An Armenian Hobby: Jumping the Queue

It seems to me that Armenians’ favorite hobby is jumping the queue. Wherever you have to wait – in your car at a red traffic light, in a shop or at the post-office – you can be sure that someone will try to get in the queue in front of you. It really drives me crazy. And I cannot understand why usually no-one tells the perpetrators off. I always ask people more or less politely (it’s become less politely recently) to wait at the end of the queue. However, in doing so I am the odd one out. Even the salespersons serve the queue-jumpers politely and do not ask them to go back and wait.
According to my Armenian colleague this behavior is a legacy of the Soviet times, where you could not be sure to get what you wanted, if you waited in the queue. I think this is a rather weak argument some 15 years after the collapse of the evil empire. Also if this was true, why don’t the ones, who wait normally, tell the queue-jumpers off? To me it is one of the many mysteries of life in Armenia.
There is another famous Armenian habit related to queues. It’s the habit of reserving a spot. If you wait in a queue, it can happen that people in front of you claim that this is their spot (not in absolute terms, but relatively to your own position, i.e. their spot is always the spot in front of you). Then they disappear for a certain time to do their shopping or whatever and, when they come back, they step in in front of you to take up what is rightly theirs. So, sometimes it happens that you expect to wait for 10 minutes, but because of all the reservations it takes an hour or so. Absolutely fascinating.

A trip to Azerbaijan

Last week I had to make a work-related visit to Azerbaijan. I drove to Tbilisi first, and from there continued to the Azeri border together with a colleague who joined me in Tiblisi. He told me to mention Armenia as little as possible while in Azerbaijan and to leave my Armenian money behind as it was against Azeri law to possess Drams. Apparently they once had an intern in their project, who accidentally paid a taxi-driver in Baku Armenian Drams. Soon after the police turned up at their office to clarify what had happened. (The intern is still alive.)

My colleague’s words of warning and the armed guards at the border made me feel, as if I was an Armenian spy on my way to a hostile country. A really queer feeling. However, crossing the border was not a problem since I already had my visa and our Azeri colleagues welcomed us very warmly.

The 3 days I spent in Azerbaijan were actually very pleasant, although I had to try real hard to replace my habitual “Barev Dsez” by “Salam Aleikum”. I could even talk normally about Armenia with the locals, who work for our project in Azerbaijan, and it was really interesting to hear their opinion on the Karabagh conflict. On the one hand they referred to Karabagh and the corridor as “their land”. On the other hand, they said that fundamentally they did not care which country Karabagh belonged to, as long as a peace agreement was found and the borders were opened again. However, in public no real discussion is possible on this subject as deviating from the official line concerning Karabagh can lead to negative personal consequences. This is hardly surprising in a country where the presidential powers are handed down from father to son, and where you can see pictures of Heydar Aliev and his son Ilham everywhere – which is actually hilarious. Here is one example:



Whatever the political situation, I personally find it very sad, that the borders are closed and that there is a stalemate between Azerbaijan and Armenia. During my stay, I was thinking, what an amazing place the South Caucasus would be for tourism, if it was easier to travel around. Not to mention the potential for trade…

Well, well, the situation will probably not change soon, so for those, who wondered what lies beyond the Sevan mountains, here is a picture from the other side:


(Oops, I hope this picture does not contain secret information. In any case, don’t tell Ilham about this blog…)

Last Monday I went to a concert at the Opera where pieces from modern Armenian composers where performed. One of the composers was Karen, who works at the Armenian conservatory and also happens to be my piano teacher. It was a very interesting evening and a good example of the vibrancy of Armenian cultural life. I know a few people, who hated being in Armenia, because they found people here to be very rude and impolite. I think they have a point, because on the surface Armenia really is a very rough place. But, if you look a little deeper, the picture is completely different and you can find a very refined culture.

Wednesday was a tough day, as my Aussie wife and I had to go through the ordeal of watching Australia play Uruguay for a place in the World-Cup next year. She almost went into premature labor, when the penalties started. Fortunately, all went well for Australia. In the evening I watched the game Switzerland – Turkey. It was a very close and exciting game, but the way the Turks treated the Swiss at the end was really awful. The day after the match I read an article in a liberal German newspaper, where the author said that after seeing the violence in Istanbul he shortly converted to a supporter of the Christian Democrats, who do not want Turkey to enter the EU. (I myself wonder, whether the Swiss will decide to join the Union now, their only goal being to prevent Turkish membership.) I realize that there is a danger that the Armenians’ attitude toward Turkey affects my thinking. But I am sure that my more benevolent opinion will be confirmed once again once I meet my friends in Germany shortly, many of whose parents were born in Turkey.

Last week, we also went to check out the new Chinese restaurant “Bejing” on Tumanyan. I definitely recommend the restaurant; there is even a Chinese girl, who bows to you, when you enter and leave. Another culinary highlight in Yerevan is the Lebanese bakery on Pushkin street. If you enter Pushkin from Mashtots, it’s roughly 300 meters on your left. