yerevan, pt. 1

i thought about getting a minibus from tbilisi to yerevan, but then i remembered i'm not boring like that. took a metro to the edge of the city and walked for a bit, and after a few tries (lots of people will offer a ride in exchange for money) i was picked up and dropped five minutes later at an intersection, then picked up again and dropped five minutes later when it turned out that my drivers also wanted money. the further away you get from towns though, the better it usually gets.

i was then picked up by a guy working for the ministry of defense, he told me he had been pretty much everywhere, including afghanistan and the likes. he dropped me off 15 minutes later a couple towns further down the road. i walked another half hour until i hit the right road again, during which i had to pass through a graveyard.
i was surprised to learn that georgians not only have the names and dates or little portraits on their grave stones, but instead almost life sized full body shots of the deceased on there.

i was now on the street that led directly to the border, so i selectively chose cars with armenian license plates. it worked, two armenian men let me squeeze into their lada. they were on a supply run through georgia and stopped by every street vendor along the way. we reached the border, crossed without any issues, they bought 10 litres of vodka at the duty free and dropped me off behind the border.

then, i think it's safe to say, i met the most interesting guy probably ever. he was born georgian, lived in armenia now with his belarussian wife, was a theological professor, had lived in the uk, denmark and lithuania and spoke flawless british english as well as almost a dozen other languages. he had travelled the world as a christian missionary and now volunteered at the frontlines in ukraine (like the real frontlines, he had been in bucha). safe to say we had some pretty deep conversation in the four hours we were driving to the capital (very refreshing to have someone you can actually fluently communicate with), and of course we also stayed in touch afterwards.

at the hostel, uyiun was already waiting for me. she had taken the bus here the day we came back from stepantsminda. we did a little sightseeing walk that night and a day trip to lake sevan the next day. took a bus to sevan city and then hiked along the train tracks to a monastery on the shore. also, taxi rides are actually becoming affordable now, we couldn't resist paying 500 dram (1,10€) for the taxi ride back.Read more