Armenia: zero percent tourism
Armenia: zero percent tourism.
My third trip to Armenia in a row. We visited all the iconic places. During this time we visited Khor Virap, Etchmiadzin, Garni Geghard, Pushkin Pass, Lori Gorge and Debed Valley, Sevan with its cemeteries and vanks, Tatev. All the more or less well-known vanks - Goris, Goshavank, Noravank and some others. They did not visit only in Artsakh. They saw Armenia both from the air and from the ground - they crossed from Russia by car through the Caucasus along the Georgian Military Highway. This time our trip was from the category of "communication and knowledge from the inside. " So, the view of a non-tourist.
This year we flew by plane. Tatarstan Airlines - well done, no complaints. Arrived in Zvartnots - a miracle, for the first time so clearly, clearly, without haze and clouds, both Ararats are visible, and up to the very top, which is rarely shown at all. Every time I see these peaks, I understand that I have seen the most important thing to see in Armenia.
And another observation: in Khor Virap, the history of the entire world humanity is captured: the appearance of people after the flood, the emergence of Christianity, then the onset of Muslims. They are always there: Khor Virap and Masis, as a reminder that the borders between the two worlds - Christian and Muslim - are unsteady and changeable.
Zvartnots has become much prettier, the new arrivals and departures halls have become simply huge. The stronger the sense of emptiness. There was no one at the airport, except for the arriving flight from Kazan. The stamps in the passport are clicked very quickly, no questions asked. I myself ask whether it is necessary to show my son’s birth certificate: I have a Russian surname, he has an Armenian one, we have separate passports and my son is not included in my new passport. The customs officer in excellent Russian says that it is not necessary, “he has his own passport. ” I also don’t need permission to leave from my father - I didn’t do it in vain, but I’m calmer with these papers.
Our bags are already on the carousel: something, and the service in Zvartnots is very fast. We take bags, we don’t take carts: not only are tickets to Armenia obscenely expensive, not only do they take an air tax from all departing cars (and from leaving cars - $ 20), but also carts are paid. We are met at the airport by my husband's sister and her son. It's amazing how few people meet - no one but ours. Even taxi drivers are few and far between. Where have the people gone?
In Yerevan, as always in summer, there is no air: the heat boiled up by the merciless sun. We get into the car and drive to the highway to Ashtarak. On the left - Sis and Masis, they are still clearly visible. We talk with my sister, from time to time I look out the window. Yes, nothing has changed. All the same skeletons of two-story houses and in some places destroyed farms. All the same gray slate roofs, fences made of rusty sheets of metal. Smooth red land with dry grass.
We arrive at Abaran.
It has already become a tradition to stop at a shop on the road, to drink water from a fountain. We buy baklava and achma with meat in the store: the cult Armenian gluttony begins. I ask the salesgirls in the self-service alcohol department for blackberry wine - moshi gini. Surprisingly, my sister had never heard of such a thing. They show me a cardboard box with a transparent insert, inside there is a bottle in the form of a blackberry. It is not cheap by Armenian standards: 2800 drams. I don't know yet what the exchange rate will be. Rubles are not accepted. I divide it by 12.5 - the money comes out ridiculous according to Russian rates. My sister resolutely buys this wine for me: the desire of a guest is the law here. We leave from Abaran. The air here is already 10 degrees fresher compared to Yerevan: you can breathe, but at night you can freeze. The mountain pass begins. The road is empty: there is no one except us. I look at the road: in some places there are cows. Villages: houses built from whatever was at hand.
But I don't have dark thoughts yet. I have just arrived in the country of the world's most delicious water and apricots. The window in the car has to be closed: the air becomes really cold. I look at the pavilions of stops: in our villages there are no such ones anymore, something like a rusted booth without a roof. People, however, live here.
We drive to Vanadzor about 2 hours. We pass Spitak: I want to find last year's change house with the inscription "Zaporozhye SMU", but I don't meet it. On the highway there is a Danielyan supermarket, VTB Bank, but the road is already becoming typical Armenian: pits that do not even have gravel, rare islands of asphalt.
We drive into Vanadzor: nothing has changed, except for the roads: they have become even bumpier, the remnants of asphalt have disappeared. Some road work is underway: on the ring, a worker breaks off pieces of earth from the lawn with a sledgehammer and throws them onto the lawn. Quarter Dimac: my husband's mother is waiting for us outside.
