Like flipping a switch...

...summer has arrived. All of a sudden, the weather changed from being in the upper 60s and rainy to the mid 80s and sunny. I wish it would stay like this, but I know the 90s and 100s are coming...just not sure when!

I realize that I've been neglecting my blog again...but I shall attempt to give you an update on my latest activities.

Floods and Explosions!

Most recently, these activities seem to almost entirely involve bouncing from one apartment-related mini-crisis to another. The problems all started on the day when my landlord's son came to remove the water heater from my kitchen. It has never worked, so I didn't really care that he took it (apparently they have two broken ones and want to make one working one...). He made less of a mess than I was expecting, though more than I would have liked (well I mean, what do you expect when taking down an exhaust pipe that hasn't been touched in years?) But that, I figured, was that.
That evening, I had the joys of food poisoning once more, and late that night I discovered that for inexplicable reasons of plumbing, my shower no longer worked! (i.e. no hot running water, no convenient way to do laundry, etc.) So the next morning I had Vardan tell Abo (landlord's son) about the problem and he came to fix it. It seems the problem is that I have two pipes...and when they're not connected to one another, the water doesn't make it to the shower. I don't really quite get *why* the water runs that way, but apparently it does. So you'd think this would be a simple matter of a connector piece and then all would be well
Which it would have been. If the connector piece hadn't been defective. Upon turning the water back on, we discovered a giant fountain of water flooding my kitchen.
But the issue has since been dealt with--a new connector piece is in place--and all was well. I thought.

Then on Thursday night, the power went out. For about four hours or so. At some point in those four hours, it came back for about five minutes, but very unsteadily. This in itself is not a huge issue. Candles work well enough, and it stays light out til after 9pm now, so I at least got my lesson planning done, and when my computer's battery died and there was still no light, I just went to bed early. But then on Friday, we discovered that the unstable electricity had fried the hub at the studio (aka: no internet). Again, a solvable issue. We went out and bought a new one. Meanwhile, I had been off teaching, and when I got back, I stopped at my apartment to grab my stuff before running up to the studio. Though I had had power when I had woken up that morning...the power in my apartment was out again!
When I went outside, I noticed a long wire heading from my electricity meter across the street to regions unknown. It seems that the ice cream stand across the street still had no power, and were therefore borrowing mine! Now while I am all in favor of keeping ice cream from melting, I also prefer that the contents of my refrigerator stay refrigerated!
Eventually, this issue was solved by resetting the circuit breaker and then presumably we both had power.

But I should have known that the power issues of Thursday night presaged another incident Saturday morning....

I got up, and headed for the bathroom, flipped on the lightswitch.....and nearly had a heart attack as the lightbulb exploded! (not shattered, though, mind you--the glass bulb part blew completely off of the metal part, which is presumably still screwed in.) So, I figured, I was going to have to do something about that, but not until later in the day when the store would be open and I could buy a new lightbulb...and a flashlight! Because it's very dark in my bathroom, and the lightbulb is located somewhere above the ceiling tiles, and I'm not entirely sure behind which ceiling tile it is!

I continued on with my day. But then while rinsing laundry (with warm water) all of a sudden a popping noise came from my water heater and it stopped working. I flipped the switch off and on, (to no avail) and then noticed a peculiar burning smell. I immediately flipped it off, and waited anxiously for a bit til I was sure that no electrical fire was in the offing Then I went upstairs to tell Vardan, who was in his office. It seems an electrician will have to be called on Monday...I suspect my water heater will have to be replaced (too bad--the thing was new when I moved in!) I'm thinking the outlets here really need to all be equipped with surge protectors....because giant power surges seem to be increasing in frequency!

So that's the most recent news of my week. Also I bought strawberries, a summer squash, and green garlic! Fresh fruits and veggies have reappeared!

* * *

A School Talent Show
Moving backwards in time now, earlier this month, my two students (who are in the same class) invited me to come see their school show. Never one to pass up an interesting opportunity such as this, I accepted the invitation and headed over to their school. After briefly visiting the utter chaos in the classroom (40 or so students, their parents, some siblings, several teachers...in a small and crowded room!) We headed up to sit in the auditorium and wait for the show to start. As it turns out, the show was scheduled to start at 2, but as the kids had to be there at 1, so was I! After sitting down, I looked up, and saw...this -->
An absolutely gigantic portrait of Pushkin. You really don't get a sense of the scale from this picture, but that room was two stories in height, and the bottom of the portrait was at about shoulder level for me. While I've seen paintings this large before (Surikov, anyone?) I do believe this is one of the largest portraits I've ever seen. It took me an embarrassingly long time to figure out why there was a giant portrait of Pushkin on the wall, but eventually I did recall that the school was named after him. Still though. Huuuuuge portrait.

