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Over the past weekend, I visited Garni, a temple overlooking mountain ranges. Upon stepping out of our taxi, my parents and I were approached by a man who seemed to be the grounds keeper, shop keeper, entrance fee keeper, and story keeper all rolled into one.

Garni looks bigger in the photos, but is still a lovely Parthenon looking temple. In fact, my handy, quick and lazy research on Armeniapedia.org (yes that exists), sites that Garni was “built in the first century A.D. by the Armenian King Tiridates with the money he received after visiting Emperor Nero in Rome.”

The man who greeted us and became the tour guide we didn’t ask for said something to this regard as well. Various earthquakes destroyed Garni, during Soviet times, it was restored more or less to its original structure.

Remnants of a Roman bath lay near by the temple, our guide walked us through explaining the three pools of water that once filled the bath contained cold, warm, and hot water. The ground was made of clay and was warmed by fires around the baths to keep everyones feet nice and toasty. Not a bad set up.

I don’t usually spend my drams on food in Yerevan, but I have had my eye for quite a bit of time on the restaurant located on Pushkin Street, Dolmama. With the family in town I took full advantage to shop the idea of enjoying a quality meal there.

We made reservations. For months I had been passing by(and memorized) the menu they keep outside, so you can imagine my surprise when we arrived, they ushered us into a lovely quasi private room in the back of the restaurant and handed us a menu which was not the one I had been checking out (which happened to be the lunch menu. Instead a hefty dinner menu landed in my hand.

Everyone was a bit upset when I just ordered the lentil soup (in my defense it is my favorite soup!) and it was tasty. There was plenty of food to go around though. In my family’s true style, everything became tapas of sorts. A garlic and walnut paste wrapped in thinly sliced roasted eggplants with gems of pomegranate on top delighted the senses. Dolma was also served. Instead of ground meat, grape leaves held slices of lamb. Some at the table thought it was too tough. It was still flavorful, but we had become accustomed to tender lamb in the stews we had been eating.

The fig and nut slices as seen above were served in a creative way and embodied what the Armenians love — dried fruits and walnuts.

Dolmama is definitely on the pricey side, but if you have the drams or a generous family, go, go, go.

Happy New Year to everyone. My sister and brother-in-law left town yesterday and now I am getting ready to celebrate the new decade with my parents. Showing them the country has been a treat. Yerevan is all lit up with a huge Christmas tree in Republic Square and there are a lot of dressed up Santas rolling around town.

We explored Khor Vorap, Goshevank, Dilijan, as well as Echmiadzin. Most lovely was Sevanvank, a church perched up on a rocky peninsula that juts out into Lake Sevan. The picture below was taken from there.

We had some delicious meals in Yerevan filled with dolmas, lamb and plumb stews, and lots of khachapuri. Will report more on those restaurants soon.

Armenians here take New Years very seriously with lots of feasting at midnight and visiting family and friends throughout the early morning till January 6th (Armenian Christmas). I have been lucky to have my family here and am reminded by the warmth of all my Armenian relatives in the United States as well as my mom’s Armenian family in Sophia and Varna.

A very happy new year to all!

My computer crashed, but is back from the dead with many Russian Microsoft applications programmed on it. Coupled with this, I have been preparing for my family to make their way to Yerevan for Christmas, thus the lack of posts.

Preparations have included hunting down a Christmas tree. Easier said than done. I was told by many people that purchasing a real fur tree was illegal. Armenia suffered from severe deforestation in the 90s (in part due to the blockades, the need for fuel was necessary, with no carbons pouring in from the Caspian, trees seemed like a logical choice).

I came to terms with the idea of purchasing a fake. Like in the States, there are tree stands, but only fake trees line the cement. A bit of a shock to see all of these trees with locals haggling over the price, and despite them all looking perfect, I over heard many a family making comments about them not being so great. I finally ended up at a hardware store on the outskirts of town. My tree came in a box, three parts, and was the simplest thing to put together. It stands about my height, a bit over five feet. Over the past week and a half I grew to like my tree.

But the satisfaction of having navigated the tree purchase was short lived. Buyers remorse set in after I noticed a few real trees for sale on street corners. As of this past Monday, fur trees have been popping up for sale everywhere. Even some nice smelling garlands have appeared hung up on strings calling for me to shell out some drams and take them home.

The real thing must be legal after all, but everyone is telling me different stories, and the folks that claim they are illegal are sticking to their story. I guess, all in all, I should be happy that I am doing my part for the forests. And my three piece fake is kind of adorable.

My camera is out of sorts, but soon I will have pictures up, included the massive fake tree in Republic Square. Armenians celebrate Christmas on January 6th so hope to have some fun stories posted by that time as well.

My sister and her husband just arrived. Next up are my parents. If I don’t write tomorrow or on the 25th, Merry Christmas to all!

Martin the Armenian is the first known Armenian to have come to America in 1607 during the settlement of Jamestown. Martin ventured across the Atlantic to raise silkworms. Armenians, much like their Persian neighbors, have been known for making carpets for over 2500 years. The Greek historian Herodotus (485 – 425 B. C.) wrote that “the inhabitants of the Caucasus dyed the wool with a number of plants having dyeing qualities and they used it to make woven fabrics covered with drawings which never lose their brilliant color”

Earlier in the week, I explored the large market of Vernasage in Yerevan. They have everything. I wandered into the carpet section. Lovely, but expensive.

I have never been to an orphanage before. The language professors at Yerevan State University go every year to the same one in Gyumri. Many of the children who live in the orphanage are there due to the deaths of parents or more often than not, socio-economic reasons that make it impossible for guardians to continue living with the child.

The university students brought gifts and the children performed a small holiday festival of sorts for us. Some lovely Armenian dancing was on display, but the best part of the day was one teenage boy sang the beautiful song by Salvatore Adamo, “Tombe La Neige” in perfect French.

Adamo on youtube:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K-DKXuWuoYM

Unicef puts the number of children in Armenia currently in orphanages at 50,000, I am not sure where this falls comparatively with other nations, but for a country of less than 3 million it’s pretty sobering.

Over the weekend I went with my tutor and his students from Yerevan State University to Gyumri, as city that lies 120 km from Yerevan. It’s also Armenia’s second largest city with a population over 160,000. The small city was hit by the 1988 earthquake that killed thousands. The photo below is taken from Freedom Square with All Savor’s Church in the distance.

It was a fitting time to be in the city as Monday will be a remembrance day for those who lost their lives during the devastating earthquake. Gyumri also lies close to the Turkish border. The Wall St Journal’s Joe Parkinson recently did a report on the potential economic benefits of the border opening from the perspective of Armenians from Gyumri.

http://online.wsj.com/video/a-bitter-century-armenian-city-left-behind/7433E2EC-3D08-4414-921F-7FB4990F1821.html

The Russian military patrols the border between Armenia and Turkey. Pictured below are the backs of three Russian soldiers.

I fell in love with the small city. Despite the sadness sown by the earthquake, a subtle beauty exists in the crumbling 19th century buildings. After exploring the town center, we made our way to the city’s orphanage. More on that tomorrow.

It took me a while, but I finally found myself liking gatta, the sugary sweet bread in the picture above. I first felt like it tasted too plane, but paired with coffee it works. It’s even better with berry preserves. The head of the documentary company’s father made these preserves in the pic above. Everyone here it seems, farm or no farm, make their own preserves at home. The berries tasted almost exactly like rhubarb, but it is not grown in Armenia.

The above photo is from a silent march against domestic violence that took place last week. I only was able to walk for 30 minutes or so as the march weaved through central Yerevan and later ended with a candlelight vigil. A lot of signs were in English. Some of the folks who organized this were from the diaspora. I’ve mentioned it before, but the subject in Armenia is a bit of a taboo in both rural and urban areas. Some NGOs and the American Embassy are making in roads on reversing the stigma associated with domestic violence.

