Yerevan Botanical Garden and Blue Mosque

Posted on October 22, 2017March 14, 2019 by Lark

I had another adventure day with Victoria! She wanted to go to the botanical garden in Yerevan, so we decided to go and check it out. We didn’t have any expectations, and that’s probably a good thing. The botanical garden was built in 1935, but after the collapse of the Soviet Union, funding stopped and things started to fall apart. During the energy crisis in the late 1980s, the trees in the park (along with pretty much all of the trees in the country) were cut down for firewood. At its height, there were 1240 species of plants in the gardens. Now, I don’t know the exact number, but I can tell you that it’s far reduced from that number.

Our first struggle was figuring out how to even get in. The entrance location wasn’t very clear on Google maps, so we may have taken a less-than-official entry route once we got tired of walking around without success. That was another one of those “I would never do this at home” moments.

I think they just patched these things back together with whatever random scrap metal they could find…

The thing about visiting a botanical garden is that you expect to see a lot of plants. And you expect those plants to be alive. Anyway, I haven’t been to a ton of botanical gardens, but this one was like if the world ended, all of the humans disappeared off the planet, and the plants were allowed to grow wild. Like so many other places here, it had that “former glory” feel where you can tell that it used to be pretty cool until *fill in the blank* disaster happened and nothing ever got totally fixed.

There was this big row of greenhouses where it was clear that someone was doing things with the plants inside, but none of them had intact windows anymore. The broken window fragments were still scattered on the ground. Like couldn’t someone spend a few minutes cleaning things up? Maybe my priorities are out of whack. Maybe they want it to look like something out of a post-apocalyptic movie.

The biggest confusion and frustration of the day was this one giant greenhouse that kind of looked like a spaceship. It was round and strange looking, and Victoria and I wanted nothing more than to go inside, but every little window hole that we could have squeezed through was blocked off with a collage of rusty sheet metal, fencing, broken glass pieces, and barbed wire. For as little effort as they put into actually fixing anything, they were very determined to keep us out of there. We circled the building twice, pounded on the door hoping someone would let us in, and tried in vain to find a ground-level hole to sneak through… I mean, to find a respectable entrance… obviously.

There were a few broken windows we could have made it through, but they were probably 10 feet up and I wasn’t in the climbing mood… plus I don’t think the “I don’t speak Armenian” face of innocence can explain “accidentally wandering” through a 10-foot-high hole. It looked like someone was taking care of things inside, and I was bummed that we couldn’t check it out more closely (you know, besides what we could see in the cracks between the sheet metal and barbed wire). But yeah, like I just said… no matter how much we wanted to see the inside, we would NEVER go in without a clear, official entrance to go through.

Taking advantage of the good lighting with some completely normal picture posing

Inside one of the functional greenhouses

Since we didn’t have a third person to take a picture, we just took two pictures and I photoshopped them together. I’m like Peter Pan… my shadow is disconnected from the rest of me!

Plant tunnel on the way out of the botanical garden. This was probably the coolest part of the whole experience.

We wandered out the official exit to the botanical garden (simultaneously finding the way we were supposed to have entered) and across the street to a very green and empty looking park. It caught our eyes as we were walking to the bus stop, and we felt like we had to go investigate. There we found weird lollipop trees, questionable Christmas light wiring, random exercise equipment, and a large statue of a woman miming screwing in a lightbulb. Just kidding. Probably. I’m not quite sure about what her pose was supposed to be.

We couldn’t understand why so much effort and money clearly went into this strange park on the side of the highway that isn’t near any houses and really isn’t accessible. Meanwhile, across the street, there’s a botanical garden that could use a lot of love. And funding. And lollipop trees. I guess that’s just another one of those Armenia mysteries of life. Probably someone donated a bunch of money and wanted a park, so they made one even though it doesn’t make sense.

Victoria, doing her best statue impression. You can see some lollipop trees in the background.

Christmas light wiring… they took normal, plug in Christmas lights, pulled out the metal parts of the plug, and shoved some wires in. Safe, I think.

On our way back into the city, we realized that it was still visiting hours at the Blue Mosque. I stopped in for a minute when I first came to Armenia with Sarah, but we could only go into the courtyard because it wasn’t during visiting hours. This time, the timing was right, but I was completely unprepared for a mosque visit. Luckily, Victoria had a hood AND a scarf. She used her hood and let me borrow the scarf so that we could both go inside at the same time.

The Blue Mosque/Persian Mosque/probably some other names is the only functioning mosque in the country and was built in 1764. During Soviet times, it survived because it served as the Museum of the City of Yerevan. It was renovated in the late 1900s through a mutual effort with Iran who now also owns it. It’s a symbol of the friendship between Armenia and Iran, and with two out of Armenia’s four borders currently closed, maintaining friendships with the other two is probably a good idea.

I thought it was beautiful. The outside is tiled which is always fun, and the interior is simple but elegant. One of my favorite things in the whole world is stained glass, so the fact that they had some was enough to completely sell me on the building. Stained glass in churches unfortunately isn’t a thing here.

Anyway, it was fun to spend the day seeing something a little different. Rare for an excursion in Armenia, we actually visited zero churches. The botanical garden maybe wasn’t the most exciting thing in the world, but I’m still glad we went. It gave us some time to pretend that the world had ended and we were the only two humans left.

Havuts Tar Monastery

Posted on October 18, 2017November 10, 2020 by Lark

Victoria and I decided that we wanted to go on a Saturday adventure, so we planned a mini-excursion to visit Havuts Tar Monastery. It was on my list of places to go because I read that the view is great and it’s worth a visit even though it’s in ruins. The location was also very convenient… It’s just a short hike away from the town of Garni, and the marshrutka ride from Yerevan to Garni takes less than an hour.

Azat River! Along our walk to the reserve from Garni

I wasn’t so sure about the logistics of hiking there because it’s located inside of Khosrov Forest State Reserve. It’s one of the oldest protected areas in the world, supposedly established by King Khosrov in the 330s. I think he just wanted something to name after himself. It was re-established in its current form in 1958. There are four different landscapes within the park, ranging from desert to alpine meadow, and a ton of different plant and animal species. There are 41 mammal species!

The Khosrov website makes it seem like coordinating a visit to the park is a huge pain. It says that you have to hire a guide and get a permit if you want to hike in the park, and it’s a bit expensive. In all of the reviews I read about Havuts Tar, no one said anything about a guide. Who the heck knows which one is right? The best way to figure anything out is to just show up, so that’s what we planned. We figured we would go, try to visit, and be prepared for a last-minute change of plans if we weren’t allowed into the park.

You can see a little speck on top of the mountain in the background, right side… that’s Amenaprkich Church

Our marshrutka dropped us in the center of Garni, and from there, we started walking in the general direction of the park. Oh yeah, we also weren’t exactly sure about how to get there… but hey, it’s all part of the adventure, right? It took a few near-wrong turns and some helpful directions from locals, but we eventually found what looked like a trail and started hiking. Thank goodness for GPS because otherwise, who knows where we would have ended up? It seemed for a while like we weren’t going to encounter anyone… until we turned a corner and saw a huge gate with a Khosrov seal on it. Okay, showtime. Worst case, we’d get turned away and have to find something else to do. No big deal.

There was a park ranger sitting at the gate, and we said hello and told him that we wanted to see Havuts Tar. (We had practiced saying this in Armenian on the walk so that we would sound like we knew what we were talking about.) He didn’t seem thrown off by our presence or our request and asked where we were from. We said Yerevan, and he told us that it’s 1000 dram to hike there if you’re from Yerevan and 2000 dram if you’re a foreigner, so lucky for us that we’re not foreigners because we get a better price. I think he winked at us when he said that, but I have no idea why because we definitely were passing as locals.

We went into the little visitor’s center to pay, and they had a sign with pricing for all of the different sites within the park. To me, that seems to mean you don’t need a guide… Oh, who knows. Maybe it’s like some local secret that you can just walk in, but they try to trick the internet users into getting a guide? Anyway, I was surprised by how nice the visitor’s center was. They had posters about the different sites in the park, information about environmental preservation, a creepily impressive beetle collection, and best of all, a bathroom.

Khatchkar along the path to the monastery

Victoria and I paid our 1000 dram each and headed up the trail to the monastery. The hike wasn’t bad at all. There were some steep parts, but we were following a dirt car road, making it impossible to get lost. There were even a few shade trees along the way! That’s a rare sight on a hike here.

Imagine if it wasn’t all brown… I guess we could have picked a better time of year (aka spring). Amenaprkich Church is up on the hill, and in the low area to the right, you can see the grey walls of the monastic complex.

The path. Not much room for wrong turns!

View of the monastery complex from the hiking trail

Havuts Tar Monastic Complex was built between the 11^th and 13^th centuries, so in Armenia time, it’s new! There was an earthquake in 1679 that destroyed much of the complex, and after that, it was basically abandoned, aside from some minor restoration efforts in the 18^th and 20^th centuries. There’s another church there as well, Amenaprkich Church, which is just outside of the walled complex and was originally built in the 10^th century.

I so wish that I could have seen it in all of its glory. Just imagine! That building on the right is a church within the complex, and there are other auxiliary buildings along the perimeter walls (you can just see the edge of one on the left side of the picture).

The ruins were a pleasant surprise. Everything I read basically said that the monastery is unimpressive, but the view makes the trip worth it. I completely disagree with the first statement. It was beautiful!! The ruins were way more extensive than I expected. There were fortified walls, hidden underground rooms, and some of the best stone reliefs I’ve seen in Armenia. As we wandered around, Victoria and I couldn’t help but express our disbelief at the fact that anyone would say that the monastery was anything less than awesome.

One of the church ruins with lettering on the wall that probably didn’t take one eternity to carve

Looking out at the ruins from the wall. The ruins of the two churches inside the complex are in the foreground, and Amenaprkich Church is on the hill in the background.

I love these khatchkars. Look at how intricate! And I also love how they integrated different decorative stones into the walls. It gives them a lot of personality.

Entrance to one of the monastery complex churches. I also love how they used two different colors of tuff stone to create accents.

That view! And also I really like that wall. I think it’s pretty.

I’m sure this isn’t going to fall anytime soon… but that doesn’t mean that we didn’t sprint under it just in case

It’s not an adventure without some pictures of me in random holes. These little vaulted rooms are up against the perimeter walls, possibly used as guest chambers for the monastery.

Some of the carvings were the most intricate I’ve seen

This looks like an alien on a space horse capturing another alien, but the captured alien is smiling because he knows that there are twenty of his alien soldier friends on their way to save him.

The view certainly wasn’t anything to complain about either. It overlooks the Azat River Valley, the same one that runs behind Garni Temple, and the whole thing is pretty spectacular. From Amenaprkich, you can see Garni Temple too! We found a shady spot to eat our snacks (some bread, cheese, and cookies, courtesy of Victoria), chatted, and enjoyed the scenery.

Me and Victoria! You can kind of see Garni Temple in the background, but it’s not super easy. Maybe about 1/3 of the way into the picture from the right, there’s a little grey box on top of one of the ridges sticking out into the gorge. That’s the temple.

Amenaprkich Church is the one with the orange/black tuff checkerboard front. On the right side, there’s another church that was added later, but as you can see, it’s mostly collapsed as well.

The last remaining arch inside the church. Again, I have no idea how this is still intact. And you can see part of the ring where the dome would have been.

This room is underground… they think it used to be the monastery’s manuscript library

It’s always nice when a day turns out even better than you expect. I was worried that we wouldn’t even be able to enter the park and I would have dragged Victoria out there for no reason. Far from that, we had a great time! Havuts Tar is pretty close to the top of my list of favorite places to visit in Armenia, along with Dilijan, Levon’s Divine Underground, and Smbataberd. I think my list of favorite places is slightly more obscure than most people’s…

Happy Birthday, Yerevan!!

Posted on October 16, 2017March 14, 2019 by Lark

What’s the oldest city in the world? What’s the first thing that pops into your head? If you said Rome, today is your lucky day because you’re about to learn something new! Yerevan is 29 YEARS older than Rome. Take that, Rome! Ha!

Yerevan is one of the world’s oldest continuously inhabited cities, right next to Babylon. It got its start in 782 BC when King Argishti I founded the fortress of Erebuni. I guess you could say that the rest is history… 2799 years of history, to be precise. Today, unfortunately, most of the historic buildings have been replaced with newer models. In 1924, the architect/urban planner Alexander Tamanian (the same guy who designed the opera house) made a new master plan for the city center, and a lot of the historic streets and structures were destroyed to accommodate his plans. You can still visit the remains of Erebuni fortress, though, about 7 km southeast of the center.

There was also a chalk party for kids earlier in the day where they shut down the street and kids got to chalk it up

Yerevan’s birthday is celebrated every year (since 1968) on the second Saturday in October. Believe me when I say that this birthday party is like nothing you’ve EVER seen before. Word of the day: ridiculous. I’m going to try not to overuse it in my descriptions of the happenings, but I can’t make any promises because well, it was ridiculous.