Eventually, after much waiting, (and seeing some truly spectacular parental fashion choices--my personal favorite was the woman in a tight-fitting pantsuit made out of light blue fabric with some sort of Hawaiian/palm tree print on it) it was time for the show to start. The kids, all in uniform, came in, and stood in an arc across the stage, singing a song (in Russian!). This was followed by various skits, recitations, individual performances (dance, piano, singing, rhythmic gymnastics), etc. The vast majority of the show (much to my delight) was in Russian so I could actually follow what they were saying. There was a small part in Armenian, which I did not so much follow, but most of it was in Russian. Later I learned that during Soviet times this particular school had been a Russian school, not an Armenian one, hence the good Russian program.

I'll post photos (and maybe some video) from the show on Facebook, but since these are kids, I'm not going to broadcast them all over the internet.

* * *

I guess that's about it for now...the research and the Armenian language lessons are progressing...not exactly swiftly, but progressing. We started reported speech last week in my Armenian lessons. It's almost exactly the same as it is in English. You'd think therefore that it would be quite easy. And it is...if I'm writing and have time to translate the sentence and think. But orally? Ha. Soooooo hard. And this is coming from English. Where we have reported speech like that. I can only imagine how much worse it must have been for my students in Russia trying to learn it.

And now off I go to continue cleaning my apartment. Mopping and laundry await! The chores are never done!

Remembering the Armenian Genocide

Today is the 94th anniversary of the Armenian Genocide--for those of you unfamiliar with the history this was the event which took place in 1915, where nearly 1.5 million Armenians were killed by the Ottoman Turks.

I'm not really going to get into the current politics of this issue--there are plenty of places to read about that, but suffice it to say that for Armenians, the Genocide is still a very deep and close memory. Thousands of people turned out to lay flowers near the eternal flame at the Genocide memorial--from the very elderly to parents carrying toddlers and babies. The crowd was massive; the police only let a certain number of people through at a time (a new feature instituted last year after the unrest following the elections).

I met my Armenian teacher and his class from the university around noon today to join the crowd as it made its way up to the memorial. We walked down Kievyan, and near the bridge we each bought a bunch of flowers to carry to the memorial. Across the bridge was where the crowd really started to thicken...


Eventually, we made it to a bigger open area where everyone just...stopped. At this point, I realized that Christine was very smart for having brought water with her...it was hot! Despite the weather forecast and everyone's assurances to the contrary, the weather was warm and sunny, and standing there in a big crowd with no shade, it was downright hot outside.

Luckily, many people, myself included, had umbrellas with them, because we were all expecting rain (every April 24th, so the story goes, it rains or snows because the sky is crying for the victims of the Genocide.) But though there were some ominous clouds in the distance, the sky overhead was filled with bright sunlight. (Yes, I am sunburned now.)


Eventually, the crowd began to move, and we slowly made our way up the long path to the memorial. The long walk up symbolizes the forced march which many Armenians were forced to endure (and which many did not survive.)


People were pressing in from all sides...you can see in this picture just how huge the crowds were.






As we got closer, you could see the spire, which is actually two points coming together, the larger one symbolizing the Armenians in Armenia, and the smaller symbolizing the Armenian Diaspora around the world.

In the distance you could make out the mountains which surround the city, but they were mostly shrouded by clouds. Just before this, a few drops of rain had fallen, but by this point it was clearing up again.

To the left of the spire, you can see concrete blocks arranged in a circle and angled in towards the center. There is one block for each Marz (district) lost. The blocks surround an eternal flame, which is our eventual goal on this pilgrimage.

Christine, ever prepared, had also brought along a bag of dried apricots, which she proceeded to hand out to anyone within arm's reach who wants them. A little boy, who couldn't have been more than three years old, took one and then his mom made him say thank you....it was the cutest "shnorhakalutyun" I've ever heard!

As we reached the outside of the circle, we saw all of the TV cameras and vans there to cover the event, as well as a couple of famous Armenian singers. (Sorry, I didn't get a photo.) Then we pressed our way down the steps and into the middle...


It was extremely crowded in here as well, though they were pretty efficient at moving people through. As soon as you had laid your flowers, large bouncer-type men shouted at you to leave. The amount of flowers surrounding the flame was absolutely incredible. Thousands and thousands of flowers. (Which makes sense given the number of people and the number of flower sellers out on the streets! But still, it was a sight to see!)

Then we made our way out the other side, and down the steps, where the pilgrimage continued, though at a faster pace and with a looser crowd because there was more space to move.


