Lamhajoon!!! I would pen an ode to the tasty meat pie but I'm writing quickly so that Erin and I can eat four more of them (and like everywhere I've been to use the internet a watchful Georgian or Armenian has been staring over my back to make sure I'm not surfing porn). Lamhajoon is a staple here (sold everywhere) and they are dirt cheap and oh so tasty. We noshed on eetch and kufta too! The eetch was not quite like my grandmother's recipe but still delicious.
We're still in Dilijian. It's peaceful here and we needed some down time. Yesterday we took a delightful hike from a mountain lake through oak and maple forests to a small farming village called Gosh, where there stood yet another one thousand year old church. This one stood apart from the rest because it had vegetation growing out of the cracks in the roof and walls caused by the recent earthquake.
Today we've loafed. We spent a good hour or two talking to the only Armenian we've met so far who speaks English. It was enlightening. It turns out the Halajians haven't been pronouncing their name correctly -- it's actually pronounced Ha-la-gee-yan. We also learned that Armenians do not call eastern Turkey "Eastern Turkey," they call it Western Armenia. Still bad blood b/w the Azeris and the Armenians, but relations b/w Turkey and Armenia is much improved. Apparently it's the diaspora Armenias who fell strongly that the current Turkish/Armenian border should not be recognized and that Western Armenia (including Erzrum which is where my grandparents are from) should be annexed to Armenia -- the Armenians who live here don't feel as strongly about it. We haven't quite figured out why but our guess is because they have to live next to Turkey, the diaspora Armenians don't. Also, while Georgia's relationship with Russia is acrimonious, Armenia and Russia are on very good terms. According to our only source, most Armenians are pro-Russian and Russia still very much controls Armenian domestic policy.
As I expected, rural Armenia, like Georgia, is very poor. Apparently all of the money coming in from the United States and France and other countries where there are large populations of diaspora Armenians is going towards renovating Yerevan. The rural community appears to have been ignored.
The past couple of nights we've had dinner with four Israelis. One of them has a really interesting life-story. She grew up in Siberia, near Lake Bacal. Her grandparents were exiled there in the early 1900s. They became rich farmers. When the Soviet Union collapsed so did the economy and they were forced to emigrate to Israel. She spent her first 15 years under the yoke of communism - a little comrade in the siberian hinterland. She speaks hebrew, english, russian, and french. Fascinating.
Anyway, we're taking the early morning mashrutka to Yerevan tomorrow and then catching another mashrutka to Stepanaket in Nagorna-Karabagh. Will be a long day of travel.
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