There was an extensive schedule of events for the day, and I didn’t make it to even half of them. How could I? You would have to be in 100 places at once. The exciting festivities started with a street cleaning and the washing of Yerevan monuments… don’t want to miss that! Those were the only events that started before noon because this is Armenia and “morning” here means like 12-3PM.

I decided to make a loop around the different areas where things were happening. My timing is apparently impeccable because I made it to Republic Square right at the end of the “Opening of the International Balloon Festival” which means that I was there just in time to see the hot air balloons take off. Oh yes, hot air balloons. Twelve of them. Did you think that “balloon festival” means those dinky latex balloons? This isn’t MY birthday party we’re talking about. This is YEREVAN!

One small example of the balloon arch craziness… now just picture this literally everywhere

On the topic of balloons though, it looked like a balloon festival threw up all over the city. You couldn’t look in any direction without seeing a balloon arch or balloon column… or 100 of them. Tons of businesses had balloon arches surrounding their doorways, colors perfectly coordinated to the business’s colors or defaulted to Armenian flag colors. I don’t even know how they managed to accumulate that many balloons. Trust me, I am NOT being dramatic. I’ve seriously never seen anything like it. Balloon factories around the globe probably worked overtime for months to fill the city’s order. Okay, maybe slightly dramatic, but we’ll say 5% drama and 95% completely warranted commentary.

Anyway, the hot air balloons. It was like something straight out of a movie. The twelve of them took off one after another and floated around the square. It was awesome. Don’t think that when I say “ridiculous” I mean it wasn’t awesome because it definitely was that. It was also just completely over the top.

Doesn’t this look like something straight out of a movie?

I took a stroll down to City Hall and was there just in time to see the “Festive cycling” participants (aka people on bikes, carrying Yerevan flags and wearing matching t-shirts) depart. So incredibly random. From there, I headed back towards the center and the opera house. One of the best things about the day was that most of the streets in the event areas were closed. How fun is it to be able to walk fearlessly in the middle of a usually busy street? (The correct answer, by the way, is VERY fun.)

There were also approximately one million stages with ongoing performances all across town. There were stages in Republic Square, the park near Republic Square, the opera house, two of the parks near the opera house, two on Northern Avenue, and at Cascade. And I’m probably missing some, honestly.

The taglines of the day: “feel Yerevan” “love Yerevan” “see Yerevan” and “hear Yerevan”

Flags over the street.. leave no corner undecorated

I spent the day marveling at the fact that we literally searched the entire city on Independence Day, trying to find something going on and failing miserably. Now I understand why because with plans in the works for Yerevan Day, how could the city afford to do anything? Better question, how could the city afford Yerevan Day? I would bet that’s a sensitive topic… there are so many things here that could benefit from even a tiny fraction of the probably millions of dollars it took to pull everything off.

This makes Armenia sound like a country with confused priorities, and I won’t argue with that. Before you start judging though, think about the fact that it happens everywhere. I’d bet there are zero countries that aren’t guilty of doing the exact same thing. I’m not saying it should be excused because everyone does it or that I didn’t think the day was a ton of fun… It’s just something to think about.

At night, there were simultaneous concerts at a few of the stages. I went to the one at Cascade because it seemed like the biggest deal. I had heard about previous concerts there and wanted to see it in action. They put up a stage facing Cascade, and people stand on the stairs like they’re bleachers! It’s brilliant. I somehow ended up right in the front, maybe because I was by myself and it’s much easier to wiggle your way through a crowd when you’re solo. The concert was an orchestra with a revolving cast of singers. Each singer came on for one song, and sometimes it was just instrumental so they brought out dancers. I enjoyed the music, and it was also cool that the crowd was a huge mix of ages, from babies to grandparents. It’s always fun to be a part of something that brings together a diverse group of people.

In conclusion, Yerevan Day was ridiculous. Everything was done to the extreme. I think my jaw was dropped for 80% of the day. People looked like they were having a great time. I had a great time. I feel like I can confidently say that I will never experience a day like that again. I just have one question left… if that was how 2799 was celebrated, what on earth is 2800 going to look like?

Look at how close I made it to the stage!

Can you find me? Also, how sad looking is that heart?