Afterwards, we all went over to Christine's place (which was nearby) for an early dinner of delicious homemade pizza. (I always did think that ajika would make good pizza sauce!)

Earth Hour

It is Earth Hour in Yerevan right now, and so I'm sitting here typing by candlelight, my computer running on battery. All my lights are off, and all my electronic devices are unplugged except for my refrigerator. I wonder if anyone else in Yerevan is participating?

"The Best Excuse for Anything" (Karen's Roadtrip Part 1: Georgia)

Last week Wednesday, I got up early in the morning to take a 7:30am marshrutka with Professor Derluguian from Yerevan to Tbilisi. We got to the avtokayan (bus station) a bit after 7am, and while Professor Derluguian was exchanging phone numbers with our cab driver, I went to find which marshrutka was ours. It turned out to be the first one sitting there--a new, bright red Ford van with Georgian plates (as I was later informed, it's much cheaper to register a foreign-made vehicle in Georgia than in Armenia...because Armenia wants to protect its domestic producers. Except there aren't any. So it's only protecting Russian producers.)

There ended up being a total of 5 passengers in the marshrutka--meaning I got an entire row to myself. (We did, however, pick up and drop off others along the way, but there were 5 of us starting in Yerevan and going all the way to Tbilisi.) This was my first trip further north than Aparan (which is about an hour north of Yerevan) so there was a lot to look at out the window! I have about half an hour of out-the-window footage that I have every intention of editing into a road trip video...

We drove through Spitak, which was the town near the epicenter of the devastating 1988 earthquake. You can see a few ruins, but there are also a lot of new buildings there. You can also see the prefab "temporary" housing that people are still living in over 20 years later, despite having been promised new apartments.

Not far outside of Spitak, we stopped for kebab. This was at about 9:30am, and presaged what was to become a theme of this trip--the incessant consumption of meat. But the kebab really was quite good...

We continued on our way north into what I'm fairly certain is copper mining country. At any rate, the rocks were the green color of oxidized copper, and you could see these long wooden slides coming down from the mountains ending above the river. Somehow I suspect the mining practices are not terribly environmentally friendly.

Then we got to the Georgian border and piled out of the marshrutka to get our passports stamped. Once out of Armenia, we passed through the no man's land (a short stretch of road) and came to the Georgian side of the border. It's immediately apparent how Georgians are modeling themselves after Americans. The border guards are all wearing uniforms that say Police on them in English, and except for the fact that they're speaking Georgian, they would not be out of place at any border crossing or airport in the US. After going through passport control (a fairly simple process given my American passport--no visa required) I had to go through customs and run all my stuff through an x-ray machine. The guy was confused by the umbrella in my bag, but other than that, no problems. Professor Derluguian had a bit more difficulty at passport control owing to his possessing a Russian passport in addition to his American one, but in the end they let him through as well.

Then we piled back into the marshrutka and drove off through Georgia. The first village you drive through after the border is not, in fact a Georgian village--it's Azeri. There used to be a big bustling market there but it's been clamped down on. The land you drive through on the way to Tbilisi is flatter than most of what we had driven through in Armenia (though of course there are mountains around). It's immediately apparent that the climate there is milder--everything was green and growing, whereas snow had covered a good deal of the Armenian territory we drove through.

When we arrived in Tbilisi, I got ahold of Dan, the Fulbrighter who I would be staying with. Professor Derluguian and I took a taxi, which dropped me off almost immediately near the old baths in the oldest part of town. Despite the short duration of the taxi ride (for me) we still nearly rear ended one vehicle while nearly sideswiping another. This was my introduction to Georgian traffic. You know...Armenian traffic is bad. Russian traffic is bad. Mongolian traffic is downright scary. But in all of those, there seems to be some slight amount of order in the disorder. Georgian traffic is something else. It is absolutely insane. I feared for my life.

Dan came and found me on the street corner where I was standing, and we headed off to his place to drop off my stuff. He has a nice apartment with a huge balcony/porch area with a fantastic view! He's also right in the heart of the old part of the city, so there's lots of cool stuff to see! Shortly thereafter we headed off to meet another of the Fulbrighters and to have some lunch. And thus started my whirlwind tour of Georgia.

