Merlin and Rebecca

Balık Ekmek

2012-02-17T04:39:00.009-08:00

"Baaaaaaalık Ekmek! Baaaaaaalık Ekmek!" men shout from on, under and around the Galata Bridge. Rhythmic and powerfully loud, it's like a call to pray for this agnostic pescetarian. The shouting hits the ears at right about the same moment the smell of grilling fish reaches the nostrils. The taste buds want desperately to join in on the fun. Sure, kebabs and köfte may be synonymous with "Turkish street food," but a seaside stroll with balık ekmek in hand is quintessentially "Istanbul."
Istanbul is surrounded by water about as much as a place can be without being rendered an island. The European side and the Asian side are both peninsulas, with the Bosphorus Strait between them, connecting the Black and Marmara Seas and dividing the continents. On the European side, another smaller peninsula is carved out by the Golden Horn, which is what the Galata Bridge spans. Men cast their lines in this water all day long, even more so around noon - which makes me wonder how many bring their rods and buckets to work with them. Five liter bottles of water are used to keep their catch alive and on display.
We discovered what "fish bread" really meant back in Eceabat - and it was a lesson well learned. There, a fresh batch of battered and fried sardines filled the hunk of grilled bread. In Istanbul, grilled mackerel is the thing. For all the different balık ekmek vendors there are, I was a little surprised none went for something different. But that's actually part of the charm. It's like they're all part of this society of fish sandwichiers with a decided upon formula. Recipe: a quarter loaf of bread, split and grilled, a medium sized de-boned fillet, some roughage (greens, carrots, onion), grilled peppers and the offer of a lemon squeeze or salt. Price: five lira.
This is not to say that some bargaining doesn't take place - it is Istanbul. We bypassed this vendor on our first night even though he had some tomatoes added to his mix, something that intrigued us. He was busy trying to decide upon a price with these women, who wound up walking away empty handed. Maybe they were actually his wife and daughter, trying to get him to pack it in for the night and come home. It's tough to tell. I've really only mastered the words "fish" and "bread" so far.
As ferries bring daily commuters from the Asian suburbs to their European offices and dinner cruises travel the Bosphorus with tourists, a number of boats rock back and forth at the docks. In from a day of fishing, the grills are set up and a blinking "Balık Ekmek" sign may be plugged in. This two man operation had set up a few round tables outside on more steady ground, complete with red and white checked plastic table clothes and a squeeze bottle of lemon juice on each. Who needs food trucks when you have food boats or farm-to-table when you have caught-cleaned-and-cooked?
Then, there is the line of fish restaurants on the lower level of Galata Bridge. Same formula, same price whether you take it to stay or to go. This man made our best balık ekmek so far. Attached to a restaurant (we gave our money to his "friend," a waiter) his turnover was higher, which meant filets hadn't been drying out over coals for as long. The bread was grilled in a sandwich press, which made it easier to get our mouths around and his salad component had a nice dose of red cabbage. He was, rightfully, proud.

We Didn't Want To Leave Edirne

2012-02-16T04:26:00.010-08:00

Thracian Turkey is treeless, a gradual slope of farmland rising from the Bosphorus to the border with Greece and Bulgaria. A February snowfall had turned the fields silvery. On the way westward we passed textile factories and tiny mosques. The drive was sleepy, the sky was still heavy with winter grey.

Arriving in Edirne was like waking up. It had life and layered history, friendly people, no tourists. This is what every mid-sized, self-possesed city strives to be - a place where locals chat in the streets next to great museums and lively cafes.

Right up against the borders, at the point where three countries with wildly different histories come together, Edirne sits nestled into a crook in the Maritsa River. It’s been the capital of the Ottoman empire and the Bessi Thracians, but now serves simply as capital of the province. And that’s precisely what it feels like – a border town and a provincial capital, infused with market town energy.

It would be possible to be impressed by Edirne without seeing any of the sights. Saraçlar Caddesi, the main pedestrian thoroughfare, is a riot of sweets shops and fruit vendors. The call to prayer from four mosques woke us in the predawn light. Tea men ran down the street with trays of glasses, delivering to the dozens of barbershops and scores of cobblers. Near the big market, men drove horse and donkey carts loaded with goods or people, a farrier did brisk business.

But there are sights. We went to Edirne because it felt inevitable. There aren’t many roads to travel in Eastern Thrace, especially in the winter, and the capital had places to stay and things to see. There are a slew of important mosques, ancient bridges, a famous museum of health, Thracian walls, an excellent fishmarket and old wooden houses.

Close enough to Istanbul to be ignored, Edirne is mistreated by guidebooks mostly because it’s in the wrong direction. Turkey’s a big country, there’s only ever so much time to see everything and it’s easy to be lured toward Cappadocia and Ephesus. If we hadn’t been focused on the European part of the country, the mosques and health museum probably wouldn’t have brought us to this corner.

In 324 AD, a key battle in the Roman civil war occurred in Adrianople, as Edirne was then called. Later in the fourth century, the deciding battle in the Gothic War was fought here, eight hundred years later, the Crusaders suffered a critical loss in the city, being routed by the Bulgarians. In 1912, the location became the most notorious of the First Balkan War. Edirne has had sixteen major sieges and battles, its history is as bloodstained as any town's.

But, like so many places that were able to avoid the worst of the World Wars, Edirne doesn't feel like a ravaged city. It feels old in a lived in, unaffected way, with lots of prewar buildings that have had time to decay at their own rate.

The thing to eat is tava ciğeri, or fried calf liver. Most kebab shops offered it, and - unlike the "local dishes" of many other places - the locals really did seem to love it.

The meat is sliced into thin strips, lightly breaded and fried in deep pans of sunflower oil, along with Thracian peppers. The liver is crispy edged, but succulent inside. The peppers are hot enough to be dangerous - the patrons at the ciğeri shops drink ayran, a salty yoghurt drink, to temper the spice.
We planned on spending just two nights in Edirne, but ended up sleeping there for three. It seemed silly to leave a place that we were enjoying to head into the wintery uncertainty of off-season beach towns and slumbering fields.

These always seem to be our favorite spots - the places that no one expects to fall in love with. After three days, we were talking about coming back in the summer, about what the river must be like in the spring, about other parts of the city to explore.

Built to Last

2012-02-14T06:04:00.001-08:00

In the small town of Uzunköprü ("Long Bridge") stands this very long bridge, the longest stone bridge in the country, in fact. It was built between 1426 and 1443 by Sultan Murad II who used it to advance into the Balkans, crossing the Ergene River and the incredibly marshy area around it. It's over 4,560 feet long and has 174 arches, all still in tact.
Uzunköprü's bridge has remained actively in use for over 600 years. In 1963 it was renovated. Concrete paving makes the ride across less bumpy, but mostly everything else is all original. Cars move across in both directions, squeezing past each other, and trucks and buses take turns traversing the narrow lane. The structure sure is durable, which says a lot for Ottoman architecture. It's also pretty. Some arches are rounded, some are peaked. Little details show that no matter how functional a design was, aesthetics were important as well.
On one side of the bridge is an information board giving some background history. While we were there, sloshing through the muddy marsh, a family of female tourists is floor-length hijabs pulled up. The daughter, about our age, offered us a potato chip from her bag and explained that they were in town visiting her brother who is in the military. That's when we noticed the large army base right across the street.
On the other side of the bridge was the town's bus station a-bustle with passengers arriving and departing and simit vendors with huge trays of looped pretzels balanced on their heads. Under the bridge, a man disappeared beneath an arch, trash was heaped and this cow's head sat around waiting to become a balder, more picturesque skull.
In Edirne, at least four historic bridges still stand. The Tunca Bridge, named for the river it spans, is recovering from a recent flood. Melted snow, coupled with a Bulgarian dam which had sprung a leak nearby, resulted in a huge rush of water and overflow. Cars couldn't make it across and, just six days ago, Edirne's officials were talking about possible evacuation. An old man sitting feet away from the entrance warned us about crossing, even though it is clearly passable at this point. Uprooted trees and walkways showed the effects of the near disaster- but the 400+ year old bridge itself looked no worse for the wear.
These structures have survived storms and storming troops. Cows, carts and cars have been their daily traffic. They are historic and utilitarian, full of meaning and also just a means to an end. As we stood at the center of the Tunca Bridge, taking photos of an engraving in Arabic script that had been graffiti'd with smiley faces, horse-drawn-carts and tractors shared the road with new cars. The bridges and mosques stand tall with modernity flooding up all around them and then, gradually, recessing back to let them shine.

Edirne, A City Of Mosques

2012-02-14T05:14:00.000-08:00

In 1453, the twenty one year old Ottoman Sultan Mehmed II left home with two hundred thousand men and three hundred ships. A few months later, he had conquered Istanbul, brought down the last vestiges of the Byzantine Roman empire, and begun the final ascension of Ottoman power. Istanbul was made the new capital, the Bospherous would never again change hands.
But what of the city that Mehmed left behind? Today, Edirne is a thriving border city of one hundred forty thousand people, with tons of energy and lots to do. But once it was the capital and cradle of the Ottomans, nurturing the future Sultans and serving as the center of a burgeoning empire. Some of the finest mosques in Turkey survive from that time, including one that ranks among the greatest in the world.There is a high concentration of mosques within a small area near the city center, all built within a span of two centuries. The middle mosque in the timeline is probably the least-used, but is still extremely interesting. Called the Üç Şerefeli mosque, or the mosque of "three balconies," the temple has a number of compelling architectural details. One of them is the partially covered courtyard, which became a feature of many later Turkish designs. Built in the middle of the fifteenth century, its appearance represents a transitional period - Üç Şerefeli was the last grand project before the capture of Istanbul. As the Ottoman empire grew, their mosques became more distinctive, the style solidified.
Inside, the space feels more contemporary than it is, thanks in part to a six walled support system for the massive dome. Unlike previous mosques, which featured square rooms with necessarily smaller domes, Üç Şerefeli is more open and feels spacious. The frescoed ceiling is among our favorites, the place has almost no visitors.
Most intriguing to the casual visitor, probably, are the four minarets. Not one of them is like the others, and the tallest one has the three balconies which give the mosque its name.

When Üç Şerefeli was built, Edirne was asserting itself in the region. This was the final stage of the conflict between the Ottomans and the Byzantine Romans that had been simmering for two and half centuries. As the Christian influence in the eastern Mediterranean region was diminishing and the Ottomans were gaining power, the construction of symbolically massive religious buildings became an obsession.

The Eski Camii, or "Old Mosque," was the original grand religious building in Edirne. Built at the beginning of the 15th century, it has a much lower, multi-domed design that's typical of large pre-classical buildings like it.

We were never quite able to go in. The interior is supposed to be wonderful, but we've been dissuaded by constant funerals. It's a very functioning place, it seems. From the minarets, the loudest call to prayer booms out over the city. The row of foot-washing stations outside is particularly long, there are always people performing wuḍhu before their prayers.
By 1566, not much more than a century after Mehmed took Istanbul, the Ottoman empire had become bloated and the sultanate was decaying. That year, Selim II took the throne, which some historians believe was the beginning of the empire's decline. Known as "Selim Mest," or "Selim the Drunkard," he was famous for his debauchery and excess. In 1569, as part of a grand-works spree that nearly bankrupted the country, he commissioned the Selimiye Mosque in the old capital.

Luckily for the city's skyline, Selim hired the famous architect Mimar Sinan to design it, and gave him unlimited funds to build a masterpiece. Here it is at sunrise, flanked by its four minarets - each two hundred and seventy feet tall.
The amazing thing about Selimiye is how many windows there are beneath such a huge dome. Wider even than the Aya Sofia's, in Istanbul, Selimiye's central roof soars to one hundred forty feet, and is seemingly held up by nothing at all.

The secret to the openness and size of the place are a series of setback pillars that bear most of the weight while remaining unobtrusive. During the day, the carpets and corners are awash in natural light from all the windows. The dome is so well designed that it withstood Bulgarian artillery shelling during the first world war with only minor damage.
It is difficult to describe exactly how ornate the interior is. There are so many layers of frescos that it's impossible to take them in all at once. Sinan's stroke of genius here was to allow so much openness that the dome is visible, almost whole, from everywhere in the building. It takes a while for the eye to travel outward, finding the secondary alcoves and the undersides of the archways. The gaze is continually drawn up and inward; patterns rearrange themselves from different vantage points. It's a magical building, one of the heights of Ottoman classical architecture. A few tourists circled in awe, men knelt for prayer in distant corners.

Wonderfully, Edirne still feels like a city that was left behind - not by its colorful residents, and not in a mournful way, but like a childhood home. The history and life of the place are still there, maybe more vibrantly than ever. Un-preoccupied by the ongoing course of life, it feels like a time warp - the city that was capital and home to sultans, still waiting for Mehmed, its hero, to come home.

From the rooftops the city looks especially proud and unchanged. The jutting minarets are monuments to that bright moment in the history of its people, when they were setting out to take on the world.

Happy Valentine's Day!

2012-02-14T04:13:00.000-08:00

Valentine's Day wasn't a holiday we'd expected to celebrate while abroad. I mean, sure, we may celebrate it on our own, but we hardly thought we'd be stricken with mid-day anxiety about getting a table at dinner tonight. As it turns out, just like Halloween in Spain, St. Valentine's Day is starting to take this part of the world by storm - even Muslim Turkey. Luckily, they happen to have one of the key Cupid Day components down pat - sweets.
A variety box of Turkish delights and some pressed fig balls covered in coconut, nuts and chocolate nibs felt like the right candy choice for our purposes. But, man, was there a lot to choose from. We're currently in Edirne, a great little city west of Istanbul, right near the country's borders with Bulgaria and Greece. The main pedestrian drag has a dizzying array of sweets options, including more than one "baklava salonu."
Triangular, square, circular, cigar shaped, pistachio, walnut, hazelnut, with and without green flakes sprinkled on top - so many different baklavas! The end result is pretty much the same, a puff pastry crunch that leads to a sweet, dense, honey-soaked heaven. The baklava from these specialty bakeries are a far cry from the New Jersey Greek diner variety I grew up with - they're fresh, which adds this teensy bit of breathing room between the layers, allowing the different elements to mix and really explode in your mouth. This is not hyperbole.
Of course, there's also Turkish Delight or lokum, as it is known here. The finer varieties are cubes of chopped dates or nuts held together with gel and flavored with something lovely like rose water. The cheap-o ones are bright colored cubes with lemon, mint and other "flavoring." (See first photo in this post). These classy ones were displayed in a store window like jewelry, in boxes that you could snap closed oh-so-playfully on Julia Roberts' gloved hand. (It's Valentine's Day - you've gotta let me have a rom-com reference).
There's a stage being set up in the main street right now and posters around town advertise Valentine's music shows. The flower shops have wrapped carnations in heart patterned paper and clothing stores have moved all their red sweaters to the front window. We wanted to buy some marzipan, which many people believe was actually invented right here in Edirne when it was the capital of the Ottoman empire. But, since the city is also known for its fruit-shaped soaps, we were too afraid of mixing up the two. Happy Valentine's Day from Turkey!

Eceabat: Beyond the Sights to See, A Life by the Sea

2012-02-11T11:40:00.001-08:00

Most people visit the Gallipoli Peninsula because they're interested in the lives lost. They come to pay tribute to the fallen. They see the historic stretch of land as an enormous graveyard and that's not that far removed from the truth. The things is, though, there are signs of life absolutely everywhere and the present day population winds up leaving an even greater impression than the commemorated thousands. People have lived here since antiquity, before any battles were ever fought here it was "The Beautiful City." Now, the peninsula is in its latest phase of a long life - a mix of farming villages and harbor towns.
All of this became quickly apparent to us upon arrival in Eceabat, which would be our home base for a couple of days while we explored the historic sights. The town's name used to be Maydos, but at some point in time switched to this derivation of an Arabic word for 'command point of a battlefield.' War may have redefined its name and war tourism undoubtedly plays a huge role in its modern identity. But Eceabat is still just a seaside town like so many others. Charming, salty, laid back.
There are bicycles parked outside of stores and ice cream vendor carts sidelined by the off-season at the base of the ferry dock. Motorbikes are popular, with men in waders buzzing through the main drag. Probably a good idea, as I can't imagine it'd be easy to pedal in galoshes. Narrow stores sell the necessities. Dusty bottles of water, candy, nuts, seeds and a cornucopia of odds-and-ends that lands somewhere between a General Store and a 99cent store. If you need a pencil, fork, new alarm clock, you can find it. Anything larger or more vital doesn't have to be available. There's a ferry right there, waiting, to take you to Çanakkale.
Throughout the day, buses, trucks, cars and walk-ons are ferried across the Dardanelles from here to Çanakkale - a city with a population of about 100,000 vs Eceabat's 5,000. It's always amazing to see these ships unload cargo trucks and buses like an aqua clown car. People go over there to work, school and play, which leaves Eceabat with a daytime population of men, old women and young children. At night, the sky and sea are belted by Çanakkale's illuminated skyline. We're happy to stay tucked in on this side, though, still getting our Turkish sea legs.
It's only our first few days in the country. So, of course, we've been easily excited by all signs of Turkishness, hyper-aware of anything that feels new and different. Turkish carpets cover large piles of fishing nets on the dock, their brightly covered undersides show how faded the patterns facing the sun have become. The national flag flits at the end of a pole on every vessel. The sound of seagulls mixes with the ferry's horn and the daily call to prayer. (The sidewalk is currently being torn up and replaced, hence the rubble).
At "Kaptain Pub," shellacked lobster shells hang from a fishing net like any good seaside watering hole. Turkish basketball plays on tv, the owner plays nard with a young men and two 'customers,' stash bags of fresh produce in the fridge before sitting to read the newspaper sans drink. Sand is dragged in and coats the floor in spots and our glasses of Turkish wine and beer are served with the best beer nuts I've ever had - large, plump peanuts with a thick layer of salt crusted onto their red skin.
Kaptain Pub may be our favorite spot, but it's definitely not the most popular in town. Social clubs range from a barber shop in which a cluster of men are always hanging out neither shearing nor being sheared, a "cafe" that doesn't seem to serve up anything at all except the television in the corner and a tea house that has a perpetually steamed up front window and packed to the gills interior. The bright cafeteria style restaurants feed locals lentil soup and freshly baked pide. A few vaguely Australian themed places are waiting for the tourist season to begin again.
The fishmongers specialize in sardines and anchovies this time of year. Next to this little fish market, attached really, is a kebap joint. It looks like every other kebap place at first, except through the window there is a big bowl of fresh fish instead of a spinning shawarma. The smell of fry, grilled round bread, bowls of shredded lettuce, onion and sliced tomato are all the same but the finished product is decidedly local. The proprietor, popping his head through the to-go window, called us in for 'Balik Ekmek,' translating it literally to "Fish Bread!" It's a sandwich actually, wrapped in immediately grease-spotted paper with little blue and red dolphins on it. We dug right in to our perfect encapsulation of 'Turkish maritime.'

A Thin Strip Between Continents

2012-02-11T10:54:00.000-08:00

We are just across the water from ancient Troy, at the point where the Persian emperor Xerxes built a bridge of boats to connect the continents, where Alexander the Great broke through the other way, where the Russian fleet blockaded Napoleon's supply line, along the stretch of water that made Constantinople rich. The Dardanelles Straits are less than a mile wide, the land we stand on not much wider. It is both a major water-route and a divider of ideas. Standing here in Europe, one can look square across at Asia. It isn't an arbitrary land boundary; here, one feels that they're at the edge. This is the Gallipoli peninsula.

On January 9th, 1916, British naval forces - led by a young Winston Churchill - retreated from this clay-and-scrub spit, leaving nearly a year of fighting and forty-five thousand dead behind them. The Ottoman troops who had defended Gallipoli were even more devastated. Eighty thousand men had died, one hundred and sixty thousand wounded. It was one of the bloodiest spots of the First World War. The land here is covered with cemeteries and monuments.

In fact, we found a peninsula littered with relics from millennia of war. The long strip of land borders one of the most contested waterways in history. The Dardanelles straits run a narrow line between Europe and Asia, connecting the Mediterranean to the Sea of Marmara and ultimately to the Black Sea, to Russia, Ukraine and Romania. The interior of the continent has long relied on this passageway with the outer world - on the other side of the Marmara, Istanbul stands sentry at a second narrowing point.

Turkey is mostly an Asian country. Only three percent of its land lies on the European side of the divide, in what has come to be known as Thrace - after the ancient and vanished Thracian empire that once ruled the territory. It is a fascinating triangle of land, and is Turkish mostly because it is so close to Istanbul.

To most westerners, of course, this would hardly seem like Turkey at all. Cappadocia and Ephesus, the mountains of Anatolia - those are the names that play to our mythology of Turkey, and for good reason. That's the heart of the country, the part to see if you want to experience the culture (supposedly). But that's not what our journey is about - we're interested in this part, where the land of Mehmet the Conqueror bleeds into the Iliad and Roman legend. This is where the two continents meet, where rusting artillery mounts stand guard over swift water, where WWII bunkers are dug in next to medieval castles.

We arrived in Turkey as the national gaze turned inland, towards the unusual blizzard that's gripped the interior. Several feet of snow had halted trains and buried houses. Ankara had more snow than it's had in years. Even here, with the waters of the Aegean lapping against the western beaches, the air is cold and small drifts of snow survive. Any thoughts of a warm Turkish spring dissipated. It's still winter, the season of Anchovy fishing and thick, seafaring sweaters. The locals are entrenched in the offseason, the economy is fishing and farming, hotels and restaurants are mostly quiet.

