Episode 21

Back in Goris we had a look at some of the many sandstone pillars on the hillsides about the town. A number of these pillars or pinnacles have been excavated to make artificial caves where the inhabitants used to live. We turned east and headed towards the unofficial border with the self proclaimed country of Nagorno Karabakh and passed many more of these pinnacles, large and small many with caves gouged out of them.

Descending into yet another gorge we came to the border. There isn't any border post representing Armenia but the Nagorno Karabakh people have a border check where we had to show our passports, well, I didn’t seeing as I don’t have one, but L and D did, and also the car papers. They were then instructed to go to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Stepanakert and get their visas. Stepanakert is the capital of this small republic that almost no-one recognizes.

Back in the early 90’s there was a little war here when this area broke away from Azerbaijan after the break-up of the Soviet Union. It appears, as far as L can work out that the Soviets put this area into Azerbaijan in the early days of the Soviet Union. The people of this region are devoutly Armenian Christian and really wanted to be part of Armenia, not lumped with Islamic Azerbaijan. As it was a great deal of Armenia was handed over to Turkey not long after WW1. They look upon Mt Ararat as almost sacred and that area had a large Armenian population until the Turks took full control. There are some monasteries in that region. If you want to know more L suggests you 'google’ it: There was a Turkish genocide of about 1.5 million Armenians during the dying days of the Ottoman empire that almost no foreign countries will acknowledge, yet they don’t seem to have the same problem with the massacres in Azerbaijan.

The people call themselves Armenian and Armenia classes it almost as part of Armenia but Azerbaijan would like it back, very peeved no doubt at having been beaten by these people in that war. As a result the border areas are very tense and no crossing is permitted between the two countries, also relations with Turkey are strained too, so there is no open border crossing between Armenia and Turkey.

Anyway here we are in Nagorno Karabakh: Before reaching Stepanakert the universal joint that had been squeaking for the past couple of days D decided to change. As usual it proved to be a much bigger and more difficult task than he had expected. Nothing went according to plan, but then it never does when it comes to car repairs. In the end the job was successfully accomplished and we set off again without the squeak.

In a short space of time after our arrival in the Capital my lot had got their visas so we could set about having a look around this small unofficial country. Stepanakert is quite a pleasant town of about 60,000 with some long, wide, tree lined streets with traffic lights that are not easily seen and very dim in colour. They are quite easy to miss: Like Armenia, and dare I say it, Azerbaijan, however, pedestrian crossings are acknowledged for what they are, unlike Georgia where they just seem to be painted lines on the road without any significance to anyone.

More monasteries to see; one above a village where a local lad who has done well for himself in Russia has spent a lot of his money helping get the village economy going. He has improved the road, built a school, hotel and hospital and goodness knows what else. The Gandzasar monastery has been restored and there is a quirky ‘rock sculpture’ a bit further up the valley. With a bit of cosmetic stone work a rocky outcrop has been made to look like a giant lion or cat of some sort.

It was quite a trek to the Dadivank monastery; We came to the village of the same name where there is a big ore processing plant of some kind, it’s owned by Base Metal, whoever they are. Could be copper and/or gold according to my lot. There are a couple of holding ponds that didn’t look particularly inviting in colour or sludge, and they sit above a big reservoir, wonder how much contamination is leeched into the reservoir. Probably doesn’t bare thinking about.

When we arrived at the monastery high in the mountains we found that one of the mines supplying that plant sits beside and below the monastery.

There has been some restoration work done here so that it doesn’t look nearly as rundown and over grown as it did in a photo that was in the visa office. It’s a beautiful peaceful spot, but probably won’t be when the new road is finished and the mine is fully operational. It seems at present to be only a very small operation.

Beside the road sits a military tank that has been bombed or hit a mine. Two memorials, one at either end stand in memory of the two men who were killed in it in 1992.

