Weekend tourists immersed in Armenian history Sept. 5 and 6

After a leisurely breakfast, we were picked up by the Fuller Center bus and headed off to the fortress of Garni.  The excavations show people here as a early as the early bronze age in the third millenium B.C.  Today, the main building has been rebuilt in the 1960s - you can easily see the mix of original pieces with those modern replacement pieces.  The main building looks like a smaller version of the Parthenon in Greece.  There are also the foundations of other castles and churches, as well as the royal baths fed by thermal waters.  All this stands on cliffs overlooking the Azat River.

The front gate of the Fortress of Garni

A view of the mountains

One of the restaurants near the Fortress

Some of the fox skins for sale

The Temple of Mihr that has the same shape as the Parthenon in Greece

One of the steles and another view of the rugged mountains in the area

Inside the temple

Inside the temple looking up

Inside the temple looking out at the courtyard

The foundations of the palace

More of the palace foundations

More of the palace foundations

More of the palace foundations

 

Looking out at the Azat river below

Parts of the Royal Bath House

The enclosed parts of the Royal Bath House were not open to the public

Another view of the enclosed portions of the Royal Bath House

General overview of Garni

Then we went to Geghard Monastery.  The monastery is still active.  This is where the Geghard was brought.  The geghard is the spear that pierced Christ's side when we was on the cross - it is now kept in a secure museum.  The monastery is built into the side of the hill, so parts are added onto the hill but many parts are carved out of the stone that is the hill.

Large memorial markers on the road up into the monastery

Local musicians playing the drum and two Tuduks (one melody, one harmony) - tuduks are a type of flute

This is the newer part of the monastery and where the monks live today

Then we went back to the town of Garni and had a great lunch.  All of the tables are outside under a canopy of trees in a secluded courtyard.  There were several other large busloads of German tourists, but we hardly noticed them.  The restaurant also had a large aquarium - it was an above ground pool about ten feet in diameter and three plus feet tall, with transparent sides.  Some of the fish were more than two feet long.

Then we drove about an hour to the other side of Yerevan to visit the family of the home that Boots and Ramsay worked on last year.  The house looked great and gives us a good idea of what the future looks like when the home where we are working is finished.  The husband is a long distance bus driver taking tourists to Georgia.  They have three adult children who are now gone.  They had fruit, pastries, juice, soda and Armenian coffee for us.  A very nice visit to end our travels.

Saturday evening, for the first time since arriving, we did not eat as a group - we were given cash and went where we chose.  John and Polly went out to a restaurant, I got a wrap from Sharma (somewhat like a Subway restaurant where you can pick the items in your wrap) and Boots, Ramsay and Lesylee went to our hotel restaurant after Lesylee had an hour long massage.

On Sunday, we went to Etchmiadzin Cathedral.  The cathedral is just one building on this large campus of 25 - 30 buildings.  The cathedral is undergoing external renovations and has staging all around the building.  Inside, the cathedral is very much both a museum site and an active cathedral with church services - the 11:00 service began while we were there.  Among other buildings in addition to the cathedral are several museums, residences for many of the monks and priests, and the residence of the head of the Armenian Apostolic Church - this campus is the Mother See and is comparable to the Vatican being the Holy See for Catholic Churches.

Next we visited the Zvartnots ruins.  This had pagan roots going back millennia B.C.  In the 7th century, a cathedral was built here and was the first of its kind to have this type of dome.  Much archeological work has been done, and they have taken relics and worked them with replicas to show what the cathedral and other buildings would have looked like.

In their museum, they had many drawings of what the cathedral would look like, as well as this scale model

After lunch, we walked to  Yerevan's Vernissage street market.  On the way, we passed some neat fountains and a large spider.

The street market is huge and has everything imaginable.  It is definitely a place for souvenir hunters and home owners: Persian rugs, jewelry, pottery, artwork, books, sculptures, dishes, food, beverages, etc., etc., etc.  I did not stay very long, but did walk through parts of it for about 20 minutes before going with John and having a beer.

For dinner, we had reservations for a table at Diamond Pizza.  Our table was on the fourth floor on the corner closest to Republic Square.  While they serve pizza, the menu is thick enough that there is a table of contents at the front of the menu.  We finished eating just a little before 9:00 p.m. - and that is why we were at this location, as at 9:00 p.m. every night, there is a show with fountains, lights and music.  (Once I get to a place with better internet, I will add a couple of videos.)