Such a peaceful place now, the Gallipoli has given its land up to a whole universe of stories, which seem part of the very stone and sand. At breakfast this morning we overheard a British man grilling his teenaged daughter on Heracles and Triton. Atatürk himself was forged here, Mustafa Kemal having cut his teeth fighting on the peninsula. To the ancient greeks, the idea of an Asian and a European continent would have seemed strange - this was the center of the world, the famous Hellespont. It was here that Helle drowned when she fell from the ram of the golden fleece, it was here that Paris brought Helen. To the Australians, it was a place that helped forge a national identity - the fledgling country's understanding of war was shaped by its involvement in the 1915 campaign.

There are more stray dogs than tourists at the moment, but millions of Turks visit Gallipoli (or "Gelibolu," as it's known to them) in the high season. For Anatolians, this isn't "un-Turkish," it's the heart of the national identity, the border that they defended against Europe's imperial powers. If Istanbul is their great city, than this land is a necessary part of the whole - Istanbul was made great as Constantinople because it bridges this division, because the Ottomans were able to control both sides of the waters. The fighting during WWI gave birth to this modern nation, to its democracy. There are monuments from lots of nations, but the Turks have built the tallest. It is part of their pride that they didn't give in, that this land - more so than the Eastern plains and the border with Persian - was never lost, that the people here are still, almost unbelievably, Turkish.

Ships stream by, carrying goods into and out of the Black Sea. They lurk huge in the waters, brought close enough to shore by the narrows to see people on board, to hear - when it's calm enough - engines churning against the current. There are smaller boats too, fishing the rich waters. A strange double movement of water occurs here, with a flow from the Mediterranean slipping underneath the surface, which streams outward from the Marmara. Nutrients and species mix in the depths, the fish markets overflow.
In the Caucasus, we felt sometimes that the land there was only a vestigial part of Europe. Far removed from the rest of the continent, gerrymandered together from ideas and old boundaries, those lands felt more like an idea than a fact. Here, the land is suddenly, solidly Europe. It has to be - it is such a historical immensity, part of the line between places. Surrounded by this much mythology and confronted with this divide, it doesn't matter that we have to qualify and explain why we're here in this corner. This is Europe and this is Turkey. There is no argument. Sometimes, standing at the edge of something gives a better feeling for the whole than being lost somewhere in the middle.

Things Armenian People Like

2012-02-08T21:35:00.000-08:00

Lavash. The word literally means good ("lav") food ("ash") in Armenian. It's a delicious, difficult to make wonder that is a true staple in the country. As we saw at the Yerevan food market, lavash is bought in encyclopedic folded wads. The so-thin-you-can-see-light-through it and so-chewy-it-is-elastic flatbread is about as close to a flour tortilla as a Dunkin Donuts bagel is to a real kettle boiled one. The baking process reflects its uniqueness.
We got to witness a lavash making troop of women in Goris and were mesmerized by the choreography. Woman A made balls out of the dough. Woman B rolled one out, stretching it by the corners and throwing it in the air like a pizza until it was less than 1/16 of an inch thick. Then, she threw it like a frisbee over to Woman C who was kneeling down by the in-groundtonir. Woman C stretched it onto a bata, a half pillow half board thing that reminded me of American Gladiators equipment. WHOMP! She'd quickly and forcefully smack the pillow onto the side of the oven so that the dough would stick right on, flat. After less than a second, Woman D swooped a long hook in and removed the dough, transformed into lightly blistered lavash. What's not to like?
Dried Fruit. The sheer variety available is staggering. Some market tables literally looked like a color scale: pear, fig, apricot, peach, papaya, persimmon, cherry, date, prune. It was extraordinary. Dried apricots were added to pilafs and rice dishes and raisins would find their way into vegetarian stuffed cabbage and chicken plates. It was the best fried fruit we've ever had - particularly the apricots - so it's no wonder they like it so much.
Pomegranate Imagery. Speaking of fruit, Armenians have really claimed the pomegranate as a sort of national symbol. It's odd, because the apricot or cherry would be more appropriate. I think it comes down to the fact that pomegranates are prettier. We saw the fruit incorporated into an old fence at Tatev Monastery, proving that this isn't a recent thing. However, there seems to have been a decision made on its marketability - because every souvenir shop is brimming with things shaped like the odd red fruit. Magnets, keychains, earrings, liquor bottlesand figurines.

Using Tissues as Napkins and, as a result, Branded Kleenex Boxes. In Armenia, a box of tissues is placed on every table to use as napkins. I have to say, tissues do not work particularly well in most eating scenarios. They tend to fly off a lap if placed there and stick to your fingers if you've eaten barbecue - which you almost always will have at an Armenian table. What made this affinity for tissues more interesting was the fact that almost every business had branded ones! Hotels, restaurants, cafes all had specially designed boxes made by a company in Yerevan. Right there, next to the bar code on the bottom, the product was listed as "dinner napkins." So, maybe I should say that Armenian people like dinner napkins that strongly resemble tissues?

Prayer Cloths. There may be another name for this. I know that in Celtic areas, they are called "clooties," but that simply means "strip of cloth." They say that tying a strip of fabric to a tree makes your prayer more likely to be answered. Some people do this near bodies of water as part of a prayer for healing. Armenia is a religious, Christian country and signs of the faithful can be seen everywhere. The most abundant and, I think beautiful, marks are definitely these prayer cloths. When we encountered them in Xinaliq, Azerbaijan, we weren't exactly sure what they were. Having traveled through Armenia, we now know for sure.

Gypsy Kitchens: The Yerevan

2012-02-08T08:36:00.001-08:00

Here's a cocktail for a strange city and a wonderful liquor. Ararat brandy deserves to be drunk more. Yerevan deserves a cocktail. This one is pretty simple.

Yerevan is the thirteenth capital of Armenia, only recently becoming important at all. In soviet times the population boomed, growing from thirty thousand in 1900 to about a million people in 1991, the year Armenia became independent.

It's a funny place - as gritty and sleazy as one would imagine, with crumbling USSR facades and dozens of strip clubs. At the same time, though, it's probably the most cosmopolitan capital in the Caucasus, with influences from all over the world. We had decent sushi one afternoon, upscale lebanese at one dinner, french-influenced trout another night.

The Yerevan skyline with the double peaks of Mount Ararat in the distance.

But the thing that struck us about Yerevan was the cocktail culture.

For Americans, Europe can feel shockingly devoid of good drinks. Sure, there's great wine some places, delicious beer, local spirits. And there are plenty of places with a cocktail menu on hand. But bartenders here aren't used to mixing anything. Outside of a few bars in a few big capitals, Europe's mixed drinks are terrible. Take it from us. We've pretty much given up.

But in Yerevan, that's not the case. We halfheartedly went to a mexican restaurant (called "Cactus" - how unpromising!) that was supposed to have a good bar. We expected margaritas, of course, but didn't expect the bartender to carefully stir a Beefeater martini. It would be hard to count how many times we've ordered a gin martini and received a glass of Martini & Rossi.

In New York, maybe this drink wouldn't have been all that special. But considering where we are, it was magical. Think of this: the last good, European martini of the trip was in another surprising place, Košice Slovakia. That's deep in Eastern Europe - and about one thousand five hundred miles west of Yerevan.
So, what to mix to create a drink for Yerevan? The obvious base was Ararat brandy (let's not call it cognac), which has a lot of oak but also a nice balance. The second ingredient could have been a number of things, but we have a very limited home bar at the moment (we have to carry it), and something local seemed appropriate.

Armenia's two great fruit contributions to the world are the cherry and the apricot - both originated here. There's even cherry Oghee, a homemade vodka - but that tends to run at about 60 to 70% alcohol, which would have singed the brandy's flavor.

Even though it's foreign, the pomegranate is probably more popular, and the locals produce a liquor from it that's a better compliment for brandy. Pomegranate wine is bracingly tart, dry and almost without sweetness. A small measure goes a long way.
We found a tiny, souvenir-sized bottle of it (no point in buying more). After an initial trial, adding sweet vermouth in addition seemed like a good idea, to bolster the sugar and mellowness. It was barely heated in our room - ice wasn't necessary.

Our version was good, with an almost smoky note and lots of complex herb flavors. It's tart and refreshing, not overly sweet, a great winter drink. We settled on two parts brandy, one part pomegranate wine, one part sweet vermouth, stirred in a glass. Very similar to a brandy perfect manhattan.

In America, where pomegranate wine is difficult to find, consider making a normal brandy manhattan, adding a few drops of that syrupy "Pom" stuff, looking out the window and thinking about an arid, distant land on the south slopes of the Caucasus.

(Also - and we didn't think of this until too late - garnish with an apricot)

Honoring the Dead, Keeping an Artform Alive

2012-02-08T05:17:00.000-08:00

Khachkars, especially stone ones, are found all over Armenia. They are oblong, carved slabs that commemorate the dead - and they are also exquisite works of art. We've seen over a thousand or them, 900 of which were in the Noraduz cemetery. From encountering our first ones in Southern Armenia to seeing the insane collection of them in that cemetery, our awe never wavered. No two khachkars are alike. The earliest ones date back to the 9th century, though the art form (and number produced) really hit its peak between the 12th and 14th centuries.
Today, there are still khachkar makers in Armenia. Walking through downtown Yerevan, we spotted one craftsman's studio. He was hard at work, but welcomed us into his tarp-tent to take a few photos. Most likely, he was fulfilling the order of a family who wanted to honor a family member in a truly special way. Of course, on a grander level, he was keeping an Armenia art form alive.
A large amount of Armenian khachkars, some of the oldest in existence, wound up in Azerbaijan, Georgia, Iran and Turkey when modern borders were drawn. Animosity led to a great number of these being destroyed, sometimes by a country's government and sometimes by anti-Armenia vandals. The largest collection is now on western coast of Lake Sevan. We traveled to the fabled "field of khachkars" and were amazed to find that the 900 piece collection wasn't out in some valley with sky all around it. It was right there off the main street of Noraduz, after the bakery and the minimarket. It was the town's cemetery.
A large group of newer graves were sidled right up next to the historic stones. A different type of engraved art adorned the marble slabs. Portraits of the deceased were masterfully etched onto the tombstones. Some vertical "khachkar-shaped" ones were full, life sized portraits. It was just amazing to me to think about how many day trips from Yerevan, how many tourists like us, make the trip to this small town to see the truly awesome field of khachkars. And, as a result, how many visitors the town's recently deceased wind up getting.
Nine hundred. Nine hundred intricately carved completely unique pieces of Christian Medieval Armenian art. Upright, knocked down, leaning to one side or another, covered in lichen. They were adorned, as is tradition, with crosses and rosettes, vines, grapes and flowers. Khachkars as far as the eye could see in one direction and the workaday town below in the other, it was an incredible moment of connection with the country. It's not too often that you get to experience a cultural and historic landmark without being somewhat removed from a country's real, present every day life. What better place to feel that connection with time than a cemetery?
There's something about seeing a cemetery in the distance, a series of upward dashes on a blindingly white snow covered landscape. Out the window of our rental car, we spotted this graveyard. We don't know what the stones look like, how old they are, what village they belong to. Looking at this photo closely, there appears to be a line of footprints leading up the hill toward the site. Maybe the visitor was still there adding to the mini skyline with their shadow.

The Ararat Distillery

2012-02-07T05:41:00.000-08:00

European wine tours are funny things. You're almost never get the kind of access that you think you're going to.

We spent about an hour alone with a tour guide, being led through the aging facility at the Ararat brandy distillery in Yerevan. Forget fermentation tanks or distilling vats, bottling machinery or loading docks - this tour featured barrels. Some fifteen thousand silent, motionless barrels in various stages of dustiness. The smell was literally intoxicating.

We first encountered Ararat in Russia, where it's commonplace but expensive - something like the big brands of French cognac are in America. Of the five and half million bottles produced in 2010, 92% was exported from Armenia, most of it ending up in former Soviet countries (after Russia, the next two largest buyers are Belarus and Ukraine). What's interesting is that this brandy is still called cognac in those countries - or, rather, "коньяк."

The tour guide was insistent that this was because Ararat was being produced before the 1905 french law that began to regulate wine origins and protect regional names (Ararat was founded in 1887). In actuality, Armenian brandy is usually marketed in two ways: as cognac in non-WTO countries, and as brandy everywhere else. If Armenia were able to join the EU, as it hopes to, Ararat would have to give up the french name for good.

The distillery is immense - the guide joked that they should have taxis for the workers to get from building to building. Aside from the thousands of barrels and the stills themselves, there are also a bottling plant and a shipment center - most of the fermentation and grape processing is done in the provinces, closer to the vineyards. We were also told, somewhat cryptically, that the compound held "the largest laboratory in the country" and some kind of "stock market thing." Our guide looked at us for a moment and said, "you have this stock market in America?" We weren't quite sure what we were supposed to say.
The tour, though, focuses on none of the interesting aspects of the production process. We were shown, instead, probably the most boring part. When liquor is sitting in oak barrels, it is far from thrilling.

This, though, is a canny tactic. Had our guide shown us immense, stainless-steel tanks and mechanized corking assemblages, it would have felt... well, like a five and a half million bottle per year outfit. Instead, she focused on what might be considered the "quality" part. There was lots of talk about domestic oak, about replanting projects for that domestic oak, about the color of the wood, the "magical palate of the master blender," the blending process, the "resting" process and the smell of all the evaporating liquor.

"As our master blender says," the guide told us rapturously, "in this room, it always smells delicious, we never get sick and we are always happy." Strangely, there was almost no-one in the room.
There was also a long monologue about the foreign dignitaries who had visited, and about the french conglomerate - Pernod Ricard - who now owns Yerevan Brandy Company, Ararat's parent company. France figured very prominently in the tour, actually - it was almost as though this distillery were actually making real cognac.

That's the point - conflated with exclusivity, the name "cognac," even put down as "коньяк," really means something to a lot of people. Even if it isn't real, Ararat wants you to think that it is - or just as good as if it were. So there are lots of barrels on the tour, a display of old medals won in competition, soft lighting, a mythical master blender. There is a story about Winston Churchill calling Ararat's Dvin brandy his favorite (though this is probably untrue).

But how does it taste? Seated at a table at the end of the tour, we were each given three snifters of brandy - Ararat's 6 year "Ani," 10 year "Akhtamar" and 20 year "Nairi." With the liquor, we were given chocolates and a small speech about coloration and viscosity. The guide played with a glass of her own, but never took a sip.

The thing is, Ararat is really good. We liked it the very first time we had it and tasting it again only made us appreciate it more. It's very smooth, very tasty, with a wonderful oak taste that doesn't feel over-tannined. In the echelons of mass-produced brandy, Ararat doesn't deserve to be a knockoff - it's the real thing.
Which makes me wonder whether calling it "brandy" instead of "cognac" would be such a bad thing. Why is cognac automatically better?

It's a question, maybe, of an inferiority complex on the part of the Armenians. They make a delicious blue cheese that they call "roquefort" and decent sparkling wine that they dub - what else - "champanski." Armenia doesn't think its food is good enough to deserve its own name.

This is the country that not only developed the apricot, but bred the first sweet cherries (it's true, all apricots and edible cherries are derived from breeds first grown here). It makes fantastic lavash bread, delicious cherry oghi (homemade vodka) and nut-rich cakes. And, of course, a few great brandies.

This barrel, set aside on a little stage, contains a 1994 vintage that wont be opened until a lasting peace agreement has finally been made in the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict. Seeing it there in the midst of all the other thousands of casks, we were reminded suddenly of where we were. This isn't France or even Russia. This is a small, struggling, young country that is still freshly removed from independence and war. Most people have no idea where Armenia is or what to call its liquor. So it makes sense to hedge a few bets, to keep a name that's worked, to try to feel proud of what is being made - and not to worry what it's called.

To Ski or Not to Ski

2012-02-05T05:22:00.002-08:00

After many days of snow, we decided that we may as well just give in and go someplace where all this cold white stuff would feel like it belonged. Some place that would have more people. Some place in its on season. What better choice than Armenia's premiere ski resort? And on the weekend no less! Tsaghkadzor is only about 40 kilometers north of Yerevan, making it an ideal getaway for the capital city's weekenders.
Old taxis competed with four wheelers for the non-icy side of the main road. The big, loud toys were for rent, which meant that there were a lot of inexperienced people zooming around the struggling Ladas and beeping at the Land Rovers with deep tinted windows that squeezed through as the evening approached. Every now and again, a snow mobile would pass through the town square. We figured there weren't more of them because four-wheelers are a better all year round rental investment.
Somehow, the number of wheels on the road never seemed to translate into people. So, Saturday morning, after two nights of eating dinner in basically empty restaurants we followed a little cluster of people to see where they were headed. None of them were dressed for skiing. The young women wore high heeled boots and the men, slender toed dress shoes and shiny sneakers. Up a hill we followed them to a sort of bobsled run carved out of a hill's deep snow. Down they were sent on deflated inner tubes as Maroon 5 blasted on a speaker and back up they were pulled by a poma lift with a Christmas tree, tinseled and spinning, affixed to the top.
In the main square, an uneven ice skating rink and a few kids on runner sleds slipped around. Nearby, the people who were really not interested in any sort of snow sport visited the Kecharis Monastery. Before heading into a small mass, they would take pictures outside of the 11th century church. A bearded monk welcomed us in for the service, but we declined.
It was really very beautiful and, as any premiere ski resort's ancient monastery should be outfitted, a big crystal chandelier hung from the ceiling inside. It cast rainbow light glitter on the old carpets and paintings in the chapel. After a pleasant visit, we began to wonder not "To Ski or Not to Ski? but, rather, "Where the heck are all the skiers?" Aside from the small rack of skis and boots for rent in our hotel lobby, we had yet to see any signs of actual skiing.
They were all up on the ski mountain of course! The sun was shining and music blared. A big yellow building outfitted novices with equipment and coffee was had in a cafe decorated with photographs of figure skaters. There were foreigners ready to really go for it and teenagers all geared out, but it still felt like a new phenomenon to a lot of the locals around our age or older. Never have we seen so many faded jeans and tight leather jackets on a ski slope. One man led a young woman, struggling in stilettos and encased in fur back toward their Range Rover - one of many lined up in the parking lot. People with skis on looked like they were having a much better time. Teenagers were geared out and proficient.
Unfortunately, we were forced out of town before the weekend was over. Big banners hanging on all the central hotels alerted us to the "BRIDGE International Economists Forum" taking place. A mix of foreign accents descended upon Tsaghkadzor and scooped up every last hotel room. It's always exciting to see a small town at full whirl, readying itself for a big event. A local camera man was settling in as we drove out.

The Last Armenian Great Lake

2012-02-03T21:21:00.000-08:00

Armenia once had three big lakes. Lake Van is now in Turkey, Lake Urmia is now in Iran. That leaves only one - the high-altitude, brilliantly blue Lake Sevan, the jewel of the Lesser Caucasus.

To Armenians, it's a treasure - though this time of year, it's mostly ignored. The strange thing is, the country almost lost this lake too, but not because their borders were redrawn.
In the early part of the twentieth century, a group of Soviet scientists convinced the central government that something had to be done about evaporation. Their theory was that less water would be lost into the air (and more could be used for agricultural purposes) if the water levels in certain lakes were lowered.

Sevan was a prime target, and was actually used as an example in an initial proposal. While some twenty-eight rivers and streams feed Sevan, there is only one outlet - it's estimated that as much as 90% of the lake's water loss is through evaporation.
Between 1933 and 1949, a tunneling and channeling project lowered the water by about sixty feet. The original plan was to plant walnut and fruit trees on the newly-dried land, and to establish a fishery in the water that remained. The trees never worked out, the fish did.

What the soviets didn't count on was the blossoming of a domestic tourism industry that has redefined Sevan's shores. Quiet during these winter months, the area around the western edge of the lake becomes the most visited in Armenia during the summer - something that would have been unimaginable when this was a USSR borderland.

The trout are a staple - we had lunch at one sleepy canteen and were given basically this one option. Heavily seasoned with paprika and onions, grilled and served with lavash, it was even better than we expected.
Since the 1960's, there have been various efforts to replenish the lake's waters - the effect on its environment has been disastrous and the irrigation projects weren't as successful as the scientists had thought. Also, the level continued to drop. Adding to the worry about Sevan was the failure of similar projects - most notably the Aral Sea disaster - and the now understood possibility that the water would disappear entirely.

Two large inflow channels have been built in the past thirty years, though water from one hasn't begun flowing because its source is in Azerbaijan (and the political situation between the two countries remains icy). Still, the lake's level has remained mostly unchanged, which Armenia actually considers a moderate success.

Recently, there has begun to be opposition to replenishment. Because so much of the region's tourist infrastructure has been built right along the shore, rising waters would mean huge property losses.
The land around the lake has been inhabited for millennia, and some of the country’s most important bronze age and medieval sites are near the shores. Covered by orange lichen on the outside and by carved crosses on the inside, tiny Hayrivank Monastery was once just feet above the waves. Now, it stands on a rocky knoll high above the water, marooned behind a line of beach huts and scrubby grass.

The early Armenian name for the Sevan meant "black Svan," because it was darker than its sister waters to the west. The color of the water is very pretty, made even more cobalt because of the white mountains on the northern shore and the light blue of the iced-over bays.

Even though Sevan is now only about seventy percent as large as it once was, it's still among the world's largest lakes above 5,000 feet. As we drove along the southern edge a few boats crept along the surface, far enough out that it was difficult to keep track of them. The mountains faded into the distance, the far shore dipped below the horizon. It was difficult to imagine all of this as a dry valley, just as difficult to imagine the houses and hotels submerged and gone.

