The morning after visiting the Armenian Genocide Memorial we joined a tour of Soviet Armenia, arranged by Envoy Hostel in Yerevan. A minibus pulled up; it was decorated inside with the red-and-blue Soviet Armenia flag, the hammer and sickle bright in the corner. “Welcome to the Soviet Union”, our guide started with a grin, "where everyone is happy all the time - because we are in Paradise!"
Shashun described what life what like in Soviet times. Russian was the first language, and used in schools and at work. Armenian was spoken at home, but when she asked her parents for help with homework as a young girl, they would only be able to think of the answers in Russian since that was how they were taught. When she and her sister were admonished, that, too, was in Russian; the more intimidating language.
After the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 the street names were changed in an effort to correct the past. Only Leningrad Street remains, “Named after the city, not the man”, our guide explained with a wink. In Republic Square where we had seen the schoolchildren on our first morning, we learned that although the body of the 7-metre tall Lenin statue had been removed in 1991, his giant head remains in the basement underneath one of the government buildings. When Envoy Hostel was designing the tour, they were categorically told it was no longer there. Nevertheless, Shashun assured us it had been spotted in recent years.
I had noticed that in the two days we’d been in Yerevan, we had not seen a single homeless person on the street, and I wondered whether this was because there were none, or if there were none to be spotted. It was the former, Shashun assured us. Armenia has always had a traditional society with strong family values, and poor and elderly relatives were welcomed into the home. Houses sometimes had three generations within, and grown children lived at home for some time. Once married, women would move into their husband’s parents’ home. Shashun’s generation are seeking more independence from the family structure and from the traditional expectations surrounding higher education.
Some of the older generation appreciated the stability of the regime, and were suspicious of modern luxuries. Shashun’s parents were given a microwave for their wedding anniversary, and it sat unopened in the kitchen for seven months, observed by their daughters who, with difficulty, restrained themselves from asking about it, just to see how long the stalemate would last. One day they came downstairs for lunch to find their mother had casually warmed the soup in the modern device as if she’d been using it for years.
We visited the outskirts of Yerevan, where the old Soviet factories squatted, derelict and grim behind unwelcoming gates. The youth of Yerevan have been discussing hosting a summer rave in one of the ruined warehouses, but each year it hasn’t quite managed to go ahead. Running across the highways and through the industrial wasteland were thick pipes, bringing gas from Russia and through Georgia at great cost. Armenia is charged by Russia for the gas itself, and on top of that, a transport levy is charged by the Georgians. Later on our travels we saw these pipes running throughout the country.
I asked Shashun about the state of the national psyche after the genocide. She explained that young Armenians want to build their country up, to remind the world that its rich, resilient culture has so much to offer. “We can forgive, but we will never forget”, she said firmly. That being said, we should learn, she told us, about her Armenia, not just its tortured past, but its rich and vibrant culture, and pleasant quality of life. Last year Armenia had a clean and efficient uprising which became known as the Velvet Revolution. The 2018 anti-government protests neatly overthrew the unpopular then-president, who stepped down, saying “I was wrong”. Not a single person was hurt.
There are many, many prominent, creative Armenians: Khachaturian, the composer whose mad Toccata for piano I learned at school; Komitas, the priest who composed and collected folk songs and was instrumental in preserving vast records of Armenian heritage which might otherwise have been lost in the genocide; many chess Grandmasters; and of course the great musician Charles Aznavour. The day Aznavour died, every shop, restaurant, bar and home placed speakers outside doors and windows and played his music into the street. He is one of Armenia’s national heroes, and a great museum dedicated to his life sits atop the Yerevan Cascade, the giant limestone stairway linking the city centre to the top of the hill from where Mount Ararat is best viewed. Notable people with Armenian ancestry include Cher, Kasparov, Andre Agassi, and the Kardashian family.
Shashun was keen to draw our attention to Armenia’s more impressive offerings, rather than the Kardashians, who had recently visited, but we couldn't help discussing them. Apparently, during their visit, a Kardashian spouse, Kanye West, decided to give an impromptu concert around Swan Lake. There wasn't any major equipment set up - only a mic and pair of speakers - but he managed to give a good concert, before jumping into the shallow lake as a party trick. The police jumped in after him, followed by the entire, wildly excited, audience. Some enterprising locals later bottled and sold some of Mr Kardashian's lake water.
Our minibus driver took us along Tigran Mets, the avenue we had walked along on our first morning, and back to the train station. In the square, overlooked by bright Mount Ararat, a great statue towered from the water fountain: a man sat atop a well-built horse with a sturdy tail. Shashun urged us to look closer. “What do you see in the tail?” she asked us, grinning. The hairs had split into two thick cascades flowing downwards, and where it joined the buttocks it was circled by an ornate belt. It looked remarkably like the bottom half of… “An Ottoman soldier!” Shashun explained gleefully. When the sculptor designed it, no one noticed that he had placed the head of an Ottoman up the horse’s arse. But there he was in all his misfortune. His face was well out of sight but I was willing to bet he looked a bit bummed out.
