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Tortured with office work and abnormal snowfalls of spring 2013, we realized that we are fed up with this nightmare and suddenly decided to go to Armenia! Why to Armenia? There were two reasons. First of all, Armenia - is one of those countries where one can still see truly unique historical monuments of world-class in the atmosphere of privacy and quiet, not making one`s way through a crowd of rowdy curious tourists. In fact only this way, being head to head with history, one can feel its mysterious breath. And secondly our friend Ashot Levonyan from Yerevan had been inviting us for long time, and promised to be our personal guide, and I should note that he does his best! So we flew to Kutaisi on April 25, oncer more, with the help of employees of EcoPlanetArtProject company, who composed a personal tour for us guided by Ashot comments and help to buy a cheap tickets.
1st day. We came out of the Kutaisi airport and immediately drove in the direction of Tbilisi. We stayed in the guesthouse "At Zaira`s" in the very heart of the old Tbilisi. I personally liked the place - there was a yard with a stop for a car, and also a backyard - totally isolated, Wi-Fi internet of a quite good speed, although sometimes it lagged. The hostesses were hospitable - one can ask them to make tea or coffee until late into the night. Evening promenade around the city was slightly marred by drizzling rain, but we still managed to take a look both at the strolling local youth and at modern elements of street design, and even get into some hided ancient lanes.
2nd day. In the morning we left towards Armenian boundary and in a half an hour we were had already been there. Crossing the border appeared to be an easy thing without any surprises. In the territory of Armenia everything slowly began to change - the weather and nature. The mountains along the road were getting higher, we often fell into the mist, air was noticeably cooler. The first place we visited - the Akhpat monastery greeted us with a drizzling rain, which was apparently chasing us out from Tbilisi. There were a few visitors and a good half of them - foreigners. Then we drove along the mountain river Debet to a very thugged out hotel "Dzoraget-Tufenkian" in Georgia I didn`t have the opportunity to visit such hotels. Having admired by its interiors and exteriors we had there a very decent lunch. Then we went straight to Yerevan.
3rd day. Visit to St. Hripsime church - surprisingly harmonious building, it is considered to be preserved back from the beginning of the 7th century. Then we visited the first-throned Echmiadzin - the main cathedral of the Armenian Apostolic Church - there were lots of visitors and photo-video reporters. The thing is that the funeral liturgy dedicated to the Armenian genocide of 1915 began across the country just on that day and we appeared to be in the very epicenter of this event. An unforgettable impression was left by church music - solemn, majestic and very beautiful! At the end we were able to witness the patriarch himself - the Catholicos of all Armenians Garegin II, blessing all the parishioners, and correspondingly our group that was a good sign. Then we headed to Garni, the place famous for the preserved temple of the Sun (I century BC). Gegard is located not far from not far from Garni - a unique, half-carved into the steep mountain "Spear Monastery" (according to a legend, the apostle Thaddeus brought here the spear with which the Roman soldier Longinus pierced the body of the crucified Christ). Everything impressed me much there - lots of mysterious caves in the most unexpected places, dark cells directly in the stone array, huge halls with high ceilings, pillars and stunning acoustics, mysterious tombs, stone staircases, springs flowing just inside the rock rooms. Here we were lucky again - when we were inside one of the cave halls, suddenly a monk appeared out of nowhere, stood in the middle of the hall and not paying any attention to anybody, sang a short, but very solemn hymn or psalm, and then just as suddenly disappeared. Because of the unique acoustics the impression was simply amazing. We returned to Yerevan full with emotions, had dinner and went to sleep sick and tired.
4th day. During the night the snow covered entire territory of the sanatorium of some fruit trees barely begun to blossom, but the sun did not disappoint again, we had breakfast and listened to the sound of drip-drop outside. Spring! Half asleep I missed the direction we headed to out of the harsh Jermuk. It seemed to me that we constantly went down, where it's warm, but as the result somehow we ended up on top of the Selim Pass, close to the squat stone building of medieval caravanserai. I was surprised that it was warmer in the caravanserai than outside, even though it resembled a medieval great cold storage. However - the panorama from the height was simply amazing, and we spent a lot more time than planned, until photographed all of the surrounding rocks, snow-capped peaks, each other and beautiful clouds. Eventually, we returned to a warmer climate zone and found ourselves on the shores of Sevan Lake. Ashot showed us their hostel with a great name "Noah Land" - houses of boarding type on the bank and a new restaurant building with large rooms (probably for discos). I personally liked the fact that they have two large ferries with motors and cuisine on board, i.e. in the summer they can swim across the lake, have snacks, refresh and maybe even swim ... (oh, I forgot to ask him about the water temperature in the summer!). One more thing! On the territory of the boarding camp there was a replica of the ancient Armenian military vessel - in operating condition! And it, too, will swim across the lake. A large vessel (displacement - 50 tons) and looked very natural even on the shore. It's called Kilikia, Karen Balayan is the captain and author of reconstruction. My friends were not afraid to climb aboard that black corsair and even took pictures with the project managers. Ashot and Rachik invited us to have a dinner at a Yerevan modern cafe, or rather, a restaurant in the evening. Very cute, tasty, but without local color at all. This modern place would look quite well and in Kiev, Moscow or Berlin! Live music - a pretty girl was singing something light-jazz with the piano accompaniment. I was sure that that was Armenian language. As a result, due to the helpful waiter, we found out that it was Portuguese.
5th day. After yesterday the day was slowly advancing, although Ashot hurried us. We eventually managed to gather our things and headed toward Georgia, but through Gyumri - the second largest city in Armenia. On the way we saw that Ararat is very clean, not covered with clouds and made the only correct conclusion - we stopped to make a few farewell photos. Than we came to the border with Georgia. We passed it not as smooth as when entering - for some reason the border guards offered us to unload things from the car and carry them through the checkpoint by hands. Then we were filed some light claims for extra bottles of Armenian wine, but ended up well, the wine was not confiscated, the things were shipped back to the car. The road went on. And there already in the territory of subtropical Georgia the weather finally gives us the heat (in the sense - cold). In the district of Paravani Lake we got into a brutal snowstorm, the snow was flying with a crazy speed, we could only see at a distance of 5 meters from the car, there were nobody one on the road - God forbid our car to break down! But all ended well - and we were in Tbilisi at Zaira`s again. We drunk hot tea with Georgian sweets and tried to share experiences with other guests. The next morning we left for Kutaisi and there was a stone's throw away to Paris! (In Paris the weather also did not pleased us, but that's another story.)
Many thanks to the guys from EcoPlanetArtProject and to Ashot! It was a memorable journey!
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