Left Yerevan 8am Friday August 9 and arrived in Tiblisi 5 hours later at 1pm. The ride up was extremely comfortable in a private car with my friend. It was till fairly green up north leading to Tavoush after which it became dry. The border was quite interesting; I showed my Armenian passport (10 year visa) at the Armenian border and my Australian passport with the Georgian visa 20 metres further (I haven�t crossed too many borders by car). I learnt at the border (this may interest those holding the 10 year visa) that if you have your residential address stamped in your passport on page 3, you could easily obtain a Georgian visa at the border for $30 US for a 21-day period. Since I�ve never bothered registering my residential address on the 10-year visa (passport), I had to purchase the Georgian visa from Yerevan and pay $50 US for a 7-day period. It looks like I�ll have to make another trip to Ovir (I digress).
The first village we passed after the border was Oblos, an Azeri village that looked no different from an Armenian village, same stalls on the side streets, same products, men squatting. Regarding similarities in Tiblisi same annoying honking, annoying car alarms, stray dogs, same marshrutnis (mini bus) except with Georgian writing (weird, I kept looking for Opera written in Armenian all day long).
Tiblisi is a cosmopolitan city and people get about their business without so much as staring at anyone. Cars around the city are newer than in Yerevan (they�re also cheaper to buy, I know this since my friend bought one today and saved heaps). Food is excellent, great khatchabouri, good cheese although more expensive than in Yerevan. There are stores like Nike, Sony, Polo, and McDonalds x 2. It appears that it�s a more organized, cleaner city, however everyone I have spoken to so far (Georgians, ex pats) prefer Yerevan and tell me that Yerevan appears more advanced because of the hundreds of outdoor cafes and a lesser corrupt government.
From my observations, because of the mixture of the people, the city looks more like a European city having maintained its charm architecturally (although the second Marriott is being built in Freedom Square).
Which brings me to my next destination, the Armenian quarter just off the Freedom Square. By chance I found a 17th Century Church, which looked like restorations had started but left unfinished. I started asking around and in a matter of minutes met three Armenians, an old lady (100% Armenian), another lady (25%) and a man half Armenian. They told me a group of Argentinean Armenians had started restoring the Church but ran out of funds so locked up and left it unfinished. The Church stores hundreds of books but the old lady told me that the valuable ones had been stolen. The man went as far as opening a gate in someone�s backyard so that I could take a picture of frescoes.
My next visit was to St George Armenian Cathedral built by the Armenian Prince Umek in 1251 AD. A wedding was taking place (groom Armenian and bride Finnish) and I spoke to a few of the guests who were Armenian. After the wedding, the priest started mass with only 2 attendees. This visit was an incredible feeling, I didn�t want to leave. My next visit will be Sayat Nova grave. If there�s anything else Armenian that I should not miss (except for Javakh it�s too far) please let me know (I didn�t do much research), I still have a few days here, till next time.
The first village we passed after the border was Oblos, an Azeri village that looked no different from an Armenian village, same stalls on the side streets, same products, men squatting. Regarding similarities in Tiblisi same annoying honking, annoying car alarms, stray dogs, same marshrutnis (mini bus) except with Georgian writing (weird, I kept looking for Opera written in Armenian all day long).
Tiblisi is a cosmopolitan city and people get about their business without so much as staring at anyone. Cars around the city are newer than in Yerevan (they�re also cheaper to buy, I know this since my friend bought one today and saved heaps). Food is excellent, great khatchabouri, good cheese although more expensive than in Yerevan. There are stores like Nike, Sony, Polo, and McDonalds x 2. It appears that it�s a more organized, cleaner city, however everyone I have spoken to so far (Georgians, ex pats) prefer Yerevan and tell me that Yerevan appears more advanced because of the hundreds of outdoor cafes and a lesser corrupt government.
From my observations, because of the mixture of the people, the city looks more like a European city having maintained its charm architecturally (although the second Marriott is being built in Freedom Square).
Which brings me to my next destination, the Armenian quarter just off the Freedom Square. By chance I found a 17th Century Church, which looked like restorations had started but left unfinished. I started asking around and in a matter of minutes met three Armenians, an old lady (100% Armenian), another lady (25%) and a man half Armenian. They told me a group of Argentinean Armenians had started restoring the Church but ran out of funds so locked up and left it unfinished. The Church stores hundreds of books but the old lady told me that the valuable ones had been stolen. The man went as far as opening a gate in someone�s backyard so that I could take a picture of frescoes.
My next visit was to St George Armenian Cathedral built by the Armenian Prince Umek in 1251 AD. A wedding was taking place (groom Armenian and bride Finnish) and I spoke to a few of the guests who were Armenian. After the wedding, the priest started mass with only 2 attendees. This visit was an incredible feeling, I didn�t want to leave. My next visit will be Sayat Nova grave. If there�s anything else Armenian that I should not miss (except for Javakh it�s too far) please let me know (I didn�t do much research), I still have a few days here, till next time.
posted by lena at 10:30 PM
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