TO NOAH’S MOUNTAIN, WITH THE CATS THAT LEAPT OFF THE ARK
Mail on Sunday
June 15, 2008 Sunday
London
Diana Preston finds both the landscapes and the inhabitants around
Mount Ararat are steeped in history
WHERE are you from?’ asked the Iranian hotel housekeeper
as, beetroot-faced from a morning’s sightseeing wearing the
obligatory hijab, I peeled off my headscarf in my room. ‘England,’
I replied. ‘Ah,’ a smile lit her face, ‘Harry Potter!’ This was one
of many slightly surreal encounters on a journey around Mount Ararat
that had begun in Armenia.
We had flown into Yerevan, Armenia’s capital, just before
midnight. Women, smiling and weeping simultaneously, clutched bunches
of dark red roses as they greeted returning family and friends. The
emotion touched us though we were strangers. We drove into town along
a darkened highway that suddenly blazed into a corridor of neon as
we passed row after row of casinos.
This kaleidoscope of images started to fall into place next morning
after a substantial breakfast of tiny pancakes oozing with curd cheese,
fluffy tabouleh, cucumber salad with parsley and dill, baskets of hot,
flat bread – ‘lavash’ – and honeysweetened pastries.
Armenia’s food reflects its diverse, often fractured, past at the
hands of waves of invaders – Mongols, Persians, Turks, Russians and
others – all intent on grabbing a region straddling a major trade
route between Europe and Asia.
Geography has not been Armenia’s friend but since independence from
the most recent occupiers, the former Soviet Union, the country has
been changing. Ladas still bowl along Yerevan’s streets but so do
Mercedes and BMWs, and even the odd Range Rover and Bentley.
A statue of a stern and muscular ‘Mother Armenia’ from Soviet times
towers over Yerevan but more striking is the snowy summit of the
16,945ft Mount Ararat, just across the Turkish border, where the Ark
supposedly came to rest after the Flood.
The mountain is an impressive backdrop to St Gregory’s Church at
Zvartnots in the Ararat Valley where the King of Armenia converted
to Christianity in 301AD and which today sits in gardens of nodding
yellow hollyhocks.
Religion remains hugely important to Armenians as does music. During
Sunday service in the cathedral at Echmiadzin, choristers sing in
glorious soaring notes to the bearded priests with pale, icon-like
faces who sing back to them.
The cathedral owes its existence to Armenian ingenuity.
When, in the 17th Century, Shah Abbas of Persia ordered his invading
armies to destroy it, Armenian craftsmen hastily carved the Shah’s
face on the bell tower and told the Persian soldiers the image had
suddenly and miraculously appeared. The cathedral survived.
The many Armenian churches and monasteries hidden away in lonely
forests and stark ravines, some in the shadow of Ararat, testify to
a precarious past and the necessity of isolation and inaccessibility.
The Monastery of the Holy Lance at Gegard lies at the end of a
dramatic gorge, its church carved into the cliff itself. Priests
concealed books and relics in ceramic jars beneath the floors at
times of danger. Some churches even have moveable columns with hidden
chambers behind them. Today, though, there are no marauding Mongols –
just tourists and old women selling dried mulberries, sheets of chewy
‘ cherry leather’ and strings of soft, young walnuts in grape juice
jelly. ROM Yerevan, our route lay northwest through flower meadows
and pastureland to the southern slopes of Ararat’s neighbour Mount
Aragats and the fortress of Amberd. Surrounded by cliffs on three
sides, its name means ‘inaccessible’ but Timur – Tamburlaine the
Great – found and sacked it in the 14th Century.
As well as castles, churches and monasteries, each with their own
dramatic story, our journey showed us diverse peoples.
In the cemetery of a Kurdish sect, lichen-mottled carved stone horses
that once denoted the graves of the wealthy still stand.
Near Lake Sevan, we passed through villages of Russian ‘Old
Believers’. Described by Tolstoy, they still lead lives of biblical
simplicity. Small boys with elfin cheekbones and pale blond hair sell
carrots by the roadside.
Lake Sevan is quite a contrast, a buzzing tourist resort where
jetskiers zip across the pale blue waters that provide a refreshing
dip in the summer heat. We recalled it wistfully when, a few miles
beyond the lake, the women in our group donned their hijabs to cross
into north-western Iran, once part of greater Armenia.
