Of Hope and Hardship

Ad astra per aspera. To the stars, through hardship. These famous words echoed through my mind today as I stood in the chill rain on the slippery steel deck of the decaying remains of the Soviet Orgov Observatory, a superhuman radiotelescope built into the mountains well above Yerevan. It was designed to listen billions of […]

Of Things and Places Forgotten

Marieta greeted me in the morning with a big hug and a kiss on the cheek. She owns the eclectic BnB where we spent the night. A jubilant soul who welcomes her guests with enthusiasm and affection, her unabashed joy is infectious. Arman had warned me on arriving “she will give you a hug and […]

They Were the First

On a high mountain plateau somewhere in Southern Armenia, the weather was soft and the sun glowed warmly as she moved through her daily passage across the dome of the sky, her view obscured only by scattered cotton-ball clouds drifting by. Along the horizons in every direction, mountaintops marked the ephemeral border between earth and […]

Of Loss and Persistence

I listened to Hasmik, our guide, speaking to half of the tour bus in Russian, understanding only one word being spoken again and again: Ararat Switching seamlessly to English, she explained the importance of Mt. Ararat. It is the tallest mountain on the Armenian Highlands and once stood at the center of the Armenian nation. […]

Armenia as Humanity

Ioanna corrected me when I said “everything” was closed. “Just the museums,” she said. She’s correct that museums aren’t everything but I’m not a big shopper, and I wanted to do something other than sit in cafes and parks. If I had planned better, today would have been a great day to have planned day […]

A Beautiful Easter Day

The old man sitting next to the bubbling drinking fountain in a dusty blue ball cap took a long drag of his cigarette and looked up at me with his puffy grey face, deep crescents of crimson underlining each sagging eyelid. “Sit down.” I turned to him. “I said ‘Sit down.’” he ordered me in […]