Maribibi_travels

The 2 trains from Bukhara to Khiva are the night ones that start in Tashkent or Andijan, in the east of the country. Got up at 02:30 for the 03:52 train, which I caught by the skin of my teeth – the taxi booked by the hotel turned up late and I had to run – the station entrance is a long way away from the drop off. Running with a heavy rucksack on your back may be ok if you want to join the SAS, but it’s not for me.

This train was the old Soviet stock, with a diesel engine (the line is not electrified beyond Bukhara) and old-fashioned coupe style sleeping berths. I settled quietly in mine in the dark, aware there were 2 people in the bunks opposite. (They were two brothers, in their 50s or so, returning home to Urgench from a wedding in Navoi. Their womenfolk (four) were in a different cabin. We had a nice chat in the morning over the railway- provided cup of tea and they gave me a large round of filo pastry bread (patir). Chewy and very tasty - a kind of borek with no filling.

I was, yet again, the only guest in my hotel, the Khan’s Palace. (A friend has suggested that I should call my blog “I was the only visitor”. ) All of the Old Khiva inner city, the Ichan Qala, is a museum. The thick walls surround it, and the guide says it is possible to walk along part of them – at present, very little, maybe 50 meters near the North Gate. The town thrived for centuries (and was sacked and rebuilt) and grew on the Silk Road goods travelling to and fro. As it spread, another wall was built further out to accommodate this – Dichan Qala, much bigger and having 11 gates. There are some buildings of interest there (such as the 19th century Nurallabay palace, and some of the walls are still there, but it is the Ichan Qala we all come to see. 

One of the courtyards in the palace is surrounded by the buildings of the Khan’s harem. The 4 official wives on the left, the 40 concubines on the right. Though it may not have been exactly 40 – it is a number used in muslim lore to denote ‘many’ – Alibaba and the 40 thieves, the 40 virgins being pursued by the enemy and hiding in caves…

The beautiful, original majolica tiles from the 18 ct can be recognised by their Arabic markings (to help match patterns). The new ones have the markings in latin script.

There is a timeless feel to walking along the quiet streets of the old town of an evening, minarets rising by the mosques, madrasahs and caravanserais standing shoulder to shoulder, the large, carved gates to the Khan’s palace closed for the day. 

Old Khiva is under UNESCO protection. The renovations are done sympathetically. Some madrasahs have been made into hotels – one of the biggest is the East Star hotel, next to the postcard pretty 19ct Kalta Minor minaret, the large, beautifully glazed but unfinished minaret ( 29m  – it was to be 70-80m tall, but Muhammad Amin Khan died in battle half way through the construction and the heirs did not carry on).  Several more caravanserais and madrasahs are in the process of being converted to hotels and crafts and souvenir shops. There has been a suggestion from the Presidential office that the remaining 250 or so families that still live within the old walls should be moved out and the dwellings made into tourist accommodation. Thankfully, it has not been enacted (so far). 

I’m not certain why all the culverts are left uncovered – even at pedestrian crossings. It must be a nightmare for pushchairs and wheelchair users (haven’t seen many).

I was told that the best view of sunsets over Khiva was from the Polvon Ota hotel, near the East Gate. The hotel used to be a madrasah, and access to the upper floor is a challenge – steep, spiral staircase (and no lift) – how do they take the luggage up?.  But the views over the city are rewarding. They are even more spectacular from the adjacent minaret. Even if the climb is up yet another spiral, dark, narrow, uneven staircase.  

The markets are places that permanently fascinate me. The way food and goods are displayed, the variety of merchandise, the way people behave. I have been greeted often as I wander around, asked where I was from (and, of course – how old I was), what did I think of their city… And whenever I needed help in finding a place, people have been invariably helpful – often taking me to within sight of where I wanted to go. 

The women’s footwear was another thing that caught my attention, especially the vendors at the market. They wear several layers of (hand-knitted) woolen socks and then stick their feet, or however much or little will fit in, into a slipper. Most of the time the heels are hanging free.

So many people have gold teeth. I wondered why – one explanation was that it was a hangover from Soviet times, but no explanation as to purpose – was it decorative or needed because of poor teeth/diet or poor dentistry?

