BLOG: ARMENIA – WINE, BRANDY AND GROWING MOUNTAINS
By Jill Worrall

New Zealand Herald
September 18, 2007
New Zealand

Travel Story

The city of Yerevan nestled beneath Mt Ararat, which lies on the
other side of the Turkish border.

Travelling often means riding the waves of the unexpected and when
you are responsible for 14 other people as well, keeping the good
ship Itinerary afloat can sometimes feel like one is lashed to the
mast in a heavy sea.

But thankfully, travel can also mean serendipitous happenings. So for
example when we arrived in the Armenian capital of Yerevan to find
our hotel rooms were not ready, it was time to roll out Plan B. So,
we drove to the spiritual heart of Armenia, Echmiadzin.

We were several hours ahead of schedule so it was by happy coincidence
that the head of the Armenian church, the Catholicus, was just
leaving his palace to process to his third century cathedral. I’m
sure he didn’t realise he was making a tour leader very happy but I
was grateful nonetheless.

While bells pealed, the black hooded Catholicus, followed by a
procession of clerics, some dressed in purple robes, swept past us,
under a porch adorned with watching angels and into the church.

By the time we stepped inside he was now clad in red and cream robes
richly embroidered in gold thread and two acolytes were wafting
incense around the altar.

The choir was singing – magnificent unaccompanied hymns spiralled
upwards into the high dome, intertwined in the ethereal blue smoke
of the burning incense.

Advertisement AdvertisementThe cathedral was packed with worshippers
and onlookers. While the service continued people lit tapers,
planted candles in long troughs of sand, crossed themselves, prayed
and took photographs.

The next day the guardian angel of tour guides was at work again, this
time at the 800 year-old Geghard monastery that is perched on the side
of a mountain in a narrow gorge about an hour’s drive from Yerevan.

There was no grand service here but a single priest in a white gown,
who was also swinging an incense burner – but his was complete with
small bells which jangled sleigh-like as he moved from church to
rock-hewn chapel.

We ate lunch in the garden of an enterprising local who had turned
his property into a restaurant for tourists. Our long table was set
under a weeping elm and was crammed with plates of paper-thin bread,
tomato and cucumber salads, eggplant coated with walnut paste, fresh
goat’s cheese and mounds of fresh herbs. Two sweating men toiled over
an oven into which they were feeding beef kebabs at high speed. Somehow
or another 150 people had turned up for lunch at the same time and
the staff were working overtime.

A barrel of brandy presented to former Polish president Lech
Walesa. Photo / Jill Worrall "Why has everyone come at once?" the owner
cried in despair, looking around his orchard and its feasting Kiwis,
Italians and Germans. But he wasn’t too busy to bring our table a
large earthenware jug of his homemade wine.