We met the other Fulbrighter (an anthropology professor) in front of the opera and went to have lunch at, of all places, a Thai restaurant. But the food was really good! Afterwards we headed over to the university for Professor Derluguian's lecture. We got there early, and stood outside for a bit and I watched the students walk by. I was absolutely amazed at the fashion differences between Armenians and Georgians. Georgians look completely Americanized--the guys wear baggy jeans and sneakers or tennis shoes...nary a sign of ironed jeans or pointy-toed shoes. I saw a number of people with backpacks too. I didn't notice any girls sporting the super-shiny stiletto boots or shiny pleather bags, or coats or jeans covered in rhinestones either. It was rather astonishing. And I even saw two girls wearing Uggs! (Not, mind you, that I am advocating Uggs as an alternative to thigh-high shiny stiletto boots. Personally I dislike both.)
But yeah...the fashion surprised me.

After Professor Derluguian's lecture, there was a fair amount of confusion about who was going where and who was in charge of what...but eventually everyone but me went out to a restaurant, while I went with Kety, one of Professor Derluguian's friends from college to her mother's apartment. She and her mother were fasting for Lent (in the Armenian and Georgian churches this entails 40 days of a vegan diet), but nevertheless because there were guests coming, they had two kinds of fish and khachapuri (which is really one of the best foods on the face of the earth. cheese is the key ingredient.) (And thus we see one instance of the title of the post: the best excuse for anything? I have a guest! Didn't call someone back on time? I had a guest! Missed a meeting at work? I had a guest! You get the idea.) There were also vast amounts of fresh "greens" (herbs such as cilantro, dill, and tarragon, as well as green onions), as well as a salad with lettuce (and then your standard beet salad and pickled carrots, cabbage, and beets. There was also homemade wine from Kety's husband, and bread and cheese...and a rice pie which was also quite tasty. And fried potatoes. It was a big meal. As I was eating dessert (this thing made from wheat and raisins and I'm not sure what else, and keks with powdered sugar on top, and apricot preserves) Professor Derluguian and company arrived from the restaurant...and thus began a second round of dinner. Afterwards, Kety's mom played some Georgian songs on the piano and there was a bit of dancing....all in all, the event went late into the night, and it was a lot of fun!!

The next morning, Dan had to go deal with bureaucratic paperwork to get his Georgian residency, and so I was left to my own devices to wander around Tbilisi. Lonely Planet in hand, I had really only made it as far as the ATM when I heard my name being shouted and turned around to see Professor Derluguian and Beppe Karlsson (the Swedish anthropologist who had invited us) waving to me. Joining up with them, we wandered back towards old town (where I had just come from, but that's okay--there's a lot to see there!) to see the sights. It was interesting...there are Council of Europe and OSCE vehicles driving all around Tbilisi...the city is also plastered with posters bearing a question mark and the Georgian word for "Why?" (under one of which a clever person scribbled "because.") These posters are protesting the Saakashvili adminstration. But I'm not completely up on my Georgian politics so I can't give you all the details.
Outside of what was, if I recall correctly, the party headquarters, there was a sign stating "Our foreign policy priority is the integration into NATO." In English.

It was also interesting seeing how outwardly religious people are--if they pass a church they cross themselves. If they're standing at a bus stop near a church, they turn and cross themselves. And as there are a lot of churches all over the place (unlike in Armenia where a lot of the churches feel hidden to me), there are a lot of people crossing themselves, all the time. Also of note--the Georgians cross themselves right -> left, like Russians do. Armenians do it left -> right like Catholics.

Then we had lunch at Beppe's house and met his wife and baby daughter, after which we hurried off to the university because Professor Derluguian had another meeting and then spoke to a class of graduate students. (I sat in on both). Then we went off and grabbed some food (I finally learned that the green herb that burns my tongue if eaten raw is tarragon...and they make tarragon flavored soda too) And then wandered around for a bit before meeting Dan again. (We had contemplated going to the opera to hear Aida, but it's a really long opera and we were leaving early the next morning). So we headed back off towards old town, where we met up with Dan's roommate, and went to a restaurant where we had some food and some Georgian chacha. Which burns waay more than vodka as it goes down.

After that, we headed back to Dan's place, and drank some more chacha (toasting of course...I forget who exactly I'm quoting here, but "drinking without toasting is alcoholism". Yeah. that's kind of the philosophy at social gatherings in this part of the world.)

The next morning, I got up early, met up with Professor Derluguian, and got in the van that would take us (as well as a Czech girl named Mirka) back to Armenia...


And I will close this entry with the legend of how Georgians got their land...

God decided that he would give out his lands to all of the peoples of the world, and so he called them all to a meeting. The Georgians were so excited to be included that they immediately started feasting, and thus came to the meeting several hours late. When they arrive, God tells them that he has already given out all of the land, and asks them why they weren't on time. The Georgians reply, but we were feasting and celebrating in Your honor! God thinks for a minute, and then says, well, I do have this one little piece of land left...I was saving it for myself, but since you were feasting in my honor, I will give it to you. And thus the Georgian people were given the land of Georgia.

