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As Maris wanted to practice teaching for 2 months in Estonia and spend some time with her family, I decided to travel alone during that time to areas that are somewhat off the beaten track and rejoin her in Estonia when her teaching practice was over.

Georgia, Armenia and Azerbaijan

Odv
2004-09-15 11:01:45

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in Azerbaijan where it was also said to be a national dish. Tolma is usually meat wrapped in vine leaves!

Armenia has many historical monuments. The Geghard cave monastery has several large underground chambers. Garni has a restored Hellenistic temple. Khor Virap is a monastery located on the border with Turkey. My guidebook, the 4 year old Lonely Planet, told me that doves were sold at the entrance Khor Virap for ritual sacrifice, so I bought one. But sacrificing is not what I had in mind, instead I released the white dove over the Turkish-Armenian border in the hope that one day there may be peace between these two neighbors.

Closer to Yerevan is Echmiadzin, one of the holiest places for Armenians. Unfortunately the museum was closed. Yerevan itself is proud of its library, where many ancient manuscripts are on display.

The impressive mount Ararat, located in present day Turkey, has special significance for Armenians and is considered by Armenians to be an Armenian mountain. With mount Ararat dominating the city on every clear day, Armenians are constantly reminded of their loss to the Turks.

My first full day in Armenia also happened to coincide with the Armenian Genocide Remembrance day, when Armenians in their tens of thousands flock past the genocide memorial monument. A day when Armenians remember that Turkey killed more than 1 million Armenians in 1915.

It is a politically thorny issue that constantly hangs over Armenian-Turkish relations, as the Armenian version of events is strongly denied by Turkey who has its own version of events, claiming that there was an Armenian uprising with Russian support against Turkish rule while the western allies (United Kingdom, France, Australia and New Zealand) attacked Ottoman Turkey from the west. The ensuing civil war according to the Turkish version left many people dead on both sides of the conflict.

On a side note, the attack from the west was defeated by Turkey, a victory for Turkey accredited to a then still unknown Kemal Ataturk, later to become president and founder of the secular Turkish state as we now know it. The western defeat is still widely remembered in Australia and New Zealand as ANZAC day.

One result of this conflict over history (though it is also related to the Armenian-Azerbaijan war over Nagorno-Karabakh) is that there are still no diplomatic relations between Armenia and Turkey. The border between the two countries is permanently closed, so I was very surprised that there was a flight from Yerevan to Istanbul.

The overland route I would otherwise have had to take passed through the Georgian region of Adjaria, where a Russian backed separatist "president" had control while the new Georgian president wanted to regain control. Tensions were mounting. The flight to Istanbul therefor seemed a good alternative.

The flight however was in the middle of the night. Unfortunately they never switched off the lights during the flight, but instead played a movie dubbed in Russian with the sound blaring over the loudspeakers. Sleep was definitely impossible!

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