Trip to the South - Part II

We met again with the Meghri artisans in the morning while the OSCE people met with the officers of the NGO. The NGO women then provided lunch for everyone, and it was on to Kapan. Lonely Planet calls Kapan Armenia's version of Pittsburgh, a town built for the mining industry that surrounds it. The book says that Russians started mining there in earnest in the 1850s (really?) and that the city boomed during the Soviet period. The PCV there said a mine was run by the French and that Charles de Gaulle may have been born there and that his family definitely lived there. A 3210-meter mountain looms over the town, but it was too cloudy for us to see it. And it was very icy! Plus, the streets were dark - PCVs who live in the regions carry flashlights. Stairwells in the Soviet apartment blocks are also dark - really dark.

We had two meetings in the afternoon but only one the next morning, so we had time for a stroll. The NGO is near the main church, and we walked over to see it. Carved into the door were pomegranates and grapes - Armenia's finest. We walked in and there was a baptism taking place. Only a few family members were there - we had learned that there is a big party 40 days after a baby is born, so maybe baptism is a private ceremony. I also noticed that the few women who were there had their heads covered. I put the hood of my coat up, but we felt it was time to go - not before noticing that, as we had learned, Armenian churches have simple interiors. We walked on to the main square and down a side street and that was our exercise for the trip.

There's another town in the region that looks big enough to be a PCV site, but its mine doesn't meet international safety standards, so no PCV can live there. Instead, it was on to Goris, which is said to be one of the most beautiful towns in Armenia. It has stone houses (made with round stones and mortar, not blocks of volcanic stone) and volcanic pillars on the slopes outside of town. It also has a cave city on the other bank of the river, but we didn't see that. It is known for oghee, homemade mulberry vodka; I had tried some in a restaurant in Yerevan and one sip was enough for me. It is also a gateway to Karabagh; those of you who have been following all of my Peace Corps experiences will not be surprised to learn that we absolutely cannot go there. Goris was even icier than Kapan - it's amazing that more people don't fall and break bones here!

All of the places that we visited on this business trip might be interesting to see again for pleasure. There are caves and standing stones around Goris (though the bigger stones were on the way down, between Yerevan and Goris), history museums, some ruins, perhaps hiking. Near Goris is Tatev, with a jaw-dropping view of a monastery by a gorge. If I go back for business again, it would be nice to see some of the sights. Will I go back for business? Would I haul all the way down there for pleasure? I really don't know. And I'm not sure what it means that I don't know.

Thursday morning was the last of the meetings, and the ride back from Goris was only about four hours long, though we made a long stop so the OSCE program chair could buy roadside wine - near the area where the world's oldest winery (6000 years?) was found, they make wine and sell it in re-used Coca-Cola bottles. Brian stayed behind so that he could travel back via public transportation with some PCVs and learn how to do it - I took the free ride in the big white SUV, and had some interesting conversations about Armenia, the developing world, Europe and more.

I'll still write more about the meetings and about staying with the PCVs.... I'll add, though, that yesterday was Gorbachev's 80th birthday and they had a special about him on TV. I asked my host mother if she liked him, and she said that he was good for democracy (she even used the phrase "tear down this wall") but not good for Armenians because he didn't do anything about Karabakh. The other day in the Peace Cops office, I was talking with the Safety and Security Coordinator and I asked him if he ever dreamed that in his lifetime the Soviet Union would break up. He said, "of course not; we were the most powerful country in the world!"