Khndzoresk Cave Village

2012-02-01T07:05:00.000-08:00

I must not have a great imagination, because time and time again, the mental picture I excitedly draw up before visiting a place pales in comparison to the real thing. Such was the case with the cave village of Khndzoresk (I’m sure the pronunciation I’ve come up with is similarly far off from the real thing). Old Khndzoresk is a cave village. A village of caves. How magical, right? The word “village” made me think of a quaint cluster, a small community living in an unlikely place. What we found was simply gob-smacking, so surreal that my (still not so great) imagination had fraggles jumping out from the dwellings.
Unlike the cliff face with holes that I was imagining, the caves were built into diverse, sometimes whimsical rock formations. Standalone chunks of limestone were transformed into houses with their front doors and windows. Some of the rock shapes, like this one, resembled a castle - at least to me. There were big ones with loads of windows, a front and back door and personal space around it. Others were built one on top of another in a bigger rock - the larger cliffs, practically swiss cheesed were like cave condos.
We drove through ‘New’ Khndzoresk to reach ‘Old’ Khndzoresk, veering from the main road down a noticeably less traveled hill. It’s amazing how snow gives you an instant sense of the traffic of a place. No other time of year can you know for certain, right upon arrival, that no cars and maybe four people and some dogs have gone the way you’re heading. Walking around the site, the ghost town, we were in complete quiet. The clouds moved quickly overhead and our feet squeakily crunched the deep powdery snow. Across the deep canyon we could see even more caves. This should not have been described as a 'cave village.' It is immense, sprawling. Even with the snow hiding so much of what is there, it gave the sense of an ancient city.
Old Khndzoresk was once the largest village in eastern Armenia. The city is said to be about a thousand years old and grew to include houses and buildings alongside the caves. It was as simple as that. By 1913, there were 1800 houses, 7 schools and 4 churches. Where the ground wasn't level, people dug out caves and where it was, they built a house. Presently, there are about 400 caves scattered about and two churches left standing. Other than these facts, Old Khndzoresk's history appears to be a little cloudy. The mystery of it only adds to its allure.
Some people say that a 1931 earthquake destroyed the houses and, since most people had transferred out of the caves by that time, it was then that the town relocated to the higher, flatter ground of New Khndzoresk. Other people say that the Russians, when Armenia was Soviet, decided to use all the housing materials in the old town to build the new town, therefore forcing transplantation. One source said that no one has lived in Old Khndzoresk since the 19th century. Another not only disagreed, but even cited a specific year (1958) as the last in which there were inhabitants. The only commonality between all English-translated sources I could find was the fact that the caves were briefly utilized in the 1990s when nearby Goris was being shelled during the Karabagh War. Talk about a bomb shelter with a view.
As we climbed around, we heard a young voice echo in the distance. A boy, around 12, led a herd of calves to a trough on a plateau. We had seen it and the spring that ran into it earlier, nearby a cave that was overflowing with hay. A number of caves are used as storage these days and villages lead their livestock to the dwelling for shelter and to utilize the plentiful natural water supply. The boy's parents called out to him from the two door cave, where they took care of the older cattle. Hay burned in a pile, the smell of which - along with the sounds of the animals - nearly transported me through time to Old Khndzoresk's heyday.
This used to be the center of town. People who believe that it was an earthquake, rather than the Russians, that destroyed all of Old Khndzoresk's buildings admit that it was a bit miraculous that the only remaining buildings were churches. There is also a fragment of a school up on a high hill. St Hripsome, seen here, dates back to 1663. This used to be the center of town and the dwellings nearby seem appropriately fancy for the main square. Intricate windows and eaves are carved into some of them and various ledges and seating areas are built into the interiors. After ducking into other caves, which were simply round rooms, these seemed positively palatial.
In the summertime, yellow flowers fill the spaces between caves and birds fly in abundance overheard. This is what we've heard. In the wintertime, I think, it's easier to feel like you're seeing the place as it once was. You can imagine all the townspeople holed up in their warm homes. The snow and sky remained unchanged, though the power lines cut across a picturesque peak in the distance.
What an amazing place Old Khndzoresk is. As we drove back up to the new town, a man sped by us on a horse - it's footing much better than our perfectly competent 4WD machine. We passed by a few men right on the dividing line between New and Old Khndzoresk who looked absolutely baffled by our presence. How could they not just assume that we were there to see the awesome historical site right down the hill? I wonder how many of them grew up playing hide and seek in the abandoned caves city or used to sneak off to steal a kiss with a young love. Most likely, they just think of it as the place they dry their hay.

Tatev Monastery

2012-02-01T06:55:00.001-08:00

Where the snout of the Arabian Tectonic Plate jams up against the Eurasian Plate a jagged line of peaks, earthquakes and raw rock has formed. Along this same division - between the mass of middle Eurasia and the confusion of forces below - religions have clashed too. For centuries, this has been a fault line of two types.

Built amongst the crags and cliffs of the Lower Caucasus, Tatev Monastery perfectly encapsulates the upheaval of beliefs and earth. Built as a fortress monastery during the waning days of the first millennium and the first upward push of Islam, Tatev's location is its identity.

This morning we were excited about two things: the monastery and the aerial tramway that would bring us there. We knew next to nothing about Tatev, except that it was beautifully situated. The tramway is supposed to be the longest in the world.

Well, the tram was closed for the day, but that turned out to be a good thing. The long, steep succession of hairpin turns that brought us across the abyss was just as thrilling. It also gave us a chance to stop and marvel at where we were.

Up close, Tatev isn't spectacular. There are some interesting details - carved doors and walls, a few remnants of frescoes - but too much time has passed since the glory days of the monastery for much else to remain. The main church was constructed between 985 and 996 AD, and the institution that surrounded the structure reached its height in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries.

A community of some one thousand scholar monks and several hundred laymen grew around Tatev, and the university that was founded there became among the most important in the region, but that is part of the distant past. Today, it's only a tourist attraction.
The original religious buildings on the site probably dated to the seventh century, not long after Armenia was converted to Christianity. The present complex, though, was built as more of a fortress than anything. The Princes of Syunik wanted to create a haven for the treasures of their kingdom, and were less concerned about the prestige of a prominent church center.

As difficult to reach as Tatev is, and as well fortified as it was, the compound was sacked at least five times in its history - first by the Seljuk Turks, later by Tamerlane and the Timurids, finally by a succession of Persian Shahs. Despite christianity's strong hold in Armenia, there was very little support for the princes. The Caucasus remained a borderland.
Worse, maybe, than the Islamic incursions of the past is a threat that's endured into the present. The last significant damage the monastery suffered occurred in 1931, when a massive earthquake rattled the region. The dome required a lot of repair and a three-tiered belltower was so completely destroyed that it was never rebuilt.
It had snowed in the night, and the road was difficult. We found a place almost completely deserted - a few Russian speakers wandered with us, a man with a set of keys walked around importantly, the snow in the parking lot was almost unmarked by tires.

A much-posted sign enumerated the rules of the main church; there were many. In addition to the normal Orthodox rules (a woman's heads must be covered, a man's heads bare, no athletic clothing, no smoking or loud talk) we were also told not to put our hands in our pockets and that "attractive clothing" was prohibited. Also, that there was a specific way to pray inside, and that other forms of prayer wouldn't be tolerated.

There wasn't much to see. Tatev has been somewhat modernized, and feels much like any Armenian cross-dome church, with new, marble floors and tacky, red velvet drapings.
Outside, we were happier. The place, especially in the snow, has an overwhelming feeling of solitude.

It's unfortunate that the tramway has been installed, and that the government has more grand plans for tourist development. The best and most important thing about Tatev is its inaccessibility and loneliness. The buildings themselves aren't extraordinary. Catching a glimpse from a far cliff is magical.
As we ground our rental car's gears, half-sliding down the road from the monastery, we felt happier about having reached the place than having seen the place. We talked about that being the greatness of Tatev - how that feeling applied to the construction of the monastery, too. In the wilds, at the literal boundary between cultures and continents, high up in the still trembling mountains, it seems almost impossible that there is anything built at all.

The Infamous Khash Feast

2012-02-01T06:53:00.000-08:00

Here’s what Armenian khash soup is: beef heel boiled in water overnight until the keratin and fat has softened to a gelatinous glop. Here’s what also goes in it: nothing, except sometimes pieces of cow’s stomach. Here’s when it’s eaten: breakfast.

The idea of khash didn’t bother me, actually. The soup itself… did. I’m pretty brave about food. Today, I was really brave. Khash is infamously hard to eat – one guidebook even recommended travelers avoid it.

Khash is very popular in Armenia, and beef feet are in high demand. In Yerevan, we saw a whole sidewalk full of hoof vendors.

The soup isn’t seasoned at all – not even salted – which is the first problem. Most of the actual hoof meat is taken off before boiling, which is another curious thing. It’s served with bread, salt and a little dish of raw garlic. The waitress suggested I break pieces of stale lavash into the broth.

The thing is, the experience wouldn’t have been nearly as odious if there had been some other flavors in the broth – an herb, some carrots, any spice. Instead, it tasted only of musty, watery cow. The other thing is, the broth itself was bad but not inedible. Even the bits of stomach weren’t bad (I don’t mind stomach, it can be pretty good), just flavorless.

No, the part that was difficult was the melted heel itself, which had turned into the consistency of stringy, chunky snot. By the end of the bowl I was somewhat accustomed to it, but the first bite… well, I was very, very brave today.

The waitress brought a shot of oghee, a homemade liquor, to chase the khash down. She seemed proud of me when I finished the bowl. Rebecca looked sick to her stomach.

I don’t like disparaging other cultures, and khash probably tastes fine when you’re used to it, but this is an Armenian experience to skip.

Old Stones In The Mist

2012-01-31T06:39:00.002-08:00

Bad weather. Snow and fog. We tried very hard to see some of the sights of Syunik, this southernmost province of Armenia, but it was difficult. A day spent driving slowly, of Iranian trucks marooned on the side of the icy roads, of white fields, of cleaning windshield wipers, a day of vichyssoise visibility yielded only a few myopic glimpses. A rock here, a stone there, a church emerging from the mist.

People have been in this part of Armenia for thousands of years – some say twenty thousand, others say ten. For as long as they’ve lived here they’ve left markers, scratchings and standing stones. We wandered from cluster to cluster, seeing not much else. These sites were islands in the liquid white of our day, the only solid places we put our feet on the ground, the only things we took pictures of in the dispiriting light.

This is a grave marker set on a rock wall near the Monastery of Vorotnavank.

Vorotnavank was constructed on a ledge beside a chasm, high above the Vorotan river. We could barely see the water below, but the sound of it echoed up to the crumbled defensive walls. Built around 1000 by Queen Shahandukht, the monastery sits empty but whole, surrounded by graves. Some of the marking stones were used at some point to help shore up the walls. It was a silent, lonely place.
Similar gravestones stand around a newer church in Goris. Some are elaborate and finely carved. Others are much simpler, cut in the strange patterns of the place, their faces covered with sheep or human figures. There were men on horseback on some stones, and dancers. Also, small birds, wine jugs, even a pair of scissors.
A much bigger tomb punctuated the bleak air in the tiny hamlet of Aghitu. We found it beside some gas pipelines and a rusting, wheel-less bus. Dating from the sixth century, the arched monument commemorates the life of a forgotten figure – it is famous in part because it’s stayed upright through so many earthquakes. Around its base, a group of smaller graves has gathered.
In the monument’s stone, dozens of crosses have been carved, somewhat haphazardly. We stood in the arched space below the pillars for a while, looking out at the snow and the whitening road. A few cold candle stubs were glommed onto the wall in the back, the rock behind them blackened over the centuries.
Much older than these sites, the rocks of Zorats Kar are also a mystery. Stood up on a lonely hillside sometime between 2000 BC and 3000 BC, the two hundred monoliths are arranged in a spiked, almost-circular pattern. Some of the rocks have small holes cut through them – possibly for celestial purposes, though no-one can figure out exactly what the ancients were observing, or if the holes were intended for looking through at all.
Zorats Kar is a much quieter place than it could be. There is barely a sign, no parking lot, no people. We walked around for a little bit, trying to connect with the design and the scope of the place, but it was impossible in the fog. After a while, there was nothing to do but stand and look, trying to feel something of antiquity. The stones stood quietly. The snow fell. We got back in the car and moved on.

The North-South Highway

2012-01-31T06:39:00.001-08:00

Driving the North-South Highway of Armenia was a study in borders. Crossing from Yerevan into its outskirts, we saw stork nests hover above a village. Beneath them, children returned to school from lunchtime at home. Only a few minutes later, we turned onto the highway proper and the landscape changed. Those borders, city to country, road to highway, were more physical and tangible than the infinitely less cross-able ones that would then exist all around us.
Somewhere on the mountain range to our right, Armenia ended and Turkey began. We drove along the border line for a while, with Mount Ararat peaking over the white(-capped) picket fence like a smug neighbor. The fabled mountain is planted in Turkey but remains an omnipresent part of the Armenian landscape, symbolizes a common history and even shared identity that has all but been erased by some pretty terrible recent history.
Just below, in the town of Yeraskh, we ricocheted off another border at such an angle it felt like the road planning equivalent of whacking a pinball away from the loser's abyss. We were led eastward toward the southern provinces of Armenia, Turkey in our rearview, Azerbaijan out my passenger window, the self-declared republic of Nagorno-Karabagh ahead (a whole other can of border issues).
It felt so strange, driving through the mountains on the beautiful highway, so simply laid it was named after its directionals. The North-South Highway is not built up at all. Almost all of it is a two lane stretch which many people call the 'backbone' of the country. Looking at a magnificent unending landscape of mountains and thinking about insurmountable border lines drawn somewhere within them felt like imaging a spot in the ocean where salt water gives way to fresh.
The borders within Armenia, between the provinces, were defined and enjoyable. Up we would go until we switch-backed through a mountain pass to find the sign welcoming us into a new region. The Tukh Manuk Pass brought us from the Ararat province to Vayots Dor then the Vorotan Pass acted as an escalator to the Syunik. Volcanic peaks with chimney-like stone protrusions in one place, sweeping round mounds in another. Between, life creeped up to the roadside, giving us some sense of what existed beyond the highway in each area. Painted fish signs springing up in bulk out of nowhere made us realize that we were passing the Armash Fishponds, easy to spot once we knew to look.
A veritable strip mall of roadside wine sellers made us notice the vineyards right there in Areni. We didn't stop for a taste, even though this woman invited us to park and sample. We marveled at the fact that the Coca Cola bottles in which almost all the multiple inventories were stored still had the red labels affixed. Later, we learned that this wasn't laziness at all. Highway wine is mostly sold to Iranian truck drivers who are heading home to their alcohol-free country with "soda."
In the southern corner of Armenia, Syunik province, many people are heading toward Iran. A man and woman about our age peddling heavily weighed bikes along the side of the highway were almost certainly tourists heading for that country. Unlike the ones with Turkey or Azerbaijan, this border is open, but - with our passports - is closed to us. It makes a place feel different to sit snugly in the corner of it knowing that the horizon, in almost every direction, is off limits to you. As we approached Goris, a mist began to set over everything in front of us. Snowcaps floated like clouds in some spots
and completely disappeared in others. We crossed a final mountain pass and dropped directly into the fog.

A Different Kind of Market

2012-01-28T05:34:00.000-08:00

We're really not that into shopping, we swear. As Merlin said, browsing a city's market(s) has become one of our favorite ways to jump head first into a new country. At a flea market, we're there to do exactly what everyone else is doing - rummaging through to find that something, that gem or oddity that we'll chose to take away with us. Vernissage Market peaked our interest because it was described as a "crafts market." Well, we've never been to one of those before!
It all started predictably enough. Handmade knitwear, Armenia-ccentric ceramics. Most of the crafts for sale at the first bunch of tables were clearly aimed at tourists. Magnets, figurines, flags. A good number of the items were shaped like pomegranates. We weren't in the market for souvenirs and felt a little too conspicuous browsing the area with our tourist uniforms on: backpacks, cameras, comfortable shoes, tiny flashlights hanging from the zippers of our jackets - you know, just in case.
As we continued on, the tchotchkes gave way to the crafts we were more interested in. Carpets were draped on trees, drums and flutes, woodcarvings and beadwork were set out by the artisans themselves. Or so we like to think. Some pieces were obviously handmade and others may have been brought from a workshop or a nearby town's factory. We began to see locals perusing the items. One woman delivered plastic cups of coffee to the vendors, made on a curbside stove she crouched down to use.
The glassware couldn't have all been blown, the porcelain had to have come from somewhere else. The "craft" element wasn't always present, but craftiness was still abundant. A group of pepper grinders were set up alongside little bowls of coffee beans. This, I believe, was an attempt to market the items as mini coffee grinders. Crafty, crafty, crafty you craft market vendor.
Then, things took a completely unexpected turn. The market transitioned into a shopping center for craftspeople themselves. Used paint tubes were on sale alongside palettes and easels. There was a staggering array of old cameras and lenses. Men with grease stained hands looked through boxes of car parts. An entire row of tables specialized in chef's tools, bookended by a man showcasing his peelers' (and peeling) ability. Every market needs a beet sculptor.
People bought beads and gems from this man. Another table sold the magnifiers one uses to appraise such items. Another sold the needle and wire sets used to make jewelry out of them. Maybe one of the first tables I saw, with bracelets and necklaces spilling over laid out newspaper, had been the lovechild off all these different pieces. It made me want to go back and get some earrings that may have been Vernissage Market originals, through and through. I didn't.
Every craft was provided for, not just material ones. This is where it started to get a little bizarre. There was a puzzling amount of medical equipment. Flat-ended scissors in the hundreds and syringes and whatever this thing is. Lab tools included bunsen burners and microscopes.
Then, came bags of powders and bottles of who knows what. These were set up between the medical supply section and the cooking section, so they could have gone either way.
Finally, it just divulged into a full blown flea market. If you can buy it, someone was selling it. This included the requisite Soviet metals and weaponry, used clothing, batteries, books and maps. We keep hearing that Yerevan is the sort of city you need to wander around to appreciate it. They say turning down side streets or going into that restaurant that looks unremarkable or bar that doesn't even look open will lead to great surprises. If this is true, than Vernissage Market was a pretty spot on first impression. Next to the bootleg dvds, there were puppies for sale.

The Second Yerevan Shuka

2012-01-27T05:55:00.000-08:00

How many countries do we begin with a market?

Walking through narrow aisles of pickles and apricots, we talked about how marketplaces are a window into a country's soul. If it's difficult to get a grip on a place - how friendly a people are, what they like to eat, what they're proud of, how much tradition has been overtaken by convenience - a good place to start is a city's food market. There's always lots to see, more to smell and to wonder about. It's a chance to glimpse real life.
This butcher specialized in hearts. There were some huge beef hearts, and a bowlful of these smaller organs, which we guessed were lamb hearts.
Of the two main covered markets (called shukas) in Yerevan, the more famous one (the Pak Shuka, on Mesrop Mashtots Poghota,) is a tourist mainstay in the central city. Known for its massive cement arches and tightly packed tables, the market was recently sold to Armenia's largest food import conglomerate, and is being fitted with an underground parking lot and more standardized booths - the renovation process has left an empty shell. There is some talk that the market could be closed from three to five years while work is carried out and the place is "sanitized."

That leaves Khorenatsi Shuka, which has none of the soviet, arched bluster of Pak Shuka, but also has far fewer tourists and a charm all its own.
In some parts of the world, the buildings where vendors gather to compete amongst themselves for business can be tiring places - lots of yelling, much pushing, too much attention paid to every passer-by. People in the Caucasus have a much more relaxed attitude toward the commercial process. Maybe they'll offer a sample, usually they just smile. Customers stand and chat, bargaining is done in friendly tones. Pictures are encouraged. The pace is slower.

This woman was almost lost amongst her mountains of pickles.
Khorenatsi Shuka smells different from other markets we've been to. Some of it is the shift toward Turkish and Lebanese spices - cumin, clove, turmeric, paprika, cardamom. Coffee is also in the air, and the scent of roasting chicken.
A group of eight or ten vendors were lined up along one outside street, selling nothing but beef hooves. The hair and keratin had been stripped off, leaving forked, pink clubs that looked almost plastic. Khash soup, made from bovine feet, is a semi-ritualistic breakfast food in Armenia, so there's more demand than in most places.
I was invited right into the butcher shops that line Khorenatsi Poghota opposite the main market building. Armenians love pork, unlike their neighbors, and there were several tons of pig hanging along the avenue. It seems that the animals are parted and then distributed along the row, so that every few windows the displayed meat's corporeal origin changes.
Perhaps the most impressive section of Khorenatsi Shuka was the lavash table; it stretched some sixty feet, and was piled high with hundreds - maybe thousands - of sheets along its length. A mess of floured bundles lay about behind the table, dozens of women sat or stood, waiting for customers.

When the bread was bought, it got wrapped up into neatly folded, compact packages that somehow, miraculously, held their shape until unfurled. It's a kind of origami trick, and was mesmerizing to watch.
After this man showed us his two largest fish, another, older man gestured for us to follow him into his shop. Surrounded by grubby tanks, a large pool lay in the center of his space - in the water, a multitude of fish. They were trout mostly, but a few sturgeon were mixed in. Near the bottom, a large, black sturgeon swam in circles - by far the biggest fish we'd see at the market. The older man got a net and began trying to catch the monster while a small crowd gathered.

It took him a while, and much grunting, but eventually the fishmonger got the big, flopping thing up onto the slimy floor. After we took a few (not very good) pictures, the man slid it back in the water, very satisfied with himself. We were duly impressed.

Azeri Food

2012-01-27T05:49:00.000-08:00

Azerbaijan is a strange and unique country. We could call it anything we wanted, really - Islamic, ex-soviet, Asian, Middle Eastern, European... this is a people and a land that doesn't fit easily into any category. It's a country that's over 95 percent muslim, with a language that's very close to Turkish and a regional identity that hinges on the silk routes and the desert - but it still feels extremely Russian. Vodka is the drink of choice. Borsht is on every menu. Old Ladas clunk down the highways. Women wear short skirts, policemen have fur hats.

Their food is a great representation of this mixture of cultures. Much was introduced during soviet rule, much influence has been taken from Turkey and Georgia, the desert and mountains play their part.