We leave, I have tears in my eyes: we did it, we were able to visit these places again. For a long time we can not tear ourselves away from each other, then we go into the house. We are greeted by fruits: excellent nectarines, pears, peaches, like last year, have not yet ripened, although they look incomparable. Conversations begin, interrupted by tears. Then a typical Armenian table: dolma, cheese, booze. Everyone is surprised at what delicious tomatoes I brought: my mother grows them in the country. Indeed, Armenian tomatoes do not hold out: they have a thick, hard top, an impenetrable middle, and strong wateriness. And my tomatoes are sweet. Even more are stunned when they see our green basil and celery: the basil smells so that the room is filled with aroma. And celery was not seen here at all: the sister recalls that it is called carous and pickled with stalks.
It is really cold at night: 5-6 degrees. They say that there was no summer this year, only rain.
The house did not have time to warm up over the summer. We are saved by blankets stuffed with wool. We're not hot.
Still, water in this quarter is given once a day from 6 pm to 9-10. Gas has risen in price. Prices are Russian.
We leave the next day for the market. Minibuses in the city are generally a separate conversation. These are old Gazelles, in which as many people are stuffed as the Gazelle will stop. I'm riding in the aisle of the Gazelle, bending over to the seated passengers. Considering that the water is strained here, the ambergris is appropriate. Armenian women do not need to bend - they reach my chin and stand straight in the aisle. Exit fee - 100 AMD per person. We leave on Tigran Metz Street. First, I change money: for the ruble they give 12.35 drams (in 2011 it was 13, in the past - 12.7). Apart from this street, there is nowhere to walk in the city. There are, of course, parks, there is even a Ferris wheel - but we do not need it. On the way again coffee, which is ground here. Everywhere peaches, apples, pears, eggplants. Figs are not visible.
We buy magnets in the store for 400 drams, I notice that the sets of dishes of the Czech company THUN are very cheap here: you have to pay 500 rubles for a fruit slide, in our city - 2100. Cake sets are also a little more expensive than 500 rubles, in Russia - from 2000 onwards. I note for myself a set of 6 plates with a spatula. Vanadzor is poor in souvenirs: the locals are not up to it, and the Russians are infrequent guests here. At the covered market, we immediately buy what we don’t have: T-shirts with Armenian symbols for 4000 drams. This year there is a new design: in front there are two Ararats and an S-hi-em overhang. I ask the sellers, this is an Armenian production or whose. Answer: Turkey. They go there for goods through Georgia. Isn't it time to just open the border, especially since it is not necessary for Armenians and Turks to confess their love to each other, and the Russian military is still guarding the border.
I am buying for my son a Bolognese tracksuit with a new Armenian design, as the seller assures me: elements of the flag in color, coat of arms and inscriptions on the sleeves. There are few people, there is no trade. Therefore, from the initial price of 18.000 drams, the seller takes off 4.000 drams. The concern of sellers in general is visible: no one buys anything. I take myself thin jeans for 12000, my son - myself for the same amount. Do not expect to buy decent local shoes in Armenia: there are none, solid leatherette from Turkey. Still: all Armenian shoemakers left for Russia and Italy, the quality of shoes in the world has improved markedly, and in Armenia it has disappeared altogether.
We take a taxi to my sister's house. Nobody wants to take them to their quarter: it is built on terraced mountain ledges. We pay 1500 drams, we don't get home, we walk a little.
In the house, we have to cook the obligatory khorovats and a variant of ajapsandal or imam bayaldy on fire. This is my favorite dish. Three cats are constantly screaming, they smell meat.
One climbs into a bowl of meat and receives such a blow with a stick on the ridge from the owner ...
Here in the garden there are still a few apricots: they are almost dried up, but there is no such taste anywhere else. Yes, the Armenian tyrant is unique. But the mulberry is not yet ripe. We take out a jar of tkemali from the maran: my favorite Armenian seasoning, I can eat it endlessly. I bought my favorite Ijevan "Gayane" in the store - everyone tries it, they say that they drink such wine for the first time, they praise it.