I shared a dinner with the Chinese girls I had met along the walk to the taxi “rank” at Khiva station- between us we drove a hard bargain and got a ride to the old town for a third of the asking price. We were going to share the cost of the excursion to see the forts in the Karakalpak desert and the Igor Savitsky museum of disapproved 20th ct Soviet artists in Nukus, but it didn’t work out (Jing is doing a PHD in anthropology and wanted to go to 10 fortresses – I wanted to see the art).

There are some 50 forts dotted around the Karakalpak (kara= black, kalpak=hat/cap – the land of men who wear black hats) desert, though not all have been excavated or explored. The 4 I visited gave me a good idea of what they may have been like in their heyday: thick, well fortified walls, 360 degree views over the plain, room for the garrison and villagers.

The Savitsky museum in Nukus. The works collected are so varied it is now hard to see what was the objection – the socialist realism may have been the tune to which all artists had to sing, but a number of artists have been disapproved of for reasons that had little to do with art.

Bukhara is only a couple of hours away from Samarkand on the comfortable fast train (the same one I took from Tashkent). The weather changed more quickly. The rain was coming down in sheets as we arrived. I was the last off the train, covering my rucksacks in waterproofs and hoping it wasn’t too far to the transport – the Bukhara train station is not in Bukhara at all, but in Kogon, 10 km away, known as Bukhara 1. The taxi drivers were there, touting; it is not easy to drive the price down when you are getting soaked, and they know it. (Managed to get it to half of the asking price.)

The beauty of Old Bukhara was not diminished by the rain, just different. The houses are built very close and the narrow streets all seem to connect – I found several ways to get to my hotel, though at first it looked like it was in a cul-de-sac. With a 16ct hoja’s tomb in the middle of the yard/parking area. There are many old mulberry trees around, and some truly old cars – like this Moskvich.

The space around the madrasahs and mosques, forts and palaces has been cleared and paved with marble, a far cry from the dust (or, as on my first two days, water and mud) of the past.

Most of the students’ rooms in the old madrasahs are now crafts and souvenir shops. Silks, embroidery, miniatures, tat, books, gold, silver and copper, hats, ceramics. (Some old madrasahs still use the spaces for learning, but most are now given to tourist trade, an important part of the local economy. Though people are quick to point out that (new) Bukhara is a thriving town with a variety of industries and enterprises.)

Uzbek food is quite rich – lots of meat and dairy, very tasty breads, lots of pickles and dried fruit (in winter), plenty of nuts and seeds. And ubiquitous chai. Samsa, the Uzbek pasty (beef, chicken, mutton, potato or pumpkin filling with onion and spices), is available on many a corner at lunchtime: the earthenware round ovens (tandir) are fired up in late morning and the queue forms quickly once the samsas that have been slapped onto the hot sides of the oven start being scraped off.

On a day trip out of the town (very flat landscape – after all, Bukhara was an oasis in the desert), besides the impressive mausoleums and places of pilgrimage, the Khan’s lovely summer palace with peacocks strutting in the garden, there was a ceramics workshop that has been in the same family for 300 years – they somehow even managed to carry on during the Soviet era when private enterprise was not encouraged. They still use the same techniques in making the ceramics, including powering the potters’ wheel with their foot. The family is moving with the times though – they have a language school upstairs and I met a group of students learning English. Very polite and a bit shy, but it didn’t take them long to ask if I had an Instagram…

I did enjoy the hamam. Tucked away behind the giant minaret, it has been serving women of Bukhara since the 1500s. (There is also a men’s/mixed one, from the same period.) I came at the right time – no other customers – and Mahfuza took her time to sit with me and was wonderful in explaining the role of the hamam in women’s life in the past – a club where women could discuss matters freely, where young women were prepared for marriage, pregnancy and after birth care and also where Khan’s harem candidates were spotted. I took a walk afterwards, and near the Chor Minor madrasah (The 4 brothers) a girl with her grandparents asked me (in English) where I was from, how old I was, if I liked Bukhara, did I have children… she was clearly gifted – she has only been learning English for a year…:)

These last two images: one saddened me – the camel in front of the Bukhara Fort, looking out of place, muzzled, there for us to climb on and have a photo taken. The A frame ladder didn’t make it into the photo.) The other amused me – here, too, someone threw the scooter into the canal. Getting it out was not easy – too heavy to lift with one hand, so they had to go fetch a rope…)

The fast train from Tashkent to Samarkand takes just over two hours. A comfortable journey, with staff welcoming you at the door of every carriage (and checking your ticket), very much like an airline crew would. The trains get booked up very quickly, even in winter, and I dread to think what it might be like in high tourist season. Tickets are wonderfully cheap – long may it last – about £13 one way to Samarkand, then £9.60 to carry on to Bukhara. I shall also be taking a sleeper (at an ungodly 03:50, a night train that starts in the east of the country) to Khiva, a 6,5 hour trip, for £13. 

The Bolshevik revolution and subsequent Soviet rule were not a blessing. However, the railways built across the USSR, linking all 16 (former Soviet) republics, made an immense change in the cultural and economic landscape of Central Asia. The rail tracks are still in place, but a number of them are not in use and often are not maintained. Local issues, long standing fights over territory, arbitrary rules, political unwillingness, make land journeys much longer as one needs to nip back into other countries. You have to go from Turkey to Georgia to get to Armenia (tantalising, seeing the border you cannot cross), then again to Georgia to get to Azerbaijan. The next bit of toggling will be going from Tajikistan to Kyrgyzstan, via Uzbekistan.

Samarkand. Even the sound of the name has an exotic, magical quality to me. My little B&B was hugging the walls of Gur-Amir Mausoleum, a graceful building with a usual tall arched entrance, a courtyard, and the mausoleum itself where the jade tombstone of Amir Timur lies among other family tombstones. It was good to see plov (Uzbekistan rice, meat and vegetable dish – like a pilau) being prepared for lunch on one side of the courtyard of the Gur-Amir mausoleum; on the other side is the giant block of stone, thought to have been a pedestal for Amir Timur’s throne, and an immense font that would have been filled with pomegranate juice for his soldiers to drink.

Amir Timur desired to be buried in his birthplace, Shakhrabaz, but Samarkand had been his royal seat, and so others decided he would stay there. The guides tell a nice story about the way he is depicted in different places – in Shakhrabaz, he is standing – that’s where he rose; in Tashkent he is on a horse, for his victories, and in Samarkand, he sits, as this was his capital.

The Registan, with famously gorgeous buildings on its three side, the gently leaning minarets, the blue of the tiles and the intricacy of the calligraphy in stone, the geometric designs weaving seamlessly throughout, does not disappoint. The pale marble square makes the colours stand out even more. (Though there is a little problem, especially on the marble viewing platform when it snows/ is wet – it becomes very slippery and even the sweepers with their besom brooms shuffle carefully across this shiny skating rink.)

The blue tiles of Shah-i-Zinda are dazzling, the arabesques and designs whirl with colour and beauty. It struck me that the majority of the places we come to see are tombs, necropolises, mausoleums, cities of the dead.

There are a number of madrasahs, mosques and museums, that are currently being renovated – some will be ready for the season which is due to start in March, but not all. I found it interesting that a museum such as Afrasiab, “the most important museum in Samarkand” (it is a long walk to it from the Bibi-Khanim Mausoleum – about 4 km) was very much open and charging for entry, despite the fact that there were fewer than half exhibits available, workmen drilling and definitely no video explaining the frescoes (needed, as the originals are faint and missing some key parts). The archeological site of the fort (one of the largest in the world) was so muddy and waterlogged, I didn’t need to be told there was little point in going there.

Ulug Beg was one of Amur Timur’s grandsons, and well favoured (he was given Bukhara and Samarkand, among other bits, as a gift). He is known as the Astronomer King and his observatory, built in the 1420s, provided measurements so accurate that some have not been bettered until the computer age. The one part that has survived the destruction wreaked by fanatics (no change there) in 1449 is a part of the meridian arc. The radius of the sextant had been just over 40m, and the solution to the problem of having a building that could accommodate it without collapsing on itself was to sink the arc into the ground. (The Lonely Planet and Wikipedia provided the information.) One can still see the notches used for the measurements on the metal and it must have been a sight to behold when the sextant and the astrolabe were in place.

I can’t help but mention one more mausoleum – that of Daniel, of the lions’ den fame. Samarkand is one of 6 places that has the tomb of Daniel. It is a place of pilgrimage and there is a spring of water below it that is thought by many to be sacred. The legend has it that Daniel’s severed leg (could not find any reference to how it got severed) keeps growing inside his marble tomb . The tomb is currently 18m long and it is said that when the leg reaches it, “the world will surely end”.

The fog lay heavy on Tashkent as the Baku flight landed late on a Friday night. It seemed to be a surprise to everyone, including the 36 pilgrims returning from the Hajj – numerous phones were out videoing and photographing the fog. Fog aside, it makes a wonderful difference that entry into Uzbekistan is now visa free for UK and EU citizens. 

Staying with friends also makes a difference, the feel of a home rather than the impersonality of a hotel. And the weather has obliged too – it may be January, but the sun has been shining (or squinting through thin clouds) and it feels quite balmy. Having read so much about the Metro, had to go and have a look at a few stations. Tashkent has but recently introduced the Oyster type card (it costs 15000 sum = £1 to purchase, plus what you need to ride) and can be used on the buses as well. Each ride is ridiculously cheap – about 12-14p (cheaper on the card than buying individual tickets). And the stations are magnificent.

Tashkent was very much at the centre of the Silk Roads trade from the start and Chorsu market still exemplifies that. It is ENORMOUS, and if you look hard enough, you can probably find everything there, fruit, vegetables, nuts, spices, souvenirs, ceramics, fabrics, shoe repair, knife grinders, gold and silver, fur hats and shoes, meat and eggs, cheese… I still love being able to taste the wares before buying – a few nuts and dry fruits at lunchtime can stave of hunger. :))

The Hazrati Imam Complex is impressively grand (the mosque is still one of the largest around) and the area will be even grander once the Centre for Islamic Civilisations is finished. One of the oldest Qurans in the world is kept in the museum nearby, with a number of other Koranic scripts.

Also tried a local dish, a samsa – an Uzbek pasty. The fillings vary – potatoes, pumpkin, beef or mutton. Delicious and satisfying – the pastry is short, crumbly and moreish. Some good local tea to wash it down with, and all for less than £2.

The city sprawls – the 1966 earthquake, which had flattened most of the town, has also made the town planners decide to build out, not up. There are high rises, but no skyscrapers. The roads are wide, there are parks and recreation areas and plenty of trees. The Amir Timur Square is green, though the trees are very young. There had been a major outcry over the cutting of old trees in 2009, especially large chinars (plane trees) – the protesters called it “the tree genocide”. The wholesale cutting of trees took place suddenly, with no consultation, warning or explanation. When asked, the mayoralty reluctantly explained that it was done as an “aesthetic decoration” of the capital, “to make the city even more beautiful and landscaped.”

The Museum of Applied Arts showcases the intricate, painstaking work done in textile, embroidery, wood, metal, musical instruments. The detail is stunning and one can but stare at such dedication, skill and patience.

And tomorrow – Samarkand.

I left Gudauri (Georgia) ski resort (with some difficulty) on the 4th of January, in a snow storm. The two marshrutkas I tried to hail would not stop (full, presumably, and seeing me there with my giant backpack, was too much). The car wheels were spinning, the cars sliding, snow chains being bought (the bus stop was next to the petrol station and shop). Interesting to watch, though less so when you are trying to get somewhere.

Negotiated a taxi ride to Tbilisi (120Km) and persuaded Christoph, a German Erasmus student who was also waiting for a marshrutka, to contribute what he could. We were both glad to get in (the snowman look had started to pale long before – the hour spent outside was plenty). The ride down the snowy mountain road was slow and slippy, unsurprisingly, though there were those who tried to overtake the queue, unsurprisingly. Once out of the mountains, a complete change: dry roads and some vague sunshine.

Should you happen to be in Tbilisi, the Barbarestan restaurant on the Left Bank is worth a visit – the food is good, but it’s the story, the presentation and the ambience that make it so. The menu is based on a cookery book found at the Tbilisi Dry Bridge flea market a few years ago. It is a collection of Georgian recipes by a lady cold Barbara, written c. 1874 and published by her daughter – the book they got was printed in 1940. It is reverently kept in a box with a glass lid and shown with pride (though I may have been lucky that it was shown me very unctuously by a Uriah Heap namesake…) . The restaurant is slowly and diligently going through the recipes, using seasonal ingredients.

Baku is quite a city. The Flaming Towers (for once, “iconic” seems the right word ) are but one of many architectural wonders. I did have a drink n the Fairmont Hotel but did not book into the $5000 suite…

The Old Town, nicely preserved, is a joy (and can be a frustration, as it is a bit of a labyrinth) to walk around. It is pedestrianised (though there seem to be plenty of cars within – a way for the Old Town to make money).

There are many Soviet style buildings – the best known one is the Dom Soviet, then as now, a government building, but also recognised around the world as Formula 1 pitstops are right in front of it.

I was mesmerised by the Heydar Aliyev centre, designed by Zaha Hadid, all sinuous lines, curves and soft meldings, both inside and out. It is all white and the walls curve into floors – it feels giddy and like walking on water. There are several exhibitions - art, musical instruments, history of carpet making in Azerbaijan, cars (temporary) and a detailed and reverent one on Heydar Aliyev’s life.

The trip “4 regions in 1 day” was quite a marathon – we covered some 800km – it started at 0800 and finished at c 2230. The most impressive place for me was Sheki – a Silk Road town that I would happily have spent a day or two roaming around. The Khan’s summer palace is a beautifully painted and ornamented place, both inside and out, with intricate stained glass windows that throw shimmering, kaleidoscopic colours on the floor (photos NOT allowed, though I can’t see why). The Caravanserai down the road has been in use for centuries, though the current building is from the 18th ct. And it is still used as a hotel. Sheki is known for its silk making and carpet weaving. There is a winery (we did get a wine tasting, and very nice it was too). 

The hanging bridge was fun and wobbly, the honey tasting generous, the views over the bare mountains spectacular. But the trip is far too long and uncomfortable in a cramped minibus space. Just as well the wine tasting was the last thing we did before starting back (and were allowed to pour ourselves a bit more…)

The petroglyphs of Gobustan, a UNESCO site, are a strange pile of scattered giant sandstone boulders with scratchings on them. The earliest ones are from c. 40000BC, the newest ones from c 15000 BC. It is thought that they were originally drawn inside caves, but earthquakes, falls etc have moved the rocks and exposed them. Some smaller stones with drawings are now in museums.

The mud volcanoes are strange (and a little underwhelming): they pop and plop at random, flatulating gently one day, oozing cold mud, only to die down and then another one starts elsewhere. The guide, Gushlana, was a bit disappointed that things were becoming very sanitised (the workers were busy finishing the tourist buildings, which also meant they would start charging entry fees). The newly built wooden walkways take you around the site without stepping on the mud; Gushlana used to take a small lump home about once a year and dilute it with water, to use as a face mask (there are over 30 minerals in the mud). Not any more.

Azerbaijan is “the land of fire”. The Zoroastrian temples have been built at the sites where fires have been burning. Natural gas and oil abound. The “fire mountain’, Yagerdag, is more of a hillock, but the fire still looks impressive.

What I enjoyed the most was walking around Baku. Taking the tube out a few stops and walking back – glimpses of the Caspian on one side and the city sprawl on the other. All the big shop names are here, though I haven’t seen too many people in them. Walked through the jewellery district yesterday – besides the Jewellery Centre (very blingy!) there is a street full of little gold/silver/jewellery shops. And in all of them men were looking at their phones…

Car is king (though there is some respect for the pedestrian crossing), which isn’t surprising in a country were petrol costs under 50p a litre and diesel less than 40p. One of the tour guides said that Azerbaijan was “diversifying and investing in wind and solar power”. Not much evidence of that. But the derricks keep on nodding and the off shore rigs are visible on the horizon.

I was grateful that Gloria’s pick up time from Tbilisi Airport was at an ungodly 04:30 am. Driving on empty streets made it a lot easier – there isn’t much joy in driving in Georgia – much too erratic and indisciplined where there is room, much too joy-riderish and cavalier with signalling on highways. The guidebooks advise “defensive driving”.

Gloria had booked us into an Airbnb at the very centre of Tbilisi – right by Freedom Square, so the town was easy to access and we walked almost everywhere (it was good to have a look at their Metro – very deep, but not elaborately decorated as some in Russia). The main drag was only one of several extravagantly lit up areas – there were Christmas markets, squares done up, live music and gluchwein (or ‘glintwine’ as they call it here).

