From Yerevan to Tbilisi, 17 February 2011

On our way from Yerevan we first drive up to a plateau at a high elevation and from there down though the Debed Gorge to the Georgian border.

From the plateau we drive down to along the Pambak River to Spitak.

The Spitak Earthquake is named after this town. The Earthquake had a magnitude of 6.9 and took place on December 7, 1988. The earthquake killed at least 25,000 people. Geologists and earthquake engineering experts laid the blame on the poorly built support structures of apartments and other buildings built during the "stagnation" era of Leonid Brezhnev. Local housing infrastructure (particularly schools and hospitals) performed poorly in the earthquake.

The entire city of Spitak was destroyed, and there was partial damage to the nearby cities of Gyumri and Vanadzor. The tremor also caused damage to many surrounding villages.

Since most of the hospitals in the area were destroyed, and because of extremely low winter temperatures, officials at all levels were not ready for a disaster of this scale and the relief effort was therefore not launched properly. The Armenian government let in foreign aid workers to help with the recovery in the earthquake's aftermath, and this was one of the first cases when rescue and relief workers from other countries were allowed to take part in relief works in the Soviet Union. Mikhail Gorbachev, on a visit to the United States, cut his trip short and went directly to Armenia to visit the quake-affected areas.

The railway between Yerevan and runs along the Pambak and Debed River (Debed River starts when Pambak River joins Dzoraget River) and the whole gorge was in the soviet times heavily industrialized. On the way through the gorge you pass the ruins of one big industrial complex after the other, all seems to be poorly build and in different stages of crumpling.

Under the old Soviet central planning system, Armenia had developed a modern industrial sector, of which big part was in the Debed canyon, supplying machine tools, chemicals, electronic products, machinery, processed food, synthetic rubber and textiles and other manufactured goods to sister republics in exchange for raw materials and energy. Since the implosion of the USSR in December 1991, Armenia has switched to small-scale agriculture and small enterprises and the unemployment rate is very high.




On the plateau lives the Yazidis Kurds - the largest ethnic and religious minority in Armenia. Relations between the Yazidis and the ethnic Armenian majority have varied (from cooperation to persecution by the latter). Currently, Yazidis have freedom of religion and non-interference in their cultural traditions.





View over the Debed Gorge, with river, road and railway. its is a small river and in soviet times it must have been very heavily polluted with industrial wastewater from all the big industrial complexes along the river - without any sewage treatment.


The only big industry from soviet times that is still working is the Alaverdi copper smelter. It is probably a good example of the total lack off environmental concern that characterized the soviet industries.

Vest of Yerevan, 16 February 2011

At our latest project mission to Armenia we found time for some sightseeing west of Yerevan


The Metsamor Nuclear Power Plant was built during the 1970s, about thirty kilometres west of the Armenian capital of Yerevan in the city of Metsamor. The power plant produces about 40% of Armenia's electricity. It was closed due to the 1988 earthquake in Armenia. However, blockades by Turkey and Azerbaijan, which created energy shortages in Armenia, caused the Armenian government to decide to reopen the plant in 1993.
The plant has been operated by Russian company Inter RAO UES since 2003, as part of a five year term to help pay off Armenia's debts.
The authorities in Yerevan formally agreed in 2007 to close the Metsamor plant after several years of pressure from the United States and the European Union, which claim it to be inherently unsafe and are promoting to build its own version of the reactor. The E.U. reportedly had classified the VVER 440 Model V230 light water-cooled reactors as the "oldest and least reliable" category of all the 66 Soviet reactors built in Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union.
Armenia is currently discussing the issue of constructing a new nuclear power plant with a projected cost of $4 -7.2 billion dollars to substitute the old power plant.



First stop was the memorial for the Battle of Sardarabad.


In January 1918, two months after the Bolshevik seizure of power in Russia, the Sovnarkom, the highest government authority under the Bolshevik system, issued a decree which called for the withdrawal of Russian troops from the Caucasus Front. The Armenians attempted to stall the Ottoman advance as they created a small Armenian army to take up the positions the Russians had abandoned. At this time, only a small area of historical Armenian territory which used to be a part of the Russian Empire remained unconquered by the Ottoman Empire, and into that area hundreds of thousands of Armenian refugees had fled after the Armenian Genocide.
The Armenian forces immediately began to prepare for the upcoming battle. Catholicos (head of Armenian church) Gevorg V ordered that church bells peal for six days as Armenians from all walks of life – peasants, poets, blacksmith, and even the clergymen – rallied to form organized military units.
On May 21 1918, the Ottomans took Sardarabad. An Armenian offensive was launched on May 22 and in the end Ottoman commanders ordered a general retreat as the surviving elements of the Ottoman army were put to flight.


View from the Sardarabad memorial over the Araks River to the mountains in Turkey on the other side of the border


Echmiadzin is the center of the Armenian Church. It is where the Catholicos (head of Armenian church) of all Armenians lives, and the location of the Ejmiatsin Cathedral.
The cathedral, built in 480 on the very spot Grigor Luysavorich (St. Gregory the Illuminator) dreamt Jesus Himself descended to from heaven to show him where He wanted the church to be built.
Ejmiatsin was founded by King Vagarshak (117-140) in the place of Vardkesavan, an ancient settlement of the third-second centuries B.C. After Christianity was proclaimed the state religion in 301, Ejmiatsin became the country’s religious centre.


Gravestones of the Catholicos (head of Armenian church).


Saint Hripsimé Church, also situated in Echmiadzin, is one of the oldest surviving churches in Armenia. Saint Hripsimé Church is build on a pagan structure. The church was erected by Catholicos Komitas in the year 395 and the church was completed in the year 618.


Wedding in Saint Hripsimé Church.
See also: http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=1353578307308012045#docid=-2278608743785569598
video from another wedding in Saint Hripsimé Church
the red apple symbolizes the bride's virginity, see: http://armenianodar.blogspot.com/2007/11/sasha-and-reginas-wedding.html




It must have been a good day for weddings. We saw several processions of cars following a nicely decorated car (with the bride and the groom) making noise with their horn – typical for weddings – on the road.