We went into the station to look around. It had been secretly designed, in the time of the secular Soviet regime, in the shape of a cross, so that Christians had a public space in the shape of a cathedral.
Gareth and I had only been here two days, and we had already secured train tickets for the following night to return to Tbilisi. We had been keen to experience the first-class cabin, and were advised to book tickets several days ahead. Now it seemed a shame to leave so soon. There was so much to this beautiful country, and so much we hadn’t seen. We looked at each other. “Are you thinking what I’m thinking?” I said. Gareth nodded. We quickly made our way to the counter, Shashun joining us to help with the language. There were first-class cabins available later in the week. Without hesitation, we paid a small fee, changed our tickets, and rejoined the group. Now we were free to stay several more days. Shashun beamed with happiness.
We left the station by taking the metro one stop. Our guide explained how the Yerevan transport system came into being. The Soviet regime decreed that a city must be home to at least one million people before it was allowed to have funding for a metro system. When the Russian minister Brezhnev came to visit, country dwellers were bequeathed a car and told to come to the capital to create traffic. Brezhnev was stuck in a traffic jam for three hours. When he eventually escaped, he returned to the Kremlin and reported that Yerevan badly needed a metro system. However, they only managed to build ten stations before the USSR collapsed.
Out in the suburbs we visited some fascinating, paradoxically beautiful brutalist apartment blocks which had been designed to form the letters ‘CCCP’ - USSR - which would be seen from the air when the Russian ministers flew in from Moscow. Yerevan would be confirmed in its whole-hearted support of the Union. However, the Soviet regime collapsed before they could finish the last two letters. In these apartments, everything was included: water, electricity, heating. This last facility was turned off and on twice a year like clockwork, on 15th March and 15th November, no matter the weather. After Armenia's independence, the inhabitants bought their state-owned apartments from the government for a nominal fee of USD1000. They made adjustments to their buildings and removed some of the broken radiator pipes which were turned into park benches. Thousands of people live in these multi-story blocks, and in most the lifts do not work. The fire escapes are inadequate.
Finally, Shashun took us to visit the last remaining public head of Lenin and his sculptor, who had been proud of his work and displayed it in his garden for Soviet-curious visitors like us. I waved at the sculptor through the window, and he leaned out for a chat.
“Arak?” He held up a glass bottle of vodka, beaming. “Da!” I replied with glee. It was almost midday. He vanished into the kitchen and returned with ten glasses and a small green apple which had come from a tree planted by his grandfather. We stood around his window, speaking bad Russian and worse Armenian and doing shots. The arak was delicious: fruity and grape-flavoured. Here under the trees in the dappled sunlight next to Lenin, and with several more days stretching pleasantly ahead of us, we were extended the warmest Armenian hospitality.
Shashun described what life what like in Soviet times. Russian was the first language, and used in schools and at work. Armenian was spoken at home, but when she asked her parents for help with homework as a young girl, they would only be able to think of the answers in Russian since that was how they were taught. When she and her sister were admonished, that, too, was in Russian; the more intimidating language.
After the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 the street names were changed in an effort to correct the past. Only Leningrad Street remains, “Named after the city, not the man”, our guide explained with a wink. In Republic Square where we had seen the schoolchildren on our first morning, we learned that although the body of the 7-metre tall Lenin statue had been removed in 1991, his giant head remains in the basement underneath one of the government buildings. When Envoy Hostel was designing the tour, they were categorically told it was no longer there. Nevertheless, Shashun assured us it had been spotted in recent years.
I had noticed that in the two days we’d been in Yerevan, we had not seen a single homeless person on the street, and I wondered whether this was because there were none, or if there were none to be spotted. It was the former, Shashun assured us. Armenia has always had a traditional society with strong family values, and poor and elderly relatives were welcomed into the home. Houses sometimes had three generations within, and grown children lived at home for some time. Once married, women would move into their husband’s parents’ home. Shashun’s generation are seeking more independence from the family structure and from the traditional expectations surrounding higher education.
Some of the older generation appreciated the stability of the regime, and were suspicious of modern luxuries. Shashun’s parents were given a microwave for their wedding anniversary, and it sat unopened in the kitchen for seven months, observed by their daughters who, with difficulty, restrained themselves from asking about it, just to see how long the stalemate would last. One day they came downstairs for lunch to find their mother had casually warmed the soup in the modern device as if she’d been using it for years.
 |
| Pipes bringing gas from Russia through Georgia |
We visited the outskirts of Yerevan, where the old Soviet factories squatted, derelict and grim behind unwelcoming gates. The youth of Yerevan have been discussing hosting a summer rave in one of the ruined warehouses, but each year it hasn’t quite managed to go ahead. Running across the highways and through the industrial wasteland were thick pipes, bringing gas from Russia and through Georgia at great cost. Armenia is charged by Russia for the gas itself, and on top of that, a transport levy is charged by the Georgians. Later on our travels we saw these pipes running throughout the country.
