Archifact: Here is what I made in Armenia

This is an assemblage sculpture by American sculptor Bil Fleming.

Its name is a play on the words arch and artifact in reference to its form and its source materials. It is an “arching form” composed of “artifacts” found along an abandoned railway in the Zeitun area of Yerevan, Armenia, on the hill above the Yerevan Zoo.

Achifact in Armenia

Its improvised construction process used the objects found, a handful of common tools (drill, screwdriver, pliers, and tin snips) and sheet metal screws.

Tools used to make the sculpture Archifact. Corded power drill, screwdriver, corded outlet, (not pictured: line man pliers and a broken section of hacksaw blade) Also shown are sheet metal screws.

It is the unique location-specific answer to the artist’s question “How will a drastic change in locale affect my process?”

This is Armenia’s Archifact because all the objects used to build the form were found in Armenia, a short walk from the artist’s work space. A sampling of identifiable objects used for the sculpture’s materials include: enameled steel and galvanized buckets, Pots, heaters, stoves, a toy car, bicycle fenders, sheet metal construction warning signs, chimney exhaust cap, and fluorescent light fixture.

assemblage sculpture, using found objects

A more exacting viewer might critically observe that this arch is incomplete, as it has only one side and so is more like a tendril. A second side will be made in Donegal ,Ireland in 2012 as part of the international project titled Samkura.

The Samkura project is hosted in Ireland by the Artist residency program at Cló Visual Art and Media Workshop.

Here is a link: http://www.clo.ie/

program Zeitun, Yerevan, Armenia 10/5/2011

During the months of June and July 2012 I will spend a month at Cló where I have proposed the following.

Proposal for Clό Artist Residency: Samkura Arch Sculpture

Within the general context of the Samkura Project and, specifically, its focus on “understanding contemporary art as a language of cross-cultural communication,” I propose to create an outdoor sculpture for display and/or installation at Clό in Ireland, using natural native and discarded synthetic materials, available tools, and an assemblage process.

This sculpture created at Clό will address themes implicit in the Samkura Project and its call for “research, development and dissemination of new art works . . . in a context of a thematic artistic exchange focusing on cultural and linguistic specificity.” The sculpture, as a response to the themes from Samkura, will be informed by my work and experiences during a recent AKOS artist residency in Armenia. It is my intent to create work that is conversant with work I completed in Armenia and to exhibit separately the works created in both places.

I have chosen to work with the arch as the sculpture’s form because it symbolises a connection, bridge, link, and span–all manifestations of the idea central to Samkura: linguistic connection between temporally and geographically distant cultures. The Samkura Project uses the metaphor of a shamrock or samkura to represent the evolved connections of Indo-European languages –leaflets to the stalk and the stalk to the ground on which the language plant grows. Similarly emblematic is the arch, a symbol of our efforts to reach out to one another through an international residency program in which we seek to understand and use contemporary art as cross-cultural communication.

Ինչքան լեզու իմանաս՝ այնքան մարդ էս:

“Inchqan lezoo imanas, aynqan mart es.”

You are as many a person as the languages you know. -Armenian proverb

My personal linguistic and cultural identity, like many Americans, is that of a mutt, linking and bridging linguistic and cultural ethnicities far too complex to list and hidden from me by the passage of time and the loss of parts of my family’s history. I am just as likely part ethnically Armenian as I am certainly part ethnically Irish, when one considers the thousands of generations of humans that have come before us and recognizes the vast amount of information about our past that is irretrievable. This is important to the understanding of our shared humanity.

My native language, English, is a similarly hybridised form in its complexity, heterogeneity, and semi-blindness to its past. It is also similar in that English today is a bridge language or lingua franca. It is often used to make communication possible between people who do not share a mother tongue. Yet even as a hybrid both culturally and linguistically, I and my expression of the English language still hold a specific identity linguistically and culturally. What is that specific linguistic and cultural identity? How is it qualitatively the same as and different from others? How do language and identity influence each other?

On a personal level, this proposed Arch is a self-portrait. I recognise my own linguistic idiom as a blend of many preceding cultures and languages from a diverse genealogy that links a variety of peoples, historical periods, and geographic locations. I realise that by my ongoing interest in international exchange I create a bridge to the world beyond my own national and regional boundaries. I look forward to Clό artist residency to explore these topics and pursue this opportunity to take part in Samkura!

Is fearr Gaeilge briste, na Bearla cliste!

