Cathedral, Markets and Memorial

Jeanne had told me that the main shuka, or food market, was really something to see, and I met her at its Metro stop this morning. It was right across the street from Yerevan’s “new” (2001) cathedral, so we stopped there first. Surp Grigor Lusavorich (St. Gregory the Illuminator) Cathedral was built to celebrate 1700 years of Christianity in Armenia, and it has 1700 seats. The architecture is a modern take on the traditional (I think Professor Billington would approve of the geometric shapes, domes and arches), and there’s very little adornment inside. The nearby shuka had some interesting Armenian touches, such as stands of dried fruit, white cheese, and pickled everything. The regular fruit included some beautiful pomegranates (it is the symbol of Armenia but I had not seen any yet!), tiny bundles of greens (there really aren’t a lot of vegetables available right now – mostly root vegetables and a few leafy ones), and some of the Armenian sausage that I had tried in the restaurant in Los Angeles (someone had brought some to my host mother for her event last week and I’ve been enjoying it this week – it’s not bad!). There were spices, dried flowers and herbs for tea, beans and grains (meat and fish, too, but we stayed away from that part of the market). Clean, airy, picturesque.

We then went on to the Vernissage – I had the inspiration to buy for my nieces charms of their initials in the Armenian alphabet to put on a necklace; if anyone out there wants a letter let me know – they might be the ultimate packable gift! The letters are interesting and definitely Armenian – I may get a bunch for myself to make into earrings. I’d been wanting to go back to the Vernissage anyway – now that the March 6 and 7 craft fairs are over, I have a much better idea of what’s out there, and some of the artisanal items are growing on me. Later in the day, I went to the Painter’s Vernissage with Brian; I enjoy viewing the art there.

I spent the early afternoon at the Armenian Genocide Memorial and Museum; it will be crowded on April 24, Genocide Memorial Day, when everyone (and by that I may mean the entire population of Yerevan; we will see) comes to lay a flower at the eternal flame. I wanted to go when it was empty and quiet. The feeling of solitude begins with the walk across the bridge over the Hrazdan Gorge to get there. The museum itself is simple. There isn’t a lot of commentary, but instead there are pictures, figures and words that speak for themselves. In the first room there is an accounting of each province – how many Armenian villages, how many Armenians, how many Armenian churches and how many Armenian schools there were, accompanied by photos of the cities as they were in the early 1900s and pictures of prosperous-looking people. A semicircular hall then contains photographs and drawings of forced marches, mass graves, death, and starving people. Display cases contain books, official letters, eyewitness accounts and more photographs, detailing what was taking place. The final room contains before-and-after numbers, a large photograph of an orphanage in Syria, and proclamations from people recognizing the genocide (including the governors of many U.S. states, though not the Federal government). There is a grove of trees outside planted by officials from nations and other groups that recognize the genocide. Turkey does not admit to the genocide and many governments for political reasons do not recognize it; this is sad, but what is also sad is that Armenia is so insistent on the recognition being a precondition to any moving forward that it is unable to move forward. And of course what happened is sad. Everything about it is sad.

The memorial, per Lonely Planet, consists of a 40-meter high spire next to a circle of 12 basalt slabs leaning over to guard an eternal flame. The slabs represent the 12 lost provinces of Western Armenia, while the spire has a fine split in it dividing it into larger and smaller needles, the smaller one representing Western Armenia. Some surmise other layers of meanings – the 12 slabs huddle like refugees around a fire on a deportation march, and the spires might be a highly stylized monument of Mt. Ararat and its smaller peak, or blades of newborn grass.

Usually when I see memorials to such terrible things, I feel the need for ice cream afterwards to cheer up. Earlier in the week I had been thinking about Magnum bars, one of my favorite foods in Morocco. After walking back across the bridge into the busy part of the city, I went to a supermarket that is known for having a lot of Western goods (for example, peanut butter) and in the ice cream case, there was something that looked a lot like a Magnum bar! In Cyrillic, it said Magnate, but the packaging was similar. It wasn’t double chocolate or double caramel – it was vanilla, coated with chocolate and nuts – but it tasted Magnum-like (i.e. heavenly); I’ll be on the lookout for more.