Travel in Armenia
Armenia
The ninth birthday of the Kaspersky Lab fan club was held in Armenia. Everything was organized at the highest level. We have never seen everything thought out to the smallest detail. A trip to Armenia was somewhat similar to a trip back in time, to the years of the USSR. And the people living in this country are as kind as the Sri Lankans, which gives a lot of positive emotions. We got there for a long time, through Moscow, with a change of airport. And so, a forty-degree country kindly welcomes us with its hospitality, and forty-degree in every sense) In order to convert the local currency into dollars, it was necessary to use a small arithmetic formula (price / (1000)) * 2 + 2. Near the seat on the plane I found a coin "Legends of Altai, Golden Woman. " This is where our adventures began.
Carpet factory
There were even more carpets here than in Tunisia. And some were so old that it was scary to touch. Our first feast was also held here, at which the chef prepared his signature dish in the form of Mount Ararat in front of everyone. Among the local food - a copious amount of cheese. Armenian feasts were about every 4 hours. They fed us in such a way that everyone gained at least a kilogram in weight during the trip.
The letters of the Armenian alphabet were hidden for us along our entire route around the country. To get each letter, it was necessary to complete the quest tasks. At the carpet factory, we needed to assemble a large patterned carpet from a puzzle. The task was unrealistically difficult due to the fact that the pattern was constantly repeated with small changes. After the end of the carpet adventures, we went to Lake Sevan.
Lake Sevan
The lake greeted us with another Armenian feast, and all the dishes were completely different, not the same as on the first one. The gastronomic tour was in full swing. During the meal, our restaurant suddenly sailed away with us, and we plowed the expanses of the lake. To get the next letter, it was necessary to sing an Armenian song in karaoke. My team sang Georgian, but it also worked. Moreover, we intensively taught each word by phrase. We repeated it so often that the phrase “Papa Lisa to Sap” already sounds like a native. Then there were groovy Armenian dances. In Armenia, they know a lot about dancing) The feast dragged on until late at night, after which most of the people went to rest. Since Dasha and I did not want to sleep, we decided not to let the others. The victims were the rooms of Archi and Roman, who unexpectedly turned out to be Valera. It happens that you have known a person for 4 years already, how many stories there were together, and in one day he turns out to be Valera. We played the folk game "I". After an hour of playing, the jaws and stomachs ached from laughter, and one of the fans even had a head, the ceiling turned out to be treacherously low. In the middle of the night, after all, we went to bed.
The morning began with a thousand stars falling from my eyes. It was another low ceiling. Some kind of hotel for the low ones. At the first attempt to get out of bed, I did not even have time to fully open my eyes as I was lying in it again. Before continuing the journey, it was necessary to complete a small chain of tasks, during which I found someone's lost mobile phone. This is about the 5th phone I have returned. In one of the tasks, it was necessary to find the code in the car, which we successfully mixed up and attacked someone else's unlocked car, they ransacked it in a way that the police would never have arranged. In another task, we built a raft out of barrels and planks to go to the sailor in the lake, who poured us live crayfish on the raft when we swam up to him.
Geghard and the canyon
After saying goodbye to the turquoise water of the lake, we went to the Geghard cave temple complex. The temple, carved entirely in the rock, illuminated only by natural light, all this against the backdrop of picturesque mountains and a mountain river, left such a strong impression that Jordan wanted even more. I think this is one of the most important places to visit in Armenia. On the top floor of the temple, a professional choir was waiting for us, who sang Armenian songs a cappella to us. Music was made with voice. The landscape was impossible to enjoy. Then we were taken towards the giant canyon. On the way there was a stop at the obsidian mountains. There was so much obsidian that I was afraid that some fans would have an advantage in the plane)))
Before the start of the descent, we were transferred to off-road trucks and then the full extreme began. The trucks rushed down the serpentine, and the fans standing in the backs held on tight so as not to fly into the cliff.
It was a lot of fun. Upon arrival, we were met by a five-star young Ararat. After a detailed acquaintance with him and a couple of beautiful Armenian toasts, his older brother, 7-year-old Ararat, joined the company. Their ten-year-old grandfather came to the after-party and everything became completely relaxed. A river was flowing somewhere, everyone, like aesthetes, sat on pebbles with glasses, recalled how 4 years ago Zaazych “twisted everyone”, then they remembered something else, but somehow it was all in a relaxed fog.
