Armenia: Surviving and thriving after generations of suffering

(This is the first of a three-part series on Armenia.)

YEREVAN, Armenia – Every country associated with communism has a ghoul tour. I’ve seemingly been to them all.

There’s the Killing Fields in Cambodia where a glass tower holds the skulls of people murdered there under the Khmer Rouge. There’s the Occupation Museum in Latvia displaying a photo of a sobbing mother holding her infant as she says goodbye – right before the Russian soldier behind her shoots her in the head. In Vietnam’s appropriately named Museum of American War Atrocities, I saw dead infants grossly deformed in formaldehyde from the U.S. Military’s Agent Orange.

When I walked through the Armenian Genocide Museum here two weeks ago, it was like flipping through a photo album of one of the world’s most cursed families. Photos of Armenian priests hanging in a public square behind Ottoman soldiers. Decapitated heads on a desk for public view. Stories of children being buried alive, and photos of them piled dead after bleeding out on meat hooks. Lines of Armenians being marched single file into the Syrian desert to die of exposure.

I learned their side of conflicts with neighboring Azerbaijan. Such as in 1988 when Azerbaijanis stormed the Armenian quarter in Sumgait, Azerbaijan, and burned houses, axed Armenians and threw them, alive and dead, from atop apartment towers.

Just three years ago, Azerbaijan expelled 75,000 Armenians living in the Azerbaijan region of Nagorno-Karabakh.

Considering Armenia’s length of bloodshed, I felt surrounded by the most persecuted people in history. I always knew about Armenia’s plight in the world. This was worse.

Much worse.

Near the museum’s exit, I jotted down all the tragedies Armenia has faced. Earthquakes. Josef Stalin. Genocide. Azerbaijan.

But outside the museum, the capital of Yerevan was alive. It pulsated with nightlife, parks, commerce and growth. The country’s wine scene (which I’ll blog next week) is booming. I hiked in Dilijan National Park, called “the Switzerland of Armenia” (a blog the following week).

The Armenians are not just survivors. They’re thrivers. Over 10 days in this small, landlocked former Soviet republic the size of Maryland, my admiration replaced pity. My appreciation grew with every local’s smile and raised wine glass punctuated with “Kenats! (Cheers!)”

As the Armenian saying goes, “Armenians were caught between the hammer and the anvil. But if the hammer falls often enough, you end up with a diamond.”

Why Armenia?

Marina and I visited Azerbaijan last year and adored the capital of Baku, brightly lit like an Islamic Las Vegas without the garishness of Dubai. We heard stories from Azerbaijanis who fought against the Armenians. I wanted to see the other side.

In my other life as a food and sportswriter in the United States, I once did a food column from Glendale, Calif., which has the largest Armenian community outside Armenia. I fell for the grilled meats, the succulent wines.

For eight years in Las Vegas I wrote in various capacities about college basketball at UNLV which had a legendary coach named Jerry Tarkanian. He had Armenian roots and his family history poleaxed me. The Turks beheaded his grandfather and uncle. His mother, a child at the time, fled on horseback with a brother.

Tarkanian was nicknamed “Father Flanagan,” a coach who took in troubled players other coaches didn’t want. The hospitable Armenians I met helped me finally make the connection – nearly 35 years after I last wrote about the man.

City tour

For an idea of Armenia’s historic plight, just look at a map. After the apostles Jude and Bartholomew founded the Armenian church in the 1st century A.D., it became the world’s first Christian nation in 301. Yet on today’s map it shares borders with Azerbaijan, Turkey and Iran, all Muslim countries.

“We are surrounded by unfriendly neighbors,” said Dareh Kooumchian, who owns Yerevan’s funky Gini Pig wine bar.

Of the 14 million Armenians in the world, only three million live in Armenia.

I peppered questions about Armenia’s past to Vako Khakhamian. He’s somewhat of a local legend for running Yerevan’s free city walking tour for the last 11 years. He’s traveled all over the world and with his scarf and stylish gray hair, he cuts a rakish figure walking Yerevan’s manicured, brightly lit streets every day.

We met in front of the Armenia Marriott. During Soviet times, it was a drab Intourist hotel. Today it’s a five-gem jewel in Marriott’s long international chain. It sits on Republic Square, a massive 30,000-square-meter (3.5 hectares) plaza that’s the largest in Asia’s South Caucasus region.

On a sunny afternoon in the low 50s, we stared across the square to the Armenian History Museum, a neoclassical palace with Ionian columns built in 1919. The square was sprinkled with small Christmas trees awaiting lights.

At night, Republic Square was alive with lovers, families, sharply dressed businessmen and women. Marina and I would slow our pace as we walked through to our nearby hotel. We’d hear live singing from filled restaurants and street musicians playing old Armenian love songs.

But only two years ago it was the site of a series of protests that made international news. Armenians broke windows of government buildings and clashed with police over prime minister Nikol Pashinyan agreeing to hand over disputed border areas with Azerbaijan. They demanded that Pashinyan resign.