Sculpture in Armenia – Asthetic Influences Tools and Materials

patchwork

memorial tower with spear on top and Armenian swastika

sundial/peacock tail, tree of life and arch symbols of Armenia

Much of the “sculpture” I saw in Armenia was in the form or associated with architecture.

Here are some more pictures from this monumentally huge stairway with fountains and a view.

Tree of life spear and sword cross memorial tower near top of Cascade.

Cascade and Sculpture Park

Fountain at the cascade

Yerevan city Centre National Opera.

Yerevan commercial building with apartments

Manga graffitti?

The pink rose and or gray stone is a volcanic tuff that is cut, carved and sometimes polished on building exteriors.

One of many but perhaps greater in Importance than most - E. Kochar's Mother Armenia which looks out over the Armenian capital City of Yerevan much like Jesus in Rio. This statue stands on a plinth that originally held a statue of Stalin. The plinth still shows the flag of the USSR with star hammer and sickle.

A view from the infamous abandoned railway. That's the back of Mother Armenia and down town Yerevan.

Junk for sculpture located along the abandoned railway.

Sculpture of the kinetic and interactive installation variety.  In this case an indoor  fountain and water feature.  When I moved in  the toilet didn’t work so instead of waiting to have it fixed, I fixed it. DIY baby!

Problems with the hot water diverter from sink to shower/tub were preceded by no hot water for a several days as the gas was not yet turned on.  Not exhausted by the toilet, I set to work on my next sculpture.  The Sink and Shower Connection.

needs an O ring

found an O-ring and a new shower handle and I now had hot showers AND hot water!

Yerevan ZOO

I wanted to go to the zoo.
I could see the zoo’s entrance from the deck where I worked.  It was across a busy divided four lane road.  It taunted me.   It was also site of a sculpture exhibit currated by Eva Khachatryan of the Suburb Cultural Center.  Eva is an influential curator in Yerevan and mentioned that my sculpture might be shown at the zoo.  I wanted togo and see what the zoo was like as venue.   I was introduced to Eva by a new friend Greek documentary filmaker Akaterini Gegisian at an opening for at the Armenian Center for Contemporary Experimental Art (NPACK).
The Zoo lay in the bottom of the valley my apartment stood above.  On my treasure hunting walks down the abandoned railway I had noticed a long open hillside that descended from a foot path and seemed to lead very directly in to the “valley of the zoo”.   I asked a man passing by if I could go that way to the zoo.  I used my
best one word and lots of gestures speak.  It worked but we couldn’t understand much of what we tried to say to each other.
He invited me to coffee at his house a few doors down.  Norik the man who invited me to coffee was a taxi driver on his way home from the grocery store.  We had just met as i asked him for directions down an open hillside.  He must have sensed good entertainment from me as well as being a really kind and welcoming person.   He lead me to his family’s home where I was greeted by his wife and her sister, his son in law and his daughter
with their little girl, some cousins and a host of other relatives.   Ashot, Norik’s
son in law, knew some English.  He was an
accountant for a big Russian candy company that also sells cigarettes and other
stuff and said he wanted to get a job as a banker but needed to improve his
English first.  i think he also was very happy and had a good sense of humor!  We had Armenian coffee served by the female members of the family with sugar and grounds in small pretty demitasse cups with saucers, figs,
squares of dark chocolate, sliced watermelon, and sunflower seeds under the
shade of the tin roof covered and cool back patio porch.

When it was time for me go Ashot asked where I had been
trying to go, before coffee.  When I told
him “…to the zoo.”, he offered to drive me there.  I kindly refused adding that because I could
see where it was I thought there must be a shortcut down the hill so one didn’t
have to drive all the way into town and back up the valley in order to get
there.  Ashot asked if I was an Alpinist!  Hahaha – yes I am !   Ashot then said I could go that way – down the hill – but asked if he and Norik could watch as I went.  I said, “sure” they could watch me descend the hillside and I set off after saying my good byes.
Ashot and Norik did watch me go all the way down the hill and stayed
within sight at the top, until I reached the bottom.  Once there I turned and waved to Norik and Ashot and they waved back.  It was not hard going down the hill except for the loose rocks and thorny plants.  I had to cross through a houses yard that from the top looked less private.  Oops!

I then had a short walk to the Yerevan Zoo.

Recycled sculpture at the Yerevan Zoo

Cool plastic water bottle egg sculpture being constructed at the Zoo.

The real animals at the Yerevan Zoo made me question the ethics of zoos as visits to them always do. Isn't there another way to educate our children about animals without subjecting them to our anthropomorphic cruelty.