The site of an ancient city has been found not far from Agdam. Tigran the Great (whoever he was) built 4 cities during his time, this is the only one that has been found. It dates from the 1st cent BC. It covers quite a large area, mostly on the plain with one area leading up the hill behind giving a good view out over the plains that are now mostly in Azerbaijan. It must have been quite a site in its time having been built of white limestone. It was occupied up until the 14th century. Not a great deal of excavation has been done, some walls up the hillside have been exposed and the area of the basilica has been exposed. This is all we saw not wanting to make our way along a long and very muddy track to see little more than what we could here. My lot aren’t that energetic at times.

On top of a hill that almost overlooks this site is a small 7th cent church that is easy enough to get to on the side we approached but on all other sides are almost sheer cliffs. What we did see as we drove up here is a wide, long staircase up the hillside all in a state of serious decay. At the top of it all we could see was a deep trench that could well be a defensive one as it looks out towards the disputed territory with Azerbaijan. Above that trench was the road we drove along, so whatever that staircase may have led to, it’s not there now.

Out on that plain are a great many buildings clustered in villages or standing alone that are in ruins. One of them we were told used to be a shopping centre in Soviet times. Just a few K’s further on we came to the outskirts of Agdam and it too lays in ruins. This area was one of the main battle grounds for the war with Azerbaijan in the early 1990’s just after the Soviet Union broke up. There is still a very heavy military presence in the area. As we approached Agdam we came to a big military base. We could see the ruined city off in the distance and could have gone on into it and further to Martuni if we had wanted but we chose not to instead making our way towards Stepanakert.

In the southeast of the country we saw the dramatic Hunot gorge that slices its way through a hill in quite a spectacular fashion. Then we saw a 2000 year old Plane tree, that’s twice as old as the one we saw in Georgia. We also climbed up a steep hillside to visit the Azokh cave that we could have gone exploring if we had wanted to wade through lots of bat poo in the pitch dark, my lot chose not to. I keep saying ‘we’ but as most of you know I usually get transported to these places inside L’s coat, but on this last occasion I got left in the car as a steep climb was involved. NOT HAPPY!

Shushi, the town, not a Japanese meal, supposedly has a special charm, however with thick fog, heavy sleet, and bitter cold wind, all we saw was the fort walls, the cathedral, some soviet era tenement flats and several cold, wet starving dogs, poor bloody animals, somewhere, L says, the charm got lost in the translation.

After that we headed back to the border D desperately trying to avoid oncoming traffic that didn’t have any lights on and flocks of sheep all over the road that suddenly loomed out of the fog directly in front of us. A couple of them very nearly ended up road tenderised mutton stew.

Soon we exited Nagorno Karabakh and returned to Armenia. The sleet turned to snow in some of the higher places but at we headed back north towards the town of Yeghegnadzor the rain, sleet and snow gave out but the fog persisted. This resulted in us crawling quite slowly up the two passes for much of the way stuck behind slow moving Iranian trucks. The locals didn’t worry too much about whether or not they could see oncoming traffic and overtook regardless.

The fog eventually gave out in the lower areas but rain showers persisted with intermittent brief spells of bright sunshine. We drove up the very pretty Yeghegis valley intending to visit some monasteries and forts. A heavy, long lasting hail storm put paid to much of that idea as it made the dirt road very slippery. The mud is this country is of the type that just sticks and builds up on the tyres so that there is no grip and we just slide this way or that depending on the angle of the road. We did walk the last mile up to the Smbataberd fortress whose origins date from the 5th cent. From this vantage point we got a really great view of the valleys on both sides. Then as we wended our way back down through village after village in the late afternoon D also had to negotiate his way past the many small groups of cows that were making their way to their night quarters: Their herders never shoo them to the side of the road; that would be too difficult:

Visited a Jewish cemetery that dates from 1266 to 1337, historians are unsure where this community came from but believe it may have been Persia and have no idea whatsoever of what happened to them, they just seem to have vanished.

A little church with only an outside altar stands of an outcrop above the Yeghegis river and below the fort. It was designed for blessing both horse and rider before they set off into battle.