The country has rattled sabers with Azerbaijan for more than 40 years. Nagorno-Karabakh has been populated by ethnic Armenians since 500 B.C. In the late 1980s, as the USSR began to crumble, Armenia wanted unification with the region.

When the Soviet Union collapsed, Azerbaijan and Armenia fought over the territory. The conflict finally ended two years ago when Azerbaijan won and, fearing another genocide, many of the 75,000 Armenians who fled moved to Armenia, the home of their blood but not their heart. 

Today, the border between the two countries is closed.

As Vako dodged a barking dog who had taken a liking on his tours the last two months, I asked how much resentment Armenians have toward Azerbaijan.

“It’s 100 percent, of course,” he said feigning a half-hearted charge at the dog. “Well, it depends on who you ask. Some people say, ‘Well, whatever.’ The people don’t care. But the army and the whole government, they did a lot of bad stuff.

“After killing soldiers, they’d cut their heads and put them on display in the cities and towns.”

When I asked Armenians about the Turks, most shrugged. Another lifetime ago, they say. Yet Armenia’s border with Turkey is closed, too. If Armenians want to leave the country by car, there’s always Georgia to the north or Iran to the south.

I asked Vako how Turks claim the genocide never existed even though human rights groups maintain they killed 1.5 million Armenians from 1915-23.

“They said it was world war,” Vako said with a shrug. “‘We killed them; they killed us.’ But where are they Armenians? They’re all gone.”

Yerevan today

Walking through glittery Yerevan while discussing bloodshed and wholesale slaughter was almost as uncomfortable as discussing internal health problems at an elegant dinner. It felt awkward. Yerevan surprised me that much.

As the sun set and lights came on, bathing bustling Republic Square in golden light, we walked by a bakery where a tall man in a white smock slapped a loaf of flattened, leavened bread against the side of a giant clay pot. This would be the lavash that would accompany our every meal. 

Most of what we passed was built after the Soviet collapse and Armenia’s independence in 1991. About 100 years ago, a Russian-born Armenian architect named Alexander Tamanyan had a vision to  modernize Yerevan. He wanted to transform it from a small city to a vibrant capital based on green spaces, broad avenues and a central area.

The new nation of Armenia dusted off Tamanyan’s plan and built parks. It knocked down the old drab choc-a-bloc Soviet architecture and added modern buildings. They installed restaurants. I stopped counting how many wine bars I passed.

But Yerevan also kept its culture. We went by beautiful 19th century buildings made of tufa, the volcanic stone this region sits on. Yes, it has been the setting of thousands of earthquakes but it makes great financial buildings.

The city may bring back their old-fashioned trams.

Unlike some ex-Soviet republics that have struggled without Mother Russia’s safety net, Armenia appears to be thriving. It is rich with copper, coal and IT and boasts a GDP of nearly $28 billion. In 2010 it was $9 billion.

The city’s skyline is sprinkled with cranes. New stylish apartment buildings are replacing old Soviet blocks. New offices are going up. Yerevan has 1.3 million people and 700,000 cars.

But with progress comes problems. The construction and traffic have given Yerevan the most polluted air I’ve seen outside Beijing. Majestic 16,854-foot (5,137-meter) Mt. Ararat, which looks like Armenia’s Kilimanjaro, is only 40 miles from the capital. I saw its photo in every souvenir shop.

I never saw it once. I could barely see buildings a few miles away.

Lunch with a local

Armenia is famous for its Christian churches and monasteries, many of which I passed during long walks through the mountains, sticking out in the wilderness like a skyscraper in a desert. Just up the road from Republic Square is one of the cutest churches in Europe.

Katoghike, Armenian for “Cathedral,” looks like a church for Lilliputians. The domed, stone building has a chapel big enough for only about 20 people. It is dwarfed by the modern Surp Anna Church next to it.

Katoghike is the only church that survived Armenia’s 1679 earthquake which killed 7,600 people. It also survived the Soviets who tried leveling it in 1936, only turning away when faced with the wrath of locals.

As we hovered around the crowded entrance, a priest in a long gold robe followed another priest waving an incense canister into the packed chapel. Locals all crossed themselves in unison. As did Marina.

Like their alphabet, which was invented in 405 A.D. and looks taken off a musical score, Armenians have a very distinct, attractive look. Dark eyes. Long, curly hair. Prominent noses. Yerevan is famous for its medical procedures for noses. In our hotel we saw two young women, maybe in their teens, recovering from surgery with giant bandages across their faces.

Ella Berberian told us that Armenian women have always sought to be thin. But the Kardashians, the curvy American-Armenian beauties famous for being famous, made Armenian women change their self image. Curvy is now nervy.

We sat for lunch at a modern cafe serving a long list of sandwiches and soups with Ella, a fellow blogger who writes well-received English-language essays about life. Her impossibly thick, curly hair cascaded out from under a stocking cap on a sunny, chilly day. Thirty-six and married, she wore bright red lipstick, typical of Armenians who seem as fashion conscious as those back home in Rome.

Ella’s grandparents were Armenians living in Istanbul during the Ottoman Empire. They survived and she focuses more on Armenia’s bright present than its bleak past. I asked her what she likes most about her country.