Update--an article from Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty

Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL)
March 3, 2009


Armenian Currency Free-Falls As Central Bank Ends Intervention

by Charles Recknagel


Armenia's national currency, the dram, has gone into free fall after
the Central Bank stopped intervening to support it.

In the space of a few hours on March 3, the dram went from 305 to the
dollar to as low as 400 to the dollar, a loss of up to 30 percent of
the currency's value.

Until recently, many Armenians felt relatively untouched by the
economic crisis sweeping the world, largely because much of the
country's income is supplied by remittances from the Armenian diaspora
abroad.

But as the economic situation in Russia has worsened, remittances from
that direction have steadily dried up. And the same thing, at a slower
rate, has been happening with remittances of dollars from the United
States.

Now, the decline of remittances has made its impact fully felt.

The Central Bank, which for years has relied upon remittances to fund
its policy of supporting the dram against the dollar, decided it could
no longer sustain that burden.

Read the rest of the article here...

The Economic Crisis Hits Armenia

Until now, I haven't really been feeling the full effect of the global economic crisis here. For the most part life seemed to be going on as usual. I mean, the economy here already had some serious problems (if it didn't, I wouldn't be here researching the social consequences of labor migration to Russia, after all). But the new crisis hadn't really seemed to impact here directly, except in terms of a wave of migrants coming home from Russia because the Russian economy is collapsing.

But today, it hit. The Armenian central bank devalued the dram by 21% and the exchange rate will now be free-floating, as part of an agreement to get a bailout from the IMF.

So...really sucks for anyone whose money is denominated in drams, and I assume prices are going to rise. You could definitely feel the sense of worry and panic in the air...especially if you went near a currency exchange booth. People have been going to stores and buying everything they can. According to my friend Anush, some of the smaller shops have already run out of things...oil, butter, sugar...
For any of you who can read Russian, here's another article.

Maybe i just don't understand economics, but i was just reading another article about what's going on here, and it's talking about how the dram being devalued is going to be good for the Armenian economy because it will improve exports and create jobs.....but....somehow that just seems wrong when people aren't going to be able to afford to eat....

I'm sorry that I don't have more insightful economic analysis than that....but if any of my readers know more about econ than I do and want to explain the ramifications, please go ahead and comment!

Also sorry this post is kind of disjointed--I keep re-editing and adding things to it as I find out more!

Khorovats

On Friday, we had a going-away party for Magnus, who, sadly, is leaving us on March 6. And at this party we had khorovats, or Armenian-style barbecue. It was big pieces of pork and slices of potatoes, all grilled out on the balcony over an open flame (all the more impressive because it was raining!) Those of us not involved in the cooking alternated between watching the grilling and playing endless ping pong. Magnus is the studio's champion, and he usually wins. But it's fun to play with him!

Then we all sat down to our feast. The food was absolutely amazing--normally I'm somewhat indifferent to pork, but this was absolutely delicious. Poor Inna--she is Lenting, and in the Armenian church this entails a vegan diet for the entire 40 day duration of Lent. So she filled up on potatoes. Additionally, there was lavash and bread, a cabbage salad, the salad that looks like sort of liquified pickled tomatoes and peppers, wine (of both store-bought and homemade-in-a-Coke-bottle varieties), vodka, Jermuk (carbonated water) and oddly, Diet Coke.

There was, of course, the obligatory series of toasts, which occasionally I understood parts of (I've got to hand it to my teacher...as irrelevant as the texts on Matenadaran, the linguistic origins of the Armenian language, and Mesrop Mashtots might have seemed, I did actually learn some useful words from them!) Vahe translated some, but his translations were (understandably) directed at Magnus so I couldn't always hear. But I still got the sense.

After a fairly significant amount of alcohol had been consumed (for the record, I was drinking wine, not vodka), the singing started. Mher, our gruff security guard (who was also the one who grilled the khorovats), has quite a good voice! I don't know what the first song was about, but it had tears running down more than one person's face. Then there were some other songs that were happier in tone...one of them, I gathered, was a patriotic song that the soldiers in the Karabagh war would always sing when they saw Vardan coming with his camera...I also gathered that this song got on his nerves!

As the meal was wrapping up, Magnus, Nelly, and I started cleaning up a bit while the heavy smokers went outside and some of the other guys stood around toasting more. Then followed a highly entertaining drunken ping-pong game, in which I was by far the most sober (having only had 2 glasses of wine and no vodka), and which therefore my team won.

It was a good evening. But we're all sorry to see Magnus go.