Life in Yerevan

Life in Yerevan
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Places.

This is Northern Avenue which is right in the heart of the city. Five years ago it was the oldest part of the city and was a residential district filled with apartment buildings. My understanding is that some of the building were beautiful and historic and some of them were run down. They kicked everyone out of their homes, tore them all down and built up ten story condo buildings with space on the ground floors for high-end stores. Now it is a pedestrian boulevard with half-finished buildings, a few expensive clothing stores and it looks like it could be in any city in the world.

There is a lot of construction in Yerevan, I think it is actually the most profitable industry in the country but I am not sure about that. Since there is such a divide between those that have money and those that do not the empty, expensive, new condos are often right next to the run-down shacks that the poorer people who haven't left yet are still living in.

This is me at the post office, trying to send postcards. I couldn't hear anything that the woman was saying and had to lean over and put my ear next to the tiny hole cut in the plastic window to know if she was even talking. I think the postcards took over 6 weeks to arrive. I imagine them sitting in a pile on the floor until someone get bored and decided to deal with them.

I went into a church and this wedding ceremony was taking place. When I was walking in, there was another newlywed couple that was leaving and there were many people in the church who weren't here for this ceremony which leads me to believe that they were doing many weddings at this church, one after the other.

This is the Yerevan diamond market. Armenia doesn't have any diamonds in the country, but they are good at cutting diamonds. So they bring them into the country, cut them, and then export them. I think I've heard that at one point the largest import and the largest export from Armenia (measured by worth) was diamonds.

Downstairs are all the stalls selling jewelry. Upstairs is this vast, empty room that has one corner filled with these little stalls built out of particle board. Inside they are filled with the jewelers who do the actual work. It is weird to see the expensive jewelry being sold and created in a large, dusty, concrete building.

This is a gas station. Most cars here run on natural gas, i.e. gas actually in gaseous rather than liquid form. The trunks of cars have large tanks that are filled up at places like this. But when you go there, you have to get out of the car and walk to the other side of the station because is it dangerous to be by the cars in case they explode. If you are too close to the cars people look at you funny and tell you to get away from the cars.

This is me and my friend Alex kissing the sign for Kiss Me bar. We walked by it a bunch of times and thought it was funny and finally went in. Downstairs all of the booths had really, really high seats (that were more like walls), small entrances, individual lights with faders, curtains that you can pull over them for "privacy", and buttons you press to call the waitresses so they don't disturb you when you don't want to be disturbed. You can also get a private room in back. It turns out there are bars like this all over the city where you can go with your sweetheart or prostitute to do what you need to do. Part of of it is that people live with their parents until they are married so if they want to do anything with anyone, they have to go somewhere else.

Alex, Christine and I ordered beers, looked around and tried not to laugh loud enough to disturb anybody.

This is the Yerevan chess club. It is housed in one of the more well-designed buildings in the city, one made exclusively for chess. Of the things that the little country of Armenian does well, chess is one of the things it does the best. The Armenian chess team is the best in the world - they won the biennial Chess Olympiad (the olympics of chess) in 2008 and 2006. The members of the national team are treated in Armenia like football players are treated in other countries. On this day, there was a tournament going on upstairs and here on the main floor there were dozens of old men playing their daily games against one another.

Downstairs the next generation of chess champions were busy training for their chance at glory.

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