Armenia - a State of mind?

When I was a medical student, I was taught pathology by a lovely considerate man called Pembakian. He was heavy-set and always wore the same dark grey suit, swarthy with thick framed glasses, and a strong head of dense black hair. He looked a bit like a chunkier version of Henry Kissinger. I can remember his huge black shoes, always polished to a mirrored sheen, and his flat-footed, leaden gait. He seemed dusty like an old library. He called us all buddy, occasionally followed by a name. His tutorials were informative, entertaining, and gratifyingly brief. He would teach on one subject, holding in his huge hairy hands a jar of formalin containing a dire specimen, while gently goading us in his strong Eastern European accent. Then he would let us escape to our hedonistic pursuits while he clomped off clutching a slender briefcase under his arm, a monochrome caricature of introspection and sadness.

I often wondered to what world he returned, when he trudged home late in the evening. He never socialised or came to the firm party, and although so charming and courteous in his tutorials, was seldom seen anywhere a few metres from his microscope.

He was Armenian,

Of course, he was Armenian with a name like that, and as I now realise, that burden of inaccessible sadness.

It can happen to a puppy and certainly can happen to a child, why should it not happen to a country? If you mistreat them for long enough, they never recover; somewhere in their soul is an irreparable hurt that can be laughed off, but always lingers beneath the surface.

But now I am looking at the prison guards in a courtroom in Vanadzor in northern Armenia, trying to find commonalities in their facial characteristics. Are these the true ‘Caucasian’ features, that mock that now mostly defunct term that we used to have to tick on questionnaires?

I can see two types here, the stocky, rounded habitus, with face to match, with a hair pattern that descends in the middle of the forehead to within an inch of the bridge of the nose, and then a leaner, slender phenotype, with strong, long noses like racehorses. Galina the translator, is straight from an Egyptian tomb, Nefertiti in a grey coat. She is attractive in a streamlined way, with fine skin, but her smile is reluctant.

The guard to the left, with Police the only word I can read amongst the jumble of Armenian on his epaulet, has a wonderful equine schnozzle, a parody of Arabi, stealing from the shadows with a knife in his teeth in a hundred B movies. His long fingers are far too elegant for his line of work, beautiful but just slightly sinister. Everyone has jet black hair and brown skin. No-one wears glasses.

I turn my attention to the judge. She is in her thirties, perhaps forty. She wears black with just a collar of white stripes visible above her top. Her black mane is alive and dangerous, living tendrils escaping from any attempt at control, it frames her strong features with a contrived but disarming wildness. She could be Medea, or a Borgia perhaps, even Medusa. I try to read something from her flat expression and stare into those dark, dark eyes. I will not be subsumed by their impenetrable gaze. I will match it. She will see in my return as much strength and threat as she can muster. We have not come all this way to be vanquished by the gaze of the arbiter.

For it is up to her – she will decide whether to uphold the will of the state prosecutor and confirm a nine-month custodial sentence, or to listen to our defence lawyer and concur that this is way in excess of what the offence, (crossing the border illegally) requires. Hovhannes, for it is he, has done a good job. He has found that similar offenders have often gotten away with a fine, or a short period of detention. The boy has already served four months in a harsh regime that, with the excuse of Covid, has denied all access to visitors and privileges, while lighter sentences have been handed out to Armenians, in spite of the fact that the law does not distinguish between nationals and others.

For illogical, illegal and inhumane reasons, the state’s paranoid xenophobia treats any alien trying to cross the border as a threat. The impoverished logic of locking up a stranger for months, rather than imposing a fine and deporting them, seems lost in this Spartan State.

Is that fair? Spartan state?

Like Ireland and perhaps Mongolia, Armenia has a diaspora larger than the population of the country, (perhaps more than 5 million outside, 3 million in) this leads to what can be termed a ‘State of mind’: a country that lives on in a collective memory and belief, even when the reality is somewhat different. Surely this is epitomised in Charles Aznavour’s sentimental fund-raising song Pour Armenie released after the massive 1988 earthquake.