This is how every Azeri meals begins - with a cluster of dishes meant to accentuate and compliment the meal. Usually there's salty sheep's cheese, some kind of yogurt, goy (greens, typically parsley and scallions) and pickles. Sometimes there's plum sauce or choban (peasant) salad, in the mountains they serve a kind of tomato paste.
At a road stop along the southern highway, on our way from Baku down to the Talysh region, I had this bowl of stewed meat and qreçki, or split bulgar wheat. The landscape at that point was just beginning to green as we left the brown desert and the land began rising toward the Lesser Caucasus and foothill farmland. It was a dry dish, but delicious - the nutty grains didn't need anything but a pinch of salt.
The heart and soul of Azeri food is Shashlyk, in all its myriad forms. Lamb is the most popular meat, but there was also lots of baliq (sturgeon) near the coast and whole chickens - toyuq kebab - on the high plains. This was the best grilled meat I had: in the little mountain hub of Lerik, we stopped at a bright, airy cafeteria where the air was heavy with the scent of grilling meat. Outside the windows, the jagged border with Iran loomed, a series of snowy peaks. The waiter "suggested" I have these bits of fatty, well-seasoned lamb's haunch. Really, he gave me no choice - this was the dish he brought to the table.
Qutab was something we discovered pretty late in the country - we needed a quick bite to take on a long bus ride with us; this was the closest thing to the parking lot. In a dark, one room shack, I bought a small stack of these crepe-like things. They can be stuffed with meat, cheese or - a later discovery - pumpkin, but these were more basic and probably the most common. A thin layer of spinach and parsley is folded between two halves of extra-thin lavash, then heated up over a flame.
In poorer places, often the only available thing would be a kind of egg scramble. Sometimes the egg was mixed with oily potatoes and sausage, sometimes with spinach. The dish above was just tomato and egg, with a few bits of parsley.
If the bulk of many Azeri meals is kebab, the backbone is soup. Alongside borscht and chicken soups, there is dovga, made with yoghurt, piti, a lamb broth soup and düşbərə, shown above. The tiny, ravioli like dumplings in düşbərə are hand-stuffed with lamb and herbs, the broth is light, the waiters especially proud.

Also, I should re-mention paxlava and lavangi.

Things Azeri People Like

2012-01-26T04:34:00.000-08:00

Tea. "Like," is an understatement. "Love," would be an understatement. "Subsist on," gets a little closer to the heart of it, but focuses too much on the consumption. Having tea in Azerbaijan is a social activity, a integral part of life. Mothers "decanting" tea to cool it off, pouring it into the saucer and holding it up for their children to sip, is the equivalent of a bed time story. Or a hug. It's all very ritualistic. Sugar cubes go in the mouth, not the cup. Candies are plopped in the cup, never the mouth. Jam can be added to tea or eaten with a spoon alongside it. As soon as one kettle is done, another is brought to a boil. We have never consumed so much tea in our entire lives. Azeris seemed to consume no liquid aside from it.
Bread. Sure, everyone likes bread. (Sorry, celiacs). But does everybody place it out in the yard for birds and animals to peck away at because it's too holy to put in the garbage with everything else? I didn't think so. Here, a man prepared long, flat loaves to replace the ones he'd just taken out of the oven at a restaurant. As soon as those were in, he would go about making more. And more. And more. Diners kept a piece of bread in their left hand as they ate with their right, using it to nudge food onto their forks or, topped with a small mound of something, making it into a separate utensil. Soups and stews were doubled in size with the addition of bread. Pieces would be ripped and dropped into the bowl until all liquid was soaked up. Then, the bready mash would be eaten. Of course, along with some more bread.
Outdoor Sinks. The omnipresence of this outdoor sinks were the result of another thing Azeri People like- washing their hands. A sink was placed outside the front door of every restaurant or tucked away behind a curtain right when you walked in. No one sat down without cleaning their hands first and we were beseeched by every host to make use of the sink upon arrival. In fact, we always made sure someone actually saw us wash our hands. That way, we wouldn't have to do it over again.
Statues. Sure, everyone likes statues. But Azeri people had a knack for them and really liked sprinkling them around public spaces. In almost every instance, the statues would depict regular people. In Baku, midriff baring women hailed a cab and baseball cap wearing men talked on cell phones. In Lankaran, two men laughed on a bench while another, stooped over with his hands clasped behind his back, consulted an information board. Behind this statue in Sheki you can see Heydar Aliyev waving from a billboard. Which brings me to my next point...
Pictures of Heydar Aliyev/Heydar Aliyev Museums/Heydar Aliyev. Former President Heydar Aliyev's picture is everywhere in Azerbaijan. Billboards show him in front of the flag or candidly laughing. Businesses hung enormous portraits of him shaking their CEO's hand. One cell phone company simply put up a banner with Heydar Aliyev, you guessed it, talking on a cell phone. Every town had a Heydar Aliyev Museum and at least one bust of the man. Anything that can be named after him is. You can tell his son, the current president, doesn't feel too competitive with his deceased old man.

Honorable Mentions

Cayxanas (Tea Rooms). I know I already said "tea," but this deserves its own honorable mention. Behind almost every door in any Azeri town is a cayxana. Most have no sign at all, just a rumble emanating from inside and the shadow of a dozen black caps in the foggy window. Men sitting in tea houses, sharing kettles of tea and nary a drop of alcohol, become rowdy and congenial. Tea houses are their bars, diners, elks lodges, pool halls all rolled into one. They seemed to spend their entire day here and grew silent and wary any time I entered their realm. Tea houses are like secret clubs and they are fervently male only.

Private Dining Rooms. Speaking of rooms, if an establishment served more than tea, they always had at least one private room in addition to the main dining space. This is where, most often, the police would go - some of the only people who eat out regularly. Sometimes, we were hidden away in one if there was a big party going on. In one restaurant, our private room was a mini picnic table in an faux beer barrel. Very cozy.

Having Their Pictures Taken. Exhibit A. Exhibit B. Exhibit C.

Where Can I Park My Camel?

2012-01-26T02:30:00.001-08:00

Caravanserais are the original motels. They were designed specifically for groups of travelers who needed a place to stay en route. Caravanserais began to pop up in great numbers along the Royal Road, a merchant trail that led into the Silk Road, all the way back around 600 BC. Open to the sky, the traditionally square courtyards were the "parking lots," as goods, people and animals were all settled into their appropriate places for the night. Some of these unique complexes still exist and a visit to one conjures up all sorts of images and scenes straight out of Arabian Nights.
Crafts and valuables were stored in cellar rooms, travelers stayed on the second floor and the courtyard level rooms were used for trading and selling. In Baku, a few caravanserai have been turned into restaurants. We dined at one called, simply, "Karavansara," which dates back to the 14th century. Ducking and squeezing into a slit of a doorway, we were shown our private dining room. A gas powered ring of fire was lit in the stone fireplace and we were left to imagine what kind of business deals went down centuries ago. Outside, a fez wearing quartet played traditional mugam music.
In Sheki, we were able to have an even more authentic caravanserai experience. The city, in Northwestern Azerbaijan, is famous for its silk factory. So, naturally, it was a major stop for merchants on the Silk Road. By the 17th century, four large caravanerais were built in the city - two of which remain. One of these historic travel lodges is restored and back to doing what it does best- giving weary travelers a place to rest their heads.
The 18th century Yukari Karavanerie Hotel is a huge square structure. Around the perimeter, facing out toward the sidewalk, small shops occupy the nooks and crannies. Simple tea spots, minimarkets, halva shops, copperworks, musical instruments restringing. The hotel's domed entry hall is incredible, spanning upwards in impressive narrow brickwork. Below the wooden balcony, a sign reads "WIFI."
Our room was not heated in the traditional way - carpets hung up on the walls - but, rather, with a radiator. It being wintertime, whose complaining? Even with the touches of modernity, it felt historic. A completely unique experience. We slept in one of at least a hundred identical rooms that wrapped around the moonlit arcade. The palm trees and courtyard benches were covered in snow.
The morning after our stay, we left before the sun rose. The front door was unlocked by a sleepy young man and we maneuvered our backpacks through and out of the door. The town was asleep, and popping out as we did, I felt like a cuckoo clock announcing the morning. Like the caravanserai's first visitors, we had a long route ahead of us. Onward west we went, over the border to Georgia and through to the capital of Armenia.

Hanging Meat and Sharpened Axes

2012-01-26T02:26:00.000-08:00

How does a person cut up an animal? It’s a cultural thing. In America they do it in secret. In Azerbaijan they do it on the roadside, with axes.

This man, lovably, wanted to know if he should put on his white butcher’s coat. From the look of it, the coat was worn only for photos. We were standing on a muddy sidewalk next to a fetid gutter, looking in through the open front of this man’s shop. Granted, it was around forty degrees Fahrenheit, which is about the same as the inside of a refrigerator – but meat isn’t treated the same way here. Butchers practice their craft proudly, in the open. The cutting of meat isn’t treated like a vice to be ashamed of. Packaging doesn’t exist. To buy meat is to buy a piece of an animal, often still steaming with life.

The strange difference between this kind of display - overt savaging of tissue and bone - and the American version - secretive and sanitary - isn't what is produced but the attitude towards cleanliness. In the west, we're terrified of food and meat. It's perceived as automatically dirty, almost sinful by default, and the people who work with it are supposed to hide the worst of this filth from our consumer's eyes. In places like Azerbaijan, where refrigeration (viable electricity, in some places) is rare, to eat meat is to accept a level of dirt and risk. There's no clean water, the facilities have dirt floors, the flesh will be contaminated whether you can see it or not.
We came across this man on the road from Lankaran to Lerik. We pulled over and asked if we could take his picture – he nodded, but didn’t stop working. The sheep was still limber, its head and forelegs discarded casually in the dirt. The man worked like anyone accustomed to their job - comfortably and efficiently.
The first Azeri butchers we came across were in Baku, at the Təzə Bazar. Men grabbed bloody chunks of muscle and held them out to us – “beef,” they said, or “steak.” There were hearts and lungs, cleaned tripe, trotters and testicles, brains sitting on semi-cleaned tile counters. The butchers worked – as they do everywhere in Azerbaijan – on large chopping blocks fashioned from sections of tree trunk, the bark still on.

At first, I was struck by how casually these vendors handled their products. How is it that that’s surprising? Millions of pounds of meat are cut up every day. Is every slice committed squeamishly? Is every piece parted with closed eyes? Does an employee in a slaughterhouse shudder at the sight of intestine?

In Azerbaijan, meat hangs right over the sidewalk, like burly men having a conversation in front of the store. Unwanted scraps are tossed to the dogs. Customers can touch and smell the flesh, the butchers will make alterations.

Meat is expensive here, and selling it is a proud trade. This woman motioned for us to take her picture, cleaning up her workspace. Imagine an American supermarket butcher, hidden away in the back room, working in (what we assume is) glistening sterility, his hands in plastic, his product sealed up as quickly as possible. Imagine that butcher wanting his picture taken - it seems almost like taking a picture of a mortician or a doctor, not of someone preparing food.

In the markets and on the roadsides of Azerbaijan, the butchers see this red stuff for what it is: food. I remember one man holding up a cut of beef appreciatively, palpating it a little with his red hands - "beef" he said. "No problem. Very good." His eyes were proud. What he was showing me was something he saw as tasty, like a baker holding up a pie or a grocer displaying fruit.

The Living Skansen

2012-01-22T06:24:00.000-08:00

There is a peculiar type of museum, which we call "skansen." It's a Swedish name, but we use it because it's easier than the bulky "ethnographic museum" and more elegant than "open-air history museum." We've been to skansens in Poland, in the Czech Republic and in Georgia. The effect is generally the same: in the collections of old, tiny buildings, one feels the simpleness and smallness of life in the peasant classes of the past.

But it's also the present. In Xinaliq, it's a way of life. We stayed with a family in their house and felt the closeness of a timeless home.

In this room, three generations - some nine people - cook, eat, sleep, pray and watch TV. There is a low table, we sat on the floor. There is a stove, covered in pots. A stack of mattresses gets put away in one corner, the dishes are kept on a small shelf. When the electricity is on, there's a light overhead and the television blares Turkish music videos. When the electricity doesn't work, the only light is from a small hole in the ceiling - once the chimney for an open fire. The family's sheep are kept underneath in a low, dark barrow.

It is, in so many ways, exactly like the skansens. But it isn't a museum, and the people whose lives are contained in this room weren't eager to play the part of living history.
All of us curious travelers are attracted to Xinaliq because of its "unspoiled" culture. It is a place not yet fully modern, somehow. The people speak their own language, full of clicks and hard vowels. They dress in traditional clothes, have their own customs, live almost completely off their sheep. There is a sense that one is making first contact with an undiscovered culture - a perverse anthropological excitement. Hasn't this sort of thing disappeared?

Before we went, in a guesthouse room in Quba, our Xinaliq contact - a man named Xeyrradin -apologetically explained the situation to us. "There's no water, no hot water. The family only heats one room and it's very cold there. They don't have wood, so they burn dung. They will only eat soup, maybe, or some kind of potato, it's very simple." He paused and spread his hands out to us. "Most people go in the summer," he said, shrugging.
There is one other "finished" room, mostly disused, as well as a small entryway, plus a storage space - but these aren't heated, and aren't used much. We slept in the guest room, which was only a degree or so above freezing. The winter closes in the life of this family. They spend as much time as possible inside, watching the television or using their cellphones. At night, the piles of mattresses are spread out over the carpets.

Falling asleep in our cold, separate space, the sound of sheep below the floor mixed with the sound of the television in the next room.
We spent hours sitting on cushions around the table. There was a lot of simple food, and many cups of tea in between.

Maybe the biggest cultural oddity about the home wasn't something we expected - this family seemed almost doggedly resistant to making a connection. There were no introductions. No-one said goodbye when we left. There were very few attempts at crossing the language divide. Food was served to us, one of the men would bark at his wife to refill our tea cups. Rebecca and I would have our own conversation and the family would have theirs, even as we all sat around the same table. We felt lucky that there were two toddlers - at least someone looked at us. We spent two nights with this family and have no name to attach to them.

There are no hotels in Xinaliq, and no restaurants, and that somehow explained our loneliness. The family was providing a service to us - a place to stay, with meals served. In other words, they were providing access to Xinaliq, the town. It probably never occurred to them that we were interested in them more than the buildings.

When we walked between the old stones, the people who approached us wanted to suggest hiking routes, or tell us to visit the caves. They were friendly people. But there are mountains everywhere, and shallow caves too. What makes Xinaliq stand out isn't its location - rocky, hilltop towns are special, but not extraordinary. They exist. Most of them, though, exist only as places - not as a theater for life.

There was a man named Misha in Tbilisi, Georgia, who we met at our hostel. He was Polish, but he'd lived in the Caucasus for years - he'd traveled all the back roads, been to all the remote spots. When we told him that we were heading down to Azerbaijan, he told us about Xinaliq. "It's my dream to go there," he said.

Xinaliq is the dream that there are still untouched places on earth. Perhaps with better Azeri (or Russian), or with more time, or with more persistence we could have found some spark of recognition between us and the family. Instead, we found ourselves more and more settling into the role of watcher, as though we really were visitors to a museum.

But what an amazing museum! Accept the divide, and the display is magical. We saw wolf tracks in the snow, a bloody sheep's stomach in the mud and herds of goats in the narrow lanes. We watched groups of kerchiefed women fetching water for their tea and washing clothes outside in the snow. There were boys playing dominos beside us and homemade cheese on the table - and fresh lamb, pickles, and bread rising wrapped in blankets. We sat in a tableau of the ancient present and saw things that could only be re-enacted elsewhere. Waking in the morning, the sun rose over a wall of rocky peaks around us, the hilltop was as silent and static as it has been for thousands of years.

Maybe not making a connection is the difference. Maybe that's why Xinaliq is still so untouched.

In a Land Far, Far Away...

2012-01-22T06:12:00.000-08:00

Some places are hard to get to and, once there, even harder to really get at. Winter makes both attempts more difficult with snow obscuring roads as well as most signs of life. The world is full of places that remain set apart, that remain relatively unreachable even in this era of global connectivity. There are all sorts of words for these places: off-the-beaten-track, remote, exotic, fabled. Xinaliq has earned that final adjective - existing for at least 5,000 years on its unlikely mountain perch. Isolated, it's the stuff of legend.
Xinaliq an ancient village, one of the oldest continuously inhabited places on earth. Pressed into the mountains like a silk button in an overstuffed cushion, it has been able to retain its unique identity - even its own language. Who knows how many times in its long history the residents of Xinaliq have been aware of which empire or country they technically "belonged" to. It's the mountain equivalent of a distant island that has, for almost all of its existence, until very, very recently, been disconnected from the rest of the world.
This has changed, somewhat, with the new Quba-Xinaliq road. A difficult two hour ride in the summer, it was almost impassible on the wintry morning of our departure from Quba. Snow fell steadily and we were surprised, really, when our ride to Xinaliq showed up right on time in his Lada Niva. On the way out of town, he stopped to pick up another passenger. "I'm the man that plows the road," the man communicated proudly. "With my tractor." Well, great. The snow never let up and driving up into the village felt like entering a snow cloud. In the morning, at sunrise, the white curtain had been drawn and we could see where we'd wound up.
Winter makes it difficult to really get a good look or feel for things, physically and culturally. Xinaliq's landscape, which is lauded for its hiking options, though not without a guide, was covered in snow. The people were mostly hidden, smiling and waving to us when they emerged to use the outhouse or fetch more water. The sheep, the reason for the town's existence, weren't gallivanting around the fields being guarded by vicious dogs. They were led out once or twice a day to eat warm grains from troughs, ingeniously made from split tires.
Even with the bleats of sheep and occasional sledding child, there was a deep sense of hibernation. Fruit and vegetables were tucked away in jars, pickled and preserved. Wool socks and hot tea were applied in layers. Chickens were cooped up, along with families. Rubber clogs on doorsteps gave a sense of how many people lived in each house. This young girl stamped excess water out of her laundry. Her female relatives waited to hang the clothing up, adding to the banners of bright cloth with icicle fringe strung up all around town.
The town has retained a way of life that has become more and more rare and rarified. The smell of burning cow dung clings to everything. These pungent heating bricks are piled up outside of homes, an alternative fuel in a place that has no wood. Water is piped into wells spread throughout town from a single spring in the mountains. The stone houses are built one on top of another. Covers are placed over the chimney of one house so that the "upstairs" neighbor's child won't fall in stepping out their front door.
We managed a hike out into the surrounding mountains, a four hour loop guided by the oldest son of our homestay. He brought us first to this shepherd's refuge, a shallow cave filled with ice sculpture stalagmites and stalactites. Handkerchiefs and scarves were hung up and four or five tea saucers were placed upright against the wall. It was difficult to tell if there was a religious purpose for this or if it was simply a way to flag the spot and provide dishware for lunch. As we continued on, the rock faces kept changing, buzzards appeared and disappeared overhead, a gunshot rang out and the fox it was aimed at darted across a hill. Now and then, our guide would sit on his gloves and smoke a cigarette while we took pictures , cleaned our slip-prone boots and gathered our fraying nerves.
Many people mourn the Xinaliq-Quba road for the modernity it is bringing to such an ancient place. Cement walls, corrugated roofs, wood paneling are seen as defacement. Until recently, Xinaliq was frozen in time. Covered in snow, frozen in practically every other way, it still felt ancient to me. Winter gives everything a tinge of being colorless, lifeless, timeless. A sense of mystery.

The Great Mountain Paxlava

2012-01-22T05:41:00.000-08:00

We were holed up in snowy Quba, a town without apparent features. Sure, there was frozen mud and a soviet park, bald taxi tires spinning on the icy road. There were people and a small bustle, a closed carpet factory, some quiet mosques, concrete-floored tea houses. There were even two restaurants, populated by a sparse collection of policemen and town officials. But it was still bleak, not much more than a base camp for our excursion up to Xinaliq. Quba seemed just like so many other mountainous, remote, once-Russian outposts, with nothing to set it apart.

But slowly, as we clomped around in boots and hoods, the snowy, low-roofed landscape revealed a surprise. Everywhere, tucked into inauspicious nooks, were little shops and stands – too small to notice, at first – advertising “paxlava.” But what is this thing?

If you say it out loud, with a hard, back-of-the-throat “x,” “paxlava” sounds an awful lot like its Turkish cousin - baklava. This was illustrated for us by an amused vendor after several attempts on our part – we were trying to say something like “patch-lawee.” He punctuated each syllable with a swing of his spatula, then shook his head. “English? Allmagne?” he asked. “American” seemed to give us a free pass (it usually does in Azerbaijan).
Paxlava is made not with pistachio and honey, but with walnuts and sugar. Walnuts are a local specialty, and honey is something of a delicacy. The treats are made in large, round, covered pans and baked in slim, stovetop ovens. The walnut is mixed with sugar and then layered between thin sliced of pastry. Once cooked, the hard cakes are cut and soaked in a sugar syrup which is usually dyed bright red.
There are literally dozens of paxlava vendors in Quba, which is remarkable because there are so few other businesses. The majority are tiny, single person operations, sometimes just a small window in a family's home. It seems a hopeless day, to sit shivering in hat and coat, hands in pockets, an untouched tray in the window, only the hardscrabble streets of Quba to look at. We didn't see a single local buying or eating the stuff, and we didn't see a single tourist. It's good that the sugary diamonds keep so well - the paxlava business is a waiting game.
The price for a piece fluctuated quite a bit - depending more on the geniality of the vendor than on the quality of the product. Our first pieces weren't very good, but were the most expensive: two manat (about €2) for three pieces. Other shops had friendlier bakers and lower prices - sometimes as low as 30 qəpik.