In general, a typical Armenian gorge with endless putting pieces on a plate. Khorovac was not a success: even the owners are shocked, such tough meat is on their table for the first time.
I'm already counting down the days until I return. Bad luck with the weather: it's cold, it's raining heavily, no one is outside. I literally have depression: dullness everywhere, hopelessness, lack of money. It's all over, I don't know what to do.
I can, of course, do some cleaning, but after the age of 60, Armenian housewives don’t get too hung up on cleanliness. An analogy with Betty Mahmoudi’s book “Only with a Daughter”: there an American came to Iran and describes, among other things, life, a kitchen, cabinets overgrown with fat in the kitchen, the manner of Iranian women to cook one dish from morning, which puffs on the stove until evening, cockroaches, beetles in croup. Armenia and Iran are close not only geographically. I didn’t meet cockroaches and bedbugs, but when I saw the kitchen, my mother would probably faint: an endless pile of basins and bowls, eggplants, tomatoes, peppers brought from the market nearby, right there - flour and baking sheets, jars for seaming, here the same - some kind of towels that cover pastries. In general, my request to wash the floor was met calmly: rest, clean.
I'm starting to wonder how people live here. That is, it’s good: we arrived, traveled, had fun, left back to Russian comfort.
And how can I wash my face all my life from a washbasin on the street, into which I pour hot water from a kettle in the evening? How to wash dishes in a basin and wipe them with a towel (with what pleasure I washed these towels with a tap when they gave me water and hung them outside to dry) all my life? How do you go through the whole house after using the toilet to wash your hands? How can one not pay attention to the fact that when they come from the city, they do not even wash their hands and start cutting bread on the table? How to drink water just from a bucket, scooping it up with a mug?
I ask my daughter-in-law: how do you wash yourself in winter if you don’t have heating downstairs, the windows are single and all the heat is hot water from the gas column. Answers: so we wash ourselves, we run upstairs to the house, where we heat one room in winter. We sleep - and during the night the water on the window freezes. It is constantly cold, heaters do not save, heating with gas is unbearable.
The owner adds that now everyone has a problem: where to find money for firewood, for the winter you need 7 cubic meters to heat this one room, a cubic meter costs 15.000-17.000 drams. I myself saw how sawn chocks are brought and unloaded in the yards, they still need to be split. I ask my daughter-in-law: how do you pull out the ashes? Answers: so we pull it out, into a bucket, the walls are smoked.
We go to see how the sister's son is renovating an apartment in a 5-storey building. There is a strong smell of gas in the entrance, each apartment has its own meter. An 80-square apartment (no more than 60, I think) costs $21.000, no batteries to be seen here. The walls are designed according to the local fashion: plaster in the form of uniform regular drips and streaks. They like it, I don’t, but I am silent: this work is laborious, it is necessary to make uniform, identical pits and relief protrusions.
I'm looking at old albums again. Every time a new feeling.
This time I understand: I am surprised by the faces of young girls in school photographs. There is no trace of youthful enthusiasm, carelessness, just happiness from the fact that they are young and have their whole life ahead. On the contrary, there is some kind of seriousness, concern, everyone has the same square and knowing look in advance: now they will graduate from school, get married right away, give birth and sit at home in their Vanadzor, not knowing that, in general, in life there is not only This. The sister gave birth to her first child exactly on the day of her 19th birthday. From the photograph, a woman is looking at me with a child in her arms in a floor-length wrap dress with wide sleeves, it is like the plumage of a firebird, very beautiful, and a woman can be given 30, and 40, and 50 years. I look on the Internet for photos of this child, who is already 29 years old, he and his wife left for Russia. By their smiles and faces, I understand that they will not return to Armenia.
One day turned out to be culinary for me: my sister taught me how to make gata-baklava and khachapuri.
A fascinating process, of course, I did not pay attention to the fact that the dough was rolled out on a chaotic table, on which there were jars, garlic and basins mixed up, and the rolling pin was never washed. A riddle for me: fruits here are washed in a bucket, pouring water over them, that is, without flow, they don’t wash their hands, bake eggplants unwashed (why, they still go to the fire), while we never got poisoned and didn’t need all the taken me from Russia smecta-enterofuryls-bactisubtils-tetracyclines. The cooking process is, in principle, simple, you only need time, which Armenian housewives have in bulk: still, they don’t work in three universities, like me. The baking tray is not washed before or after.