The Metro

People in the Metro DO NOT want their pictures taken!

Cool Soviet Style Metro

this sculpture is found in the Yerevan Metro (subway)  An unnamed Armenian artist from Soviet times.

St Grigor Lutsovorich

A striking modern church with many features found on old churches but abstracted and amplified.

hero wwI Andranic Ara Shiraz

This sculpture of Andranic the hero and leader of the Armenian resistance to Turkish forces from WWI times.  The sculpture has him riding two horses simultaneously.  I couldn’t find out the symbolic meaning of this.

The oldest sculpture i saw in Armenia.  It is between 3,000 and 4,000 years old.  Many of these pagan stones were used to denote special places with water and memorialize events and construction of buildings.  Some times they lay on their sides some times upright like shown here.  They seemed to have a face of sorts.  Most of the pre-Christian sculptures were destroyed by the early Christians.

Another oldie but newer. 1545.  This is a Katchkar - a cross-stone – this kind of gravestone is what the earlier 4 thousand year old type eventually evolved into with clear Christian influences.  Stone is the wealth of Armenia – it is said.

my parts collection and work area with my hand washed laundry hanging dry

As you can see I have chosen many round things made of steel with a colorful enamel coating as well as galvanized steel and sheet metal.  Tools I used were limited to Power drill with cord,  screwdriver with a broken handle, pliers, tin snips, and leather gloves.

I found this 40 plus year old Soviet technology transformer shed was a particularly special inspiration for its textured rust and blue its inscrutable but symbolically clear warning labels, and tangle of fairly exposed wiring.

Soviet Block apartments

These apartments all have clothes lines out the windows the pipes you see are above ground gas lines.  Also most people in Armenia own their property outright.  They deeds were given to residents when the USSR collapsed.  No Mortgage.

Greek language instructor at the Yerevan State Linguistic University Pavel Bzhikyan and Italian Photographer from London Paula Leonardi

Time for beer – Kilikia a pilsner lager, with a katchapuri pizza like bread salty brined melted cheese and a partly cooked egg on top

Danish Conceptual Artist Christian Bang Jensen at KFC in Yerevan. We had to see if it was the same. It was not.

Me posing next to a stone cutting table being reconstructed in a shop near my apartment.  Thanks for the picture Pedros!

More on sculpture process and exhibit possibilities and some process shots next time.

Last night a goodbye party for Gosie!

Last night a goodbye party for Gosie(pronounced “Hosie”) native of Belgium, fellow resident, and partner on an excursion to Goris. She is headed back to Belgium to digest and create a project from her research here in Armenia. In Belguim she is a performance artist and works also with a commercial video production company. She cooked a Belgiun specialty – French Fries (Pomme Frites)

Our trip started with public transport from where we stay in an neighborhood of Yerevan downtown to where we went to an area that has taxis which leave for various destinations like a bus but with cars. One might expect signage and a clear sense of where this spot is… we were told simply to go behind a large distinctive building and we would find it. Mostly I think it found us.
We must have looked confused or lost because a driver who was dressed like any one approached us and ased “Taxi?” and then pointed us toward and area with men sitting. We walked over and announced “Goris” our destination and then were pointed to another man who when we asked for Goris again nodded yes. Then Gosie asked how much by rubbing her fingers together (international sign for money or price and were told 3500 drams (remember when this sounds like a lot that $1 = 300-400 drams) about $10-12 each. Then we said yes. After a short wait we were introduced to another person it turns out was the actual driver. When we asked him price he said 4000. We were told not accept this price and to hold out for 3500. So we did. This man did not speak English or German or Spanish or French. Armenian and Russian were the only options with him.

Artyum aka "Taxi-3". Skilled and death defying taxi driver. Taxi-3 refers to his exclaimation after narrowly missing a head on collision while passing a semi truck and two other taxis on a narrow two lane road at close to 100MPH.

He was able to convey that someone near the car could speak English. So we walked over to the car with him –a brand new looking black VW Golf with heavily tinted windows. Inside was a young Italian man named Jacob (Yacofv). He spoke English some Russian and Italian. Despite our new language bridge with the driver no progress was made on price. The car was nice with AC, stereo, black leather interior and very new, added to this we knew that another ride to Goris might not happen that day so we agreed to 4000. Next to negotiate: we also wanted to go on a side trip to a famous church called Noravank. This we were informed would cost us each an extra 1000 drams but could be done. Ok we said. The ensuing Taxi ride was a death wish driving over 100 mph much of the way, 60 mph around some of the sharp turns. I could feel all four tires skidding through many of these turns.