Building in Armenia with the Fuller Center, Week one, Aug. 31 to Sept. 4

Our group is small, there are only six international volunteers - Boots, Ramsay, John, Polly, Lesylee and myself.  I believe we will have another volunteer joining us next week.  Each day at the build site, there are different local volunteers, some who work for Fuller and some who are neighbors and relatives of the family for whom we are helping build the house. 

Our regular start time is not until 9:30 when the Fuller Center bus comes to pick us up.  Monday, we first went to the Fuller Center for an orientation and briefing, and a chance to buy some items hand made by the families that Fuller helps.  This is a way they can generate some additional income to pay the mortgage on their homes.  The family we will be helping started their home 25 years ago, shortly after the Soviet Union disintegrated and Armenia became independent.  There are three generations and they live in the basement and have an outhouse only.  They have land, so they have a large garden.  The exterior of the home is built, but not finished - there is much work to be done to make the home liveable and to allow them to move upstairs from the cellar.  Their home is nearly an hour's drive from Yerevan, so we did not get there until midday.  We spent the afternoon mixing and pouring concrete for the floor in the large dining room.  There are electric mixers, but they then dump the wet concrete into a rectangle surrounded by concrete blocks with a wood floor.  Two people then shovel the wet concrete into buckets which we then sent by bucket brigade into the house where it is poured and leveled.  My position in the bucket brigade was just outside the front door - because of my height, I was the one chosen to lift the buckets up to my shoulder level to person inside. The floor of the house is about four feet higher than the ground surrounding the home.

On the Fuller bus

The floor is one third done

Looking across the cement we just poured, into the back bedroom

One pail of cement (from the large trough above), three pails of sand, three pails of gravel and two pails of water gives us the concrete they want

At the end of the day, the floor is finished

This is the room where we have lunch and coffee breaks

In the kitchen, you can see where the sink will go and where the outlets will be

Because there is electricity at the house, we have a water cooler for our bottled water

Monday night, we went to a restaurant with sidewalk seating - but even there, we continued to encounter smokers.  Just as with other third world countries, Armenia has many people who smoke.

Tuesday, we moved on to plastering the walls.  We spent the full day doing this and got maybe half of the walls done in a couple of rooms.  Fortunately, they have an electric mixer for converting the dry powder and water into the appropriate mix we needed for plastering the walls.  My understanding is that we will put three coats on, and after needed sanding of the walls, we may get to paint one or more of the rooms.

The home where we are working is in the town of Khor Virap, as close to Turkey as you can get and so has Mt. Ararat for regular viewing from the back of the home

After a long day at the build site, we came home to relatively clear skies and a great view of Mt Ararat and later, of the setting sun.

Tuesday night, we had dinner inside in a private room at the hotel - no smokers, no loud crowds or music from the sound system.  It was a very pleasant dinner.

Wednesday was scheduled as a non-work day, instead it was one of exposure to cultural things in Armenia, including the Manuscript Museum, Genocide Memorial and some historical sites outside the city of Yerevan, including Sevan and Lake Sevan.  The only problem was that I got the Armenian version of Montezuma's revenge starting late Tuesday night and continuing Wednesday morning - so I stayed at the hotel and heard about the trip when others returned.  Since my digestive system seemed okay, I went out to dinner with everyone and we ate at the sidewalk cafe affiliated with the Marriott - good food and great service, but the cost was more than twice what we had been paying at other restaurants.  Unfortunately, my digestive system was not completely well, and I had problems again a little before midnight.  Thus, while Thursday was a workday, I stayed back at the hotel, as I wanted to be near working toilet facilities.

Friday, I was feeling better (but still not 100%) and decided to go with the team today.  First, we went to the historic sites of Khor Virap.  This is where Gregory the Illuminator was imprisoned for more than at decade at the end of the third century.  The building about his place of internment dates from the sixth century and the larger chapel dates from the end of the seventeenth century.

The road in the middle of the field is the border with Turkey.  This is the closest part of Armenia to Mt. Ararat.

After our visit, we went to the build site for another day of plastering.  The rooms are starting to look like real rooms.

Boots taking a break

We moved the lunch room to the room where we laid the floor on Monday

When we started, the electric wires were just coming out of holes

But now, after the first coat of plaster, junction boxes have been installed so that outlets and switches can be placed

John making French press coffee - he is a real coffee lover!

 And so our first week of building has ended.