Night at the Ballet

Posted on October 9, 2017March 14, 2019 by Lark

I have a new obsession. My friend Victoria asked me if I wanted to go to the ballet with her last week, and I figured why not? You can get tickets for super cheap, and even though we got there only 15 minutes before the show started, we got decent seats in the 4000 dram section (about $8).

Awkward wedding cake. Maybe it’s just me who thinks that, but architecture is art which means we’re allowed to have different opinions.

The opera house isn’t one of my favorite buildings from the outside. People would probably disagree with me, but I think it’s blocky and kind of looks like a weird wedding cake. The inside was a pleasant surprise. While the outside looks bulky and heavy, the inside is a little more graceful and light. I think I also just have a problem with the exterior because of the lighting. I don’t think that I was as bothered before I saw it at night, but just like so much of the exterior lighting here, it’s almost painful to look at. Again, maybe that’s a me problem… but I really am not a fan. I wish I had a picture but am pretty sure I’ve avoided photographing it because I don’t want to have to look at it. I promise I’ll take one next time I’m there so you can either agree with me or decide that I’m a hard-to-please grump.

Anyway, the building opened in 1933 and was designed by the Armenian architect Alexander Tamanian. That’s the same guy who created the master plan for the center of Yerevan as it is today. He did the master planning for a bunch of other Armenian cities too, including Gyumri and Stepanakert. The layout and buildings of Republic Square in Yerevan are his as well. I have some mixed feelings about his work, but I’ll keep those to myself for now. I’ve bored you enough for now with my opinions.

Back to the ballet… Wow, I got very sidetracked… Okay, so Victoria and I decided to go without having any clue what it was about. It was called “Masquerade”, and that brings up pictures of fun parties and princes and such in my head. Safe bet, right? Wellllll… maybe not. Yes, it does include a very fun looking masquerade ball and a prince, but it’s no happy Cinderella story. Let me give you a plot summary (which is a fun mash-up of the summary in the program, one that we read online, and my own interjections).

Once upon a time, there was a man who was happily married to the love of his life. The man meets the prince who invites him to a masquerade ball. His wife is also there, but he doesn’t know that. Everyone is wearing masks that only cover the area right around their eyes, so obviously it is IMPOSSIBLE to tell who anyone is.

Quite ridiculous chandeliers, no? The ceiling looks like it’s covered in cake icing designs.

The woman loses her bracelet, and it is found by a baroness. The baroness has eyes for the prince, so what does she do with the bracelet that isn’t hers and she just found laying on the ground? She gives it to him, of course! And since she’s wearing such a confusing mask, he has no idea who she is.

Meanwhile, there’s a very mysterious character who the program calls “The Unknown”. Victoria and I couldn’t decide if he was an actual person or just a personification of jealousy/anger/supernatural forces trying to prevent the happiness of the characters. He’s always lurking in the shadows, and it looked like he was the reason why the woman’s bracelet fell off. Oh, who knows.

The prince is all excited about his new women’s jewelry, so he shows it to the man. The man thinks it looks familiar but doesn’t realize it’s his wife’s until later that night when he sees that her bracelet is missing. He questions her, but obviously she doesn’t know where it is because that’s what it means to lose something.

The woman goes looking for her bracelet. The prince hears and thinks that she’s the one who gave it to him, and the baroness is afraid to tell him that it was actually her. The Unknown starts spreading gossip about the woman and the prince, and the man hears. He is furious and decides to do what anyone would do in this situation: publicly shame the prince and kill his wife. Duh because what other options did he have??

More crazy chandeliers and the frilliest curtains to ever exist.

He shames the prince by making it look like he cheated at a card game (supposedly… all we saw was the two of them dancing and then the prince tearing off his jacket and rolling on the floor in distress) and goes home to poison his wife’s ice cream. What a way to add insult to injury, right? Did it have to be the ice cream? After he poisons her and she’s dying, he tells her what he did and why. Her claims of innocence are ignored, and she dies.

The next day, the baroness and the prince come to clear up the confusion. The man is horrified when he realizes that he killed his innocent and beloved (though not beloved enough for him to believe that she wasn’t lying to him) wife and rolls around on the ground in distress (that’s apparently what you’re supposed to do when you’re upset. I’ll have to give it a try sometime). The End.

If you’re thinking, “huh?” then you’re on the right track. Maybe I’m not an artsy or cultured enough human to fully appreciate the storyline, but my response was something along the lines of, “DUDE, CHILL OUT.”