The barbeque kitchen of oour lunch stop. At first I suspected this was the bathroom!

Back up water pump and outhouse - now storage shed at our lunch stop on the way to Goris

I was surprised when as we got into the car there appeared a 4th passenger! We had a 200K journey and we would go the whole way with 5 people in a fairly compact car. I got the middle first off and Jacob was kind enough to switch off with me, Gosie got the front the whole way as she was the only female and I think our driver wanted to impress her with his dashing style and chivalry. The fourth passenger seemed to speak only Armenian, either this or it was his way of avoiding a turn sitting in the middle. Whenever we stopped for a break he would wait until everyone had got in so that he sat on the side. He was a strong young, and well-dressed man. I tried pantomiming with him several times to indicate it was his turn in the middle. He just acted like he didn’t know what I was talking about. Pointless!

Jacob our Italian fellow traveler (who spoke some Russian and good English and so was an interpreter for Gosie and I), fellow Belgian Artist Gosie, and Artyum our taxi driver. We are posing together to commemorate a taxi ride we will all remember forever!

On the way we stopped at:
Noravank http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Noravank.

Two chapels at Noravank - 700+ years old

Check out these stairs - These would never be open to the public in the US - Insurance of course

Interior of the upper chapel

Beautiful intricately carved wood door

View going down the sketchy stairs! The Adrenaline rush created by ascending these must heightened visitors religious experience.

While in Goris we toured some amazing caves in the cliffs that were used for homes fr some until the 1940s. Home made mulberry vodka (up to 70% alchohol, home made cheese, and herbs and mushrooms we foraged with our guide were featured by our welcoming hosts!

Cave filled cliffs of Goris

Gosie at a cave opening in Goris, Armenia.

Edic-(Edison) from inside the cave looking through the cave entry.

Cave interior

Next day we asked for a slower taxi and got one! A Russian Volga, that may have been slower for good reason – less than perfect brakes! We went to hot springs and swam at Satan’s Bridge with beer drinking and partying locals.

http://www.armeniapedia.org/index.php?title=Satanayi_Kamurj

Sorry didn’t bring my camera to this one and lucky too because it would have been toast with all the wet.

After our bath we headed up the hill to amazing Tatev once the center of learning in the area.

Tatev Monastery : what a view!

South side of Tatev: the four small arches are close to 2000 years old

This grand entry was added much later.

Inside of tatev again shows how architecture might add to the religiously inspiring experience. It looks dirty you think? Well consider the entire interior was originally covered with vibrantly colored frescos!

Amazing landscape on the ride home from Tatev Monastery.

Tatev http://www.lonelyplanet.com/armenia/vayots-dzor-and-syunik/tatev

After Tatev we saw Karahunge the worlds earliest celestial observatory according to some. Several thousand years older than Stonehenge!

Lots of large standing stones in various positions and shapes.

Many of the stones have these hole in them that are theorized to be for astronomical sighting. I'll tell you though the people back then picked an amazing 360 degree view for this location with the horizon stretching for many miles in every direction without obstruction! A powerful spot!.

http://tersakian.blogspot.com/2009/10/karahunge-armenian-stonehenge_4462.html

And then to our amazement our taxi driver surprised us with a lake side campfire on which he cooked us chicken roasted tomatoes and a feast of home made cheese veggies and more home made mulberry vodka and then took us to his home to meet his family and their cow who lived in the basement(named Volga like his taxi) and told us we had eaten volga’s cheese and gave us some Volga yogurt – and more vodka followed by a midnite excursion to a city overlook where I commenced to dancing on a table – WHOOOOO HOOOO!

Our gracious taxi driver and his whole family in their dining room with my fellow travelers Gosie and Jacob

Volga! Thanks for the cheese, and yoghurt!

Next day back to Yerevan uneventfully but almost as life threateningly with a different taxi driver in a medium speed car.
FUN! FUN! FUN!

First night in the apartment (pictures too): Ok, so my posts are out of sequence….

Today I arise after my first night in my new apartment.  In a few days I will be sharing it with 2-3 other artists who arrive then.  It is quite large and the room I slept in has amazing ornate hand painted floral decorations on the walls and ceiling.  The apartment is about 1500 square feet has several bedrooms, a large common living room with a Ping-Pong table, kitchen, bath, and toilet  rooms.  In addition this apartment has adjacent to it a large covered deck with a commandingly fantastic view of Mt Ararat, downtown Yerevan, and the surrounding area.  The picture above shows a new modern aparment building in the foreground.  There are many of these in Yerevan.  Most of them are finished and completely empty.