On our way up the Selim Pass we saw the caravanserai that looks no more than an ordinary cattle shed. It dates from the 14th century when one of the silk routes passed this way. It’s at 2300, just 100m below the top of the pass and a bleak place it was too when we stopped here and had a cuppa. Then down the pass to Martuni on the shores of Lake Sevan at 1900m: It looks fairly bleak too with low cloud hiding all the mountains that surround the lake. Visited a couple more monasteries along its shores; One of these monasteries was founded in 305 when St Grigri built a church over a Pagan temple:

Not having been able to find the Echmiadzin, the Armenian Apostolic church equivalent of the St Peters and the Vatican when we were in the area around Yerevan last time, and having since got the exact location from the internet we headed back there driving across Yerevan in the early morning before the traffic got to heavy.

Having found it this time we wondered why we bothered; the main cathedral Mayr Tachar is almost totally encased in scaffolding and there is a great deal of other building work going on. This Cathedral is fairly small and the interior nothing special. The original church was built here in the beginning of the 4th cent over a pagan site. The current cathedral is much later and keeps having bits added to it. Through a 4th cent archway we could see the residence of the Catholicos of the Armenian church. A new large round tower isn’t quite finished and there is a new entrance gate, both are built of the pink/mauve rock we have seen used in a great many new buildings around the country from blocks of flats to monuments to government buildings. D thinks it’s only a veneer although it’s about 90mm thick. On a couple of buildings we have seen where bits have fallen off and there is just raw concrete or concrete block underneath. It really doesn’t blend in with the other buildings that make up this whole complex. There are several buildings that used to be monks cells, there was a monastery here and there are other buildings too. In 1914-1920 the place was full of refugees fleeing the genocide of Armenians in Turkey that even now the world refuses to recognize.

Heading north again we drove across the lower slopes of Mt Aragats but with the cloud down really low we saw nothing of the mountain. We made our way to Vanadzor then on to Dilijan but the weather was no better, it was bitterly cold with low cloud. We looked at yet more churches, had a quick look at the old district of the town with its cobbled street and stone houses with timber balconies. The green stone some on them have used is really quite unique. All the shops were closed, the tourist season being over.

We got as far as Ijevan where we visited a big and very busy market. Never seen so many butchers in one small area anywhere else; Mostly it was pigs hanging up outside but some also had sheep and cow. Must be quite a wealthy town as meat is fairly expensive: This is supposedly a wine producing area but we failed to see any vineyards at all:

The cloud was even lower with some ground fog as we travelled back through Dilijan to Vanadzor where we looked at the ‘black’ church only to find that it has orange strips, painted D says, sort of spoils the ascetics. Also we went shopping in the very big market here and got some lovely fresh fruit and veggies, just the thing for dinner. Then we drove on through the fog to Stepanavan that sits on a plateau with a deep, narrow gorge running through it. In the fertile fields around this area there are many grassy mounds, these are bronze age Tumulus (burial mounds), so the area has most likely been farmed for millennia.

Took a rough, potholed, once tarmac, road to join the main road through the Debed Canyon: We found that in several places the green farmland of the plateau was slashed by these steep sided ‘black’ gorges, they are quite dramatic:

The Debed Canyon is a much deeper and longer version of the gorges we’d just seen. There are many towns in the narrow bottom near the stream and a railway line as well as the main road to Tbilisi in Georgia passes through the bottom of the canyon. Looking upward we could seen numerous towns and villages sitting on the edge high above or perched on a small plateau halfway up. If they get an earthquake here, or a flood like the 2011 Toowoomba one, then things could become very unpleasant in this canyon. There are still some active copper mines here too, and together with the fog the pollution made a very thick smog.

There are a great many churches, several monasteries and a couple of convents through here, as we were running short of time and have visited a great many churches and monasteries in the country, we opted only for the two world heritage listed monasteries. They are quite similar to each other and are from about the same period, the 10th cent, also they haven’t had a great deal of restoration work done on them. Both are perched high up on the side of the canyon and offer great views. In both cases towns have sprung up around them.

Soon after emerging from the northern end of the canyon we came to the border with Georgia and exited Armenia. It cost us a further 20€ in fees to have the car papers stamped. Now we are back in Georgia and will head towards the Turkish border, not sure if we can cross near Achalciche or have to go all the way to Batumi on the Black Sea coast, we suspect the latter.

© Lynette Regan, 29th October 2014