“I like the diversity,” she said. “Because it was homogenous and it was really bothering me. It was like being without dialogue and without a proper reality check. Now since people ran away from Russia and stayed, people from Lebanon and from Syria arrived, it helped Armenia to become more diverse.”

Ella was bubbly and happy, like many I observed in the streets. I asked her if her generation hates Azerbaijanis, particularly lately.

“I don’t know. Maybe in regions,” she said, sipping her coffee. “Maybe when the thing escalates they can hate on each other. The structure of our country is very different. We’re trying to embrace democracy. Azerbaijan is an autocratic state with a leader who hasn’t changed, ever, since he was born.”

I wondered if Armenians’ optimism is based on surviving a millennium of tragedies. I asked if her people have any traits built up from past events. She said they’re terrible at queuing up. A Jewish friend once asked her, “When was the last time Armenians knew how to stand in line?”

Ella smiled and said, “And I remembered. The last time was genocide. I could see they were standing in beautiful lines.

“The other habit is keeping a lot of unnecessary stuff. They have lost their possessions so many times, they are afraid. People don’t rush to say goodbye to many things, even a half-broken chair. ‘I may use this.’”

Food

Through all this history, I had to explore the Armenia that first attracted me: Food. I remember how neighborhoods in Glendale smelled like a giant outdoor barbecue.

Marina and I first ate at Dolmama, built 25 years ago during Yerevan’s restaurant boom. Often called Yerevan’s best restaurant, It has the feel of an Armenian grandmother’s living room with patterned wallpaper, framed paintings and roses in vases in a 19th century house. Soft music played.

Hillary Clinton, George Cooney and Vladimir Putin dined there.

I had the Armenian classic, khashlama, a big hunk of beef cooked for eight hours in white wine and served with a spicy plum confit and bell peppers.

The next night we went modern Yerevan. Opened just three years ago, Lalli is an Armenian-Georgian restaurant lined with floor-to-ceiling arched windows and ferns. It’s loud, lively and packed every night. I had the ojakhuri, a fantastic, famous Georgian dish of grilled beef, potatoes, tomatoes, dill leaves and pomegranate.

As we walked home, we glanced through a window of another new restaurant. Armenians were dancing to a live band wailing old Armenian hits.

The famous Armenians

While meeting Armenians, I asked if Tarkanian was a common Armenian name. Not one had ever heard of it. Maybe all of “Tark’s” family escaped without leaving a trace. 

What I did learn is that Armenians over the centuries have accomplished great things. Armenians built some of the most opulent buildings in the Ottoman Empire such as the Dolmabahce Palace in Istanbul. Anton Surian built ships that saved the Venetian Empire. During the Ottoman Empire, 29  Armenians earned the rank of pasha, the dynasty’s highest military order.

Its dysphoria produced Arden Patapoutian who won the Nobel Prize for physiology, Cher, Kim Kardashian, Andre Agassi and a national champion college basketball coach in Las Vegas.

But no one knew a Tarkanian. 

Then as I was leaving the town of Dilijan and the national park, I wondered about the towering spire that sticks up in the middle of the town. It was built in 1970 to commemorate the 50th anniversary of Soviet Armenia. (The Soviets aided Armenia in its conflicts with the Ottomans and some loyalty remains.) The five-pointed crown represents the five decades of Soviet rule.

It’s a striking sight, sticking up among the brown mountains like an exclamation point of Armenia’s natural beauty. I looked up the architect. And there it was.

Artur Tarkhanyan.

Tark’s family must’ve anglicized the name. And they’re everywhere. Armenians are everywhere. As coaches always say:

Tough times don’t last. Tough people do.

If you’re thinking of going …

How to get there: You can fly direct from many European cities including Berlin, Barcelona and Rome. I flew WizzAir direct round trip from Rome for €133.55, including baggage fees, for the four-hour flight.

Where to stay: Paris Hotel, 4/6 Amiryan Str., Yerevan, 374-60-600-000, www.parishotel.am, info@parishotel.am. Excellent four-star hotel one block from Republic Square. Opened 10 years ago as part of Yerevan’s building boom. Boasts a posh, romantic top-floor bar with live music and one of the best breakfast buffets in Europe. I paid about €120 a night for four nights.

Where to eat: Dolmama, 10 Pushkin Str., Yerevan, 374-10-561-354, www.dolmama.am, dolmama98@gmail.com. Maybe best-known restaurant in Yerevan, opened in 1998 in a rustic 19th century building. Mains start at €15. I paid €87 for two including wine.

When to go: As I advise all travelers, avoid the world in July and August, even a non-major tourist destination such as Armenia. In those months, Yerevan is in the mid-90s. Armenia is famous for its wildflowers. Ideal is spring where highs are in the 70s. During our stay in November, it was in the 40s and 50s and sunny. No rain.

For more information: Yerevan Tourist Information Center, 2/1 Nalbandyan St., 10 a.m.-6 p.m.

(Part 2: Armenian wine scene)