Alas there is no doubt that Armenian history has been a catalogue of such calamities. That patch of ground on ancient maps between the seas Black and Caspian, usually termed the Caucasus, has forever been labelled Armenia, but the boundaries of the State have for two thousand years, been punched and battered by bigger stronger neighbours. Unbelievably this persists to the current day, with an invasion in 2020 by Azerbaijan that snatched thousands of square kilometres, with the loss of several thousand Armenian lives.

Then there is the genocide, the elephant in the room if there ever was one, with 1.5 million souls killed shamelessly by Turkish invaders in 1915. This collective hurt is still an open wound for Armenians worldwide, and rightly so. This was what I sensed it in the weary trudge of the lovely Dr Pembakian. But it has not dissipated – I can taste it here now.

This is a poor country, as our purposeful guide Ruben often tells us. He works as a company auditor, his wife is head of HR in a large bank, but in order to have money to spend on their children, or to take a week’s holiday in Europe, he works as a tour guide. He takes a day’s holiday and ferries visitors like us to the sites in his ancient, but much-loved Toyota. It is automatic which is mandatory, as he can use his right hand for his phone, either talking, texting or googling a word he is unsure of. Like most cars here it runs on gas – not LPG but gassy, gas – that is filled from a small pipe connected by a spanner! He is our driver, guide and mentor, seeing us right in so many ways, and translating the impenetrable Armenian language.

He is resentful of his country’s poverty. His father, a professor of mathematics only earns $200 a month. They both look back to Soviet days as the good times; then they were properly valued. Then they were someone; able to travel to international conferences with a degree of kudos. Then the derelict factories in the valleys were working and people had proper jobs…. Not anymore. They blame the inexperience of the current Government but would still vote for them as they can’t see any better alternatives.

He talks of the corruption that prevailed in the past, pointing out the palace of the previous vice president, nicknamed, (understandably when you see it) Versailles by the locals. He tells of the friend of the ex-president who had a monopoly on the import of all building materials into the country, and another who was the sole supplier of bananas. Then it was never necessary to take driving test, just pay the $200. Now it has changed; it is a bit more expensive at $500. Strangely you can still pay a bribe not to receive a covid jab, something that many of his family have done. They are terrified of it, with all sorts of stories of relatives dying just after receiving the vaccine. Perhaps they never had the levels of infection we did, leaving them less fearful than us of illness itself.

‘We are a young country’ Ruben says, referring to the 30 years of the Republic. A strange concept when Armenia was the first country in the world to authorise Christianity as a state religion in 301 CE. This was the work of Gregor the Illuminator (another of those great given names that appear in central Eurasian history; Basil the Bulgar slayer, Vlad the Impaler. We have great fun inventing a few newer ones; Rancour the Improbable, Hereward the Woke, Eric the Glib, …) but time and time again we hear the incompetence of Government blamed on inexperience and unwillingness to seek outside expertise.

Yerevan is a dramatic city with its complement of brutish, soviet style statuary, grand boulevards and monolithic monuments, mostly in pink tuff, with the bustle and vigour of a capital. Here it is possible to find a coffee shop and a decent meal, and for a very few, buy a Range Rover. In fact, the food is delicious; chunky soups and interesting salads, with tasty combinations of grilled meat and Levantine fruits and spices. Our hotel too (in a chain started by an American Armenian) is competent and comfortable, if lacking charm and atmosphere. The streets are busy, shops bustle and roads are choked with shiny German cars.

But the countryside is different. First, we head south to the Ararat plains, the fruit bowl of Armenia we are told, but it is so dry and rocky, we are left wondering how anything can grow here. It is hazy so we can’t see the sacred Mount Ararat, so crucial to Armenian mythology, and the brand name of a favourite brandy, popular cigarettes and a decent beer, and the profile of their bishop’s mitre. Surprise, surprise, Mount Ararat is not in Armenia but Turkey, having been stolen in their land grab at the time of the Genocide. Another loss, another tragedy, another reason for the national chip on shoulder.

