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1997

Route in China (ARMENIA )

Bec
2004-09-20 10:16:34

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Ararat
Coming in by overnight train from Tbilisi, I could see Mount Ararat the distant Turkish territory where most of the lands once occupied by ancient Armenia now lie. At its zenith under Tigran the great in 83 BC, Armenia included most of modern Azerbaijan and Georgia, it stretched down into Iran and Iraq and had access to three seas, the Caspian, the Black sea and the Mediterranean sea.

In the 18th century, the Russians moved south into Ottoman territory and did not stop until the 1870 russo-turkish war. By then they had taken the northern half of Azerbaijan from Persia and some of Armenia from the Turks leaving half of it and 2.5 million Armenians in Turkish hands. In 1894 - 96, hundreds of thousands of these Christian Armenians were massacred in Muslim Turkey and in 1915 the Young Turk government ordered the elimination of the remaining Armenian population. Well over a million are reckoned to have died.

When the Transcaucasian Soviet Federated Republic was split up into Georgia, Armenia and Azerbaijan in 1936, Azerbaijan was awarded control of Karabakh, an island of Christian Armenians who voted to be re-united with Armenia when they had a chance to do so in 1988. Azerbaijan opposed the secession, war ensued and thousands of refugees fled in both directions. A part of Karabakh came under Armenian control and declared itself an independent republic in 1991. Fighting subsided but the enclave is virtually under siege and the problem remains a time-bomb between the two countries.

Yerevan
The History Museum and Art Gallery building stands in ploshchad Lenina which marks the center of the city.

I arrived on a Thursday morning and took a room in Shirak Hotel for 20 US$/day. Then I called the three internet contacts I had in Yerevan. One was away and the other two were too busy to meet me at that time but Arthur Petrossian made a date for beers on the following evening.
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