Then we all participated in the creation of wine. While live music was playing, our and not our girls barefoot crushed grapes in basins. Juice flowed in streams, joy and fun did not stop. To get the next letters of the Armenian alphabet, it was necessary to fulfill any desire of the driver. The driver wished a good Armenian song. It was no problem for my team, especially after the tasting, "Un Sirun, Sirun! ".
On the way back, the trucks started trashing again. Since the trucks were moving up, the speed was even higher than when they were going down. On a rough road, everyone was thrown to the edges of the body all the time. The second team rode ahead, and it was decided to throw nuts at them. When the truck raced at full speed through the low trees, it was necessary not only to duck so as not to get a branch on the forehead, but also to grab nuts to replenish ammunition. The second team began to throw back nuts, which flew at our driver without reaching. The struggle was so in full swing that in one place everyone saw a hanging wire at the last moment and barely managed to duck down. Our truck drove along a unique natural phenomenon - basalt stone crystals.
Massive hexagonal pillars in the form of prisms hung from the rocks, which were also formed by them. They all went with their mouths open. I even had to stop throwing nuts at the opponents, it was impossible to look away. About 30 minutes later our trucks reached the bus, and everyone was washing themselves in a street fountain after a hard road. The bus took us to a restaurant located in the garden.
Wedding
Once upon a time there was a little boy Andrei, who loved to play with sticks, one day he met a girl Dasha and they agreed that someday they would get married. All this action took place against the backdrop of the Armenian song, which was performed by vocalists to live music. Tamada led the entire performance. At the age of 40, Daria was looking for her betrothed and met Andrei again. A real Armenian wedding began, with rituals, costumes, dances, songs and traditions. We immediately formed parents, a priest, an Armenian who was supposed to interfere with the wedding, a sister from Europe (out of the script) and other characters from the fan club members. The wedding went off in full. In the last act, we already had seven sons and a daughter, and we were 80 years old...Eh . . an unforgettable evening, as if we were really married again. After a stormy wedding feast in the middle of the night, the hotel brought us to the capital - Yerevan. That night, I didn’t have enough strength to continue the walk.
Yerevan
After breakfast, we went on a quest to the city center. Among the quest tasks, there were those where it was necessary to shoot a performance video. As a result, the Ararat channel interviewed a random Armenian passerby - me. In search of local attractions, it was not so much the locals who helped, but the English-speaking tourists who came. If the locals were firmly convinced that they did not have a monument to the cat in their city, then the tourist quickly realized and told how to get to the monument. For three days, the Armenian accent became so boring that even among ourselves we spoke with an Armenian accent, and when I caught another grandfather to find out where the next attraction was, I struck him with my clear speech in Armenian. “Exist, you can’t fall where there is a monument to a cat, ” to my surprise, grandfather answered in Russian, although it was clear that he was excited by my speech. Having explored the entire center in a few hours of the quest, we went for lunch to a restaurant in the city center. The waiters had such expensive jackets that it seemed that all your devices put together did not cost so much) We ate delicious food as always with live music. After an hour of free time, we were taken to a guest house in some neighboring city.
There was an art gallery in the Gostiny Dvor, as well as a master class in clay modeling, as well as an award for active fan club members at the end of the eighth year. Now the ninth anniversary hash tag is sculpted out of clay. At parting, the fans sang another Armenian song and went to the Airport.
Road home
The country distinguished itself with its hospitality even at the airport. Noticing my water, the border officer politely asked me to drink it. I told the officer that he lives in a very kind country and told him the story of what happened when they noticed water at the transplant in Frankfurt (I remind you that the scandal then almost went as far as calling the Fuhrer), to which the officer told me answered "They're just fascists" after which all other fans were allowed to carry water. In duty free, the consultant tried to tell us that Ararat cognac is not as cool as some kind of “trachtenberg” or something like that. And in the landing zone, a big red piano was waiting for us, at which everyone who wanted to play impromptu. Big and small Ararat said goodbye to us in the rays of the setting sun and soon wrapped itself in twilight. You never want to end your trip, especially if you fly straight to work.
Prices for two
