That was the headline for the blog entry I thought up when I saw that my marshrutka (van) from Tbilisi to Yerevan today had a little DVD player rigged up for the passengers to watch, and a porn DVD on the dashboard. But the driver instead chose to play a disc of Russian and Armenian music videos at top volume. I’m keeping the headline anyway.
Not to worry, though, the trip wasn’t wholly wholesome: I at least got to see some corruption. As we were coming up to the last Armenian border post, our marshrutka got pulled over by a policeman in an unmarked – unless you count the rust – Zhiguli (old Soviet car, like a Lada). Our driver got out and talked to the policeman for a minute, and then got back in and drove on. When we passed the last border checkpoint, the driver stopped and went into a little shop, where the Zhiguli was waiting out front (but without the cop). Our driver came out with a bottle of something in a pink plastic bag, and put it in the glove compartment of the Zhiguli, and we went on into Armenia.
First impressions of Armenia: it’s really beautiful, especially in the north, where there are really impressive mountains and the road followed a rushing river for much of the way. Armenia is also visibly much poorer than Georgia; I barely saw anything – building, car, road – that wasn’t falling apart until I got to Yerevan. It’s quite a bit more industrial, too, than Georgia, I saw lots of big factories, which I’m guessing were mining-related as they were in the mountains.
As for Yerevan, it has a bad rap that it is a soulless Soviet city, and I can’t say I’ve seen much to say differently. But it’s pleasant enough – lots of people out on the street (the weather is great), tons of outdoor cafes, and so on. There are many more signs in Russian than there were in Georgia, which is helpful. Both Georgian and Armenian have their own alphabets, and both are incomprehensible to a new visitor. With Russian I at least have a hope. I also saw several signs in Farsi; one of the things I’ll be looking at here is the growing Iranian-Armenian relationship. One of the Farsi signs was at a fast food place where I had a shwarma that was so delicious that I followed it with another one (I know, it’s not Armenian, but I missed lunch and needed some fast food), and a tasty yogurt drink called Tan that was much like Balkan/Turkish ayran.
After the break, some photos out of a moving marshrutka. They’re not super-interesting, but give a flavor of the scenery:
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