Dr Jenny

St. Petersburg - again St. Petersburg is a large and expensive city. The central area is quite beautiful with beautiful 18th century European architecture along canals reminiscent of Venice. Most of the people live in the “bedroom” communities—regions of Soviet-style large brick or cement (! crumbling) apartment building complexes serviced by the metro system, buses, and “marchroutkas” (minivans). And that is where I lived—a 25 minute walk from the Ploshad Muzhestvo metro station ( Square of Courage —a metro station dedicated to those who defended Leningrad during WWII). From my metro station to the Botanical Institute required only one transfer but the trip took between 45 minutes and one hour. I bought my groceries at a new large supermarket, Prisma, which I found near the Metro station at the Moscow Hotel where I had my Russian ... read more

Blogging Again My blogs came to a halt in March after the Armenian elections resulted in martial law, tanks in the streets, and rumors that blogs were not in the best interests of bloggers. In April Tom returned to the US to continue working with UNAVCO to install GPS stations in the Rocky Mountain west and I remained at the American University of Armenia to coordinate two very successful spring projects. Birds in My Backyard, is a contest for students from 7-16 years old, that we organized with the help of Peace Corps volunteer environmental specialists. More than 250 children in Armenian towns and villages built bird feeders which they set up outside their homes or apartment windows. They observed the birds that came to their feeders and prepared a short story, a drawing, or photograph ... read more

What to do when not hiking… Well, we are somewhat sidelined. Tom and I celebrated his birthday (last weekend) by staying at one of the Tufenkian hotels 3 hours north of Yerevan. We wanted to complete two of the hikes in the Adventure Armenia book that we enjoy so much. Unfortunately Tom, for the first time, sprained his ankle. But, of course finished the last 2.5 miles of the hike anyway. Our drive north took us past two Yezidi villages. The Yezidis are one of the most numerous national minorities in Armenia. They speak Kumanji, a northern Kurdish dialiect. Their religion, Sharfardin, was the religion of Kurds in very ancient times (information from a book entitled “We are Yezidis” by Aziz Tamoyan). Their villages are without trees for the most part and their streets are muddy ... read more

Hi all, As I was preparing this blog, Dick Walton wrote to ask me to encourage bloggers to visit the website that has been created for the Pryor Mountains in Montana. There is a great need for civil society in Montana to contact the US Forest Service to encourage a rational travel plan that restricts the movement of off road vehicles. The website presents the issues in a clear way and with beautiful photos. Enjoy: www.pryormountains.org Fall has arrived in Armenia. Women in our apartment yard are busy fluffing the sheep’s wool in their mattresses and airing out the bedding to prepare for winter. Tom, Marian, and I made our first trip to Mt. Aragats (about one hour from Yerevan) a couple days before Marian returned to Billings. On the way to the mountain we stopped ... read more

Hi all, I thought that this blog should be about the Armenian landscape. Armenia is just a tiny place, about the size of Belgium or Maryland, according to the guidebook Armenia and Karabagh, written by Matthew Karanian and Robert Kurkjian. But it is an incredibly mountainous place so that, like Nevada, the basin and range topography is a bit misleading. It takes a 6 hours of steady driving up and down the mountains to reach the border with Iran, for example. From Yerevan the big and small peaks of Mt. Ararat are in view, but they are actually in modern Turkey. The tallest peaks in Armenia are part of the Mt. Aragats massif (13,435 ft.). Only about 8% of the countryside is forested or planted with woodland trees—during Soviet times many pine groves and other areas ... read more