But the historic sacred buildings are magnificent and unique. First we visit the church at Geghard, hewn from solid rock into the side of a cliff, and then the hallowed Khor Virap where Gregor (he of illumination fame) was kept in a hole in the ground for 13 years, surviving on ears of corn dropped through a tiny aperture by two turtle doves. Ruben tells it from the heart without a hint of doubt in his tone.

As we drive north it becomes more difficult to find charm in the landscape or building stock. This is now a winter landscape, although the snow has yet to come, the leafless trees add no colour to a lifeless monochrome of rocks, earth and drab, decrepit buildings. As we approach Vanadzor the succession of concrete ruins exposes an archaeology of failed industry. Every valley is despoiled by the rusting infrastructure of flawed aspiration, the crumbling carcasses of communism.

Of course, it is winter, and personal uncertainties and fears are our unwelcome companions, but it is hard to find beauty in these barren hills. Nothing is green. There are no trees. The towns and villages comprise scattered tin-roofed hutches and homes of roughly pointed breeze blocks. There are few shops, no cafes or bars, seldom a church. Nothing in fact. Abandoned by the side of the road are the broken bodyshells of cars and vans, stacked by open sheds that function as repair shops. Many of the cars actually on the road, are in little better condition, with ubiquitous box-like Ladas from the 70s somehow chugging along in unbelievable states of disrepair.

But these are incidental vistas on our tour. Our destination is the courtroom in Vanadzor, the third city of the Republic, and however benevolently one wants to look on this country, it is difficult to find much charm in these shabby streets and desolate soviet apartment blocks. The national population is 98% ethnic Armenian and nearly 45% earn less than $5.50 a day. It shows. The faces on the street are from a newsreel or a documentary. There are no foreigners, so we attract curious glances as we stroll down the main street. Perhaps it is our pale faces, or maybe it is our clothing, with colours just too bright to be local. At the buffet breakfast in the hotel, Ruben had seen the generous spread and declared ‘this morning I will have the breakfast of a white person’ with a beaming grin. Strange perhaps, but that was how we were perceived.

The Boy stands and reads his prepared statement which is translated by Nefertiti. In a country that has compulsory chess classes in school he is playing the ‘Don Juan Defence’. It was love. The border was closed due to covid and the only way of seeing his girlfriend was to go round it. Nothing more. No spying, no criminality. Idiotic but innocent; The Youths Gambit.

The prosecutor is sitting to the left. We saw him enter while we waited outside the court. Not that he was difficult to spot, a lean figure with shifty eyes, looking for a part as a gringo in a Sergio Leone movie. He looks mean and vindictive His armour is a cloak of callous indifference as he reads his deposition; ten minutes of unintelligible Armenian. There are times when it sounds a bit Russian, and then I hear German, or perhaps Yiddish, but the truth is it is not like anything really. I don’t need to be able to understand every word to get the gist; he wants the longer penalty. No further explanation seems necessary, the crime must be punished by a nine-month term. This is how it must be.

Then it is Hovhannes turn to deliver the defence, 35 minutes of dense argument. Carolyn is a coiled spring next to me, she is also on trial in this Kafkaesque pantomime. But finally it is the judge’s turn, and all she can say is that she will deliver judgement in three days’ time, by which time we will be on an Aeroflot flight home. The judge leaves and the Boy is asked to stand and then led past us back to the cells, he makes a lunge to hug his mother, a move which succeeds despite a scuffle and the restraint of four uniformed guards. But it is only a few seconds before they are prised apart, he is led away, and we stumble out of the building, Carolyn’s face creased by tears.

Afterwards Hovhannes is honest about the prospects of an early release, he doesn’t know the judge, but thought her body language was positive, however the bigger question is whether she will go against the prosecutor’s recommendation.

The following day we visit the prison to deliver some books and food. Four stories of drab concrete broken by lattice barred windows, surrounded by a tuff wall coiled with razor wire. It is a bleak place, but even the security measures are damaged and barely fit for purpose. The lookout towers are rusty, and unhinged lamps dangle from fractured fixtures. The process of dropping off food and cigarettes takes two hours while bureaucratic procedures are followed, and approval is sought from a manager. The Boy’s head appears from behind the bars of a second-floor window and he has a shouted conversation with his mother over the barb stranded perimeter wall.

