Beyond Mt Ararat to The Republic of Mountainous Karabakh.

                                                      Watercolour sketch by Peter Kreet.
                                                             Saghmossavank. Ararat.

Mt. Ararat and beyond.

Mt Ararat will always remain close to the heart of Armenians, lying now within a Turkish embrace it still draws busloads of Armenian and foreign tourists anxious to gaze out across the border at their mountain. Legion claims the mountain to be Noah’s arch’s final resting although no archaeological studies have ever been able to confirm or deny this. However, recently a Chinese team from Hong Kong claims to have found the arch in a crevice on the mountain, but to date the location is top secret, only time will tell if this is it. The Creationists in America have been looking for the arch for years all to no avail. If the arch is found it would have significant impact on the authenticity  of the Old Testament. An understanding of the mountain’s place in Armenian history and the sadness many locals feel about their mountain now lying across the border in Turkey is fundamental to the Armenian sense of place.

Driving south out of Yerevan en route to Khor Virap Monastery and Mt Ararat the visitor becomes aware of another Armenia, a country still struggling with deprivation, you realise Yerevan is not the total picture. Nothing underlines the economic fragility of the State more forcefully than the forlorn rows of empty industrial buildings standing now in various states of rusty decay, products of the collapse of the USSR and Eastern Block economies in the 80s’. The result of wholesale stripping of machinery and plant from these enterprises for shipment back to Russia that left these sad looking monuments to their fate, now old iron statements of what once was. Unfortunately the market for their products also seems to have disappeared along with the Berlin Wall, leaving  landlocked Armenia with limited means of survival. Such momentous events have qualities all of their own, qualities that cannot be made to fit into any timeframe. History after all is a living thing that represents what happens to people in new circumstances. It expresses to any onlooker the struggle people must endue and how they survived. Those first years of independence that created economic difficulties particularly noticeable in the countryside were economic development is marginal.  Clearly any observer needs to understand the balance between these relationships to arrive at any valid conclusion about how the country is fairing. Looking out of my bus window, observing the passing obsolete building creates a feeling melancholy, it is easy to understand the black nature of the Armenian story, its history and literature. All I am able to do is observe and record my personal impressions and trust that better times are ahead.

 

In addition to the view of Mt. Ararat from Khop Virap Monastery, this hillside monastery was once the prison of St. Gregory the Illuminator, held here as a prisoner for twelve years. The pagan King Trdat held him captive in an attempt to crush Christianity before Armenia became the world’s first Christian state in 301. This conversion of Armenia resulted in the need to construct houses of worship,  St. Gregory  the first Catholicos of the Armenian Apostolic Church set about the task with enthusiasm undertaking a  church building on top of pagan temples, a legacy of Greek, Persian and Roman religious belief and invasions. Khor Virap houses the cellar he was held in, and naturally everyone “needs” to climb down the steep steel ladder into the well he called home. I must confess it is a long way down and dark and how anyone let alone a Saint lived here for that length of time is truly amazing. The area is not large and I suspect very damp in winter, Armenia may reach minus 30 degrees in winter.  Standing there in the middle of this empty space you feel a sense of entombment and wonder how a Christian women secretly feed him for those twelve long years.  While my fellow travellers gazed out across to Mt Ararat cameras clinking, I slipped away and made a couple of quick sketches one of Mt Ararat and another of Khor Virap, like most monasteries in this part of the world  hillside sites are preferred resulting in  monasteries that appear to grow out of the surrounding rocky landscape.  These hillside sites were for protection from invading armies or rouge elements of human kind a constant threat to Armenian settlement.

                                                                Khor Virap Monastery.
                                                      Watercolour sketch. Peter Kreet 2013




The countryside once you leave the Araks river flats becomes hilly and offers little of agricultural value as far as I could see, the road now passes through scared hills of deep gorges, [we are in earthquake country,]  overgrown with weeds and badly eroded. We continued driving eastwards until eventually we arrived at the 13^th cent Noravank Monastery. Most of these the old monasteries had been turned into museums during Soviet times and now as its not considered desirable for a practicing monastery and museum to co-exist together in the same building ,they have remained museums.  Noravank is a complex and consists of several churches a common practice in Armenia as new family patrons required new places of worship to be built next to older ones, or as the number of resident monks grew. This complex is located in a very dramatic hilltop setting seeming to grow out of the mountainside.  Additional places of worship have been carved into the mountain itself, one chapel containing a “holy” water well were on drinking  the water your wish may come true. A narrow stone stairway on the outside wall of Surp Astvatsatsin allows the adventurous to take a closer look at the inside of its dome. These two story churches are quite common, the faithful often buried on the lower floor, while the upper story was used for worship. Armenian churches are highly decorated in relief sculpture on the outside walls an architectural practice often extended to secular buildings even today. Nearby is the smaller church, St. Karapet that once claimed to have held a treasured piece of the True Cross stained with the blood of Christ. After completing a few drawings we adjourned to a riverside café just down the road for lunch and sat listening to the rushing waters of the stream as it works its way around the stony river bed. My fellow bus companions are mainly expats Armenians from America, France and possible everywhere else. It is their remittances and investments in this “new” Armenia that has enabled the country to reconstruct itself. But for now they are content to laugh and sing over a typical Armenian lunch.

 

                                                 Noravank Monastery Complex.

 

Our journey now took a more dramatic turn as we wound our way over the mountainous terrain to the Nagorno-Karabakh border and towards Stepanakert the provincial capital. Passing through Syunik into Karabakh the surrounding countryside became far more rugged, steep rocky cliffs raising up and towering in a threating way over the road. Looking across the gorges and mountainous valleys it is easy to see why this region is sparsely populated. Hidden within this mountainous landscape are abandoned moss covered churches and monasteries. The people here call themselves mountain people and although Armenians think of themselves as people apart, a people who belong to these  mountains. Now caught in this cease fire zone life goes on and the Karabakhi hospitality and belief in the future makes it all worthwhile. Their long struggle for independence with handmade gun has been a hard one.  When we finally round yet another bend to reach  Stepanakert night has fallen and any possible secrets the city may hold will have to wait till the morning.