The town's other specialty is "bükma," which is similar to paxlava, but a different shape. Despite all the signs for it, this other pastry didn't seem to be widely available.
How to describe the taste of paxlava? It's sweet. The better the paxlava, we decided, the more one can taste the walnut. The piece on the right was probably our favorite of all the types we tried (it was snowing, there was nothing else to do) because it wasn't as sugar-saturated.

But as for taste? Imagine eating mushy, over sweetened, walnut cookie dough that's sat out until crusty and dry. Not bad if there's only one piece. Kind of sickening after three.

The Azeri Coast

2012-01-17T22:41:00.000-08:00

There are places on a map that feel distant, no matter how close they may be. The Caspian Sea is one of them.
I remember the first time I ever really thought about this salty place. Some years ago, I awoke in the groggy middle of a fourteen hour flight from New York to Delhi - this was my first trip to a land more foreign than France or England - and looked at the flight map screen. Our small, digital plane was hovering over a strange disc of blue pixels. Somewhere below, a real body of water lay in the darkness, hemmed in by strange and terrifying names. Iran and Turkmenistan, vast Kazakhstan and mountainous middle Russia. The thought made the journey seem huge: "I'm flying over the Caspian Sea. This is so, so far away from home!"
Even right by its waters the Caspian seems distant and foreign, as though this grey, polluted surface was something other than the reality. A promenade, almost featureless, sweeps along Baku's seafront. At one end, the world's tallest flagpole stands. At the other end, a grid of new towers. Between, men and women walk in groups, taking pictures of the quiet water and the winter-wrapped trees. A "new dock," for strolling instead of boats, juts out over the ripples.
Oil dominates the Azeri stretch of coastline, and has for centuries. The wells here are the reason for Baku's boom - for as long as the city has existed, there has been oil. Before modern extraction, it literally seeped out of the ground. Much of the on-shore deposits have been drained, but rigs and derricks continue to be built far out into the water. If you believe reports, there's an entire offshore town, built by Socar Oil thirty miles from the coast. This watery metropolis is called Neft Dashlari; its population is over five thousand, it has a public park.
Just south of Baku, a rig-servicing station sits some distance from the highway, near vast cement plants. The long support legs jut hundreds of feet into the sky.
If this place feels exotic, it's because of the nightmare imagery of desecration and machinery. In the world, I've never been to a place that encapsulates the factory wasteland like Azerbaijan. Before we ventured up away, into the interior, I thought that the entire country must be like this. Luckily, it isn't. The waterside has brought out the worst.
The Caspian's water level fluctuates a great deal, rising and falling with drought and periods of rain. Once, it was much lower, and, before the mid twentieth century, Azerbaijan had some very nice beaches. Most of these have been lost as the sea rises.
What is left is a trash and rock strip, with occasional pebbly coves and a few, man-made sandy bays. In Lankarin, like most coastal towns, there is hardly any sense of the sea, the houses and people face inland.
Of course, this sea is known for its caviar - ninety percent of the world's real caviar comes from the Caspian; the sturgeon in her waters were once so plentiful that the eggs were considered peasant food. Today, the larger Beluga and Osetra sturgeon are endangered, though fishing still goes on. In Baku's Təzə Bazar, we saw big, gutted fish for sale and lots of tins of eggs.
These are less sought after, more common mackerel (we think), which are caught and sold for Azerbaijan's frying pans.
I still wish that I could really go to the Caspian Sea, or at least, to the idea of the place that I once had. Maybe on the other shore it's different, or in Iran or the north. Here, there is so little: sinking buildings and nodding oil wells, drooping power lines, trash, bulldozers, half-built "resorts," concrete, oil scum.

Lavangi, A Talysh Delicacy

2012-01-17T22:20:00.000-08:00

This chicken has a secret. Like so many chickens and fish in the Talysh region of Azerbaijan, it has become lavangi. All around the country, chicken lavangi is touted as a national treasure - the best poultry dish in a land full of cooked birds. While we were in Baku, we attempted to find a Talysh restaurant to get our taste of the food, but we never found it. Driving through Southern Azerbaijan, the birthplace of the dish, we knew we would have our chance to find out what the heck lavangi actually is.
I'm still unsure if the word references the stuffing itself or the fact that it is stuffed, but here it is: chicken lavangi. The stuffing is made mostly from onion, chopped walnuts and herbs, but can range in actual recipe. This chicken's stuffing tasted like an earthier, saltier pesto. Its consistency was close to an olive tapenade. Though, it was definitely something all its own.
We have yet to see lavangi in a restaurant, but that's been a lot of the fun. Roadsides in the Talysh region are lined with smoking tandirs. These clay ovens cook up lavangi and fresh bread. Signs illustrate the process, showing a bird with a stick through it dangling vertically over a flaming tandir - the moment before the magic begins to happen.
Locals must be aware of lavangi's almost mythic status in the country, as they knew exactly what we wanted as we approached. We were welcomed into the "kitchen" of these outdoor stands as fires were fed and tandirs were heated up. Always hoping for a warm version of the dish, we hulked around. Our noses tried to sniff out freshly emerged chicken or fish.
This was the tell-tale sign of any lavangi stand. Out on the road would be a glass display case with a chicken, a fish and some bread hanging overhead. We never did get that warm one. But maybe no one ever does?
The river fish doubled in size all plumped up, their skin crisped perfectly in the clay oven. I was particularly excited about lavangi because it was a national dish I could actually eat. In my -totally unbiased pescatarian- opinion, fish lavangi works better. The stuffing is right in there up against the flesh of one side and separated from the other by just a simple bone fence. It's much easier to get a nice forkful or pinch of meat and filling together.
We picked at the fish on the side of the road, using its newspaper wrapping as a plate, our fingers as forks and a warm loaf of bread as a napkin. This filling was lumpier, with bigger pieces of onion and walnuts and a little rice mixed in. It was flavored with a good deal of cilantro, possibly some thyme and made sour by bits of dried plum. Plum and pomegranate are common features of lavangi and the tartness reminded me of cranberry Thanksgiving stuffing.

A Talysh Retreat

2012-01-17T10:22:00.000-08:00

With only one day trip out of Baku under our belt, we were antsy to head out of the big city and start seeing the rest of Azerbaijan. We arrived in the country by overnight train. So, even though we've technically traveled the width of it, we didn't really get a good look at anything. I know Merlin just extolled the virtues of our new carless existence - but we never said we wouldn't rent a car now and then.
A highway stretches down along the coast of the Caspian Sea from Baku to Astara and into Iran. It was mostly flat, though the scenery did vary some. We were excited to get up into the Lesser Caucasus of the Talysh Region. There are basically two mountains roads in the region that are deemed "readily passable by car." So, obviously, we took them both to the towns they led to: Lerik and Yardmili. The drops down to the hillside below were sometimes staggering and always beautiful. Along the drive from Lankaran to Lerik, there were a number shuttered resorts and riverside rental huts. Signs promised shashlyk and fresh bread. Grills and tandirs sat on the roadside. I imagine that, in summertime, the route must feel like a long, fragrant cloud.
We may have seen more sheep than people for a good deal of our time driving through the Talysh region. Young boys, who were just tall enough to see into our windshield, herded groups of sheep with flimsy sticks. Now and then, a man would gallantly ride past us on a horse. Sometimes, a donkey would pass by with a heavy load on its back. But the sheep, those masters at hanging out diagonally, were definitely most abundant. They spotted the scenery and clogged the road.
Lerik itself felt unremarkable - but that's sometimes the point. It was simply a town that was reachable, so we reached it. Legend has it that, in 1990, a local shepherd donated his flock to refugees and President Heydar Aliyev wanted to honor the man with a visit. He was told that the road to Lerik was simply too bad for his car. So, he repaved it. I guess, in a way, every foreigner who makes a trip to Lerik simply because they can is really paying tribute to that nameless shepherd.
The town of Yardmili was more picturesque and slower paced. We should have stayed longer,. There were so many things to do: visit a carpet weaving factory, see the Shalala waterfall, gaze over Tangi Canyon from a recommended tea spot. Sometimes beautiful weather and a sleepy town have a way lulling you right into contentment.
That night, we slept on the road between Yardmili and Masalli at a bizarre hotel - the only we could find. The gold-toothed manager wore a full suit and there were at least ten people on staff - about five times as many workers as customers. There was an artificial pond, gazebos and talk of peacocks on the premises (though we never saw any). The epitome of life on the road.

Miles of Groceries

2012-01-17T09:35:00.000-08:00

A shopping trip along the roads of Azerbaijan's south could take hours - the ducks and onions are miles apart. Each town has a specialty and we found ourselves passing through districts where only one thing was for sale.

Xirmandali is a small town with no real features other than a slight bend in the road. The residents raise chickens to sell, live or plucked. We stopped and looked at some eggs. This man wanted to show us his rooster.

In the rich plains around the Mughan Salyan river there are potato fields stretching beyond the horizon. The black earth was being plowed when we passed through, horses and men dotting the landscape. We stopped and talked to this group in broken Russian - neither we nor they spoke it well. A friendly man brought us some ways out into the field to show us the seed potatoes and the slow progress of the horse plows. The women offered us tea. A cold mist was beginning to creep in from the distant sea. All along the roadside, sacks of potatoes leaned in piles, waiting for buyers.

Orchards must be hidden somewhere near Sharvan and Chukhanly. Vendors set out their apples and pomegranates in the road dust, then spend their days polishing the fruit with rags. We learned about a peculiar hybrid of lemon and orange, peculiar to the Talysh region, that's sometimes available too. "Mehr" lemons don't taste much sweeter than regular lemons, but they're oranger - so they seem like they should be edible. They're certainly sour, and it was difficult to choke one down. We learned later that they're just Meyer lemons.
In Shorsulu, people sell fish out of roadside bathtubs. There are two options: nominally alive or dead. Boys tend to sell the dead ones, arranged on boards or hung from lines.

People waved ducks at us in one town, rabbits in another. The road changed to highway as it swung back towards the Caspian, and men came up across the coastal desert with poached sturgeon. Onions in bags, lamb by the piece. Close to the salty shores of Lake Duzdag, there were waterbirds dangling by their long legs.

In Masalli, hay was sold from overloaded trucks - not really foodstuff, but an amazing sight.

People do stop to buy things. The vendors crowd around cars that pull over - especially the nicer vehicles and the better dressed customers. We were mostly given bemused looks. I think it was pretty clear that we weren't interested in a few live hens.

This is the coop that the man dived into for his rooster. For a few seconds he was completely obscured by beating wings and feathers. The commotion was understandable - it's unlikely many birds get put back after being taken out. An older man without teeth tried to interest us in the plucked hens that he had in dirty plastic bags, but we demurred.

Desert Mud Volcanoes

2012-01-14T06:37:00.000-08:00

When we returned to our hotel this evening, a man asked us why our shoes were so muddy. "Oh," we said, "we were just at Gobustan."

"Ah," he said. "Mud volcanoes."

Gobustan is a nowhere town about an hour south of Baku, not far inland from the oil rigs of the Caspian. Beyond the cement buildings, some kilometers of dirt road lead to this - a strange and lonely group, gurgling in the desert.
Azerbaijan has more mud volcanoes than any other country on earth (you knew they had to be hiding somewhere, right?), with over three hundred sites in all. There are several types and classifications, but seemingly little interest in them. We spent about an hour at the cluster - supposedly the most famous in Azerbaijan - and saw nobody. On the road we passed no other cars, only a few shepherds and a boy twirling a stick.

This is the top of the largest cone, which is about fifteen feet tall. There were large, satisfying bubbles in its ooze.
The volcanoes are apparently seasonal, and the "eruptions" are sometimes more impressive than the bubbling we witnessed. The action on the day we visited was limited to bubble-and-seep, but at times there are real geysers of mud and, occasionally, flames.

A strong wind was blowing, and we had a hard time hearing above it, but the gurgling was still audible. The wet, plopping noise is amplified somehow, as though by an earthen drum.
On one side, somewhat separate from the cones, was a bubbling pool, more watery than muddy. Called a "salse" pool, it was the most active of Gobustan's features.
The volcano action is produced my methane gas under the earth's surface being released through small holes in the ground. Mud from a large, semi-liquid aquifer is brought up with the gas. It's cool to the touch - there's no pyroclastic flow or molten lava, no steam. Just slow streams of brown mud. Built up over centuries, the ground around the volcanoes is constructed of many layers of the stuff, in various degrees of solidity. Older mud is cracked and hard-edged, younger flows are still liquid.
Warning signs, in Azeri, probably asked that the site be respected - we couldn't read them. Sadly, there are tire tracks from 4x4 vehicles around the periphery, and some trash stuck in the flows.

We left feeling more bemused than anything - Gobustan isn't that impressive, but it's almost a new concept. Cold, muddy volcanoes? They highlight the otherworldly feeling of the desert - the wind and distant mountains, the scrubby growth, the burbling mud, the distant-planet texture of the earth.

(Our shoes are still muddy, it's very tough stuff to get off.)

Təzə Bazar

2012-01-13T04:38:00.000-08:00

Beluga! the taller man said to us with a proud smile. He linked arms with his friend and implored us to take their picture, making the universal shutter click hand gesture. We'd just walked into the fish section of the Təzə Bazar, past a row of hanging dried river fish. Gold and silver skinned, they reminded me of watches in a pawn shop. After he was done posing, the man wrote his name on a piece of paper and handed it to us with his grin still in place. Facebook, he requested.
Təzə Bazar is, without a doubt, one of our favorite marketplaces of the trip. Located on an uprooted construction zone of a street, in a concrete block building with adjacent sheds and tarps, it looked stark. Inside, though, it was warm and welcoming. We were invited to take portraits, to sample the dried fruit and pistachios. We were invited to have some tea.
We were able to walk around slowly, taking it all in. There were no demands for our attention or aggressive salesmanship. We were implored only to look and appreciate, not to buy buy buy. The market was quiet with more vendors than shoppers, which added to the relaxed atmosphere. We felt safe, like guests. This display of jarred vegetables was amazing. Other stands specialized in pickled grape leaves for dolma. Some marinated in recycled coke bottles.
The man behind this stand plucked a sugar-coated dried persimmon off from a bunch and tore it in half with his thumbs. A walnut was pressed into the flesh of each and handed to us. We chewed on the delicious snack and he smiled with full understanding. It was a little bit of perfection. Azerbaijan, he said, referencing the origin of both ingredients and welcoming us to his country. At least that's how it felt.
These young men also provided us with an email address and mentioned, more then thrice, that they had some caviar for sale. Apparently, the roe dealing at the bazaar used to be much... well... fishier - with men inviting you down into the lower level to peruse their illegal stash. Now, it's legal and far more expensive.
That downstairs room in the main bi-level building is now the meat market. There are slabs hanging from hooks upstairs, but here it gets to the nitty gritty of it all. Huge meat lockers buzzed and the shiny metal tables gave an instant sense of sanitation at the bottom of the blood specked staircase. This woman sold the full works, tongues, trotters, et al. She put her hand to her chest to confirm our assumption that the large organs in the front were hearts. Then, of course, she welcomed us to take a picture.
Azerbaijan is famous for its fruit and while the full gambit was run, you could easily tell which season it was. They tried as best they could to get these squash into a neat pyramid like all the other produce. But its shape just makes things too tricky. The colors were extraordinary and most everything was polished to a sheen. Off to the side, there was a cafe and we sat for some tea. Waiting for boiling water to cool off really gives you a moment to take things in.
Word got around about us and we were greeted into rooms with our new nickname: Americas. It became a smiling contest of sorts. Merlin and I have rather big ones and people put up their best fight trying to out grin us. We walked around in a sort of happy stupor, pointing at all the gastronomic treasures. There were rices and dried herbs and vegetables and beans. Lambskin sacks kept dairy products cool and wheels of cheese added a saltiness to the air.
Food is just a part of what Təzə Bazar encompasses. There is a whole section, just as large, with hardware, home appliances and lighting fixtures. This area had more customers while we were there. Men tried out power tools and examined lawn mowers. Everything was kept neatly - the most orderly store of its kind I've ever seen. As we left, a man pulled a wagon loaded with fresh cheese through the extension cord department. We took more pictures and he even stopped a little to make sure we got a good one.

Baku's Destruction/Construction

2012-01-13T03:45:00.001-08:00

In 1850, Baku - the capital of Azerbaijan - was little more than a sleepy, stone village on the Caspian sea. By 1900, it was producing twenty percent of the world's oil, and the population had boomed. In the last hundred and fifty years, Baku's population has grown from seven thousand to nearly two million people. A lot of buildings were put up very fast - now, they're being town down.

We arrived here in a period of mist and chill, to find a city on the cusp of becoming something entirely different from what it has been.
Baku is a city on the line between sea and desert, full of dust, mostly new. Near the water, large steel and glass towers erupt from the ground, standing near neglected oil-boom mansions and obliterating the older, lower houses. The european gilded age was once the style here. Now, it is being transformed into a city of blank lines and large-windowed boutiques. Walking down the main avenues, there is little evidence of place - it could be any wealthy, bland city. The houses that have been left standing are being furiously retrofitted and carved up.
Walking in the northern part of the capital, further away from the old town and the Caspian promenade, there are huge swaths of torn-up earth and knocked-down buildings. One can still see a few graceful rooflines and elaborate mouldings, though the structures are hollow and filled with rubble.

Partly, these blocks were leveled because the buildings there were deemed unsafe or unfit to live in. Skeptics aren't so sure - there are people who believe the government has been leveling houses to provide inexpensive land for development and to help keep the housing market from collapsing.
The housing market, unlike in other places, has been very strong (it grew 7.9% in 2011). Azerbaijan is becoming wealthier - at least on paper - and real estate prices have been going up. Sadly, there isn't a great deal of parity, and most of the people who have been displaced from their homes aren't able to afford the new apartments.

It's common to walk next to glittering, new apartments on sidewalks of earth and debris. Little has been done to help the cities infrastructure. Manhole covers are often missing. Electric lines sag. And row after row of houses have been left to decay and fill with trash, their front walls ripped out, their floors torn through. It's unlikely that they would have become like this on their own, though that's what the government claims. They sit, waiting to be bulldozed.

The modern construction standards aren't necessarily very good, either. Despite claims that the new towers are being built to improve the quality of life and safety of Baku's citizens, that's hard to verify. In 2007, a prominent fourteen-story building project collapsed, killing five construction workers. Look at the state of this scaffolding.
Baku is a place that won't have much of anything old. There wasn't much here to begin with, there will be less soon. In the old town - a potentially delightful warren of small streets and creaky buildings - they are ripping out the cobbles as I write this, to be replaced with more "modern" paving. The old houses have been bought up; oil-company logos grace the plaques on the doors. One corner of the town's wall was leveled to make room for a hotel.

Georgia on the Vine

2012-01-11T05:45:00.000-08:00

Georgia was destined for wine making. Their summers are warm, their winters are moderate with barely any frost and there are natural springs all over the place. The Black Sea keeps the air moist and the Caucusus drain mineral rich water into the valley. The Kakheti region is primo wine country and driving through brings you views of vineyards for as far as the eye can see. It is the proven site of wine making as far back as 9000 BC - making Georgia one of the oldest wine producing regions in the world. Some people say the oldest. It all started when grape juice was stored under the earth for the winter and turned up in spring as wine. People began to ferment juice in big clay pots, burying them in the ground for seasons or years. Shards of kveris, some from the 3rd millennium BC, fill Georgian ethnographic and history museums. Whole ones are on almost every front lawn or public park. Most "house wine," found on tap or served in recycled soda bottles in restaurants, is still made this way. I had heard a lot about Georgian wine and had been disappointed at how, well, awful I thought it was. It turns out, I just don't like homemade "black wine" (also known as "orange wine" outside of Georgia), which is made from white grapes, but fermented with the skins still in the mix.
While most families make their own wine, professional production is a large and growing field. There are about 400 different grapes in Georgia, around 38 of which are cultivated for wine. While the growing is still almost exclusively a small farmer affair, commercial wineries (who buy from those private vineyards) have popped up to deal with the production. We visited Teliani Valley, one of the biggest and most modern wineries. These barrels from the 90s were some of the first used, but shiny temperature-control stainless steel ones in the next room did most of the work nowadays.
They opened in 1997, just around a decade after Gorbachev's anti-alcohol campaign had destroyed 3/4 of all the vineyards in Georgia. They boomed for about ten years, before the 2006 Russian embargo on Georgian wine was put in place. Business is bouncing back steadily, though. An I Love Lucy-esque assembly line worked on bottling, corking (with only the finest Portuguese cork, something dear to my heart), labeling and boxing the bottles. Around 3 million are produced per year, including some special French/Georgian grape blends that are big in Austria.
Our tour guide had studied wine tourism in Seattle, Washington and the Tacoma Valley. Georgia (like the other leader in former Soviet wine production, Moldova) is hoping to excite visitors with winery visits and harvest-time festivities. While Teliani Valley may not have been the underground wine cave of Milestii-Mici, they are clearly on the right track. It was fun to visit, we were given delicious tastings and Nino even helped point us in the direction of our next sight-seeing venture.
Yes, our guide's name was Nino. Half the women we meet here are named after the saint who converted Georgia to Christianity - and is buried at recently visited Bodbe Monastery. She is also intertwined with the sacredness of wine in Georgia, conducting her missions with a cross wrapped up in grape vines. Anyway, Nino -guide not saint - advised us to wave down a marshrutka outside the winery and ask the driver to take us to the Aleksandre Chavchavadze House Museum in Tsinsandali.
There, we visited one of the biggest wine cellars in Khaketi (and had another "tasting" a.k.a. glass of Tsinindali wine). We weren't allowed to take photos inside, but the room of shelves filled with thousands of dusty, unlabelled bottles was awesome. At least 500 of them were from the 19th century. The old woman who had opened the cellar door for us laughed when we asked if she'd sampled any. "Vinegar," she responded and scrunched her face. So, it sounds like she had...?

