Return to Tbilisi: Accidents, World Cup football and Vake Park

We woke up at a reasonable time for once in our hostel in Yerevan, Armenia and had decided to take a marshrutka to go back to Tbilisi. We'd caught an overnight train to get to Yerevan from Tbilisi but the journey had been too short to really get a decent night's sleep and the border crossing had been annoying so we wanted to go for the cheaper daytime option of the marshrutka bus. The only thing that had been putting us off was the awful driving of people in Armenia and Georgia which made every road journey into a white knuckle ride. The marshrutka was very cheap though, only 6500 drahms per person which is about £10 or $16 each. It was faster than the train too as it took a much more direct route.

The train route from Tbilisi to Yerevan takes a long meandering route around most of the circumference of Armenia before it arrives o the capital city.

Last day in Armenia: Gerghard, Garni and Genocide museum

We got up fairly late as usual on our last day in Armenia and set out for the Armenian Genocide museum by marshrutka (public minibus). It was a very moving museum with a lot of photographs and interesting exhibits about what happened when the ethnically Armenian population were driven out of Turkey by the Ottoman Empire which at that time ruled over Turkey, the Caucasian countries and and most of the Middle East and even parts of north-eastern Africa. The genocide took place during and after World War 1 between 1915 and 1923 and has been generally acknowledged as the first major holocaust of the 20th century. 

Between 1 million and 1.5 million Armenians are estimated to have been killed. The extermination of the Armenian population took place in two stages. First the able-bodied men were murdered or worked to death through forced labour then the women, children, elderly and sick were led on death marches into the Syrian dessert and left there with no food or shelter. Many died on the way to the dessert and still more died of starvation and disease once they arrived. Other Christian minorities in the Ottoman Empire were targeted for extermination in a similar way at the this time including the Greeks and the Assyrians. 

The remains of Armenians massacred at Erzinjan. (photo care of Wikipedia)

Echmiadzin, The Armenian Vatican City and Ararat Brandy tour

For our third full day in Armenia, we decided to head to Echmiadzin, the country's holy city where the head of the Armenian Apostolic church resides. Echmiadzin was the capital of Armenia between 180 and 340 AD when the country first converted to Christianity and there are several important churches and a cathedral there.


After the previous day's ultra annoying tour group experience, we decided to stick to using public transport so we headed to Kilikia bus station. We caught an ancient gas powered bus to Echmiadzin. The driver had to get out of the bus and go round the back to start it up! It was a really local bus full of people with metal pails full of vegetables and meat staring curiously at us. It took jut over 30 minutes to slowly trundle to Echmiadzin and the driver only had to restart the engine once on the way.

Gas powered local bus with the engine in  the back. Many of these buses had spare gas cylinders stored on the roof.

Armenia - Monasteries, wine and whinging

We went on a tour of southern Armenia for our second day in the country. We don't usually like taking organised tours but decided to put our prejudices aside and accept the inevitable crowds and annoying tour group members in order to try to see more of the country in a short time. However, the tour turned out to be just as irritating as we'd feared - independent travel really is the way to go!


We were picked up by a Hyur Tours car at 9.40am and shuttled over to the main tour bus in front if their office. As expected, it was full of older, richer tourists. The bus was new and had air con though which felt luxurious after the Georgian marshrutkas. Our tour guide woman then proceeded to bellow at us using a microphone in Armenian, Russian and English about any passing sight that might be of interest (and several that were not) almost constantly for an hour until we made our first stop of the trip at Khor Virap, a monastery. The monastery was pretty interesting and was very near the border with Turkey and had good views of Mount Ararat. It also had a deep hole where Saint Gregory the Illuminator was held captive for 13 years before he managed to convince the Armenian king to convert to Christianity, making Armenia the first Christian country. There was also a second, smaller hole which Rowan climbed down but I'm not sure what that was used for, maybe St. Greg's dog. Neither of us got a chance to climb down the biggest as it was too busy. We did see a French woman having a panic attack after climbing out of it though so it must have been good down there.

Khor Virap monastery.

First impressions of Yerevan

We arrived in Yerevan, the capital city of Armenia, early in the morning after a tiring overnight train journey from Tbilisi, Georgia. Our first impressions of the city were that it was very hot, very Soviet and just as confusing to arrive in as its Georgian counterpart. Using our (extremely) rudimentary Russian we asked an old guy in the train station where the metro was and went to try to catch a train to the centre. It was very confusing in the metro station as nearly all the signs were in Armenian script which neither of us understand. Luckily, there were a few signs in Russian too which I can read so we caught a train going in the right direction. There wasn't a word of English anywhere so if you didn't know at least a little Russian you'd be in trouble. I knew my degree in Russian history and culture would be useful one day!

The platform at Yerevan statıon early in the morning.

Armenia - By train to Yerevan

We had train tickets booked for an overnight sleeper train from Tbilisi to Yerevan in Armenia. We woke up quite early (for us) and spent the day exploring some more if Tbilisi's sights. We started with the rather new looking Russian Orthodox church that's located in the next street down from our hostel. There was a service going on when we arrived but we were still allowed in. The inside of the church was ornate as with most Orthodox churches, with lots of gold encrusted icons and paintings of saints. There was some pretty singing going on but we couldn't see the singers. Not sure if it was a cunningly hidden speaker system or if they were behind some screen to one side. A priest gave us some stale tasting pieces of bread and insisted we ate it. Think that means I've ingested a piece of Christ - gross!

Onion shaped dome of the Russian Orthodox church that seems to be currently under construction just like most of Tbilisi.