armenia
The Debed gorge in a borrowed green Niva: Sanahin's black basalt in the morning, three locomotives asleep in the Alaverdi yard, a booked hour at a telescope from 1975 on the slope of Aragats. The reason for the whole trip was the great dish at Orgov, a giant ear rusting in a gorge. Yerevan afterward was thirty degrees, and I walked through the fountain on purpose.
13 entries, newest first.
2024
Washing Off Armenia
· The ritual of the last day: a wash bay, a pressure lance, and returning a borrowed Niva cleaner than it came.
The Museum You Telephone
· Yerevan, Nor Nork: a technology museum that opens by appointment, control units from a microelectronics institute, and the boxes a voice has to live in.
Silhouette at the Cascade
· Night at the Cascade: floodlit travertine, one dark outline, and the underrated luxury of being nobody in particular.
Through the Fountain
· Yerevan at thirty degrees: a field of water jets, one bad decision, and no regrets that survived the evaporation.
The Dish at Orgov
· ROT-54 at evening: a giant ear in a gorge, rust on the railings, and the reason this whole trip exists.
Where the Seat Reclines
· The Niva as a one-room apartment: front seat flat, boots off, twenty minutes that fixed the whole day.
Poppies, No Witnesses
· A hillside of red, an hour with no schedule, and the oldest way of being in a landscape.
The Pass That Needed Low Gear
· Wheel ruts, snow patches, one borrowed green Niva at altitude, and the flattering physics of old machines.
The Dome Above Byurakan
· A booked hour on the south slope of Aragats: a nine hundred dram ticket, a telescope from 1975, and a department that became its own institute.
The Wrap at the Counter
· Field report from a roadside counter: lavash, herbs, meat with opinions, and the correct way to eat standing up.
Three Locomotives, Asleep
· The Alaverdi yard: grass in the rails, wires still humming, and three green VL10s waiting for work that may not come.
Smoke in the Stone
· Sanahin in the morning: black basalt, one ribbon of incense, and the acoustics of a thousand years of asking.
The Yellow Bus of Alaverdi
· Arrival in the Debed gorge after a flight and a borrowed Niva, and a retired PAZ bus that outranks every monument.