Wow, it's been hot this past week. The temperature has peaked at +26 celsius a few times already. Luckily the couple of light snowstorms we had in March didn't damage all the fruit trees like last year. Hopefully God will bless us with more apricots this year.
The other day I dropped by a new shop across the street from St. Gregory church, next to SIL outdoor plaza on Tigran Mets. The store is named after a food production company from Artsakh called "Shishmanian". They produce pastas, tomato sauce, and a variety of very attractively packaged bottles of oils, mixed with Oregano, Rosemary, Thyme or Basil.
I actually see a considerable improvement in design and packaging of local products lately.
Artfood is a new product line, producing tomato pastes and jams. Very simple and cute packaging. Of course, Noyan juices are also delicious and packaged quite nicely in metallic-silver coloured packaging.
I've also noticed that there aren’t that many TV commercials in Russian anymore. Most of the foreign commercials have had their audio replaced with Armenian. Unfortunately, a few of the local commercials have really shameful messages lacking even a hint of ethics. And sadly, not many locals see anything wrong with most of them. A taxi commercial that shows a guy out on a date with a girl, later picks up his child he’s had with his wife (who he’s still married to), comes home to the wife, and the wife says, "That's not our child", and the child says, "Dad, that's not my mom". What does this have to do with taxi service? The animated Jermuk water commercial which involves a deer being shot, then drinks Jermuk water and revives, has been edited down because of complaints to get rid of the shooting part. Which one is worse guys? The taxi one or the animated Jermuk one?
With regards to programming, our state TV channel H1 has improved quite a bit over the past few months. They show 2-4 films a week overdubbed in Armenian. They also have a court show called "Im Iravunq@" (launched by World Bank, and a great way to teach citizens about their rights), and a talk show for women (though a little boring, however worth having to keep our "gneegz" happy.)
The endless protests of environmental groups and average citizens, to save the trees of Yerevan, have sort of paid off. The city has been planting trees and bushes like mad these past few weeks. God knows who will water them, but it's good to see that the city has (sort of) responded to the complaints. Nonetheless, mature trees are constantly being cut down to make room for the dozens of new buildings that are being built. There's barely any oxygen left in Yerevan. The air is just becoming more and more unhealthy. Just recently they did a dust test to see how dust levels are in a few cities in Armenia, and Yerevan failed, just like the rest of the other cities.
I've been hearing rumours that apartment prices might go down, or at least not go up much this year. So if anyone is looking into buying one, if these rumours are true, this should be a good year.
The other day I dropped by a new shop across the street from St. Gregory church, next to SIL outdoor plaza on Tigran Mets. The store is named after a food production company from Artsakh called "Shishmanian". They produce pastas, tomato sauce, and a variety of very attractively packaged bottles of oils, mixed with Oregano, Rosemary, Thyme or Basil.
I actually see a considerable improvement in design and packaging of local products lately.
Artfood is a new product line, producing tomato pastes and jams. Very simple and cute packaging. Of course, Noyan juices are also delicious and packaged quite nicely in metallic-silver coloured packaging.
I've also noticed that there aren’t that many TV commercials in Russian anymore. Most of the foreign commercials have had their audio replaced with Armenian. Unfortunately, a few of the local commercials have really shameful messages lacking even a hint of ethics. And sadly, not many locals see anything wrong with most of them. A taxi commercial that shows a guy out on a date with a girl, later picks up his child he’s had with his wife (who he’s still married to), comes home to the wife, and the wife says, "That's not our child", and the child says, "Dad, that's not my mom". What does this have to do with taxi service? The animated Jermuk water commercial which involves a deer being shot, then drinks Jermuk water and revives, has been edited down because of complaints to get rid of the shooting part. Which one is worse guys? The taxi one or the animated Jermuk one?
With regards to programming, our state TV channel H1 has improved quite a bit over the past few months. They show 2-4 films a week overdubbed in Armenian. They also have a court show called "Im Iravunq@" (launched by World Bank, and a great way to teach citizens about their rights), and a talk show for women (though a little boring, however worth having to keep our "gneegz" happy.)
The endless protests of environmental groups and average citizens, to save the trees of Yerevan, have sort of paid off. The city has been planting trees and bushes like mad these past few weeks. God knows who will water them, but it's good to see that the city has (sort of) responded to the complaints. Nonetheless, mature trees are constantly being cut down to make room for the dozens of new buildings that are being built. There's barely any oxygen left in Yerevan. The air is just becoming more and more unhealthy. Just recently they did a dust test to see how dust levels are in a few cities in Armenia, and Yerevan failed, just like the rest of the other cities.
I've been hearing rumours that apartment prices might go down, or at least not go up much this year. So if anyone is looking into buying one, if these rumours are true, this should be a good year.
posted by Der Hova at 5:21 PM
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