| The Caucasus - My Journal |
Giant Markets and Annoying Museum Attendants
Yerevan, 27th August to 5th September (1)
I spent the next few days...actually, best part of a week, hanging around in Yerevan. The city is a great place to spend time and relax, and I was having such a great time with Garo, Teny, Armen and the others that I was in no hurry to leave. There's plenty to do in Yerevan and the surrounding area, so I had a healthy mix of culture, sightseeing, going out and, basically, just enjoying myself in Yerevan!
The day after the wedding, after a very late start and a very casual brunch, we visited the huge weekend market. The famous market sells everything from spare washers for ancient Soviet washing machines, to excruciatingly detailed handicrafts to puppies. Whatever you want, you'll be able to find...but it will require some serious searching. To get an idea for the size of the place and then number of stalls in the winding passages, imagine eBay in a single, real market, with all of the sellers actually sitting around a maze of tarmac. Yep...it's that crazy!
I also visited a few of the galleries and museums around town. The National Museum was a bit of a disappointment, the collection was limited and only about three exhibits had English signs, so I had no idea what most of the things on show were nor what they meant! The National Gallery, which is above the Museum, proved much more interesting and I really enjoyed wandering around their large and diverse collection.
Well, I actually mean I enjoyed looking at the artwork, not the wandering, due to the annoying nature of the attendants. There are no security cameras in the gallery, so they use an army of old ladies, straight out of the communist era, each of whom guard a room to ensure no photos are taken and that no art is lifted. These women squat on chairs by the doors to each room then when you enter, they have the annoying habit of following you really closely, as in getting up and standing next to you as you wander around the room. As I was pretty much the only tourist there, this level of attention began to get really annoying. So I decided to make it into a game and annoy them back.
In one L-shaped room, I noticed that the guarding woman sat on a chair at one end of the large room, so if I went round the corner in the room, she had to get off her chair, walk down the long part of the room and peek round the corner to see what I was doing. So, just as she'd gotten herself comfortable in her chair, I nipped round the corner , hidden from her view. After a few seconds, I heard her shoes scuffing as she walked lazily towards me, then, just as she was about to reach the corner of L-shape where she'd be able to see me, I walked back into the main part of the room. She then looked darkly at me before returning to her chair. Then, just as she was comfortable again, I nipped back round the corner, waited for her approaching footsteps again then stepped back into view. I managed to do this a few times, clearly starting to irritate her a bit, before one of her fellow guardians appeared and took to watching the part of the room the other couldn't see. Oh well...I'd managed to get a little revenge on one of them!
The art was a very interesting mix, spanning all of the main periods way back into Armenia's history. I've definitely found that I prefer galleries over museums now and I tried to seek out some more of Armenia's numerous galleries, however, I didn't have much luck finding them or getting into them. Even with a map and address, I failed to find the Modern Art Gallery and ended up wandering around a housing estate at one end of Yerevan. I also tried to visit the National Centre for Contemporary and Experimental Art, but my first visit timed perfectly with the day of closure when they were changing exhibitions and my second visit, at 3pm, turned out to be too late in the day for the very "relaxed" opening hours!
Besides the cultural sights in Yerevan, I also did some more "leisure activities". With the others, I played snooker, sped around a track while go-karting and got shot to pieces in a paintballing game. Was definitely good fun, and I didn't really have much time to get bored while I was there! The quiet hours were spent recovering in one of the many air-conditioned cafes over delicious, strong Armenian coffee or sweet, refreshing watermelon juice.
Of course, Armenia has many other sights to offer tourists outside of Yerevan, a large number of which are within day-trip distance of the capital, so I made sure I paid a visit to some of the more interesting and spectacular sights...
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