By the way, I observed outstanding facial hair in Armenian women in the city: there are beards, and mustaches are a must, many older women know what depilation cream is and complain that it does not help.
We walked quite a lot around the city.
You have to go carefully: the road is a solid sheben without any hint of evenness, you can accidentally fall. A dull landscape: gray limestone walls, gray slate, rusty sheets of metal in the fences, roofs in some places even wooden, and once I saw a roof made of transparent multilayer cellophane. The skeletons of the shops of the Soviet period are one metal frame. Abandoned kindergarten: empty window openings and destroyed walls. School: windows covered with dust to the point of opacity indicate that not all classrooms are used. A number of trailers and change houses, probably, simply did not have time to be taken out - but no, the curtains on the windows and the hanging linen mean that people live in these metal-plank structures. Some kind of surreal feeling: does this really happen on our planet? If there were a competition for the best slums in the world, Vanadzor would definitely enter the top ten. What a lot of gray!
Is it really possible to experience some sublime feelings in this dullness! Throughout the city, I saw four normal two-story houses: the fences there were either made of red brick or painted PEACH, and the roof was not slate, but metal. But these houses were clearly fenced off from the rest of the city.
The central pond of the city: the stairs to it have not been painted since Soviet times, private vegetable gardens border it with endless boards, rusty fences, wrecks that should have been demolished long ago. Where does the air tax go? Zvartnots is more expensive than the Parisian Roissy.
There is only one thought in my head: Lord, what a blessing that I do not live here. I will go to Russia, where there is hot water, where the streets are not strewn with heaps of wrappers from chips and sweets (Armenians do not take off their shoes at home, why, because the street is clean). Where from my window you can see the Volga, and at night the bridge and shopping centers glow with lights. Where there is no gloom and depression.
I remember my first trip, my sister kept showing me: look what we have, but do you have this? And it turns out to be the only two-story department store or several European-style cottages at the entrance to Yerevan. They never left Vanadzor. Last year they moved to work in Anapa for the winter. Now her words: if I knew that they live like this in Russia, we would have left Armenia long ago. And what kind of smooth roads do you have in Russia! ! ! It no longer shows at home: all of Anapa, Supsekh and Sukko, as well as Krasnodar, Gostagai, Varenikovskaya and other villages are built up with palaces that Vanadzor residents cannot imagine in their wildest dreams. And the gray color in Anapa is not held in high esteem.
Another culinary day: the daughter-in-law teaches how to make a cake. I really like to cook, but I don’t know how to cook sweets, so I study with pleasure.
An aluminum pan is needed, it is placed on a cast-iron flat divider, the bottom is lined with paper and the cake is sort of boiled in a pan. It turns out a great fluffy biscuit. We make cream from Belarusian condensed milk, which I brought from Russia, butter and bananas. Amazingly delicious! It takes me out of my gloom.
We stock up on gifts for Russia. I buy coffee for 2500 drams, they grind it to dust for me: in Russia, such grinding is not done in any cool coffee shop. In one store I ask for Javakhk cognac, they give me a bottle, for joy I don’t pay attention to the stars, there is no box for it and they give me a box from Ararat - 5000 drams / 405 rubles. I go to the store I’ve known since last year to the left of the market rows, on the side of the market, where last year’s soulful guy in glasses in excellent Russian answers all my questions, especially since the place has already been checked.
He does not have Javakhk, I show him the bottle, and he immediately sees that it is not 10, but 3-year-old cognac, which I took too expensive - for the price of a ten-year-old. They cheated me in Armenia! It turns out that in Armenia they can deceive! I take Kilikia juices from a guy - apricot and peach, Arame wine for 1750, pomegranate Ijevan for 1500, apricot 50-degree vodka Georgeo Varlames, for everything I pay 6500 drams / 530 rubles. I would take everything - customs! ! ! He shows me the Golden cognac, pieces of gold foil float in the liquid, but this vulgar newfangled bells and whistles are not for me. Three packs of cigarettes for a husband - Noy, Ararat and Erebuni, from 250 to 600 drams. Tobacco in Armenia is real, without the addition of cut paper and chemicals.