A New Type Of Travel

2012-01-11T05:12:00.000-08:00

We traveled by car for the first fifteen months of the trip. Now, the car is back in America. A lot has changed in the way we get around. Above, the Tbilisi train station at dusk.
The biggest difference is the amount we are able to carry with us. We used to have a tent and folding table, a gas stove, pots and pans, spatulas and cheese grater, sleeping bags and wine glasses. We had to leave behind our tripod, our bags of books, our bigger bags of clothes, our thermoses and CD's. We used to feel as though there was a complete home in our car, ready to be unfolded at a campsite or rented room. One bag was called "the kitchen," another "the library," our tent was the bedroom, put in next to "our closets." There were times when we contemplated buying houseplants (or, car-plants?).

Now, everything we carry must really be carried.

Above, an uncrowded moment on the Tbilisi subway, which is actually quite convenient, fast and clean.
Another difference - we now have to know more precisely where the next destination will be, and how we are going to get there. With a car, it's easy to pull over for the night at some roadhouse or inn. We could wander at our own pace. There were no prescribed routes - we could take a back road or continue beyond where the busses ran. Now, we are at the mercy of our drivers, conductors and pilots, whose job is to go from one point to another.

We took a plane from Tbilisi to Mestia, which we never would have done before. On our flight there, we were the only two people aboard (there were sixteen seats, supposedly - I counted fifteen). On our flight back, the plane was full of Svans journeying to the capital for Christmas - it seemed most of them had never flown before.

Of course, in this part of the world, people travel by marshrutka, and so we have too. We'd been on them before, of course (our most memorable ride being into Transnistria), but not as often as most travelers in Eastern Europe.

Marshrutkas are, essentially, private busses - usually vans, actually - that run along predetermined routes and pick up or drop off passengers as they go. Sometimes they are quite pleasant. Sometimes, they are over-packed and uncomfortable.
We took a slow sleeper train from Tbilisi to Baku in Azerbaijan. It was, at one time, probably very luxurious, but was now tattered and faded. We felt that the journey - especially in between dreams, waking to darkness and clanging - was decades-old. The curtain rod was rusty, the fabrics musty. The porters had raucous laughs and a tiny room where they drank tea. They spoke Azeri to each other, hard-edged Russian to us. Outside, only occasional lights in the desert. We felt, for many hours, the slow tilt of the land downward to the caspian sea.

It was wonderful to drift in this relic of empire and Brezhnev, letting the miles pass unnoticed. We could read and play cards, drink Georgian brandy and use the bathroom. We miss our car very much - but this kind of travel isn't so bad.

Puri, Khachapuri, Lobiani and Kubdari

2012-01-11T03:43:00.000-08:00

It was our first, jet-lagged morning in Georgia, at the table of a Tbilisi hostel. A man named Benji, who was about to make us pankcakes, put a few flat loaves on the table with jam. They were rounded and puffy, with two points sticking out at each end. I asked if they were the pancakes and he laughed. “No,” he said. “This is puri, Georgian bread.”

Thus began a small love affair. Puri (პური in Georgian), in all its myriad forms, is delicious and different, a fluffy, cheesy, buttery, salty welcome to the region.

(As you can see, I can be forgiven for thinking that it was some kind of pancake. One point got ripped off this example before we had a chance to take a picture.)

Puri is often confused with the Indian bread of the same name, but there are real differences in the way the two loaves are cooked. While Indian puri (also spelled "poori") is deep-fried in oil, Georgian puri is baked in a traditional, vertical oven called a tone (seen at right in the picture - they're squat, primitive looking things).

Though electric tones exist, the traditional oven is heated by wood. A fire is lit at the bottom of the well-like, clay oven in the evening and left to burn all night. In the morning, the walls of the tone have absorbed enough heat to bake bread until about noon. Loaves are stuck to the inside walls for a few minutes, then removed with a long, hook-and-pole thing. Some tones are as deep as six feet, while others are only a slight recess.

The version of puri that is most famous, and perhaps the least likely to be forgotten, is khachapuri or, ხაჭაპური. Qacha means cheese; this is simply stuffed bread. It’s often served in lieu of plain bread, and many regions have their own styles.

In the mountains of the Svaneti region, our host mother was especially proud of her kubdari, the national dish of the Svaneti people. Kubdari is similar to khachapuri, but also filled with ground beef and herbs. While delicious, it really should have been considered a meal in itself – but it was served alongside our plate, like an extravagant dinner roll.

Above, a more sedate, normal khachapuri, snipped into quarters with long shears.

Bakery-cafes are probably the most popular eating spots in Georgia, especially in Tbilisi. Alongside sweets and little cakes, one is likely to find a wide array of savory baked goods - from regular breads to khachapuri to the indulgent adjaruli khachapuri, a dish-shaped loaf, the hollow of which is filled with a raw egg and melted butter in addition to cheese.

One of our favorite Georgian breads is called lobiani, which derives its name from lobio, or "beans." It's a wafer-thin pastry with a dry, bean and garlic paste baked inside. Delicious, and way less guilt inducing than some of the other options.
Georgian script is very tough to read without practice, and it's difficult to find a shop that's selling what you're looking for. Luckily, a lot of businesses will hang examples of their wares outside their door. We laughed the first time we saw a loaf on a string, but then found that it's common.
On feast days, like New Year's, bread plays an important role in the festivities, especially the traditional, cheese-less loaves. We actually had difficulty buying bread on New Years Eve - all the bakeries were packed, with lines out the door. This little girl had just secured her families supply, and was literally running home with it.
For some reason, most Georgian bakeries tend to be below street level. We were able to find this semi-subterranean (though the light from the window might suggest otherwise) place in Signaghi using our noses.

It seemed to be some kind of secret bread club - plenty of old women were buying bread at the counter, but we were initially turned away. It wasn't until one of the other customers admonished the baker that she went into the back room and emerged with a loaf for us. The cost, for a large, frying-pan-sized puri: .50 Lari, or about 30¢. We ate it with a can of sardines, standing up in a park - maybe the best lunch of the country.

Georgian Food

2012-01-11T03:16:00.000-08:00

Georgian food is like a great sitcom. A classic one. Sure, it's formulaic and mostly predictable, but there are enough little surprises, enough zest, a guest star now and then to keep you hooked. When it's "bad," it may feel uninspired and laid on too thick, but when it's good it's damn near brilliant. The cast of characters include: walnuts, garlic, cilantro, pepper, mushrooms, eggplant, pomegranate and beans. The lead, the cornerstone of all Georgian food, is khinkali.
In small eating joints, it may be the only thing on offer. At restaurants with a scroll of a menu, they are still often the only thing ordered. Khinkali are a lot like Chinese soup dumplings. You have to get the hang of eating them, as the doughy sacks are filled not only with a ball of spicy meat, but also some great liquid. You grab them by the nub (which remains uneaten) bite and slurp out the juices, then go about eating the rest of it with your hand or a fork. When they're stuffed with mushroom or potato, there's not quite the same half-filled water balloon experience, but they're still a treat. Some were satisfying, some were great, some were transcendent. All were ordered in bulk, as asking for less then five khinkali is basically impossible.
The thing is - Georgian food is just absolutely packed with flavor. Sometimes to a fault, but mostly to sheer pleasure. This was another ubiquitous menu item - badrijani nigvzit, eggplant with walnut paste, topped with pomegranate seeds. Here's where that hard-to-complain-about predictable formula comes in. Just about everything, especially every vegetable, is prepared with crushed walnuts and sprinkled with pomegranate seeds. The walnut puree is so garlic enriched, so flavorful, that you'll swear it's some sort of cheese. But Georgians just know how to work wonders with the nut.
And they make them so hard to recognize! What are these, you ask? Candles? Sausages? (My guess and Merlin's, respectively). They're churchkhela, strings of walnuts dipped into a flour and grape juice paste. Think: nut-filled fruit roll up on a string. Mostly, they were brown or deep burgundy, but these festive ones ran the full gambit of grape varieties. On the side of almost every road were churchkhela stands. Many of them were covered with a plastic tarp or a piece of lace to shield the gummy creations from kicked up dust.
Probably my favorite walnutty dishes were pkhali, veggie pates most often made from spinach, beet or cabbage. Oh, the mounds of spinach walnut mash I consumed. Every now and then one would be just a little more garlicky or salty or... do I taste dill? Scallion? No two tasted exactly the same and they were always a pleasure. Merlin and I commented that the pkhali in Georgia were like the paprikas in Hungary, dishes that were introduced to us on this trip and will likely be incorporated into our lifelong cooking. Here, a veggie plate is rounded out by "peasants salad" (tomato, cilantro and cucumber), eggplant w/ walnut, kidney beans and mchadi, a dense cornflour cake.
Speaking of kidney beans, lobio was the chameleon of the menu's main players. Sometimes it was cold, but most often it was served "in a clay pot." This could mean anything from plump, crisp-skinned beans with or without liquid to a mash to a stew. This bowl of lobio was incredible with a heavy dose of cumin, a bay leaf at the bottom and a biting black pepper spice. Georgia's really only the second country on our trip so far (after Hungary) to kick things up with spice. Here, it wouldn't be surprising to find a dried chilli pepper somewhere in your dish or to discern that the heat culprit was just a heavy dose of raw garlic or one strong red onion.
With all these flavor explosions and the sad, but common, occurrence of over salting, dishes like shredded beets in mayo (with a dusting of crushed walnut, of course) and "fresh greens" came in handy. The latter was a plate full of cilantro, scallions, parsley and radish. People chewed on these herbs to help with digestion and drank neon green soda water infused with tarragon. The plate often signaled a respite for us, a break before the next round of dishes came. And they always came.
You see, it is just too easy to order way too much. Food is very inexpensive in Georgia, menus are big and servers just keep saying "and..." until you've exhausted the list of things you know how to say in Georgian or can successfully charade. I have to mention the one food I probably ate more of in Georgia than anything else, but isn't really all that photogenic. S'oko - mushrooms. Saying the word alone would bring a sizzling cast iron skillet of whole mushrooms in oil and spices. Another alternative was to get the same preparation but filled with sulguni, smoked cheese. The best, though, were "stewed mushrooms," which came in so many different variations of yumminess.
Meat can be ordered in any number of sauces, with common bases being tomato, yogurt, garlic or walnut. Sausages, like the one above which had pomegranate seeds mixed into the filling, are usually served in a sizzling pan with potato and onion. Stewed veal was almost always on hand, as was the delicious tabaka, a flattened (or spatchcocked, if you will) whole chicken, fried. The simplest of meats, the almighty kebab, which could be seen grilling on any and all fires, can be ordered with an array of sauces: chilli (ajika), plum (tqemali) and pomegranate (masharaphi) being the most popular.
Sure, we almost always left a Georgian dinner with a certain amount of stomach pain. Yes, the covert walnut infusions probably had a lot to do with it. And the irresistible bread. But it was all worth it. Most restaurants in Georgia are located in cellars, below a sidewalk with no windows. Walking downstairs and opening a door, you never know exactly what you'll find... except you always kind of do. It'll be Georgian food, served with Georgian hospitality and devoured with Georgian vigor by the Georgians seated all around you. If Georgian food is, indeed, a classic sitcom - your fellow diners are the laugh track.

David Gareja - A Treasure in Isolation

2012-01-08T10:27:00.001-08:00

In the summer of 1987, a group of Tbilisi students began protesting Russian troop movements that were happening far away in the deserted Kakheti region of Georgia. The country was still controlled (occupied would be a better word) by the Soviets, who were fighting the last, losing stages of a war in Afghanistan. The Kakheti wasteland - a world of treeless slopes, sheep, rock and hardened people - was being used as a training area because of its supposed resemblance to the hills of the war zone. The Georgian youth weren't protesting the war, though, and they were only nominally protesting Russian rule.

The group was trying to save one of the great treasures of the Caucasus.

David Gareja cave monastery (also called "Davit'garejis," "Keşiş Dağ məbədi" and "დავითგარეჯის სამონასტრო კომპლექსი") is among the most unique, hauntingly historic and beautiful places we've been on the trip. It further proves a point - if you want to see amazing things with very few other tourists around, come to Georgia. This is a country of astounding history.

In the sixth century, a small sect of Assyrian monks arrived in Georgia. They split up when they reached the Caucasus, with some settling further east, near present day Tbilisi, and some heading to the foothills. A monk named St. David, drawn to the desolation and purity of Kakheti, decided to build a monastery there, high up on a bluff overlooking present-day Azerbaijan. For three centuries, it grew slowly - the few devotees who kept up the site lived very simply in small hollows dug into the rock. Then, in the 9th century, the Georgian kingdom began to flourish, and the monastery took on a special role in the religious lives of the monarchy.

With royal support - from such notables as David the Builder and Queen Tamar - David Gareja expanded and thrived in the 9th to 13th centuries. It was during this period that the most notable caves were cut into the rock, and when the monastery's extraordinary frescoes were painted.

The wall paintings are especially important because of where they are and what they’ve endured – nearly one thousand years of graffiti has taken its toll on some of the images, not to mention the wind and sand. Most of the frescoes lie just a few feet within cave walls, unprotected by doors, open to the elements. Some are even on exterior surfaces. The biggest threat, though, came not from exposure, but from Russian artillery fire.

In the 13th century, the entire population of David Gareja was massacred by the invading Mongols. Some two hundred years later, a small contingent of Christian Georgians had reoccupied the monastery, but the place remained sparsely and sporadically populated – there were regular attacks by both Persians and Ottomans. A new height was reached at the end of the 16th century, but in 1615, six thousand monks were killed here by the Persian Shah Abbas. Then, the Bolsheviks arrived and banned access to the entire area. The caves deteriorated some simply from disuse, but it was when military training began in Kakheti, in the 1970’s, that things really got bad. Russian tanks ran shelling sessions along the ridge, and frequently targeted the church caves. Huge amounts of damage were done. Some chambers were lost forever.
From Tbilisi or Signaghi – the two most logical starting points for tourists visiting the monastery – it takes about 1 ½ to 2 hours to reach the site by car. There are no buses or other public transportation options. For the last 45 minutes of driving, the road is extremely rough and the landscape becomes increasingly barren and empty.

We watched hawks and eagles skim the low grass. Men on horseback herded cows and sheep across the brown earth. There were no other cars. The road was washed out to bare rock in some places.
David Gareja is enormous - there are several hundred caves spread over a few kilometers - but there are two main, accessible parts. The first section is called Davit Lavra; the immediate group of buildings just beside the "parking lot," this is a fairly compact warren of caves and ancient walls. It has been re-inhabited by monks, who have closed off the majority of the chambers. There are a few visitable caves and a recently refurbished, uninteresting chapel. It's worth about twenty minutes of your time - the views are excellent, the structures are fun to look at. There's a little shop that sells icons and candles, and nothing else (plan on bringing your own food and water, if you need it). Our taxi driver tried to convince us that this was the complete monastery.
In fact, it's just the beginning. A twenty minute hike up the hill from Davit Lavra (find the trail immediately next to the shop) leads to the the back side of the ridge, just above the border with Azerbaijan, and to Udabno. The lower desert stretches into the distance. The trail gets rougher, and a little scrambling is required. There are no guardrails - a fall would likely be deadly.

At first, there are only a few small hollows in the rock, with no adornment and rough-hewn walls. As the trail continues, though, the caves become more elaborate. Frescoes begin to appear on the inner walls, then on the outer faces. Near the end of the ridge, the caverns become truly engrossing, the painting more intricate. One of the most famous paintings, this 10th century depiction of the last supper, graces the wall above the old monk's cafeteria - the strangely carved rock along the floor was once a low table.
A visit to Udabno won't be forgotten. It is truly a magical experience, coming face to face with these frescoes - a thousand years old, unprotected, painted on cave walls in the desert. One feels a rush of discovery, and a sense of utter loneliness. There are no signs, no guides, no admission fee, no opening times, barely any other people. If you can get there, you are simply there.

Emerging from the caves into the light, the emptiness of the landscape is captivating. This part of the monastery feels ancient in a way few other places can - there is not a single mark of modernity in sight, there are no voices. On the day we visited, there wasn't even a gust of wind. It seemed that we had stepped back a millennium.
The student group was successful, in 1987, in putting an end to the Soviet military maneuvers at the monastery. This kind of effective protest was almost unheard of in the USSR, and some historians mark the event as the genesis of the Georgian independence movement. Sadly, ten years later, the Georgian military began training at David Gareja, and it took another popular protest to put an end to the shelling.

Because the Georgian international border with Azerbaijan technically runs along the ridge-top of Udabno, there is currently a low-grade dispute between the two countries over who owns the monastery. There is another part of David Gareja that is some 2 kilometers into Azerbaijan, and several other, more inaccessible compounds on the Georgian side.

Of all the places we've been, I can't say that there are any more striking or moving than this one. Driving back through the bare nothingness, we couldn't think of anything to say - the taxi driver pointed at huge eagles, young boys sat motionless on tall horses, the sun got very low in the sky, the rocks turned blue and red. We sat in the car both melancholy and excited, feeling that we'd made a discovery - one of the greatest triumphs of traveling.

Sighnaghi - Ready, Willing and Able

2012-01-08T06:12:00.000-08:00

Sighnaghi is a beautiful town. Its location can't be scoffed out. Up over the Alazani Valley facing the Caucasus, it takes your breath away upon arrival. Tourist literature touts its virtues and charm. Adjectives like "Italianate" are used and its squares are called piazzas. Sighnaghi is sort of like the most beautiful daughter in a brood, being dolled up and thrust forward at a debutant ball. Obviously, we should all be clamoring to fall in love with her... but the poor girl can't change out of her gown until a suitor has presented himself. And it's been five years.
In a country that is undergoing construction and modernization all over the place, Sighnaghi stands out as a job completed and well done. In 2007, the small town received attention and thoughtful renovation. The goal was to take this undeniably attractive town and spiff it up, then welcome hoards of tourists. It was rebranded as " the city of love and art." Hotels popped up, it became the location for the biggest annual wine festival in the country. The clean up prompted many people - including early guide book assessors and a contact we have here - to say that Sighnaghi had become "too tidy and soulless," too "plastic."
Arriving in town ourselves, five years after that facelift, we can't say that we agree. First of all, the most gorgeous aspects of Sighnaghi, its views and its 4.5km defensive wall (with 28 towers) are as they have been for at least 240 years. Our first evening there, we walked along a section of the wall and looked out at the sherbert dusk. The fortifications are all original and absolutely impressive. Below a stretch of the tourist walkway, a chunk of land was fenced off. Its owner, an old man, worked away. There is authentic, local life bristling right up against the tourist "sites" in Sighnaghi. Even the brightest of paint jobs couldn't render it plastic to me.
This doesn't mean that the town ignores its "resort in waiting" status. The cobbled street leading down toward two old churches and the closest scalable tower was lined with knitwear for sale. Sweaters, gloves, socks and papakhi, circular wool caps worn by men in the Caucasus. When I did a quick wikipedia-ing of the small town's economy, the production of wine, traditional carpets and mcvadi (skewered meat) were counted as the most dominant moneymakers. It's not hard to see why the promise of tourism, bolstered by government investment, has created an air of excitement and expectancy.
The main town square has a tourist information center and souvenir shop, with one of the few postcards displays I've come across in the country. There are more vehicles branded as taxis than otherwise. The drivers all hang out in the far corner of the square, waiting. There are at least three hotels and numerous guesthouses. When I was too lazy to unclip my backpack and made my way through town in full tourist regalia, a woman waved hello out her window and then asked, "room??"
This is Georgia - the land of hospitality. So, unlike other places where an eagerness to benefit from tourism can feel off-putting or even aggressive, Sighnaghi just feels like a lonely hostess with frozen pigs-in-the-blanket in her freezer and a table with leaves she's never had to fold out. They are proud of this beautiful place and want to show it off. They have an unyielding knack for welcomes and take absolute pleasure in having guests.
The taxi driver who drove us out to Davit Gareja Monastery invited us into his home for coffee and an abundance of homemade treats before returning us to our hotel. He showed off his son, Luca, as well as his motorcycle with a dual sidecar- used to show tourists around in warmer weather. In town, we'd seen another presently curbed tour vehicle - a flatbed of a bus, complete with picket fence walls, wooden seats and canvas canopy roof. It didn't look like it'd been used for a while.
The thing is - none of this made the place faceless, like we'd been warned. I'll remember Sighnaghi. The views and George, the taxi driver. Maybe it'll be so popular in a few years that I'll be able to say "I remember it when." I hope so. For now, I'm pretty sure that the town in Kakheti will remain ingrained in my memory because of these. Grilled eggs. Grilled eggs brought to the table on a massive skewer. They were not hardboiled and then heated up. They were kebab'd raw and cooked in their shells. Riddle me that, Batman.

Merry Second Christmas!

2012-01-07T22:48:00.000-08:00

As some readers may remember from last year, Christmas comes a little later in Russia. The same is true here in Georgia, where the Georgian Orthodox church celebrates the occasion on the 7th of January. It's actually not that big a deal - businesses remain open, life goes on as usual. Still, it's exciting to see Christmas trees!

This stunted little thing was in the house of a family in Mestia, where they seemed a little confused about its purpose.
Eastern Orthodox churches use the Julian calendar for the dates of their feasts and holidays, though the countries themselves use the Gregorian calendar. There is currently a difference of 13 days between the two, so things happen a little later here.

This is the national Christmas tree, in front of Parliament on Rustaveli Avenue, in Tbilisi.
We've tried to wish people a Merry Christmas, but have mostly received blank stares. Even when we use the rough Georgian translation - "gilocavth shoba" - it doesn't seem to register. New Year's Eve is a much more widely celebrated event - the biggest holiday of the year, in fact.

The tree in Signaghi is placed not in front of the town hall, but in front of a more prominent landmark - the casino.
Santa Clause has come to Georgia, slowly displacing the older, communist-issue "Grandfather Frost." One cell-phone company made all their employees dress in fluorescent orange suits, complete with beard and boots.

