Back to Armenia #9

The weeks seem to go by fairly fast and now it’s getting closer to October. We had planned on Saturday to do something with some of the other senior couples…and that is what we did. There were four couples and we all crowded into Eric Gasparyan’s van and he did the chauffeuring. Nice! He also could tell us something of the sights that we were visiting.

Our first stop was to visit the “Mother of Armenia” monument at the top of the hill. She overlooks the city and has (as you can see from the pictures that Elder Peterson just had to take) lots of weaponry, tanks, missles, etc. surrounding her. It was also a military museum of sorts with lots of old uniforms and pictures on display. It was all very dark and the ceilings were covered with what I suppose was a netting with camaflouge. Okay, but once will do. The Pincocks had brought along some Yum Yum donuts (like Bismarks and apple fritters…just like at home) and we all enjoyed the midmorning reminder of things given up…okay it just isn’t because we came to Armenia, but I think we gave them up some time ago due to our “figures”.

We then traveled on some rather distraught roads for quite a period of time, but eventually arrived at Geghard. It is an ancient monastery, partly carved out of a mountain, that is still in business. The main chapel was built in 1215 and the monastery was established in the 4th century so it is very old. As we were walking up the cobblestone road from the parking lot, we noticed some caged pigeons. I think they still do live animal sacrifices here. It was a busy place. There were lot of tourists, a baptism (of an infant) and someone taking wedding pictures…so lots of observe. It was a curious place…very old. Elder P took a picture of the floor that has a hole in it. The chanter would sing and they would open up the hole to the downstairs, so that the singing could be heard throughout the monastery. As we were coming into the room, some tourist from Holland was in the middle of singing/chanting, and he had a very nice voice. It sort of reminded me of when we sang in the old theater in Salem where we performed Sound of Music years ago. They have a chapel where you can go and light candles and put them in raised sandboxes…waxy smelling place. There were vendors selling jewelry, breads, fruit leather, date/walnut concoctions on a string, and we did get some bread and some date/walnut goodies. I’m always a little concerned with the flies that have landed on them, but we seemed to suffer no ill effect. As we were traveling to our next site, we did purchase some apples on the side of the road (400 dram/kilo or about 50 cents a pound) and they were very tasty.

We visited a place called Garni. Elder Peterson enjoyed seeing the van cats and fox pelts that were displayed by the vendors on our way in. Garni is the only surviving Hellenistic architecture type temple in Armenia. It was originally built as a pagan temple, called the Sun Temple, they say in the 3rd Century BC. It was destroyed by an earthquake in 1679 and rebuilt in 1949. We also saw the bathhouse and the foundation for another church. It was a peaceful place with nice vistas. If you saw the movie “Hercules” you’ve seen this temple as it was apparently used for that movie.

From Garni, we traveled to the “book” museum. The museum is located appropriately at the top of Mashtots Street. Mashtots is the one who invented the Armenian alphabet. There were lots of beautiful bibles on display with wonderful illuminations and illustrations. They were made from all sorts of materials and were all sizes from small (a couple of inches) to big. I read on one display that one of the books called the Homilies of Mush was made from 630 calfskins. When opened the book is about one meter wide and weighs 32 kiIograms. I didn’t see anything really old, but I guess if they were 11th Century…that would be considered pretty old.
At the end of our trip, some of the seniors enjoyed some Italian food and some others opted for sharmas (barbecued meat on a stick, put in lavash with lot of veggies added). It was sort of like getting a Subway in the States. We followed it with some soft ice cream for dessert. Great day!

Sunday, Elder Peterson added another assignment…that of Ward Mission Leader. He was released as Elders Quorum President as President Carter said being the Institute Director plus 1st Counselor in the Branch Presidency, Mission Leader and Elders Quorum President was too much…and I think we’d agree.

All the Senior couples were invited to eat with the Budds on Sunday. The Budds are a younger couple with 4 cute children (including two girls with red hair…and you know we love our red heads). Justin Budd is army military attached to the Armenian Embassy. We had a great barbecue with hamburgers and all the fixings…sort of American-like.

You’d think we’d done enough eating to take a break for awhile…but not so. For Family Night we had some of the Armenians (Lusine, Samvel, Suzie Q, and Zara H) and the Pincocks come over and this time Lusine cooked a soup that had bamja (okra) in it and it was very good. We added a summer salad, bread and ice cream for dessert…so we have been well fed lately. Elder Peterson led a great discussion on marriage that involved how the Pincocks met and we were all educated and entertained. They are a great group of young people, and the old ones are great, too.