That aside, I enjoyed the show. The music was beautiful. It was all composed by Aram Khachaturian who is the pride and joy of Armenia even though he was born in Georgia but SHHHH! He composed the music for a bunch of ballets (and other things), and one of his songs from the ballet “Gayane” (Sabre Dance) is so mainstream that you’ve probably heard it before.

The orchestra did a fabulous job, and the sets and costumes were nicely done too. There were a few parts where they used this big projector screen that I thought took away from the performance and wasn’t necessary, but otherwise it was good. The dancing wasn’t like the ultimate best ballet I’ve ever seen (I’m saying that like I’m some ballet expert, which I’m not, but I do know a few things), but I still enjoyed it. Honestly, I would have gone just for the music, so everything else was just a bonus.

In conclusion, the music was great, the building was sparkly, the dancing was fine, and I’m going to buy as many $8 ballet tickets as possible before I leave.

The hallway on level 3 where our seats were (still definitely not a bad view!)

We obviously spent a little time frolicking around the building like ballerinas because that’s what you do after you go to see a ballet. Luckily, people cleared out pretty quickly, so we had some privacy.

Pop-Up Art Exhibition

Posted on October 3, 2017March 14, 2019 by Lark

There was this temporary art exhibition thing going on for a couple of weeks, and I checked it out with my friend Arin. It’s organized by HAYP Pop Up, and they set up a few exhibitions each year. They usually are held at places that are a bit off the beaten path, and this one was at the Byurakan Observatory. Artists from Armenia and abroad are invited to participate and a different theme is selected for each one.

Grounded UFO with knives in it, apparently thrown by human defenses

This time, the theme was aliens. Well, not exactly. I think that the artists had to imagine what it would be like to make contact with extraterrestrials. Or something. I don’t know. (HERE‘s the webpage about it.) I love art, but modern art frequently baffles me, so combining modern art with a spacey (literally) topic like aliens can only possible result in complete stupefaction.

There was one exhibit in a different location, so we went there first. It’s apparently a radio-optic telescope but just looked like some weird pendulum thing in the middle of a giant bowl. The exhibit was a sound exhibit where the artist put three speakers around the rim of the bowl and three microphones inside of it. I think he did some mixing of the sounds, but the speakers partly played what the microphones were picking up, resulting in some weird echoey feedback sounds. The speakers were playing what the microphones were picking up, and the microphones were picking up what the speakers were playing. Weird, right? And if you made a sound loud enough, you could make it into the playback too. I don’t know. There was some deep meaning or something to it, but mostly it was just eerie.

The best part of it was the view. It was next to a gorge, and there was another weird, abandoned thing in the distance that Arin and I decided to check out. Things that I often think in Armenia: “I wonder if we’re trespassing by being here.” Immediate next thought: “T.I.A. Is trespassing even a thing here?” I don’t have any clue what this thing was, but there were stairs so we obviously climbed it. And then there was a ladder so I obviously climbed that too. It all seemed sturdy enough… don’t worry, I have health insurance!

Gorge-ous! Yes, I’m going to use the same bad pun EVERY time I take a picture of a gorge.

See the weird mirror thing in the corner? Yeah, that’s what we climbed.

Looking down from the top of the tower. I’m not afraid of heights, but it was a little windy and was blowing in the breeze a bit, so I can’t say I loved that.

Climbed those yellow supports in the back!

I think that my favorite part of the whole exhibit was everything we did that wasn’t part of the exhibit. After the sound thing, we went to the observatory property to see the rest of the art. It was all confusing. We started out trying to read the descriptions and understand what was happening and quickly gave up in favor of just walking around the grounds. Here’s a made-up example in an attempt to express how I usually feel at modern art exhibits:

Description: “This weird art-like thing you see in front of you imagines the moment of successful contact with extraterrestrials. Elation quickly turns to horror as the humans realize that these are not friendly beings. An immediate war breaks out between human-kind on Earth and the hostile alien forces. Within seconds, the humans can see that the alien weapons are far superior and that they have no hope for survival. This complicated emotional journey from elation to terror to defeat is captured by the piece you see in front of you.”

The art: A cardboard box with a one-eyed frowny face drawn in black sharpie on the side and an LED light inside.

The other people there: “Ah yes, I see it!” “Magnificent!” “So many emotions!” “Completely brilliant!” “The artist is a genius!” “The Michelangelo of the 21^st century!” “I’m so artsy and sophisticated!” “My life will never be the same!”

