Welsh Davids Silk Road and beyond: 15 May – Tbilisi (Georgia) to Yerevan (Armenia)

After leaving Tbilisi at 8.15am the drive to the border took just over one hour.

Ready to leave

The two border crossings were not too bad taking about an hour in total. Once into Armenia Helen had to buy insurance for the truck whilst it was in Armenia. The drive to Yerevan was through mountains and some hilly areas with farming the main occupations as most of the soviet era factories and industrial estates were derelict.

Petrol and diesel costs were both 66p/litre, driving is on the right and we are 3 hours ahead of the UK (the same as in Georgia).

Various views

We arrived at the Hotel Olympic in Yerevan at 3.30pm on a warm sunny day. I went walking almost straight away to be very un-impressed with the area nearby. It was mainly all soviet style building with many empty or in a bad state of repairs. Apart from some small shops, and what someone called a Waitrose style supermarket (though this one had live fish for sale) there were no eating places to be seen nearby.
Yerevan is the oldest continually inhabited city in the world, older than Rome so it is said, being 2800 years old. In 301AD it became the first Christian country. It is also said that Mount Ararat can be seen from all parts of the city (weather permitting, but I did see the mountain from here). The new part of the city was designed by Alaxander Tamanyan who wanted it to look like Paris and Vienna.

Views near our hotel

I must admit that I was disappointed with what I saw and also to be told that there was no ‘old’ Yerevan, it had all been damaged during wars and genocide, the soviet buildings remaining and, as I found out later, a new part of the city had been built. One thing that was noticeable walking around was that the city was very clean. Despite there being derelict buildings there was little rubbish to be seen on the streets, especially in the more modern parts. There is a metro/underground in Yerevan, one line only and one cost, 14p for any distance travelled. The trains are not modern but they run every 10 minutes and are very clean. A 100 dram coin is exchanged for a token and this is put in the turnstile. The 420 step escalator in the station near here moves twice as fast as the London ones so it is a bit of a hop-skip and jump to get on and off the escalator. There is a lady in a booth at the bottom of the escalators and it is her job to shout at people that no photos are to be taken and control the access to the escalators. We were staying at one the end of the line so it was easy to count 3 stops to get off in the centre of the city.

The name of the local station

The local station

The central station

Views of the new part of the city

North Street

Ministry of foreign Affairs

The Opera House

The only mosque in Yerevan and where there is no call to prayer shouted over the neighbourhood because of complaints locally. Common sense does prevail sometimes.