View of Mt Ararat from my apartments deck

The space is still being refined for use by visiting artists.  The toilet does not really work and there is no hot water yet.  Two of my neighbors are working on the front door right now – attaching a piece of plywood to one side to keep it from falling apart.

Bathroom pre-renovation

The men working are Ariec and friend/relative.  Relatives are very important here and it is not unusual to have 3 generations living together in the same home.  In fact is it unusual for them not to be together.  Even aunts and uncles as well as their wives and children are often part of the whole home population.

This creates huge resources for children’s care.  There is no “childcare” facility that I know of as friends and family easily and graciously do this.

Revenge of the Chocolate Milk!

8/30

I have some “intestinal issues” since my fantastic dinner last night at the gourmet Armenian Restaurant. Not that it wasn’t delicious – it very definitely was!

About halfway through our feast

Dumplings like a humbao but filled with minced beef and pork fat seasoned with delicious unknown spices.  I was instructed by Mkrtich to bite a small hole in the side of the dumpling then add a slice of butter, some ground black pepper on top, and then eat. The challenge was to eat it without allowing a drop of the amazing juice/butter combo drip on your plate!  A good strategy to avoid drips on the plate is to put some lavash (see below) down to absorb any mistakes.  This can be eaten later and no points are lost due to dripping.

Also we had a sausage made from lamb heart and liver inside and bound with the intestine.  The heart and liver pieces alternated through the length of the sausage.  This was served grilled with thinly sliced red onion and lavash (thin flexible bread almost like a fabric in its flexibility and thinness though like an unsalted cracker in flavor and appearance.)

Also we had rabbit stewed in a tomato based sauce with mashed potatoes the consistency of mashed squash.  I chose this dish becuase I had never had rabbit before.  Kinda tasted like chichen – haha!

Finally we had a soup made with lamb, potato and garbanzo beans. This soup was served in crockery that had a crackery tortilla like cover that was baked on the top.  This kept the delicious contents piping hot until we were ready to eat it. Of course this was difficult after the huge amount of food and beer we had already consumed!

You will of course want to know how much these three entrees and large soup, plus four beers cost…. Well it was 9000 Armenian Drams. One thousand drams are about $3USD. Do the math – $27 (this includes a tip) to eat like kings (over eat) plus beer and a tip in a full service restaurant complete with wait help and our own table in downtown high rent Yerevan! More than enough for two grown men!  Kilikian the local lager beer costs about 600drams per1/2 liter(pintish) – between $1.50 and $2.  Crazy cheap and this is restaurant price, in a store it is only 350 drams – about one dollar for a pint (40 drams are a deposit)!

Just realized what the cause of my intestinal difficulties is. I don’t think it was the restaurant. I think it was the chocolate milk I bought from the grocery later.

I opened it as I left the supermarket and took barely a sip before I realized there was a bottle sized and shaped gelatinous lump swimming in some white watery coco flavored liquid.  Ew!  But I was not completely deterred!  I WANTED CHOCOLATE MILK!  When I poured it out a little, the lump stretched like caramel or taffy or mucus (sorry disgusting I know).  It didn’t taste bad though, so I tried to shake it up and then looked and tasted again.  (I thought maybe this was the way Armenian chocolate milk was supposed to be).  It was still the same.  I was very disappointed.  When I asked my Armenian friends about this later, I was told by Mary, who works in food safety, that she doesn’t drink milk.  In fact no one seems to.  I had tasted so little of this stuff, and it really didn’t taste bad – not like sour milk, so it didn’t occur to me that this might be the cause, until I thought hard about what else I had eaten.

Anyway, no more chocolate milk until I get back to the US.  Home sickness is taking on a whole new meaning.

This is food I ate at home. The same that has been served to me by my hosts.

Where shall I get my Materials?

Lucky for me there is a recently abandoned railway that is just swimming in wonderful discarded metal things (as well as other stuff) so finding things to use literally by the hundreds is not a problem. Old buckets with holes in them, bowls both enameled and not.

The problems I face are how to get them from where they are to where I can work on them. I have decided to do this on foot with a back pack – for now – until I can find a cart or hand truck or similar off-road able wheeled device.