This was probably my favorite exhibit haha. Don’t ask me what it’s supposed to mean because I don’t know. I just know it looks cool.

Me: “Hey did someone forget their cardboard box? I hate it when people just leave their trash lying around. Where’s the exhibit? Maybe they unpacked it from this box, put it somewhere else, and forgot to take the description sign with them. Oh well, on to the next one!”

I would describe myself as a person who likes art, but sometimes… yeah. I think that I am more an admirer of impressive things, so I appreciate the skill that goes into creating art. If it’s something that I think would be difficult to create, I like it. If it’s something that seems thrown together with some abstract description, it just reminds me of the people in high school English who got good grades from reading sparknotes and BSing their papers. Aka I’m not impressed.

Anyway, it was an interesting experience. Apparently, modern art is the same confusing adventure no matter what country you’re in. Good to know.

One of the many observatories on the grounds

Lots of Changes

Posted on October 1, 2017March 14, 2019 by Lark

This was a weird week. There are a lot of things changing at once, and I’m starting to feel a little overwhelmed.

Here’s a random collection of pictures of my and my departing friends *tear*…
Shant, Carineh, and me out at dinner.

The first big change was the weather. Last weekend, the temperature was still in the low 90s. This weekend, we’ve been in the mid-60s. That. Is. Crazy. I wore shorts and a tank top at the end of last week. This week, I’m wearing pants and a fleece and am sleeping with the windows closed and all of the blankets we have piled on top of me. Okay, that’s a small exaggeration, but it’s a substantial change which I completely wasn’t ready for.

My 3D model! I promise I didn’t select those building colors… that’s what they actually look like.

Next, my job went to like a full-on architecture position this week. That’s not a bad thing, just kind of funny. To give you a little more info about the project we’re working on, one of the big challenges that refugees face is finding employment. An even bigger challenge is finding employment that pays a living wage. A lot of people here were given apartments after the fall of the Soviet Union, so they don’t have to worry about paying rent. Refugees, on the other hand, don’t have that benefit, so they need to find higher-paying jobs than most of the people living here because they have a huge extra expense each month. The national average monthly salary is a little less than $400. Rent eats up half of that, if not more, and that’s not even in a central location.

Aleppo-NGO’s plan is to make cuisine center that manufactures frozen Middle Eastern food for sale in grocery stores plus has a little dine-in/carry out component. It will employ refugees from Syria, train them to work in the service industry here and develop management skills, and pay them wages that are higher than the market rate. From there, people can find other jobs, start their own businesses, etc, but it’s a way for them to get some experience and management training and get used to the logistics of running a business in Armenia.

They have the property, and now they’re fundraising and applying for different grants to pay for the construction and furnishing costs. I spent the first half of the week developing some possible floor plans for the report and the second half creating some graphics using the 3D model I started last week. It’s been fun to get to do something different and feel like I’m contributing in a way that is really taking advantage of my skills. Larkitect is taking the world by storm.

Finally, this is the last week that a lot of my friends are going to be here. We had a pretty solid crew of 5 of us who met in Gyumri and moved to Yerevan basically at the same time: Shant, Carineh, Gagik, Talene, and me. Shant has been gone for a couple weeks now, Carineh just left this morning, Gagik was supposed to leave last Friday night, and Talene will be in Armenia for a couple more weeks but is going to be sightseeing with her cousin which means she’s basically gone. The whole “Gagik was supposed to leave” thing is because he decided to change his ticket and stay another month! So that’s something at least. It’s still going to be pretty rough without the others though. My other good friend, Arin, leaves on Tuesday. That means I’ve been forced to try to branch out and make more friends. Ugh. It’s overwhelming because there are so many volunteers, and how do you even start going through 100 people to find the ones you get along with?

Talene and me enjoying each other’s company in Halidzor on the way to Tatev Monastery

I told everyone that they’re all required to find me one replacement friend before they leave. That’s only fair, right? They came through pretty well actually. I’ve met some people in the last couple of weeks who seem cool, so now I just need to do the whole “beginning of friendship effort” thing. Exhausting.

I think I’m going to be okay, though. Plus, it’s only three more weeks until my family comes to visit me!!! Yup, that’s right! My parents and my brother are coming for about 8 days at the end of October, and I’m super excited about it. We’re going to have so much fun!

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