December 23rd, 2008
page 2 of 6

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After breakfast, I leave for work. I'm usually out of the house by 10am. Armenians start the day later than Americans. This is where I live. The family owns the middle flat of the building. The windows obscurred by tree branched on the right are to my room.

 

After I levae the house there is a small network of alleys before I get to these stairs that lead to a more main street. They are building a big building on the right. They are building buildings all over the city.

 

This day was a bit rainy, which is odd because it had been either dry or below freezing for a while.

 

Most people in Yerevan live in buildings that look like this. They were built decades ago by the soviets and have heard they were meant to have been destroyed and rebuilt by now. But that doesn't mean there are the resources to rebuild them. There are earthquakes here, and I imagine that these buildings are not that structurally sound. Twenty years ago there was an earthquake in the less populated northern part of Armenia which was one of the more deadly to have hit the earth in the past century. I think that if one were to hit Yerevan the city would be leveled.

 

The streets of Yerevan are notoriously (at least to me) difficult to cross. But with time you get a little bit better at not getting hit. Basically, cars have the right of way and use their horn instead of their break. To cross the street, you often have to ignore the crosswalk signs and just cross when there is a break in the line of cars. But you can't cross the whole way. You have to wait in the middle of the road, like this guy, while cars whizz by either side of you. It isn't as difficult or dangerous as I make it out to be, but it feels like it is. Each intersection has its own rules for crossing it and you learn them with time. It is just difficult when you repeatedly almost get hit by cars that procede to yell at you.

 

Near my work, like near my home, there is a network off alleys like this. Mostly, there are the Yerevan equivilent of nicer apartments.

 

But there is also the occasional huge mansion that appear out of nowhere. They are always both tucked away and flashy at the same time. That way they have privacy and don't attract attention but they are still grand enough to try to impress you when you come upon them.

One important thing to understand about Armenia is that there isn't much of a middle class. A huge portion of the population is working class / in poverty and a small percentage of the population is very well off. The rich are very showy and with their money. One local person explained that the reason for this is partly because no one had any money or anything to buy for so long, that now it is a trend that will eventually wear off. After communism ended, everything state owned got sold off for basically free to people who were friends with the officials doing the selling. And other sectors of the economy are now cornered by men who had the resources and were wily enough to take control and monopolize them before anyone else did. And these are also the people who are elected the government. It's not that easy to improve things when you get into politics with money and the way to have money is be crooked.

But most people aren't doing as bad as they could be. There aren't beggars lining the streets, there aren't shantytowns. This is probably the safest feeling city - in terms of street crime - I've ever been in. No one looks like they are doing bad. There is a sense of pride here that I think does an irreplaceable job of sustaining people. People here always keep their things nice, dress well, eat well, and present themselves as respectably as possible. And there is connection here and a respect for other people. It is subtle, and you have to get past the coldness that people sometimes place between one another, but people are kind to one another and willing to help in a way that you don't find in North America. It is more human and personal here and I think that this pushes the people of Armenia away from the physical and emotional poverty that overwhelms other places.

 

On the way to work there is this one road that always has a few stray cats. Someone feeds them. There are strays around Yerevan, they usually show up in pockets from plcae to place.

 

They usually look a bit sad, but seem to be decently fed. There are kind humans, partial to their plight, and dumpsters that sustain them well enough.

 

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