Other unresolved issues are methods for connecting the objects I find, where t show the work when finished, how to transport the finished pieces and what to do with them when I leave. I do not have a drill or driver for sheet metal screws. I have seen some wads of rusty wire and I am considering doing some extensive wire lashing. This is a method I have used in the past with some success and always wanted to explore it further. I will still need to make some holes unless the “pre-made” ones are enough.

Here is a pile of stuff for sculpture

Pictures here show my neighbor Eric posing on the patio with scrubbed and cleaned salvaged objects and objects where they are found : the deconstructed railway.

Freshly salvaged and washed junk

Last night there was a Birthday Party!

Mkrtich is the president and director of Acos, the artist residency program in Yerevan Armenia. I always wondered how to say his name, having never heard it before I came up with something like “mit-rick”. It is however far different – “Mick-er-titsch” seems about as close as I can get. It means Baptiser.
However like many things in Armenian there are multiple names. Mkrtich is also called several nick names with close friends calling him “mer-kutsch”.
Same name just easier for even Armenians to say!
So last night there was a birthday party for one of Mkrtich’s old friends. There was a birthday cake with roman candles on top! See pictures!
The men got together, about 6 of us, and ate “take out”: grilled seasoned pork, grilled chicken, and grilled minced beef. Each kind of meat had been seasoned, cooked and then loaded into a giant burrito like bread tortilla. These “burritos” full of meat, were set in the middle of the table, the opening of the plastic bags that held them opened and pushed back and from them we served ourselves bare handed onto plastic plates. In addition to the meat there were several different kinds of vodka that ranged from between 40%-60% alcohol. Some was mulberry vodka, there was also plum vodka. A local brand of light beer called “Kilikia” in green glass one liter bottles (different spelling of the name Cilicia Armenia’s kingdom from the Middle Ages) was on the table. There was a bottle of wine and also a bottle of champagne. Many toasts were made! After each toast our shot glasses were refilled. I was informed that there are some customary toasts that are made at these get togethers. We toasted to our parents, children, humanity in general, there was a toast to me the guest, and I responded to this with one for my hosts. We toasted to God and to the force of life said simply as “Eh”. There was a toast for relationships – I’m not clear whether this was with their wives in mind or each other or both or if I am missing this point all together.
Most of these folks at the party have known each other for 20 years or so, all were married and had children except one who was the youngest at 27 years. I was informed that usually there is a sort of master of ceremonies who is in charge of the party. This person is elected democratically from the group and must make sure that the toasts are happening at regular intervals not too fast or slow and of essentially guiding and deciding who and what will be toasted next.
Later some women arrived and were included in the festivities. The roles of men and women here are, according to my host, sharply delineated in what I regard as traditional ways. Women are monarchs of the home and men outside the home. I will write more about this as I understand further.
As I sat for a number of hours with very little English being spoken at this party I found that I often mistakenly recognize things that are said as English or German – but it is not. I wonder if this is a regular part of immersion language learning. One tries to understand what is being said in terms of the language that one already knows. To some degree this inhibits one’s ability to learn a completely different language – at least at first – as we grasp for comprehension of language we already know, even when there is none. Many of the sounds in Armenian are difficult for me to hear. For instance, the word for “no” – woch sounds to my ear the same as a very different word – that for health/life “vorj”. These are two words with very different meanings but the sound that makes them different is one that happens very quickly in the back of the throat (like clearing the throat). Many languages have this kind of sound – but not English.
Yesterday Mkrtich showed me the place that I will be staying. It is a big apartment in a house whose owner is living in the US for work. The other place – the one shown on Acoss’s website is farther away, outside of the city of Yerevan about 20 minutes and has owners who seem to have arbitrarily restrictive rules for their guests – some of them unspoken. This place I was shown has a covered deck with a fantastic view of Yerevan as it sits high up on a bluff overlooking the city. I imagine this is where I will work. Also living there in an adjacent apartment, sharing the same commons, are my landlords and family: Father Aryic, Mother Lucina, Eldest and daughter Margarita, and son Aric. The kids are 14 and 9. Margarita knows some English and it has been proposed that we may be able to exchange some language lessons! I can certainly use them. Otherwise I am sometimes able to speak German with Aryic.
When I arrived to view the apartment with Mkrtich, we were invited to have some wonderfully tasty fresh figs – mmm they were delicious, cut fresh peaches, and Greek coffee (boiled with the grounds still in it). This seems like a regular custom for guests. Very Nice!

Try to blow out those candles!