One week after Armenia – some thoughts

The airplane landed at 3 in the night at Yerevan airport’s surprisingly modern airport. Modern and well built, but a little faceless as all modern airport buildings are. Our first encounter with real Armenia did we have immediately when I discovered a hedgehog living in the trunk of my taxi. These taxis became a daily experience of our trip as we rode on the backseat of old Ladas, without seatbelts, hoping our trip would go well.

Yerevan downtown is a modern, almost west European city and you could mistakenly believe you are somewhere southern France, but when you come into the outskirts you notice this is a poor country and when you see the countryside you think even the Banlieu is rich. Whilst Yerevan is full of white and black SUV and large Mercedes limousines on the countryside you can see people residing in what are mere shacks. Houses that are little more then a tin roof and some bare walls.

One of the youth centers we visited was opposite from the state security service so we were not allowed to take any pictures, as not to endanger the security of the Republic of Armenia, but I guess they have little trouble with anti social behavior of youth around the place. „One week after Armenia – some thoughts“ weiterlesen

Day 3

This morning we had a very interesting talk and discussion about environmental campaigning and issues in Armenia by one of its foremost advocates. Later we went to KASA foundation again to get some more insights into their work and also visit a theatre group, who do a lot of forum theatre to rise awareness of social, political and gender issues.

It is late and I tomorrow we will go to see Armenias second city Gymri. However it was good to have some time off in the afternoon to get to see a little bit of the city as well.