I asked Shashun about the state of the national psyche after the genocide. She explained that young Armenians want to build their country up, to remind the world that its rich, resilient culture has so much to offer. “We can forgive, but we will never forget”, she said firmly. That being said, we should learn, she told us, about her Armenia, not just its tortured past, but its rich and vibrant culture, and pleasant quality of life. Last year Armenia had a clean and efficient uprising which became known as the Velvet Revolution. The 2018 anti-government protests neatly overthrew the unpopular then-president, who stepped down, saying “I was wrong”. Not a single person was hurt.
 |
| Yerevan Cascade and Cafesjian Center for the Arts |
There are many, many prominent, creative Armenians: Khachaturian, the composer whose mad Toccata for piano I learned at school; Komitas, the priest who composed and collected folk songs and was instrumental in preserving vast records of Armenian heritage which might otherwise have been lost in the genocide; many chess Grandmasters; and of course the great musician Charles Aznavour. The day Aznavour died, every shop, restaurant, bar and home placed speakers outside doors and windows and played his music into the street. He is one of Armenia’s national heroes, and a great museum dedicated to his life sits atop the Yerevan Cascade, the giant limestone stairway linking the city centre to the top of the hill from where Mount Ararat is best viewed. Notable people with Armenian ancestry include Cher, Kasparov, Andre Agassi, and the Kardashian family.
Shashun was keen to draw our attention to Armenia’s more impressive offerings, rather than the Kardashians, who had recently visited, but we couldn't help discussing them. Apparently, during their visit, a Kardashian spouse, Kanye West, decided to give an impromptu concert around Swan Lake. There wasn't any major equipment set up - only a mic and pair of speakers - but he managed to give a good concert, before jumping into the shallow lake as a party trick. The police jumped in after him, followed by the entire, wildly excited, audience. Some enterprising locals later bottled and sold some of Mr Kardashian's lake water.
 |
| Where to store your Ottoman |
Our minibus driver took us along Tigran Mets, the avenue we had walked along on our first morning, and back to the train station. In the square, overlooked by bright Mount Ararat, a great statue towered from the water fountain: a man sat atop a well-built horse with a sturdy tail. Shashun urged us to look closer. “What do you see in the tail?” she asked us, grinning. The hairs had split into two thick cascades flowing downwards, and where it joined the buttocks it was circled by an ornate belt. It looked remarkably like the bottom half of… “An Ottoman soldier!” Shashun explained gleefully. When the sculptor designed it, no one noticed that he had placed the head of an Ottoman up the horse’s arse. But there he was in all his misfortune. His face was well out of sight but I was willing to bet he looked a bit bummed out.
We went into the station to look around. It had been secretly designed, in the time of the secular Soviet regime, in the shape of a cross, so that Christians had a public space in the shape of a cathedral.
Gareth and I had only been here two days, and we had already secured train tickets for the following night to return to Tbilisi. We had been keen to experience the first-class cabin, and were advised to book tickets several days ahead. Now it seemed a shame to leave so soon. There was so much to this beautiful country, and so much we hadn’t seen. We looked at each other. “Are you thinking what I’m thinking?” I said. Gareth nodded. We quickly made our way to the counter, Shashun joining us to help with the language. There were first-class cabins available later in the week. Without hesitation, we paid a small fee, changed our tickets, and rejoined the group. Now we were free to stay several more days. Shashun beamed with happiness.
We left the station by taking the metro one stop. Our guide explained how the Yerevan transport system came into being. The Soviet regime decreed that a city must be home to at least one million people before it was allowed to have funding for a metro system. When the Russian minister Brezhnev came to visit, country dwellers were bequeathed a car and told to come to the capital to create traffic. Brezhnev was stuck in a traffic jam for three hours. When he eventually escaped, he returned to the Kremlin and reported that Yerevan badly needed a metro system. However, they only managed to build ten stations before the USSR collapsed.
 |
| Brutalist apartment blocks |
 |
| Brutalist apartment blocks |
 |
| A public bench made from a radiator and its pipes |
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| "Arak?" |
“Arak?” He held up a glass bottle of vodka, beaming. “Da!” I replied with glee. It was almost midday. He vanished into the kitchen and returned with ten glasses and a small green apple which had come from a tree planted by his grandfather. We stood around his window, speaking bad Russian and worse Armenian and doing shots. The arak was delicious: fruity and grape-flavoured. Here under the trees in the dappled sunlight next to Lenin, and with several more days stretching pleasantly ahead of us, we were extended the warmest Armenian hospitality.
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| Lenin and me. Photo by Gareth Mason. |
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Or see more posts here: Get in the tuktuk, no time to explain
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The Armenian Genocide - Armenia
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