For some reason, we're still laughing about this picture from Belarus. In that officially religion-less country, Santa (despite appearances) isn't really Santa, but just a red-wearing Grandfather Frost (how appropriate!). He tends to be accompanied by his granddaughter, the "snow maiden."

Bodbe Monastery

2012-01-06T21:08:00.000-08:00

It was a beautiful day for a pilgrimage. No longer in the Svaneti region, where mornings were bleak and afternoons were brilliant, we awoke to a blue sky and bright welcome. Our current home is Signagi, a town in the Kakheti wine region of Georgia with charm all its own and close proximity to one of the most important pilgrimage sites in Georgia - Bodbe Monastery.
The walk afforded gorgeous views over our awesome location, perched on a hillside overlooking the Alazani Valley. The Greater Caucuses stretch across the sky, a string of snowcaps. A restaurant at the entrance of the nunnery was closed and construction work could be heard in the distance.

Not able to read Georgian, we only surmised that we'd made it by familiar tourist attraction decor: the universal "no cell phone" and "no flash photography" signs. Soon after we arrived, a car pulled up with four other visitors. Just as I did at the gate, the women pulled their hoods over their heads and wrapped scarves around their waists for knee coverage. The youngest girl in the group tied a gift shop handkerchief as best she could around her forehead.

Saint Nino is buried at Bodbe Monastery and she's one important lady. Along with Saint George, she is the patron saint of the country and is credited with converting the pagan king Marian III, who then declared Christianity the official religion of the land. It was he who then ordered this monastery to be built at the site of Nino's death, circa 340.
I found it appropriate that a site dedicated to a female evangelist now functions as a nunnery. Though, during Soviet rule, the monastery was converted into a hospital. Before that, through the centuries, it was a monastic chanting school, a haven to religious writers and painters and the home of one of Georgia's largest collection of religious books, among other things.
Throughout its life, it has been renovated and added to and, even today, appears to be getting a facelift and large, new building. Most of what is here now was built in the 18th century and refurbished at the beginning of the 21st. One thing that has remained relatively unchanged since the 4th century, though, is the view.
About 3km downhill, along a leaf covered trail with sporadic stairs, we found the Holy Spring. Locals come to drink from the water here, which is said to have sprung up when Saint Nino knelt down to pray on the spot. The small building housing the spring was constructed in the 1990s.
There were sandals and towels there for bathers and a small cup for those preferring only to take a sip. Next door, smoke rose from the chimney of a small house. Laundry hung outside and I wondered if that was the person taxed with watching over the spring or simply a resident who predated the construction. Bodbe Monastery is simple and impressive. It feels lived in, but also open for exploration and reflection. We were happy to be pilgrims for the day.

Castle Hunting: The Svaneti Towers

2012-01-06T05:08:00.000-08:00

During the last decade of the 12th century and the first decade of the 13th, under the rule of the beloved Queen Tamar, Georgia prospered, grew and was peaceful. During her reign, Tamar often made the long voyage into the upper reaches of the Svaneti valleys, spending summers there and helping to found metalworking and painting schools – she supposedly loved the green pastures and imposing glaciers, the simple people and the restful quiet. It was a golden age for Georgia and, for a moment, it seemed that the isolated Svan people were on the brink of becoming more integrated with their neighbors.

Tamar died in 1213. In 1220, the Mongols made their first contact with Georgia. A few years later the country was conquered, the military massacred, the aristocracy killed or in hiding, the entire region overrun by Genghis Khan’s horsemen. It would take hundreds of years before Georgia could claim true independence again – after the Mongols left the Persians and Ottomans fought over the scraps, then ceded the area to the Russians.

Only the Svans were able to repel the Mongols, and were never overtaken by Turkey or Persia. They sealed themselves in their mountain hideaway, secure in their towers, never quite trusting the outside world.

These towers are among the most unique and fascinating fortifications in the world. Instead of entrusting the defense of a town to a large fortress or castle, each family built their own tower. Most of them were erected between the 9th and 13th centuries, though the foundations of some have been shown to be much older - perhaps even dating from the 6th century.

In total, there are some 175 towers surviving, with large concentrations in Chazhashi and in Mestia, where there are 47. At one time, however, there were as many as 500 of these buildings in Svaneti, with nearly 100 in Mestia alone.

From a distance, they prickle the hillsides and look - somewhat pessimistically - like smokestacks.

Many of Mestia's towers have been preserved and are - if not lived in - at least still attached to domestic quarters built around their base. Completely integrated into the town, the defenses rise everywhere. As recently as the 1970's, there were still many occupied towers, and during civil conflicts with the Russians, they were supposedly even employed as gunning positions.

There are also some Svaneti strongholds that have been miraculously preserved. This is the main room of a large, intact tower-house. Once belonging to the Margianis, an important family in the town - the woman who showed us the house used the Russian word for "king" - the building is part of a complex that included three towers and this residency.

The woodwork is all, amazingly, original. It dates mostly from the 12th century, and is intricately carved and worked. The holes that you can see in the far wall are actually cattle stanchions. The animals stood on a lower floor, feeding from a trough along the ground. The human inhabitants slept in long, communal beds in the space just above their cows - the animal's body heat helping to keep the family warm in the winter.
The towers were used for food storage as well as defense, and their interiors - though narrow - are many layered. It's unusual to find such slender holds with five or six stories, but this was the pattern that nearly every family followed. The interior dimensions remain constant; the slight slope of the walls is created by thinner stones at the top and a wider foundation.

The Margiani tower that's open to the public is a narrow, difficult-to-climb structure with extremely shoddy ladders. Like many keeps and strongholds, the door is some twelve feet above the ground, with a ladder or staircase below that can be destroyed to increase defensibility. Inside, large, flat rocks lay beside the ladder holes, ready to be employed as seals. Unlike a few other, similar towers in these mountains, the Svan versions have crenelated tops and roofs.

The medieval Svan families were just as worried about being attacked by neighbors as by invading armies. After all, the high Caucasus form an imposing natural barrier between the towns and the rest of the region, meaning that contact with foreigners was very rare. The Svan people are notorious for their blood feuds and for their internal, familial standards of law. The Margiani family, after all, had three prisons in their compound.

Another interesting facet of this particular family defense is that the three towers were never connected by a wall. There were tunnels, though, that linked the buildings. Recently, it was discovered that there was also an escape tunnel, that led up the hill into the woods above.
In all our travels, I've never seen anything quite like these citadels. They accent this wild, independent place beautifully. Seven hundred years after the Svaneti valleys were sealed off from the rest of Georgia, the immediacy of the isolation is still gripping.

We had a feeling of discovery in these mountains, as though we had stumbled upon a place that was only just waking up from a long hibernation.

Welcomes in the Svaneti Region

2012-01-05T05:19:00.000-08:00

The Svaneti region of Georgia – in the most remote valleys of the Caucasus mountains – is a land of contrasting welcomes. We have been invited into the homes of strangers and nearly forced to drink and eat at their tables. In every house, we are sat at the best seats, directly in front of the stove. One man invited us home to meet his mother; the two of them wouldn’t hear of us leaving until we’d finished a bottle of her blueberry liquor.

Another man – his face brought threateningly close to mine – asked if I had ever been to Alaska. I told him that I hadn’t.

“Ah,” he sneered, “this is like Alaska.” He swept his hand behind him, gesturing at the white crags. “Very dangerous.” He gave his head a strange tilt and turned away, spitting on the ground.

Indeed, guidebooks warn against hiking alone in the mountains, as armed robbery is common.

Until about a year ago, getting into the Svaneti meant taking a series of “marshrutka” vans across the country, then a long Jeep ride one hundred miles up a bad road. The journey from Tbilisi typically took about fifteen to twenty hours.

Now, there’s a tiny airport and occasional flights. We took a little prop plane on New Year’s Day, the only passengers; the Tbilisi airport was absolutely devoid of travelers, the security guards were drinking champagne and singing. The flight took about an hour, and was spectacular. The pilot leaned back from the cockpit to shout the names of different peaks and to point out tiny villages below. We skimmed above the summits, then came in low over Mestia, the capital of the region and its largest town. A woman in high heels came out onto the snowy tarmac to greet the plane. “Your hosts are a little late,” she said. “But you can wait inside.”

The Caucasus mountains are the highest in Europe, soaring to over eighteen thousand feet. The people here have lived in isolation for centuries, and have never quite gotten used to the idea of a larger nation. In the mountains immediately to the west, the South Ossetians have effectively seceded from Georgia, and live a hemmed in, militia life. A few miles to the northeast, Chechnya is still fighting for independence from Russia. Here, the Svan people speak their own language, a fifth-century branch of Georgian that has evolved into a unique tongue. One of our hosts said that he speaks modern Georgian only a little, and that he prefers Russian. In the past year and a half, a better road has been built to the outside world, and the marshrutka service has gotten faster (about seven hours to Tbilisi, in good weather) – but this is still a region apart.

Mestia is an ancient town, bristling with stone towers built a millennium ago (these towers are so interesting that they deserve their own post, to be put up soon). As recently as the mid-19th century, explorers in Svaneti found villagers wearing chainmail and carrying broadswords. The locals are fond of saying that they have never been conquered by anyone.

The mountains have been the real defense, for they themselves are nearly unconquerable. This was one of the very few areas of central Eurasia that was able to repel the Mongolian raiders, and Svaneti became something of a safe house for Georgia - many treasures from Tbilisi and Mtskheta were stored here when the capital region was threatened by invasion.

Like much of Georgia, Mestia is being spiffed up and made “modern.” Like in other places - especially the towns that Tbilisi considers potential attractions – the first thing to be built was a large, gleaming police station. Though there is still some danger in remoter areas, Mestia is mostly safe. There are handpainted signs everywhere advertising rooms for rent and “hostels,” though tourists are still an oddity. We stayed with this family, known in the village simple as "Alexi," the first name of the patriarch.
The Svan children are uniformly open and friendly. Two little girls walked with us for a while yesterday, laughing at our cameras and pointing at different buildings for us to photograph. Before they ran off, they gave us each a few pieces of candy from their pockets. Packs of boys out sledding waved and say hello, some introduced themselves, practicing their English. Two young boys, perhaps having exhausted their store of foreign words, yelled “I love you!” once we had exchanged names and basic pleasantries.
The mountains are stunning in a pure, white-lined, unreachable way. The landscape of Mestia is one of roaming cows, deserted buildings and litter. Broken and rusting cars line the roadside. Roofless buildings crumble. Dogs sniff and dart in the ditches, hoping for a scrap of food hidden under the beer bottles and candy wrappers.

There are hairy pigs running wild, and men smoking cigarettes. When we first arrived, the mud and rubble in the streets portrayed only poverty. Snow came, and Mestia felt ancient and pastoral.
In many guidebooks, for many countries, it's suggested that the only "real" way to experience a culture is to be invited to dinner at someone's house. In most places, this is much more difficult than it sounds - we've only rarely been successful. In Georgia, and particularly in Svaneti, there are more invitations than can be accepted.

Grigol, above, and his mother wouldn't let us leave - we literally had to back our way out the door, zipping up our coats and waving as we went.
We ate at this little bar for three lunches in a row - there was really nothing else appealing or open in Mestia. On the first day, we were greeted with suspicious looks and given curt service. The locals moved aside to allow us access to the fireplace, but their faces were very hard. On the second day, the waitresses smiled when we came in, and there were some grumbled "hellos." One man asked where we were from. On the third day, a cheer went up when we opened the door, and the owner came to shake my hand and kiss Rebecca's cheek.

Happy (New) New Year!

2012-01-04T09:54:00.000-08:00

December 31st is a special day in Georgia. For us, it signals the end of the holiday season – the time to officially stop spending money on things you don’t need, eating things you shouldn’t. Time to start thinking about throwing out that Christmas tree. Here, though, it is just the beginning. You see, December 31st is a fairly new holiday for Georgians. According to the Russian Orthodox calendar, Christmas is January 7th and New Year is January 13th. This second date is often referred to as “Old New Year,” and has more significance to most Georgians. Never ones to shy away from celebrations and rounds of toasts, though, they have embraced (New) New Year's Eve as a kickoff party of sorts. As far as we can tell, the festivities center solely on feasts and fireworks.
The afternoon of New Year's Eve had the buzz of preparation. All through the city, you could almost here people crossing things off their to do lists. Families left their apartments with bundles veiled in foil, loading the trunks of their car with their contribution to the feast. This little piggy went whee whee whee all the way into the back of a Subaru Forrester. He was generously seasoned with ajiki (a Georgian hot sauce that also comes in a green variety) and was the obvious pride of the man who carried it.
People rushed around with grocery bags and bakeries opened earlier and closed later than usual. This bread cellar is usually pretty sleepy. When we’ve gone down before, there were maybe one or two customers chatting with the floured bakers. On the afternoon of New Year’s Eve, though, there was a line all the way up the stairs to the sidewalk. Past the congenial and patient queue, the shop was packed. More workers than we’d seen before were pushing and pulling dough in and out of the immense clay ovens. As orders were completed, the lucky customer would leave everyone else in the flour dust, going up and out to parade their bounty. The fresh, steaming towers of bread never fail to seduce passersby with its come hither scent.
It’s a night for the supra, a grand multi-course meal named after the Georgian word for tablecloth. Possibly because it’s the only thing that is left uneaten? Unlike other capitals on New Year’s Eve, Tbilisi became sleepier in the hours leading up to midnight. Small restaurants shut down in the early evening, so people could go home and dine with family. No doubt everyone was toasting with relatives and eating traditional dished like satsivi, cold chicken in a cinnamon-y walnut sauce with raisins (pictured above and much tastier than it looks).

There’s a carnivalesque vibe to the small holiday markets set up in Tbilisi. Lots of masks, wigs and big felt bows affixed to headbands. Balloon animals, face painting, cotton candy and glitter explosions. The children are officially off from school for holiday break and tourists from around Georgia and elsewhere flash their camera at the lit up city. Tbilisi is beautiful at night, with the mud and dust of transition blacked out and the sheen of finished projects illuminated.
We saw on television the next day that a huge crowd amassed in the New Town for a concert. Somehow, we never found it. Instead, we walked around and took in the gradual crescendo of fireworks. All week, we’ve heard a crack here and a pop there. When the sun went down on December 31st, flashes of light flew and fizzled steadily. Then, in that all important last hour before midnight, it really picked up. It was hard to tell if any of the display was city sponsored or all the collective work of the residents of Tbilisi. Young kids, old women, just about everyone did their part painting the sky. Out on the street or out their window, their firework was shot off. The Christmas season has begun! Happy (New) New Year!

The Traditional Balconies of Tbilisi

2011-12-31T06:59:00.000-08:00

On our first night in Georgia, literally minutes after disembarking our flight into Tbilisi, we were taken on a whirlwind tour of the city. Our energetic taxi driver, keen on practicing his English and his steering in the right-side seat of his newly acquired British car, took us around to all the main sights. Saint George atop his horse in the square, Mother Georgia with her sword atop the city on her hill. He circled back, “I will show you my favorite house in Tbilisi!” and brought us to a spotlit row of buildings. I can’t say I know exactly which one he pointed to, but they all made an impression on me. “Typical Georgia architecture,” he noted. Each house was sweetly elegant, with multiple balconies supported by diagonally beams beneath. They reminded me of the underside of a paper parasol. The simple beauty of the houses endeared me to the city and to Irakli.
When we revisited the row in the daytime, I could see just how weathered some were. “I would like to renovate it,” he had said. “Renovate” seemed too light of a term. In fact, all through the city, we came across balconied houses that had crossed the line between diamond in the rough and crushed diamond dust. The most amazing part was that so many of them showed signs of life inside. We’d walk beneath a balcony, marvel at the age and deterioration of the wood beams and then hear laughter emanate from inside. Apparently, many people refrain from making any renovations on their houses if they are considered historic monuments, preferring to hold out for an investor who’d like to come in and fix it all at once. Unfortunately, these investors rarely set their eye on these buildings for restoration purposes.
For the past few years, there’s been a fight to protect traditional balconied houses that are at risk of being demolished. An article written in 2008 by BBC, which cited facts that I would wager are little changed today, spoke about the fight for “Tbilisi’s soul.” A deputy mayor at the time (still in office now) said that he wanted to reduce the number of protected ‘historical monuments’ from 1,700 to 500. Too many of them were simply beyond repair, he explained. I have to say - in my opinion – there’s some validity to this. Poverty, two hundred plus years of life and the earthquake off 2002 have all taken their toll on these 19th century houses. It’s difficult to blame anyone living in almost unlivable conditions to turn down an offer from the city or a private company. Even if it is easy to hate the soulless apartment block put up in its place.
At least in the Old Town, restoration seems to be taking place. Tourist brochures map out a “Traditional Balconied Houses of Tbilisi” walking tour and quote poets who have written about the multigalleried city. New buildings at the base of Narikala fortress, nearby the historic sulfur baths, have been built in a similar style. New, fresh wood balconies have replaced crumbling ones or have been added a little anachronistically to modern buildings.
When I googled “Tbilisi balconies,” I found a press release issued by an energy credit company that cited all the benefits of putting more traditional balconies on buildings. Complete with graphs and charts, they explained how they were designed with precise relation to the sun, in order to cool a room in the summer and facilitate heating in the winter. Even the decorative fretwork hanging down had a noted benefit. Hey, there’s gotta be a reason so many were built this way.
The balconies of Tbilisi, wooden, glass, wraparound, open, closed, old, new, are truly unique and absolutely beautiful. As the city moves into its new phase of high-gloss modernity, I honestly feel that they will try to keep this charm intact. Call me naïve, but I think that conservationists' fears that Tbilisi will lose all its character through demolition is unfounded. You walk around this city and feel like they know what they have going for it – even if they don’t have the time or money to really get around to polishing it all.
Not everything can be saved, but the beauty of these balconies is simply too obvious to overlook. I mean, they’ve gotta know that this stuff is a tourism gold mine, right? Irakli’s favorite house may or may not make the final cut. I’m not sure if he’d rather see it fall further and further into ruin or simply torn down. This is a city in transition and it will be interesting to see where all the chips fall in ten years or so.

The Georgian Version Of A Skansen

2011-12-31T05:20:00.000-08:00

On a gloomy day on a hillside overlooking Tbilisi, we stood on an old wooden porch with George, a man not particularly happy about anything. “This country does everything backwards,” he said, in perfect English. “They have beautiful museums like this, but they do nothing for them, so that criminals and politicians can get rich.”

George works as a guide at the Giorgi Chitaia Open Air Museum of Ethnography, which is comprised of one hundred acres of old and traditional buildings from around Georgia. The buildings are all original - disassembled, brought together and painstakingly re-erected, piece by piece, on an unused plot of land… and then, sadly, left to sit.

Of the seventy buildings in the museum, we counted only four that were open that afternoon. The reason, George explained, is that no one is willing to work there. “It’s crazy,” he said. “They pay me two hundred lari a month (about $120), and they pay people eight hundred lari to pick up garbage. I speak four languages. This is why all the brains have left Georgia.”

“I don’t mind, because I’m an artist” he said, as we were shown around the cottage he’s charged with keeping up and showing to rare visitors. Old shepherd implements and cooking pots mingled with his canvases in the small space, a half dozen cats meowled and ate from a bowl set on a bench.

After a long climb up to the ethnographic museum, we were greeted by a group of four policemen, who were smoking as they stood around the entrance. They looked unhappy about our arrival, and surprised. Their stances and scowls were heavy with boredom. A large, well-dressed man stood with them - some type of government employee, most likely, with a position in museums. Groupings of this type are extremely common in Tbilisi, where so much of the population is employed by the police or by some agency.

The mood was even darker inside the gates, and the air was very still. We counted only five other visitors. The buildings were padlocked and blank-windowed. The exteriors were somewhat interesting, but there were hardly any signs and almost no information given. Walking through these relics, the extent of disuse and decay was disheartening.

It’s especially sad because the Georgian Museum of Ethnography has quite a remarkable collection. We’ve visited a number of “skansens” on our trip, and few have been this extensive or have had buildings this interesting.

One structure in particular fascinated us. Among the few staffed buildings, this “darbazi” style house was kept beautifully, with immaculate furnishings and a hard, much-swept earthen floor. The precisely laid beams in the conical chimney were mesmerizing, and we marveled at the ancient craftsmanship.

Old artifacts and pieces of art lay scattered in the brushy woods – millwheels, earthen wine containers, gravestones, milemarkers. A roofless stone temple lay with leaves covering its floor, broken pillars jutting up like snapped tree trunks.
We were amazed by this collection of stones, laid out in a row. We took them to be tomb markers, but it was difficult to tell – there was no placard, and they may have been religious symbols. In addition to this horse, there were a few rams and a smattering of penis shaped things. Also, flatter stones with hand-print shaped hollows carved into them and lichen growing up the sides.
Quite high up the hillside, we came across a semi-destroyed, soviet era building on a little plateau strewn with shards of glass. It was unlikely part of the collection, but seemed fitting nonetheless, a somber reminder about rubble and the effects of time.
There was a funny little grouping of old buses on the grounds, which were also probably not officially part of the museum, but were interesting anyway. It's possible that, at one time, someone had thought it would be interesting to preserve them. No one took much interest in them afterwards, apparently.
On our way out, we passed the policemen again and wished them a happy new year. As we trudged down the long road back to Tbilisi, a shiny, green Mercedes pulled up alongside us and honked. The tall government man was inside, smiling and waving for us to get in, which we did. He spoke no English, but said, pointing to the stereo, "Bob Marley," which was correct. He turned the volume up and smiled at me, and then said nothing more the rest of the ride down the hill.