Next is the familiar Tigran and Armen store. I take their favorite Gayane for 1150 drams and 20-year-old Nemrut cognac for 24000. Now I know for sure whose factory I will not take at all - I don’t take Proshyan products, but whose I will take with pleasure are Ijevan and Hoktemberyan.
Tavush and Armavir have a special climate, most of the grapes are there, so their products are preferable for me, and I had the opportunity to compare the taste. This time I didn’t take only the legendary Ararat plant - well, yes, I already drove their Nairi, Akhtamar and Vaspurakan, so I can die with a clear conscience. In addition, I bring cognac mainly for my parents, and, you see, their blood pressure rises from cognac and their head hurts (in fact, it’s them in front of me, as soon as you come to visit someone, they instantly begin to brag that they they have cognac from Armenia), so this time I'm bringing them apricot vodka. My goal was to buy khoni arakh / vodka from dogwood, but my mother-in-law says that this is unrealistic, dogwood gives little alcohol and they make such vodka only at home, not on an industrial scale.
The guy in the store confirms her words: for a liter of dogwood, you need 300 kilograms of dogwood, if done for real, and not distilled with an aqueous solution. Therefore, I abandon my original idea in favor of an apricot - it is unique in Armenia.
I transfer homemade muraba - walnut, peach and dogwood jam into plastic bottles from Armenian juices. Glass gives extra weight, but they give me a lot of jam and I want to take everything. My favorite tkemali also travels in a five-liter canister. I write down the recipe and try it at home with my native red plum: we don’t have cherry plum. It turns out great.
Mother-in-law, I leave a certain amount as a gift. She refuses, but I am adamant. She buys me a set for a cake with a silver edging that I noticed: fine work, we have such ones that cost 12.000 rubles, but here their price is 7.500 drams. I pour half a liter of moonshine from plums into plastic, which my sister makes: it is easy to drink, does not get drunk, although the strength is 60.
They also give me small vases for fruits made of black and white glass with paintings. I already have these from last year, but I do not refuse. We were lucky: they remembered us in the store, they found for us two souvenir mugs with a view of Ararat and the Hripsime Church in Etchmiadzin - only 750 drams. But the 15 den Levante tights that I wear are very expensive here - more than 100 rubles.
Prices in the shops of the city are cheap, but not local vegetable products and alcohol. Everything else that requires energy consumption - meat, bread, cheese - does not differ in price from Russia. In the meat department, dead beef costs 210 rubles - in our country I won’t even look at this, but for this money I can buy meat (miso) better. The Grand Candy factory makes good sweets with figs and almonds, but bar chocolate is worse than Russian chocolate - a bar in a gold wrapper is about 30 rubles.
Before leaving, we visited Haghartsin (Р is pronounced as in the French word TARD, the variants in Russian are Gagartsin, Haghartsin). The road is the one that leads to Sevan, after Dilijan you have to turn off. Surprisingly, there were a lot of people here (even in Etchmiadzin it was deserted), foreigners arrived in jeeps rented from Yerevan and even, lo and behold, one fair-haired woman was driving. I was struck by the color of the monument: usually all the vanks and churches in Armenia are dark: from brown to pink, but here the walls are cream-colored. Naturally, it is impressive, like the whole history of Armenia. Arghartsin is in excellent condition. Here you can buy souvenirs: my son bought an oak khach for his neck, and I bought a calendar with views of Armenia for 3500 drams. There is no parking as such, everyone gets up wherever they can, it is very stupid, it is difficult to turn around, given the narrow road and steep terrain. There are paid gazebos all along the road, but you can just stop in the forest, which we did.
Tavush marz and Lori are the most wooded areas in Armenia, there are even birches here. I asked my sister to show me what herbs they eat. She showed the plantain. Yeah, and on the first day, when they ate dolma, they began to talk about what leaves it could be wrapped in, I said about plantain, and my sister's husband objected that they don't do that. Now the sister said that he himself eats 3-4 raw plantain leaves in the morning, confirmed that they also make dolma in plantain. When they returned, she told her husband about this, laughing, he was so surprised: he did not know that there was dolma in plantain. On the way to Haghartsin we pass Dilijan: the same despondency at the sight of their houses from everything that came to hand. But a grandiose construction is underway in the lowlands: they say the French are building a boarding house or a university here, where they will study seven languages (I wanted to ask: is this the limit on the number of languages in the world?