I managed to get us a couple of tickets for the Nutcracker at the Tbilisi Opera House on Christmas Eve. The seats were very good and we enjoyed the performance (there were some funny moments, such as a prop being kicked towards the side by an elegant ballerina and an arm stretching out to pick it). Despite the request not to video or take pictures, plenty of phones were up, not discretely.

We did an organised tour of the Kakheti wine region with a couple of wine tastings, a puri (bread) making demonstration and the one of Khachahpuri making – the cheese filled dough, shaped and baked like a pizza, but with a higher calorie content. There were also monasteries (St Nino, a female saint who was instrumental in having Christianity made a state religion in Georgia) and a Silk Road fort and city walls… The Georgians still make some of the wine in their traditional manner, putting the crushed grape pulp into giant earthenware amphorae in the ground, without adding anything to the mush (Qvevre method), though most of the wine for sale is made using the European method.

We did our own tour of the Jvari monastery, “the holy of holies” for Georgians, looking beautiful on its high promontory above the confluence of two different coloured rivers by the old capital, Mtskheta, and its cathedral Svetitskhoveli. The drooping cross is special to St Nino (there’s a story, of course, of how Nino was presented with two pieces of wood in a dream and the next day she tied them together with her hair…)   It was a bitterly cold and windy day, and we were grateful for the warmth of the car.

Gori, Stalin’s birthplace, honours its one and only famous son by having a stately museum which includes the house he was born in and lived in till he was 4 – we are told Beria had the house moved to the place and the cover built over it. There is also Stalin’s railway carriage – he was afraid of flying and travelled everywhere by train. The central pedestal in the garden is empty – the 17m statue is in some back garden. But there are still a couple of smaller statues and busts and the whole display describes his revolutionary rise and various roles he played, deftly ignoring the millions whose death he caused. Not until you are about to leave – and I would have missed it had it not been for Gloria pointing to another room at the ground level – that there is some information about the murdered millions and what happened after he died in 1953 and how things played out after Khruschev’s denunciation of Stalin.

Uplistsikhe is a cave city not far from Gori. Built between 6ct BC and 1ct AD, in a lovely spot above the Mtkvari river, at its height was a home to some 20000 people. There are temples and theatres, a throne room and wineries, a pharmacy. The ice, snow and water made it difficult to access some areas, but it was clear that it had been an impressive place.

We had a very nice meal in a posh restaurant on Christmas day – definitely not a traditional one – not a turkey in sight! 

As is always the case, time went far too quickly and packing and good byes came too soon. It was lovely to share those few days together. Gloria headed back to London and work the next day, and I headed to Gudauri, a ski resort in the Greater Caucasus.

Gudauri is a fairly new resort (just over 30 years old) and it is obvious that there has been a major investment in infrastructure – various lifts and gondolas – and there are plenty of places on the mountain to eat and drink (with inevitable techno/dance blasting from enormous loudspeakers), though most are with outdoor seating only. The runs, including the two blacks, are groomed, and there’s plenty of room. Besides the Georgians and the Russians, it attracts people from Dubai and other Arab countries and I even met two Austrians – they like the low cost here (a 6 day pass is 300 lari, c £90).

There are a number of things that could be done better – access to the turnstiles is not cleared, steps are covered in snow, toilets are all on the level but an obstacle course to reach, there are few big maps of the ski area up (have seen only one), the names of chairlifts and gondolas are not displayed on them, so where there are several, it’s a guess which is which. One learns quickly.

And there is no village of Gudauri. It is all hotels and rental apartments, restaurants and a few kiosks, a police station, a petrol station and a couple of food shops. No pavements, of course. Walking on the road is like dicing with death – the drivers think they own the road…If the weather is inclement and there is no skiing, there is little to do. But if you want to learn to ride a snowmobile, or maybe heliski, that can be done.

But at the moment, skiing is good and the weather fine. My champagne is chilling on the balcony… :)) The middle pic is me fraternising with the locals, Jagermeister and all. :))

Happy New Year.