When I lived in India there was also a big push to educate women to seek help if they were being beaten. I recently met some Iranian women who are studying in Yerevan who also have spoken out about the issue in Tehran. If Armenia adopts laws to protect the victim and enforces them this will be a huge step forward.

Happy Thanksgiving to all my fellow Americans! We had a Thanksgiving meal this afternoon. Though we swapped turkey for chicken, the meal was still delicious thanks to the help of the tasty pomegranate.

The Armenians here were taken by the holiday. Though family is incredibly important in this country, no similar national holiday exists. Thanksgiving — a day for pausing, reflecting, and thanking — an easy way to transcend cultural barriers.

The Matenaderan is Yerevan’s ancient manuscripts museum and home to the largest collection of Armenian manuscripts. Unfortunately, picture taking is prohibited, though I was temped to sneak a few shots of the intricate gold illuminated manuscripts, the guard lurking around made me think twice.

The museum holds a fully preserved 7th century Our Lady Gospel. The museum is also running an exhibition on manuscripts from Cilicia, a Mediterranean town in modern day Turkey that used to be an Armenian kingdom in the 11th century.

Outside the museum are six statues. The three shown in the photo above capture Anania Shirakatsi a 7th century mathematician who helped establish the Armenian calendar, Mkhitar Gosh responsible for establishing Armenia’s first laws, and Frik, a 13th century Armenian poet. I had never heard of Frik. Here is an excerpt from one of his poems:

Plant me in the good earth, so I will firmly hold
Southern winds of spring blow, so that I will flower
Prune me and dig weeds out, that I wake and be spright
Dew of life, pour on boughs of my heart, to soften.
Irrigate me gush, so that I green and bud

for more on Frik refer to google books: The Heritage of Armenian Literature: From the sixth to the eighteenth century, p. 524.

The Times, Michael Kimmelman makes a detailed report on the Cafesjian Center for the Arts..

Check out the article

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/19/arts/design/19abroad.html?ref=global-home

and the NYT’s slide show

http://www.nytimes.com/slideshow/2009/11/18/arts/1118ABROAD_slideshow_index.html

Ruth Reichl has written, “There’s no better way to experience a culture than to stand at the stove with a wonderful cook.” Reichl speaks truth.

The love, care, and time our office manager/cook puts in to making these dolmas (as seen above) captures Reichl’s point. Dolma is a Turkish word basically meaning stuffed thing (so says wiki at least). Dolmas are vegetables usually grape leaves, cabbage leaves, egg plant, peppers, or tomatoes, stuffed with meat, rice and spices or with a scrumptious veggie mixtures. You can really stuff the veggies with anything, one of the cabbage leaves today had a mix of dill, mashed potatoes, and carrots. Sublime.

Many folks call this food their own stuffing the bellies of people in Balkans, Greece, Turkey, Armenia, Iran, and in parts of South Asia.

This blog, TheArmenianKitchen.com, provides useful recipes for dolma making:

http://www.thearmeniankitchen.com/2009/04/dolma-armenian-meal-in-vegetable.html

Over the weekend, I made my way to the newly opened Cafesjian Center for the Arts. It’s a lovely museum funded by a well off Armenian-American who understands and appreciates the importance of art. The museum is modern, refreshing and colorful.

It is located inside the five levels of the Cascade, a garden tiered monument in Yerevan. One has to go outside to get to certain nooks of the museum providing clear views of the city. The collection includes Pattie Boyd’s photographs. The wife of George Harrison and then Eric Clapton, Boyd’s pictures offer a look into the lives of the Beatles in the late 1960s. Lots of photos of her time with John, Ringo, Paul, and George in India as well as youthful pictures of Clapton — who by the way developed a heroin addiction when Pattie first said rejected his advances.

Overall it’s a beautiful museum and an ideal investment of diaspora dollars.

The best part of the collection is Arshile Gorky’s seven paintings and sixteen drawings…which I had no clue about and missed. For another day.