Beyond the border, the road at first twists through knifesharp purple,
brown and sagehued mountains. Descending into softer terrain, we saw
families picnicking beneath apricot and walnut trees and learned that
we had arrived on a special holiday.
The woods around the onceisolated 9th Century Armenian monastery of
St Stephen’s were full of families out for the day.
The doorkeeper who let us in to admire the glowing stonework and
delicate carvings was wearing a Manchester United shirt.
Southwards, towards Tabriz, it grew even hotter. The fields of tall
sunflowers were almost too bright to look at. We rested in a restored
17th Century caravanserai with thick walls for coolness and a stone
platform in the centre of the courtyard where berobed merchants once
displayed their goods.
Tabriz was less romantic – a sprawling modern city where people
hurry about with laptops under one arm and slabs of bread the size
of skateboards under the other.
But the cool interior of the 600-year-old Blue Mosque testifies
to a more graceful past. So do the alleyways of the old bazaar
where today’s merchants offer everything from dried limes to garlic
shampoo. Fertile orchards and meadows dotted with blue and white bee
hives surround Tabriz. But further south, the landscape grows to more
epic proportions.
Takht-i-Soleiman – Solomon’s Throne – rises up from rolling grasslands
like something out of Lord Of The Rings.
Water gushes down stone channels from the deep, dark pool in the
middle of this hilltop fortress which has been many things – a temple
to the Persian goddess
Anahita, a most sacred shrine of the sunrevering Zoroastrians as
well as, reputedly, the site of Solomon’s palace. Legend says that
he incarcerated demons and monsters in the depths of a small volcano
nearby – Solomon’s Dungeon. We climbed to the crater and peered
gingerly into its sulphurous but otherwise empty depths.
Twisting northwards again, we reached Lake Orumiyeh, its waters rimmed
with a sparkling white crust of salt like a giant margarita. The
crystals have formed into fantastic shapes along the shoreline.
Paddling in the warm, salty water is fun – but like the Dead Sea
it stings. I washed it off in the hotel run by the housekeeper who
likes Harry Potter. C LOSE once again to Mount Ararat, we crossed
from Iran into north-eastern Turkey, heartland of the Turkish Kurds,
and also close to the Armenian border.
At Ani, the long abandoned capital of Armenia near the city of Kars,
the watchtowers of modern Armenia lie barely half a mile away across
a deep river gorge.
Ani is a place of tumbled ruins – victim of earthquakes and Mongol
hordes – but enough remains to picture its once magnificent gateways,
palaces and churches. Frescoes depicting biblical scenes, including
gruesome martyrdoms, have survived, their colours still bright.
Lake Van to the south was our last stop, seven times the size of Lake
Geneva and the largest salt lake in the world.
The finely carved 1,000-year-old Armenian Church of the Holy Cross
sits on Akdamar Island, where tortoises sunbathe on the rocks.
But it’s definitely a cat’s rather than a reptile’s life in the town
of Van, famous for its swimming felines.
According to legend, a pair of cats on Noah’s Ark grew restless,
leapt overboard and swam to the shores of Lake Van. They were later
blessed by Allah, his touch leaving ginger markings on their white
fur. Through a genetic mutation, some have one amber eye and one
blue. They are highly prized as pets but if you own one leave the
loo seat down and be prepared for a shared bath-time.
We spent our last night eating kebabs in a Kurdish restaurant after
climbing the craggy Rock of Van to watch the sun set from the ruined
castle.
A cat with one golden and one blue eye watched us as we ate – the
last surreal experience of a journey around Mount Ararat through a
rich mixture of religions, cultures and landscapes in a part of the
world that sees few visitors and deserves more..
GETTING THERE
Diana Preston travelled to Mount Ararat with Explore
(, 0844 499 0901) which offers various tours to
the area between May and October. A ‘tough’, 14-night trek priced
from £1,329pp takes in Ararat and Turkey’s nearby Kackar Mountains,
while ‘Land Of The Golden Fleece’, from £1,450pp, spends 15 nights
in Armenia and Georgia.
Prices include London flights (regional connections extra), all
transportation, B& B, some other meals, local payment and a tour
leader..
–Boundary_(ID_aX0zcZxTTIsIMDbII4Ma EA)–
www.explore.co.uk