For Sale

2011-12-30T05:51:00.000-08:00

Most cities are defined by their offerings in two areas: dining and shopping. The word “MARKET” Sharpied onto a map posted up in our hostel brought us to this woman and about a dozen other sellers set up on a nearby bridge. The flea market is bigger on the weekends, we were told. But I didn’t mind it this way. Her items for sale included two fishing poles and a camouflage jacket. It was our first morning in Tbilisi and the rest of the city greeted us from over her shoulder.In Tbilisi, everything you can spare, you can try to sell. Empty storefronts, outdoor plumbing, a drive across town, used batteries, turns on a scale. A pack of cigarettes, sold one at a time can seem desperate or ingenious, depending on the vendor’s disposition. Handmade prayer candles are scooped up by the dozen. Shot glass measures of sunflower seeds could sit around all day. Outside the entrance to Tsminda Sameba Cathedral, one of the brightest stars in Tbilisi’s nightscape, was a shuttered restaurant. A faded mural covered the front and a sign pointed toward toilets out back - the only part of the business still up and running. We walked around, into a family’s backyard. A young boy set down his plastic tricycle and explained the process in high-pitched Georgian and grand hand gestures. After we left, the collection plate, which had been easy to miss, was dragged out to the front of the restaurant. That way, it’d be clearer to the next visitors in need.

Nearby, along the Left Bank, abandoned restaurants and bars lined both sides of the street. Again, there were murals that hinted at more festive times – or grander plans. Some were more gingerly gutted than others. For Sale signs hung from a few, translated into English. People exited from the apartments above.

Every now and then, someone stops short in front of you on a sidewalk. They turn toward a building, which you then realize has a window stuffed with pastries or candy or lottery tickets. Some such shops have a red (and orange and yellow and green) carpet of fruit leading up to the point of sale. Kiwis, pomegranates, persimmons, pears, apples and one of the tastiest bananas I’ve had in a while.

Underground walkways turn into makeshift marketplaces. Safe from the wind, with a constant flow of potential buyers. Here, old hardcover books flanked one entrance and a popcorn machine wafted salt air from the other. Between sat a few old women and stood a few younger ones, selling nuts, toys, socks, hats and cigarettes.

Aboveground, vaguely Medieval crafts and Soviet era memorabilia were displayed on the steps of a grand building. Artwork and books rounded out the inventory. A few feet away, a boy with nothing to sell but his cuteness, latched onto Merlin’s leg and begged until a trio of women talked/pulled him off. Later that evening, a similarly aged boy went from bar to bar selling fabric flowers.

The most successful entrepreneurs in Tbilisi have to be marshrutka drivers. Buy a van, define a route, display it on the window, fill up with paying customers. Rides are cheaper and routes are more far reaching than the official bus system. So, even though these minibuses have been banned from some of the main avenues, they still do quite well for themselves. (Unfortunately, they say that most "lines" are actually owned by Parliament members, whom the drivers pay for the right to work).

In the market district of Avlabari, there’s a fruit stand every few feet. This cheerful family-run stand set themselves apart with a little bit of Christmas decoration. Next door, containers of pickled vegetables were piled knee high. Not too far away, a shaded table sold cleaned and feathered, but otherwise still intact, chickens.

Tbilisi

2011-12-29T04:57:00.000-08:00

Tbilisi (თბილისი, in Georgian script) is a city of roaring generators, flapping tarps, tumbledown buildings, faulty mufflers, ancient balconies, fruitsellers, military police, diceplayers, homemade liquor, endless construction and dozens of churches. This is a city at the crossroads of the Caucasus - at the heart of the borderlands between old Russia, Turkey, Persia, Christianity, Islam, Europe, Asia and the Middle East.

Here, the end of the Bridge of Peace, brand new and leading from nowhere to nowhere - an incomplete park at one end, a semi-deserted jumble of leaning structures at the other.
Georgia's capital has been destroyed and rebuilt many times. It's an ongoing process, with much to work out and patch up after the 2008 war with Russia and the revolutions and civil conflicts of the 1990's and early 2000's. We landed here after over twenty-four hours of travel from New York, finding ourselves at the eastern extreme of Europe, breathing hard-edged fumes and the excitement of the exotic.

These ramshackle balconies, a Tbilisi fixture, are part Persian and part 18th century Europe, most built in the period after 1795, when the town was razed by the Persian khan Agha Mohammad.
The Georgian tourism bureau will have you believe that the frequent blackouts and electric grid problems are a thing of the past. The many generator vendors and repair shops tell a different story, though, and a lot of buildings seems to be hardwired to puttering power sources. We passed a whole engine district, where lawnmower skeletons sat discarded on the sidewalk, their innards repurposed and for sale in the open-fronted shops.
Georgia was one of the more independent republics of the USSR, and the cement-fisted reach of the central planning department came down lighter here than in other places. There aren't as many blocks of slab in Tbilisi as we expected, but they do exist, with all the soviet signatures. Rubbish and curtain clogged window-ledges, imposing facades, squared shoulders, blank stares.
Tbilisi feels like an outpost more than anything, though it's really the de-facto capital of the region. An outlaw speediness shapes the landscape and the action always seems to be happening at the fringes of your vision. It's the kind of city where one feels watched, and where shadowy figures flit at the periphery of consciousness. The main boulevards are soulless and bland, the alleyways abound in activity.
Like Minsk, St. Petersburg and Chișinău in particular, the city has an extended series of underground passages and arcades, constructed both for pedestrians and to house little shops. Apparently desolate intersections are often crowded with commerce below street level.
Georgia is the oldest Christian country on earth. Converted wholly in the early fourth century, it remains devout and almost uniformly orthodox. Nearly eighty five percent of the country's inhabitants belong to the Georgian Apostolic Autocephalous Orthodox Church. In Tbilisi, there seems to be a church on nearly every corner - some grand, others in bad disrepair. We wandered into this Armenian church, where every inch of wall and ceiling had been painted and coated with gold leaf.
We were surprised, last night, to find ourselves talking about how hopeful Tbilisi feels. It's amazing, in a city so repeatedly and recently bloodied, to find a sense of progress and communal expectancy. New businesses are sprouting up and fresh paint is being splashed everywhere.

On our trip in from the airport, an enthusiastic taxi driver brought us on a long, unbidden tour of the capital's newer buildings - he was extremely proud of them, even the gargantuan presidential palace and the futuristic central police department. He drove us for more than an hour, in the darkest part of night, talking constantly about what had changed and what was planned.

CRF: Vatican City (Part 2)

2011-12-06T14:12:00.000-08:00

We spent hours inside the Vatican Museums, as most visitors to the Vatican do. It's simply enormous. I mean, look at this stairwell. Photos were allowed everywhere in the museum except for the Sistine Chapel.
This was our favorite room - the Map Room. Along each side of the hall hung 16th century topographical maps of Italy and the church's land possessions. It's the world's largest pictorial geographical study and was all commissioned by one pope and created by one artist. The ceiling was one, long, vibrant fresco that gave the impression of three dimensional gilding. At the end of the hall, a folding table displayed 3D puzzles and postcards for sale.
Vatican City is indeed its own country, with both a police force and a (de facto) military. Here is one of each, side by side, at the papal audience we attended. The policemen handle security, public order, traffic control, border control and criminal investigation. The Swiss Guards' job is to protect the pope. Swiss Guards have a tradition of acting as bodyguards and palace guards in foreign European courts. The Holy See is its last remaining position and they are a tourist favorite. We wondered what these two guys thought of each other.
After our Vatican Gardens tour, we decided to take a stroll around Vatican City's walls. A true surveying of our country. We stumbled upon this train track, which used to connect Vatican City and Italy. The railway system, the smallest national rail in the world, is now defunt and the elaborately decorated station is a duty free shop. Apparently, two months after we left, the iron gate was rolled back and Pope Benefict XVI road the papal train (a 1930s steam engine) out through the tunnel and toward the Italian countryside. It was a one-time-only thing for charity.
Just another picture for the dome of Saint Peter's Basilica, out toward Saint Peter's Square, which we now can't help but recognize as a circle. Climbing the dome was one of our most favorite things to do in Vatican City.
Between the official tours and the private tours, the Vatican often resembled a pong cluttered with mama ducks and their kids in a row. In order to keep everyone following the correct person, the guide would hold up a stick with a flag or flower or, in this case, a photo of Pope John Paul II. Sometimes, the leader would use an umbrella or broken antennae. Those must have been the discounted tours.

Just some good old interior decorating a la Vatican City. Too much?
One of our best experiences in Vatican City couldn't be shared on the blog, because photos weren't allowed. We took the Excavations Tour down below the Vatican and visited the Roman necropolis on which the basilica was built. It was pretty incredible. This mummy was in the Vatican Museums, not in the catacombs. Hence, the photographic evidence.
Another room in the Museums, featuring dog sculptures. I think a sheep was thrown in for good measure.
Some restoration work was going on inside Saint Peter's Basilica, as well as out in the square. It was fascinating to watch this unique combination of art restoration and construction. Men road hydrolic lifts, wearing hard hats and wielding paint brushes.
We undoubtedly spent more time in Vatican City than most people do. Every day, we would walk out of our door and over to the square. All around us would be visitors seeing it all with fresh eyes. This wonder and awe felt most palpable during gatherings like this -
the weekly papal audience. The weather was beautiful and the excitement turned into jubilation.

CRF: Vatican City (Part 1)

2011-11-28T18:00:00.000-08:00

"CRF" is not a crime show you've never heard of, it stands for "Cutting Room Floor." Below are some of our favorite pics that never made the blog. We figured we'd reminisce a little while we're home for a visit. (Back in Europe December 28th).
Vatican City was our first true microstate. (Sorry, Luxembourg, but you were big-ish.) Unlike everywhere else, we couldn't actually stay in the country. So, our experience in Vatican City had two distinctive sides - our "official time," which was spent within the perimeter of the microstate and our "Rome time." Our photos also fall into those two categories and since we could never really showcase our time spent outside the City walls, hundreds of shots from our Rome time wound up on the cutting room floor.
Our rental apartment was just a few blocks away from the southeast border of Vatican City. Remaining in our little corner of Rome, hugging the border of Vatican City as much as we could allowed us to really notice the little things, the details of a city that would otherwise seem epic.Barring the Vatican, all of the real tourist attractions in Rome are east of the Tiber River - which leaves the area around Saint Peter's Square mostly left alone. We got to experience a real slice of Roman life, going to "our cafe" every morning, "our gelato place" every afternoon and "our wine shop" every evening.On a particularly beautiful day, we took a walk up to Aurelio Park. Atop Gianicolo, the second tallest hill in Rome, the park gave us sweeping views over the city. People walked their dogs and bought their children balloons and popsicles. A group of older tourists walked around identifying trees.

Downtown Trastevere, our neighborhood, was a pretty hip and happening place. John Cabot University kept the after-dark streets filled with fashionable college students. The businesses catered to the young and tasteful, lovely little restaurants, gallery-like clothing boutiques and bars galore. The cobbled streets and 16th century buildings were the epitome of boho chic.

Our grocery shopping was done in Prati, a residential neighborhood just north of the Vatican. There was an international food shop, a gourmet Italian goods store that was spectacular and the wonderful Trionfale Market. It's one of the largest food markets in Italy and inspired a number of dinners that turned out so well, we decided to post about them. (Roman artichokes, linguine and clams, shrimp and asparagus risotto and asquash blossom dessert and our most ambitious, most delicious, braised octopus).

A travel article from the New York Times, published in 1987, says that the vendors at the Porta Portese Sunday flea market are "a show in themselves." It's absolutely true that the market itself is your usual street fair fare, but the sellers make it memorable. They call out to you congenially and fraternize animatedly. They're regulars, locals, most of whom have been manning their station for years.They called your attention with signs, smiles, compliments, and - in this case - an enormous red arrow. People walked through with entire bags filled with purchases. Tourists clutched their purses and rifled through tchotchkes. It was crowded and stretched so long without an outlet that we wound up, basically, hopping a fence to get home.
Our final night, we ventured over the river for dinner. Looking back over it, we could see the dome of Saint Peter's Basilica and new that if we headed straight for it, we would find our way home.

CRF: Italy

2011-11-20T15:24:00.000-08:00

"CRF" is not a crime show you've never heard of, it stands for "Cutting Room Floor." Below are some of our favorite pics that never made the blog. We figured we'd reminisce a little while we're home for a visit. (Back in Europe December 28th).
We spent a month and a half on the Italian Peninsula, moving from Italy to Vatican City to San Marino. Not too shabby of a place to linger for a while. At the tale end of our Italian time, we spent two nights in Rome. This is the view out our window. We have about a hundred photos of this view - at dawn, midday, dusk and night. It was always just so stunning. If we stuck our heads out and turned to the right, we could make out a bit of the Coliseum.
Trevi fountain at night. Tourists crowded around, flashes bounced off the water, coins plopped in steadily. Legend has it that throwing a coin into Trevi fountain ensures a return to Rome. This young woman, who was shivering during a photo shoot, would probably choose a warmer month next time. The fountain is gorgeous at night and the sound of rushing water adds calm and a bit of magic to the crowded scene.
Some clever street art. We saw a few 'do not enter' signs altered like this. Further down the street, a two person team scrubbed away at less artistic graffiti.
We often reminisce about Trani. Our favorite meal in Italy was here, and it's easy to see why. Every morning brought a spectacular fish market and a few tables stayed open until dark. Bright pink rock shrimp, mussels that shone a midnight blue, silver sardines. The crates and buckets were like treasure chests, filled with glistening jewels. Man, we wished we could buy some of it and cook it up. But, we just had to settle for eating out. Shucks.
This is a view out over Lake Trasimeno from a dock tower in Castiglione del Lago. The boardwalk below was bare, an ice cream shop and tiki bar were shuttered. The blue sky turned the off-season beachfront scene from sullen to wistful.
This car sat on a street in Calcata, a totally picturesque artist commune. About one hundred people live in the village, which is perched up on a mound of volcanic rock. Since the houses are made of the same stone it looks like the cliff has sprouted buildings. For years, the town was deemed unlivable because of the threat of erosion. Artists began to squat there in the 60s and the structural quarantine, so to speak, was lifted a little while later.
So, so many tramezzini were consumed in Italy. The crustless white bread sandwiches (cut diagonally) were the perfect snack or go-to lunch. At bars, they were simple but inspired. Tuna with olive, prosciutto, egg with tomato, etc - always saran wrapped. In cafes and at gourmet shops, they were filled with anything from smoked salmon to mozzarella and sun-dried tomatoes. This every day staple is quintessentially Italian to us. We didn't care as much for their Sammarinese double-decker cousins.
We did a lot of driving in Italy. It's always a difficult thing to grapple with, needing to get someplace quickly but not wanting to spend a whole day on the autostrada. Taking the scenic route was an easier decision in Tuscany, because a google search of "prettiest drives" is possible and the options are plentiful. The SS222 (which connect Florence and Siena) gets crowded in the high season. Narrow European roads don't work well with too many cars stopped for photos. But it was March, and we could move along at our own speed.
This picture was taken during our post-four hour lunch stroll in Vasto on the Adriatic Coast. It was just a short stay, but we can still remember the orange trees and the grandparents playing with their grandchildren on the sand. The paddle boats were turned over and covered with a sandy film. Knotted up fishing nets sat in clumps.
Trani at sunset. It's hard not to fall in love with a place when this happens daily.

CRF: Moldova

2011-11-20T15:23:00.000-08:00

Some countries are notable for their food, or for their culture, or for their landscapes. Moldova isn't. But it is memorable. When people ask about the strangest places we've been on the trip, we always mention Moldova among the most bizarre.
Moldova is the poorest nation in Europe, by a long shot. It's GDP per capita is less than half that of Bosnia and Herzegovina, which is the second poorest ($2,500 compared to $6,000).

This is an apartment building in Bălți, which is pronounced "belts."
A roadside cross.
The remote, ancient cave monastery at Orheiul Vechi was among the most memorable places we visited in the region. This picture was taken on the "balcony," which is a tiny ledge high up the side of a sheer cliff.
A huge stork-shaped well that we spotted on the roadway. It wasn't immediately clear how it was supposed to work, but the bucket was lowered by a chain attached to the stork's mouth.

Because there isn't much indoor plumbing in Moldova - especially outside the cities - there are lots of public wells.
Almost a quarter of the population lives and works outside of the country - usually illegally. Working age people leave in the greatest numbers. In some regions, it felt like a ghost country, with only the very elderly and the very young left behind.
Late evening on the Chișinău outskirts.
Piles of cornstalks outside a little hamlet.
Coffee and a snack taken outside a store near Milestii-Mici (the largest wine cave in the world). It seems strange that we've never mentioned this coffee, actually. Through most of the more impoverished corners of the former Soviet Union, tea is the preferred drink and coffee is relatively uncommon. But most places had a sweet, instant-coffee drink called 3v1 (actually, there are brackets in the real logo, so it appears "3[v]1"), which is a shorthand name that means "three in one," meaning coffee, milk and sugar. It's not very good, but we had scores of tiny plastic cups of the stuff over several weeks.

The name of this pastry has been completely forgotten.
Apartment building in Chișinău, the capital.
Something that's still difficult for us to believe: we actually went into the Transdniestr frozen conflict zone, which is also called Transnistria. We didn't stay for more than an afternoon, but it still ranks as one of the strangest places visited on the trip. Also, one of the most frightening.

Read all Moldova posts.

New Forest Ponies

2011-11-19T14:34:00.000-08:00

The New Forest is a peculiar place. Blanketed by mist off the sea, its flat miles of gorse and woodland are broken up here and there by wide expanses of heath. There is water in the spongy soil; the air smells of mud and dead leaves.

The park is known for its “ponies,” which amble around freely and slowly. We stayed on New Forest’s edge for three nights as we prepared to ship our car home, taking a few trips into its interior. We weren’t really looking for anything in particular, and the horses captured our attention and imagination.

New Forest was formed in 1079 by William the Conqueror as a royal park in which the king and his court could hunt and raise game. Some number of households were displaced when this happened, and the resettled families were given a kind of grazing right for their animals. Although the land is now public, these rights have persisted until the present - anyone who owns one of the houses granted permission is allowed to pasture animals in the New Forest, even if they have just purchased the land.

The horses are really considered ponies, but they're generally quite large. Since 1930, they've been purebred, and are prized for their hardiness and gentle constitutions - the breed has been spread through much of the world, though it's often mislabeled or not recognized.

In a pub one night, we asked about the animals. The patrons there regarded them more as a nuisance - a traffic hazard - than an attraction, but recognized their uniqueness. “It’s hard to believe,” one man said, “but they tell them apart by the cut of their tails.”

As it turns out, he was partially correct. A peculiar British authority exists, called the "Verderers," to administer parkland that was once owned by the crown. In the New Forest, the Verderers are tasked with annually cutting the tails of the grazing horses in special layers, to make note of which areas they are supposed to graze in. Because the park's ecosystem is rather fragile, gates and fences have been set up to keep specific animals in separate sections. The owners of the horses brand or ear-tag their livestock to show ownership.
We were amazed, initially, to find these almost feral animals in the park. A sign by one gate proclaimed, in large letters, "Ponies don't dent - they die!" There was something very British about the forest and the animals, something medieval, quaint and foggy. We were left with an impression of dulled color and indistinct edges, like a watercolor that has run together.

The Bilbao to Portsmouth Ferry

2011-11-15T14:12:00.000-08:00

Air travel doesn't do justice to distances, or to journeys. Getting on a plane in one place, getting off in another, feeling nothing but blankness in between - it reorders geography into simple equations of hours-between and time-zones crossed. It's nice, every once in a while, to go more slowly and deliberately, and to have time to ruminate on the change.

We left the continent in grand fashion this time, setting sail for southern England with our car and a few days before our flight home. The trip took a little over 24 hours, beginning in darkness, traversing a full day and ending late the next night.

Above, morning breaks over the Bay of Biscay
The Brittany Ferries boat that plies the water between Bilbao and Portsmouth is much bigger than we expected. Because of some bad weather that we never saw but heard a lot about, the ferry was late in loading. During a few hours spent sitting in the vast holding lot, idling truck engines and the crackling radios of the customs men settled into a kind of dreamlike white noise. A few hundred other cars sat in the gloom with us. Truckers talked by their rigs, drinking beer until unsteadied and laughing over old stories.
When we finally were ushered on, it happened in a rush. We left the car with our overnight bags, found our cabin, settled in. Our cabin smelled faintly of seawater, the ship rolled heavily, we slept lightly, always aware that the ocean was beneath us.The morning brought brief sun, followed by spitting rain and strong wind as we entered the Celtic sea. We worked and sat, wandered from shop to restaurant to bar. There are events on board, of course, and movies playing, but we didn't take part in any of it. A certain pleasure can be found in being hemmed in for a finite amount of time, and in drifting into a soft-lit daze. The day passed very swiftly, in a cornerless line of rolling waves and quiet music.
There were two restaurants on board, and two real bars. Rumors of a third bar spread, and were confirmed by a vague mention in the directory, but we weren't able to find it. It sounded intriguing - the "chauffeur lounge," reserved for truck drivers and, one imagines, the more unsavory types.

The other bars were predictably bland, though they did a brisk business. People like to drink when they're on a boat, and to eat. We had sardines and bread for our chilly, on-deck lunch, followed in our cabin by some dates and oranges.

Night fell again, and with it came a certain edginess. The passengers were informed of another delay, minds were turned toward solid ground. In the last few, long hours, it was as if the boat had awakened. Passengers stretched and paced, standing restlessly in the hallways and congregating more anxiously around the televisions and bars.

The lights of England and Portsmouth brought people out onto the decks. The air was heavy with moisture, but the rain had cleared. Most of our fellow passengers were British, and the sight of their homeland seemed to calm them.

We slipped into our berth around nine-thirty at night. Driving away, speeding down a misty English motorway, the breadth of the water behind us felt immense.