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Published: September 20th 2023
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Day 14 Armenia. Back in Yerevan: Goin’ Lada Loco.... Reflections Upon Armenian Machinas Big and Small. Saryan Armenian Master, and Carmen the Opera.
As we travel south in the hire car we’re passing reinforced concrete carcasses of the industrial past. Irena, host at Iris BnB, related a story of lower wages and living conditions in post war Alaverdi after the closing of the copper mine and smelting plant. A classic conundrum: the closing of a terrible polluter of the rivers and air means as a result massive unemployment figures in that region which remain high, and many younger people moving away to the south and abroad.
And It’s likely that each of these towns that we pass through, with their closed factories and foundries, has a similar level of poverty and a lack of prospects.
Despite all this, petrol stations are in big demand. They are well kept, they are painted in bright primary colours and have large digital displays of prices and fuel types. A big contrast to most food stores and other businesses which look down at heal. Big Oil continues to hold its grip upon all our economies And certainly here.
The
nature of the terrain means that minibus services, lorry transport and beaten up old Ladas are needed to keep the small towns and villages connected, and oil companies keep the whole shammaz going.
We in UK and Europe are facing the challenge of providing new infrastructure for electric vehicles, e.g. with the installation of charging points in service stations, creating battery factories etc.
Rural Armenia, in contrast, is just about ticking over by maintaining old ‘machinas’. And all power to them who manage to keep the transport networking going with few resources......... but the pollution is incredible from old wagons crawling up hills with heavy loads of stone and rubble. Black smoke belches from exhausts for prolonged periods on their journeys And many old Ladas are the same.
As we reach Yerevan, capital, the contrast between rural and its urban wealth is immediately apparent. It’s jam packed with modern cars, Chelsea Tractors, and virtually no mini cars. And, frankly, there’s simply not enough room for parking in the centre.
The hire car is back, we managed to park it somewhere near the hotel that Avis uses as a base. They charged an extra £6
for cleaning (I had wiped a cloth over it this morning but I think it made it look worse afterwards). It’s 2pm, so we still have times for fun.
We stop for a salad on the way up to our new digs, the Cascade Hotel, and take stock.
Once installed in the hotel, we set out to see the Saryan House Museum. It was closed last time approached its doors ‘because there was not enough light’. This time we’re successful in gaining entry.
Martiros Saryan is Armenia’s Matisse, the leading figure of the Armenia modern art school. Bold oranges, greens and yellows and contrasting colour combinations fill his strongest work.
He was born into an Armenian family in Nakhichevan-on-Don (now part of Rostov-on-Don, Russia). In 1895 at the age of 15, he completed the Nakhichevan school and from 1897 to 1904 studied at the Moscow School of Arts, including in the workshops of Valentin Serov and Konstantin Korovin. He was heavily influenced by the work of Paul Gauguin and Henri Matisse. He exhibited his works in various shows including the Blue Rose Exhibit in Moscow.
Although he visited Armenia during his youth he only moved
to Armenia in 1921 following the Bolshevik seizure of power in 1917. Landscapes became his signature work and trips to Egypt and Turkey are evident in the colourful content,
From 1926 to 1928 he lived and worked in Paris, but most paintings from this period were destroyed in a fire on board the boat on which he returned to the Soviet Union.[
The museum was created from Saryan’s house in Yerevan in 1967 and he died in Yerevan on 5 May 1972.
To the Armenian State Opera to see Carmen in the evening. The numbers of performers involved is mind boggling. I estimate a chorus of 70 on stage with a further ten lead singers. There’s an orchestra of more than fifty.
We’ve seen Carmen before in Varna, Bulgaria. And it was edgy. And the set was based around the imagery of a cigarette factory.
This production suffers a bit from the large cast who have set moves which make it a bit tame. And the set is abstract with moving blocks, stretched sheepskins and louvred blinds but it doesn’t work for me. But especially Carmen, and all the lead singers are excellent, as is
the orchestra.
Two French woman in the audience behind me sing along with all the well known bits (badly). A woman in front of me videos large chunks on her phone despite an announcement at the beginning about switching mobiles off.
It’s a long Opera 1hr 36 mins for first half and 64 mins for the the second. But they pulled it off and had the crowd on the feet applauding at the end. We head to the Black Cat Gastro Bar for food and a bottle of Armenian Red!
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