which we passed on the
way to Tatev. The rock formation and hot springs might be beautiful,
but the site is trashed by beer bottles, cigarette wrappers and other
remnants of partying. It would have been better to stay longer at
Tatev sipping a cup of Boris’ ubiquitous coffee or just soaking in
the sun on one of the precipices before the long drive back to
Yerevan.
‘New Armenia’ in the city
Back in Yerevan — with its rich history and plethora of significant
museums and fun restaurants — we find no shortage of things to do.
This city of 1.3 million is culturally vibrant and staggeringly old,
older than Rome — by 29 years. To put that in perspective, when
construction workers happened to ram into a 700-year-old stone
aqueduct, as they did last summer, it hardly registered a blip on
their archaeological radar screen.
The National Museum on bustling Republic Square — formerly called
Lenin Square — is as good of a starting place as any to get a flavor
for the country. Also known as the State Museum of Armenian History,
it has an English-speaking guide who can show you Uratian cuneiform
inscriptions dating back to the 8th century B.C. and 3,000-year-old
silver rhytons (drinking vessels), wine vats and horse carriages
uncovered in Lake Sevan.
>>From there, you can branch out to other not-to-be-missed sites (the
streets are arranged in a compact, easy-to-navigate pattern, and
anything too hard to reach by foot is a cheap cab ride away.) Stroll
through the Vernissage, a festive outdoor market that operates each
weekend near Republic Square. Here you’ll find accordions, old
toasters, Russian nesting dolls, obscure car parts, jewelry and
strolling musicians. The “closed bazaar,” a football stadium-sized
indoor market on West Mashtots Avenue, brims with fresh fruits and
vegetables displayed like gleaming jewels, and brightly colored
spices measured with a one-ounce shot glass.
The Matenadaran rare document museum (at 53 Mesrop Mashtots St.)
houses an extraordinary collection of ancient manuscripts, some
dating to the 9th century. An English tour guide — just $2.50 above
the regular $4 admission fee — will heighten the experience. The
highlight is a huge 15th century book of Armenian history. It was
ripped in half and smuggled out of the country by two peasant women,
at great peril, during the 1915 genocide. Both women, and both halves
of the book, survived.
This museum pays homage to Mesrop Mashtots, the founder of the
Armenian alphabet, unchanged since its inception in 405 A.D. That the
alphabet and the Armenian language are still intact after nearly
2,000 years is evidence of a country that has fiercely resisted
assimilation.
Echoing Saroyan
Armenians are fond of naming streets after, and quoting, their
heroes, from playwrights to poets to war generals. But it is novelist
William Saroyan who is most often quoted when Armenians talk about
their country coming perilously close to, then back from, the brink
of extinction more times than they can count. His most famous quote
speaks to the resilience of his people:
“I should like to see any power of the world destroy this race, this
small tribe of unimportant people, whose wars have all been fought
and lost, whose structures have crumbled, literature is unread, music
is unheard and prayers are no more answered. . . . Burn their homes
and churches. Then see if they will not laugh, sing and pray again.
For when two of them meet anywhere in the world, see if they will not
create a new Armenia.”
Saroyan’s words have never been more relevant, according to the
editor of Armenian International Magazine in Yerevan, which caters to
English-speaking Armenians.
“We only had two choices: a downward spiral after Soviet
totalitarianism or to blossom,” said Laura Gononian. “And we’re
blossoming. We’re undergoing a renaissance in art, music and in
building. We’re like the phoenix — we keep getting pounded and we
keep coming back.”
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If you go
Spring and autumn are the best times to visit, with moderate
temperatures and dry weather. The official currency is the Armenian
dram, but U.S. dollars are widely used. At press time $1 equals 585
dram. Yerevan has a cash economy, so credit cards aren’t helpful
here. All prices below are given in U.S. dollars; all locations are
in Yerevan.
Getting there
A passport and visa are required. Three-week tourist visas are
relatively easy to obtain through the Armenian consulate in Los
Angeles (for details, click on “Consular Affairs” at
or call 310-657-6102), or at Zvarnots Airport upon
arrival. British Airways is the leading carrier serving Armenia, with
flights from London to Yerevan three times a week. Upon arrival at
Zvarnots, the 20-minute cab ride to the city center should cost about
$15.
What to do
In Yerevan, your first stop should be the Armenian Tourism
Development Agency at 3 Nalbandyan St., not far from Republic Square
(look for the red pomegranate sign above their doorway). The staff is
bend-over-backwards helpful and can provide you with maps, books on
Armenian history, hotel information, and phone numbers of reputable
guides and drivers. Phone: (011) 374-1-54-23- 03 or 54-47-91.
Sightseeing tour operators: Menua Tours (), Sati
() and Princess Maneh ([email protected]) are just
three of the many travel agencies that offer sightseeing tours in
Armenia. If you plan to hike Mount Aragat (not Ararat, which is in
Turkey), note that most tour operators stop leading trips up the peak
after Sept. 30.
Where to stay
Congress Hotel, 1 Italia Street (just south of Republic Square).
011-374-1-58-00-95; fax 011-374-1-52-22-24; e-mail
[email protected]. A clean and modern four-star facility, it has
small rooms with private baths and air conditioning, plus a pool,
fitness center, restaurant and bar. Doubles, $100.
Armenia Marriott Hotel Yerevan, 1 Amirian Street, at Republic Square.
011-374-1-59-90-00; e-mail: [email protected]. Formerly the Hotel
Armenia, it’s considered by many to be the city’s flagship hotel The
rooms are on the small side but they are nice, with private baths,
air conditioning, satellite television and phones. Facilities include
two restaurants, cafe, bar, health club and business services.
Doubles, $140. Includes breakfast buffet.
PLACES TO EAT
Dolmama, 10 Pushkin St., 011-374-1-56-8921. Owner Jarair Avanian has
created an upscale but cozy continental eatery centrally located in
downtown Yerevan. Entrees range from $13 to $18.
Old Erivan, 2 Northern Ave., 011-374-1-54-05-75). This four-story
eatery is actually several restaurants under one roof, with dining
rooms ranging from elegant European to rooftop al fresco dining with
traditional Armenian food and live folk music. The ambitious décor
and lively entertainment is belied by the moderate prices. Entrees
range from $5 to $7.
For more information
The Armenian embassy Web site has sightseeing tips
and lodging information under its “Discover Armenia” link. Other
helpful Web sites include and