There are no forests in this area anymore, the sister shows me a structure like a shed, where they put manure to use it instead of firewood. I want to scream: Lord, what century is this? Is there a modern airport nearby? Computers? Aircraft?
On the way, you have to visit a roadside toilet at a gas station. There is a flush toilet, THERE IS A SINK, BUT WATER FROM THE TAP DOES NOT FLOW. Why wash your hands: everything is clean in Armenia. Another toilet: a hole in the wooden floor, swarms of flies, no sink, a door without glass, in addition, it was stuck, the son could not get out. We all beat at the door, but we must beat upstairs. The sister's son hits the right place once, and the door opens. I remember how in 2011 in Kazan, one young Hayastan woman in jodhpurs “a la a full diaper” laughed at the toilet at the airport: it cannot be compared with Zvartnots. If only she could breathe here!
Toilets, by the way, in Kazan with a sensor, you won’t have to touch anything with your hands, unlike Zvartnots, where you have to press a button on the tap.
Here we have a different climate: the sun is hot, the radiation is literally visible. There is no air. We pass Ashtarak. Index in Armenian and English "Welcome to Zvartnots Inernational". In Russian, no. Although in the cities everything related to cars: repair, washing, work - in Russian. Ararat is in a foggy hot haze, only the outlines are visible, the top of Masis is generally hidden. We unload at the parking lot.
The departure lounge is on the second floor. I pack a big bag for 2500 drams in plastic. My bags weigh 11 and 30.800, and our norm is 40. I will find out in advance about the additional payment: 1200 drams per kilogram of overweight. Convenient plasma scoreboards, but not in Russian: I follow the logo of Tatarstan. Thank God, everything is on schedule, without delays and transfers. I can't stand it anymore in this country where gray is my favorite color, where it's cold and damp, or vice versa - airless.
Where saleswomen work all day and get 3.000 rubles a month, and after August they don't even get that. Where firewood and dung are still needed.
Check-in starts even earlier than two hours before departure. Everything is fine: they find my electronic ticket in the system, which I first issued myself in the Avangard Internet bank and paid with a card (when I was asked about ticket prices, my relatives did not understand this system and, when they saw the printout of the ticket on sheet A4, they asked: "What is this", and then they also told me not to put the printout in my bag, because it will still be needed, how can you get on a plane without a ticket? But the time has already come when you simply cannot lose a ticket - it is electronic). They don't ask you to pay extra for overweight. I take a bucket of mosh, tus and a painted glass fruit bowl to the salon: no objections at check-in.
I have 7.000 drams left in my pocket: I give them to my mother-in-law, he doesn’t take them, then I give them to my sister’s son for a gas station. He has a nine on gas, a trip to the airport back and forth costs about 500 rubles. On gasoline - many times more expensive. Taxi from Vanadzor to the airport - 12000 AMD. Then something like “Armenians understand everything better” happens. The mother-in-law pulls out a piece of paper worth a thousand rubles from her bag in exchange for my 7.000 drams and hands it to me. I don’t take it, they begin to explain to me from all sides that upon arrival in Russia, in order to get home, we will need money for the road and it doesn’t matter that my husband meets us by car in Kazan. Apotheosis or apotheosis is when my mother-in-law tells me: “Take it, this is Russian money. ” Yeah, in this country, those who came as tourists saw only a lacquer picture of the Yerevan Cascade and other must-sees, those who did not live in an Armenian family know nothing about Armenians. (By the way, about families: parents and children, when they get married, live together in the same house.
In Yerevan, one family lives like this: a house, a common room, two bedrooms, in one bedroom the son sleeps with his wife and their youngest child, and he, by the way, is already 8 years old, in the other bedroom the son’s parents sleep, that is, grandparents and eldest child who is 13 years old. And there is no need to convince me that this is normal, that love and mutual understanding reign in such families, that it is better to live together. All this rests on the endless patience of local women. I talked with young women: they would not mind living separately, but ..... ). Farewell hugs, and we move into a clean zone. Index fingers scan again. Then they stamp the passport. Nobody asks me: whose child is this, you have different surnames, the child is not entered in your passport. No one says: give a birth certificate and a power of attorney from your husband, and give it all in Armenian.
