In Search of Alexander

Trip Start May 15, 2007
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Trip End Aug 29, 2007


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Flag of Armenia  ,
Friday, July 13, 2007

Whoa!!  Soviet block!!  As at all airports, there are dodgy taxi touts, i.e. non-official taxi drivers trying to scam unsuspecting tourists.  After wading through the sea of touts, I found a taxi and made my way into the city centre of Yerevan in his Russian made car.  Going through the centre of the city, I passed through Republic Square which was formerly Lenin Square.  During Soviet times, there was a statue of Lenin but upon Armenia's independence, the statue was pulled down.  Riding buses around proved to be interesting as the power lines overhead created interference which sounded like a huge mosquito!  The Armenian alphabet, which was created in 405 AD, is very interesting and will be fun to decipher! 

There are many unfinished buildings as well as abandonned buildings from the Soviet era.  There is an appartment complex that was begun in the final years of the Soviet regime but was never finished as from the air it would spell CCCP Geghard
Geghard
 .  Also, the natural gas pipes are all above ground!!  Another common Soviet trait. 

Yerevan houses a museum of rare manuscripts, the Matenadaram library, which had a copy of Aristotles' "Categories" transliterated into Armenian.  One of the documents in the library had clear palimpsest; it was interesting reading what had been erased.

In my search for Alexander the Great's legacy in the Caucasus, I made my way to Garni to visit a reconstructed Greco-Roman temple that you could actually walk inside!  There are also Roman baths in ruins at the site.  Since it is a Greco-Roman site, there were no remains from Alexander's time.  In fact, I learned that the Soviets had destroyed all the temples so as to discourage any religious activity; Garni was an exception as it was a favourite of a tsar's daughter.  In this vein, the majority of the monasteries' frescoes had had white plaster put on top of them to hide the paintings.  Given the Soviets' actions, Garni is one of the only classical sites in all of the Caucasus.

After Garni, I visited Geghard monastery, a church half-built into the rock.  In one of the inner rock chapels, the accoustics were very conducive to monastic chanting as the chamber produced huge reverb. 

At dinner, a live band played traditionnal Armenian music.  Wow, to finally see and hear a live duduk was incredible but hearing two was even better as I was able to observe the technique of authentic Armenian music. 

I also got my first glimpse of Mt. Ararat but it was mostly obscured by a haze.
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