Shushi.. and a time to stop and think

I know I haven't written since August, but I really want to keep this blog. I want to continue form where I left... The Republic of Nagorno Karabakh, as I have friends there, and people like family. This post will be short but I hope it will be the first in many in this new beginning.

I stayed in Stepanakert, and I couldn't have asked more hospitality than the one I received, the people who hosted me were amazing! But I really wanted to go to a landmark to know more about this beautiful place. So I went to Shushi (Armenian name) also know by Shusha (Azeri name). They told me that in that place the Armenians won one of the most important battles against Azerbaijan. So I took a bus, a crowded one... and I went. When I told my host family I was going back walking, they warned me not to do so, it was a bit more than 3 hours...anyway I thanked them and went.

I arrived at Shushi and I started walking, I was the only foreigner and I couldn't escape from the eyes of everybody on me. Until this point I was used to it. I took my camera out of my bag to take some pictures and I saw 2 kids running towards me, when they came they said hello and walked with me for a while, and then they asked me for money...only if they knew I was Argentinian...I gave them some coins and continued. My soul was touched when I saw ruins of the past war, it was only 21 years ago and there are things that cannot be rebuild, (mainly lives...). My time in the Caucasus really made my soul to move, I didn't know about these places and know I guess I know something I can share.

I wanted to go to Ghazanchetsots Cathedral also know as the Cathedral of Christ the Holy Saviour, I felt the need to connect my soul with the divine, maybe a church could help me. I finally arrived and gosh, I don't know, I had a mixture of feelings. Churches often do that to me, I saw this huge beautiful building in contrast with little houses and ruins, and my soul felt uncomfortable. This building was build to resemble Etchmiadzin Cathedral in Armenia, the oldest Cathedral in the world. I have to be fair here, people here are devoted to their faith, and when Shushi was under Azeri governance it was used as granary, garage and even as a munitions storehouse. So rebuilding the church was something very important for people in Nagorno-karabakh. I entered and I tried to connect with God, I could... but I have to say it was after a lot of effort. I didn't feel anything special, I just suffered inside me.

Time was playing against me so I decided to go back to Stepanakert, it was near 7pm and I didn't want the night to catch me while walking. So I started walking back to the capital and gosh, this place really captivated me, I saw a tank on a hill and I went there, as I left the town behind and entered in the route, many cars that were passing slowed down to look at me walking, they didn't say anything and the continued. After 40 minutes I arrived at the tank and it ended up being a memorial "the Shushi tank memorial", it is a T-72 tank that commemorates the capture of Shusha, while I was there, a family arrived there to see, kids were playing on the tank and I just wondered if that was a proper "toy", something that really shocked me was a cross on the tank, I never knew the meaning...

I left the memorial and I have like 2 hours and a half to get to the capital and it was getting dark already, but I wanted to walk, again in another heroic-stupid thing I wanted to do. But after walking 5 minutes a car stopped opposite to me, I recognised the faces, they were the family that were at the memorial, the man driving asked me if I wanted a lift to Stepanakert, I didn't want, but I couldn't refuse that. They told me they were from Yerevan but were on Holidays and decided to go there, they quite like their freedom, they quite enjoy not being slaves, I think that is normal, isn't it?

We talked for about 8 minutes, I was the first Argentinian they met, they wondered why I was there... I just am. I arrived at Stepanakert and we said goodbye. I walked "home" and the lovely family that was hosting me where waiting for me. My head was full of things, so was my heart. It was a day to rethink many things in me. A day to try to heal my heart

Leaving Shushi....

Armenia, part 2

Daniel, my new German friend, is gone and it’s time to face life alone since I started the trip. “Alone”, sometimes that word scares but is it true that I am ever alone? I go to have a really good breakfast (breakfasts are really important in my life now! – yep, I changed), but just 3 minutes before they finish serving it, anyway the lady smile at my sleepy face and gave me my portion. I stayed there planning the next part. I really want my visa to go to Iran, and I tried to push some doors. Another day exploring Yerevan and looking at new faces, I love doing this. One night I met Asha, a local girl, who offered herself to show me around. We arranged to meet at Tumanyan statue, I spent 30 minutes looking for this statue asking local people who sent me to a variety of places! At the end I found the place and it was my fault, I was asking all the time for Tamanyan statue, and it seems that my Armenian pronunciation is not that good, he. We met and talked a bit about everything, I was showing them my beautiful Jujuy and she showed me the place where she comes from (near the Iranian border). We met some of her friends and one of them even sang a song for me, he said it is a typical one. I have to say that even though it is a nation that carries a painful past, Armenia is a nation that carries a positive present. I stood at the top of the “cascade” at night for a while and I looked at the city, I thought a lot…a lot.