That is, no nit-picking, no extortion of money from a Russian woman with a Russian surname without a male escort, which is often written about on the Internet. Everything is extremely correct, polite, even benevolent. During this time, the Russians still remain welcome guests, relations with which are more than just business. I want to hope that no parties like Zhanmanak will turn the people of Armenia away from Russia. By the way, everything in Armenia is Russian: the gas industry, the railway, power plants, nuclear power plants. And what is not Russian is foreign: the airport is in concession with the Argentinean, the Ararat plant is with the French. But it's better than procreating Armenian bribery.
Next, we take off our belts, lay out our hand luggage for inspection again, we pass through the frame. Everyone, we are in the departure zone. We leave things on the seats and calmly go to the free shop. There are inscriptions in Russian here.
He also does not believe that prices are much lower in the city. They speak excellent Russian here, they don't speak English and French at all.
Landing is announced, fingers are scanned again. We are on the plane. A long procedure for seating passengers: the feeling that many are on an airplane for the first time and simply do not understand how to take their seat. The plane is full (flying from Russia - there were empty seats). We got a seat from the window, and when we took off from Kazan, an elderly Armenian sat down at the window, who immediately closed the porthole with a curtain (and why did we have to sit at the window). Everything is as usual, food on the plane does not interest me, water and juices were poured as much as needed. Special thanks to the Tatarstan company, although many people blame them, they work great. Farewell Armenia. While I have had enough, there is no desire to fly here again. We have seen everything that is shown to tourists. We drove around you in a car completely. We were also in Georgia. We liked everything.
But living the life of ordinary Armenians is not for me. It's bitter, it hurts, but I want to go home.
Armenian children on the plane are the center of the world. In front of me, the boy lay down in a chair and put his feet in the porthole. No objections from the mayrig/mammy. Other children endlessly squeal, squeak, roar, cackle, parents throw them up so that everyone can see. Personally, I didn’t care, but the Russians condemned their parents from behind: why don’t they pacify their children? Apparently, they do not know that for Armenians children are the masters of life and all their wishes come true.
We landed, my son and I, as always, clapped, the Russians too. Armenians are not. You can already see the concern on their faces. Many with a blue rather than a red passport - and these are additional problems. I was surprised that they didn’t have to fill out migration cards when they approached - before, flight attendants handed them out when they approached. The bus took us to the airport building.
Citizens of Russia - in these three booths, and citizens of Armenia - in the other three booths. Well, otherwise the Armenians used to dutifully wait for the Russians to pass control (I was ashamed of this, you don’t wait a minute in Zvartnots). Next is customs. Our bags have arrived. I met a girl of Russian type - she is also with a child. It's a miracle - she is coming from Armenia and she has no alcohol at all, and this, it turns out, happens. She agreed to say, in which case, that we were together with her. We take carts (before there were none, and I kicked the bags on the floor). We're going through an x-ray. No one asks anything, no one is interested in how much alcohol I have. Just a miracle. I look at the next line - there is a desperate gutting of Armenians: the customs officer opens the bags, examines the bottles in his hands, asks something. And no respect.
Everything, we are in the arrivals hall, my husband does not meet. We roll the cart to the parking lot. We are loading. We're going home. Houses - shreds of wool from a cat on the floor, but this is nonsense.
I'll do things with pleasure. After all, at home I have a bath with hot water, and not a washstand in the yard, a washing machine, not a bucket. We are hot, not cold and damp. And from the window you can see new buildings. And they are rainbow colors - the mood depends on the color, and the gray color catches up with melancholy and sadness. All bottles have arrived. But I keep them for now. Photos are personal only. It turned out a little sad - but this makes it even more joyful to realize that Russia is a great country.
Bottom line: for this money you can safely go to Egypt for all inclusive or even to Europe. We don't go there. We are going to Armenia. But where else can you bring 50 kilograms of delicious food and wine, after tasting which, you won’t want to drink any other? My brother brought us something from Greece last year under the proud name of "thyme honey" - well, for those who have never eaten honey ....A tour to Armenia will never be cheap, but it's worth it.