Dilijan, a lovely mountain town (I’ve been told more than once that the area was “the Switzerland of Armenia”) not that far from the capital Yerevan, has its fair share of dilapidated Soviet architecture. One of the most notable ruins is the circular villa built in 1936 for Aghasi Khanjian, the first secretary of the Communist Party of Armenia who held the post for six years. This was his summer residence. It has a neo-classical feel, but I’m told it was built in “Armenian modernist style”. It is on a prominent site above the town, and must have been a sight to behold (though not many would have been allowed near, from what I can see – fences are still there). The views over the river Aghstev and the mountains are lovely. I also liked the live sculpture of the King of the Forest. There were lots of supporting buildings, some in a Swiss chalet style, some clearly utilitarian. There is a basketball court (overgrown).

I recall our student visit to Russia in the early 70’s (Kiev, Moscow, Leningrad, by train). Tennis was considered “a capitalist game” and not played or encouraged, but badminton and basketball were seen as suitable for socialist youth.

Ijevan, up the road from Dilijan, is in a lovely spot on the river Aghstev, with a long park on one side it, filled with sculptures. Ijevan means caravanserai in Armenian and it was a major Silk Road trading post . It is also a wine and cognac producing area – have been drinking Ijevan reds for a while now.

Getting back to Dilijan (on public transport) proved to be difficult. It was bitterly cold and windy. Normally, there are a number of marshrutkas on the road but on that Sunday none turned up. I started to walk back to the town (the winery is c 2km out) and also put my thumb out; after a while, a Toyota RAV stopped. Said I wanted to go to Dilijan and the chap said ok, he had time… It turned out he was a refugee from Nagorno-Kharabakh, a former soldier (he was in his forties, and had lost his right arm below the elbow) who told me he had arrived in Ijevan about three months ago, with little more than his car – there had been no warning from the Armenian government about the Azerbaijani takeover . He thought the Armenian government had made a deal, as otherwise the people leaving would have destroyed property and made places uninhabitable. He was understandably bitter. He drove me the 40 K to Dilijan and would not accept anything for it – he said to think of it as a kindness from an Armenian; he then went round the roundabout back to Ijevan. I also found out why there were no marshrutkas – there had been an accident with a marshrutka, which we saw overturned on the road.

The trip to the monasteries up in the mountains is lovely – It must be a joy to hike around here. It is sufficiently high here for the temperature to be comfortable, even when Yerevan is boiling. The Hagahartsin Monastery, up a hairpin road through the forest of the National Park, has been restored with an UAE Sheik’s money and looks good – the enormous Refectory especially.

The Ghoshavank is in a gorgeous spot (but then, they all are!) and all monasteries had libraries, manuscript copying schools and universities. It is not surprising the Armenians are so proud of their literary heritage – Mesrop Mashtots alphabet, created in 405, was well received and the first Bible in new Armenian script came out the same year (they used cuneiform before).

Debed Canyon is full of things to explore – from, yes, monasteries and churches, but also breathtaking scenery and some abandoned and half-destroyed Soviet-era industrial buildings. There is also a monument and museum to the Mikoyan brothers – one of whom was the chief designer of the MIG 21 fighter plane, and the other was a member of the Soviet Presidium during the Cuban crisis.

Taxi drivers are opinionated everywhere. Ashat, who had been a USSR judo champion in his youth (he is 55), now drove a Mercedes taxi and took me around the Debed Canyon (and to Tbilisi the next day). He felt very strongly that things were NOT all better since the dissolution of the USSR. As he put it, before the dissolution, people had jobs, could buy their homes, a car, go on a holiday… He pointed to the abandoned gold refinery in the canyon – 7000 people had worked there. There is no work now. The railways ran throughout the country – now there is only one line working between Yerevan and Tbilisi, and one between Yerevan and Gyumri, Armenia’s 2nd city. (The photo of the twin rail bridges: one built by the Russian tzar in the late 19th ct, using no welding, just bolts; the other a new one, built recently. Ashat said the Imperial one is now “the reserve”.) The stone bridge is the Queen Tamar one, 7ct.

He had little love of Georgians, who were “arrogant and self-serving, egotistic and unpleasant”. He even had an opinion on their language and writing, saying their script was like spaghetti and they spoke as if they had a hot potato in their mouth. Nevertheless, he gave a lift to a Georgian police officer from the border to Tbilisi and they had a really nice chat in Russian.

Tbilisi next – and Christmas with Gloria.