It is unbearable. Just too ghastly. Carolyn comes back to the car and crumples, beyond vulnerable, shattered as she rocks and sobs in my arms. Holding her she feels as fragile as a cracked crystal vase, the only thing stopping her breaking into a thousand pieces the thick fur of her sheepskin coat.

‘I can’t do this anymore, I feel am in prison too,’ she says ‘it is just not fair. I didn’t do anything. It’s just too hard.’ And that’s how it is, the anger giving way to hurt and helplessness. We all feel it, our own brush with the Gulag, impotence in the face of brutal, callous control.

We drive on, the leaden sky no foil for our heavy hearts. Even the irrepressible Ruben is subdued, but sensibly suggests distraction. Our destination is two wonderful early churches in neighbouring villages. These are memorable, their symmetry and honesty perfect in the context of their antiquity, and their position on the side of a deep gorge, spectacular.

We are here before embellishment or iconography. This is the Apostolic church in all its simplicity. Remember this is neither Catholic nor Orthodox, predating both, but although clearly a broadly religious country, years of atheistic communism have left their toll and religion seems to play a small part in the harsh life of the indigents. These ancient churches, somehow miraculously preserved through the Soviet era, (sometimes we are told by using them as agricultural buildings) are hardly tourist destinations in the western tradition, albeit these two are UNESCO sites. Virtually no information, signage or brochures are provided, and hardly surprising given the season, we are mostly alone, strolling among buildings the like of which we have never come across, with almost no idea what we are looking at.

Our journey back to Yerevan, and our flight home, takes us the long way round, to ‘the Alps’ of Armenia, the town of Dilijan, and then on to Lave Sevan. This is certainly the most beautiful terrain we have encountered. Descending through the grazed brown pastures of the high plateau, the road curves and swoops into forested gorges, carved into the lee of gentle hills and now snow dusted peaks. This would surely be lovely in the spring or early summer, with the folded hills clothed in fresh green, before the 40° heat of August burns inhabitants and vegetation alike.

Our last evening we spend with Ruben and his family, and what a joy to share food and chat with their smart and enthusiastic teenage children. It seems to me, through my oh so limited gaze, that many Armenians are cautious and wary of foreigners. Initially they give little away, but with trust comes more warmth and humour. By the end of the trip the ‘selfie’ taken by Ruben became mandatory at every stop. As we chat Ruben becomes more disclosive revealing more of his enthusiasms and aspirations. His kids are desperate to study abroad, and clearly bright enough to achieve this, but the barriers are massive; financial, social, and political. We share a glass of peach brandy and drink to friendship and of course, the possibility of us helping explore the educational aspirations of the kids.

I want to love Armenia. I am drawn to the history and the charm of the few people I have met, and certainly there are places and things to visit and explore. There is much more to see than we managed in four days, but the tourist infrastructure is rudimentary. There are many places where it is impossible to even find a café or restaurant that would serve a drink let alone a meal, and acceptable hotels are sparse.

It is sadly true that many of the beautiful places we want to visit are in part created by the hand of man. Not walking high in the alps, nor in wild forests, for sure, but in many of the landscapes we love in Europe, or even in India, there is usually the necessary infrastructure to support a visit to the palace or the charming hilltop village. We don’t need luxury, but we do need something. There are many places in Armenia where even such rudimentary facilities just don’t exist.

We were aware our trip was overshadowed by the plight of the Boy and the nervous anticipation of the Courts decision, the grief and pain of shouting to him behind barbed wire, and naturally these tested our normal attitude to this visit. Usually we are optimistic tourists, always seeing the best in people and places. Here we struggled a bit.

Later I realised that one way of looking at our visit was to see it in the context of Armenia; we were just getting a taste of what it is to be Armenian. It was our turn to be besieged by a sense of injustice and a burden of hurt and injury, to be powerless in the face of punitive illogical decisions that can have long term consequences.

The judge confirmed a six-month sentence, not the worst outcome, but still outrageous in the circumstances. In spite of our promises to Ruben I can’t see us making a return visit.