Armenia: Returning Close To Home (cont.)

A graveyard lies behind the church with a large above ground tomb. The door is open, so we go inside. Along the floor are tombstones with depictions of cats with Asian eyes carved into them.

“Why did they carve Asian-looking cats into their tombstones?” I ask.

 “The cats were for protection. When Armenians were buried here, their friends carved Asian eyes in their cats’ faces afterward so that when the Mongols came to try to conquer the Armenians, the Mongols might believe that Asians already lived here—with their Asian cats—and the Mongols would leave them alone. The Mongols conquered them anyway, though, in the 1200s,” Kelly says.

Back in Yerevan Kelly plans our outing to Lake Sevan, the largest and most well-known lake in the country. Sasha drives us past fields and sparse, arid hills to the lake where little huts in red, blue, and yellow line the outer beach. This is lake life in Armenia. The middle-class rent huts for the day to store their things and then cavort in the water. But today the weather is chilly, and the beach is vacant. It looks as if we’re on an empty movie set.

We find a spot on some boulders to have a picnic, and Sasha unpacks the lunch he has brought for us. He takes out a lavish spread of bread, cucumbers, tomatoes, goat cheese, greens and yogurt; and after we finish our meal wanders down the beach to nap.

After a few hours of cool sun, we gather back in the car for our last drive in the countryside. We pass through villages with heavyset grandmothers in head scarves, grandfathers checking on crops, and children running through empty streets without much need to check for cars. Sasha stops in a village for cigarettes, and Kelly asks if we can take a few minutes to climb up a hill to stretch our legs. On the hill we happen upon a cemetery whose gray tombstones bear spots of tangerine-colored rust from pooling rainwater. The human figures carved into them with arms clasped across their chests look ready to be carried skyward.  Three children follow us from tomb to tomb, trying to talk to us in Armenian.

“Do you speak Russian?” Kelly asks in Russian.

Blank looks. Stacy and I try out our “Barev!” and “Shnora galutsiun!” but they don’t understand us because the Armenian is coming out of Americans’ mouths.

I wander over to the southern edge of the hill, turn left at a tombstone, and almost smack into a cow. He’s peacefully eating grass and doesn’t notice me. I watch him for a while as the kids stare at my friends with an otherworldly interest. I hear Kelly speaking Russian and the kids responding in Armenian. The four of them are still trying to communicate, knowing that is impossible. I am reminded that I am at a crossroads of Europe, Asia, and the Middle East. All backing into one another, clashing and meshing at once, without a clear idea of how it all fits together but having faith it somehow will.

Back in Yerevan, a Genocide Museum extends down into a different hill; and as I walk toward it, I feel like I’m going underground. It looks nothing like Dachau, the only concentration camp I have visited, yet I know it will feel like Dachau once I enter, and it does. Kelly leads us around the museum, where we are surrounded by photos of families trying to get out of Western Armenia/Eastern Turkey. Between 1914 and 1918, one and a half million Armenians living in present-day Turkey were killed in concentration camps. Some Armenian children were separated from their parents and raised as Turks. The idea behind the genocide was to rid primarily-Muslim Turkey of non-Muslims.

“My grandmother lived in Western Armenia and fled to Syria when she was two,” Kelly says, picturing her grandmother in the photographs on the wall. “When she was five, she got on a ship to Cuba; and from there she came to Iowa in her late 20’s to marry my grandpa. She speaks Spanish better than English.” She says this nonchalantly, but I know it has made her into who she is. This is why she came to live here for a few years when she could have gone anywhere.

After the museum we head over to the vernissage of Yerevan.  The vernissage is the center of weekend life for many locals who view the market as much as an opportunity to catch up with friends as to buy things they need. Tourists here buy souvenirs like soviet kitsch and glass pomegranates, one of Armenia’s native fruits and an unofficial symbol of the country. We wander down rows of tables that showcase remnants of Soviet life and culture. When we are walking through the kitchen section, I stop Kelly.

“Is that a Turkish coffee maker?” It is made of patterned bronze with a wooden handle.

“Yeah. Except it’s an Armenian coffee maker,” she smiles.

She has corrected me like this before, and I get it; either everything that I thought was Turkish really comes from Armenia, or maybe the Turkish things are just labeled Armenian in this country. Either way, Kelly helps me bargain for the coffee maker. She promises to teach me how to make Armenian coffee when we get back to her apartment.

“Will you read my grounds?” I ask.  Her grandmother taught her to read them.

“Sure. I hope I still remember how.”

Our last stop is the rug aisle. It goes on endlessly with all sizes of rugs laid out on the ground in tall piles. Stacy is set on buying a rug and carrying it back to America in her duffle bag. After an hour of looking, she finds one.

“Where is it from?” she asks.

The seller says Turkey, and I look at Kelly with a raised eyebrow.

“Some of the rugs here are Turkish, and some are Armenian.”

Stacy says, “I like it, but should I buy it if it’s Turkish?”

“I wouldn’t, but I’m Armenian,” Kelly says. “If it’s the one you like the best, then get it.” Either she is being patient with us as non-Armenians, or she is tired of watching Stacy look at rugs.

I spot a miniature rug, only two by three feet, used for prayer a long time ago. Its top third is a block of faded turquoise with two camels and their Muslim riders in robes and turbans. The rest of the rug consists of a geometric pattern of red, orange, and black with little camels prancing around the border. It is dirty and completely irresistible.

“This one, with camels. How much?” I ask.

The carpet seller says it’s 15,000 dram—forty-five bucks. 

“Where is it from?”

“Turkmenistan.”

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