Another day I was sitting in front the computer planning the things to do later, and a French guy greeted me and invited me to join him and an English man for lunch, a French cooking, I could only say yes. He was also stuck in Armenia waiting for his Visa to go to Iran, and the English man, well… it wasn’t so clear to me. But after 15 minutes we were all friends, and we were even talking about the Iron Lady and Maradona. The French didn’t know anything about the dirty war so he could hear the 2 versions of the conflict that seemed to be very similar. My camera broke, so I bought a very cheap one, the seller said I had a 2 year guarantee, I said to him I’d be back in 2015 to see him…

Another day when I returned from the Republic of Nagorno-Karabakh (that is another story) there was a film festival in Yerevan so I went to watch a French-Swedish movie in a theatre called “Theatre Moscow” gosh, whoever you are you have to watch this film, it is called “Rendez Vous in Kiruna”. At night we (Fred, the French and I) met another girl to go and watch another movie, a Polish one, called Black Thursday, gosh, I almost lost my hope again, so many deaths, and so many stories that are only personal stories of loss and grief that nobody will ever know. But the movie finished and the rains started and we went to chat with this girl, she liked Margaret Thatcher and she hated Russians. Not a good combination. She told us that 5 years ago nobody could say anything negative about the government, chances of you getting into problems were high (it reminds me of Argentina now, but we have a bit more freedom). She wants to go to South America someday, well, she knows where to stay now in Argentina.

There was music in the air, there was laughter, and there were people smiling. I could see old couples walking hand to hand. There is no terror to fear (or maybe there is one inside all of us that we need to eliminate?). My heart stopped bleeding and started to sing, to sing a song that I didn’t know, or a song that I have never felt before (if it is correct to say that we feel songs). Surprisingly I didn’t hear anybody mentioning the most famous music band in Armenia, System of a Down (SOAD), but I found something on the walls. It’s impossible to forget the things we are proud of, isn’t it? My visa didn’t arrive the time they promised, I decided to leave, Armenia has its borders closed to Turkey and Azerbaijan, and open to Iran and Georgia, but I have the doors closed to go to Iran so I need to go back to Georgia, border Turkey and head to one of the destinations I’ve never thought of going before, Iraq. My heart is singing a song of redemption, I don’t remember the lyrics, it happened only in Armenia…

just in case you don't know SOAD...here is a little video =) 
Aerials - System of a Down

Armenia - the land that made me cry

It’s 7 in the morning and I wake up to continue my life. I go upstairs and I have breakfast…a typical Georgian breakfast. That means that I didn’t go to Armenia Yesterday.  I go to the “bus station” (kind of free space for taxis and vans) and I set journey with two Belgian and a German. We go through a breath-taking scenery, colourful flowers and fields, cows on the road, green hills, more cows, shinning streams, and many more cows. When crossing the border I am welcomed in Spanish by a soldier who is passing by. I want a picture entering Armenia and people are smiling as I stand next the first Armenian sign post. I can notice that there are gas pipes everywhere.

The journey is long and a bit adventurous, the driver of our taxi doesn’t respect the speed limits and we are going at 130 km p/h in a road where the maximum speed is 80 km p/h. Near Yerevan (the capital city of Armenia) he starts speaking in Georgian to us, then he tries Russian and the German guy can understand a bit as he knows Polish as well (I don’t know how it works, maybe like Spanish-Italian or Spanish-Portuguese). I want to be driven to the tourist information as this time Couchsurfing didn’t work, but I am informed that there is no tourist information centre, I insist but the response is the same. I decide to go to the place where the German is staying, his name is Daniel, and the girl that is there is very kind, she offers me to use the internet if I need it, and if I want I can store my rucksack in the storage room while I decide what to do. I walk through Yerevan looking for a place to stay and I find this mysterious guy inviting me to his hostel, we go and it ends up being a 7^th floor flat turned into a “hostel”, I decide to go back to the other. I met Daniel there and we decide to go together to explore the city, I am given a bigger map and we set off in the middle of a hot day.

We walk where the streets have 2 names, in Armenian and English, and this city is vibrant wherever you look at it. People look different from Georgian, and they look at us, they know we are not from here. The city still has vestige of communism, a bit less than Georgia maybe but at the same time it seems they want to forget about it (but sometimes it’s difficult to forget, isn’t it?). We go to a place up in a hill (Yerevan is hilly – well Armenia is) and we saw the statue of “Mother Armenia” a big woman holding a sword and facing the city, like protecting it. We discover later that during communism there was a statue of Lenin instead, like telling people that he was observing them that they couldn’t escape from him but today Lenin is not there anymore, and this Mother protects the city, well…heaven always protects them. Under the statue there is a museum, and I must say that when I see all these pictures of people suffering or I know a little more about their story, I want to cry, there is so much pain contained here and for some reason I can feel it.

Mother Armenia protecting Yerevan

Mother Armenia

We walk and walk and this city is awesome. An English poet called Byron said “there is no other land in the world so full of wonders as the land of Armenians” but he also wrote about its waters, something like that once you drink them you will never forget it. Well I don’t know Byron but I can agree to the point that the water is really refreshing here while you walk under the sun, there is no need to buy water here as in every corner you’ll find fountains where to drink from. Taxis are normally “Lada” similar to Fiat 128, small old cars that form time to time stop during the journey (I only took 2 and 1 stopped working). Armenia is like an open museum because many artists show their works in the streets, something that conservative Armenians don’t like and that I find interesting. In the country they speak 2 Armenian dialects and Russian, (sometimes it’s difficult to escape from who you were), they are a bit more than 3 million and almost half the population live in Yerevan. The main point of attraction in the country is Mount Ararat, a mount where Noah’s ark landed after the flood; you can see it wherever you are in Yerevan.

There is a genocide memorial somewhere in the city. We walk and walk with Daniel following the map the gave me at the hostel (it is true that there is no tourist information centre in Yerevan!) and we see in the way a lot of places, the Opera, Parliament, Republic Square, Blue Mosque, Brandy factory, Apostolic churches, etc. We pass an open air gym (only boys were there) and I say hello to somebody and they think I am Iranian (there are many Iranian entering the country). I don’t know how or when I lost my map so we need to continue following our instincts…and asking people. Somebody says that we need to go through a hill, and when we are going uphill to police officers start to speak to us in Armenian, Russian and they were there like no letting us pass, but in a moment one of them asks where we are from, and when Daniel says that I am Argentinian the guy smiles and stretches his hand and he introduces himself and his companion and he offers himself to take us to the memorial place! (Thanks Maradona and Messi for this).

The memorial is a sad place, I have only been in 2 countries by now but my heart is so burdened, as I said once, humanity is rotten and that makes me feel bad but at the same time I believe that there is hope for a change, for redemption. And here I am, standing in front of a  fire memorial of people I don’t know, I haven’t heard of, that I don’t have anything to do with, but I can feel the burden in my heart and I want to cry and ask somebody to stop this, while I am in my deep thoughts a guy come to ask us to take a picture of him and his friends so we stand up to help and it happens that he wants a picture with us like if we were his friends, he asks my nationality, I ask him, he is Russian from Moscow, and here we are all friends in Armenia, at least for a moment… at least for a moment we can all share the same place without having to think about pride, death or war, and I believe again that there is hope.

The sunset is at the door and I stare at it a while, I have a lot to think, a lot to process. We are inventing a way back as we don’t have a clue where we are, so we ask a bunch of guys for directions, none of them speak English but they make a call and pass the mobile to us to ask somebody for directions! A few metres later we do the same and the same happens, but this time the guys are going to go with us for a little while. This people are so lovely. And I go to take a shower to relax thinking what I always think… this world is rotten but there are still people trying to restore it, and I want to be part of it, I close my eyes and my heart bleeds.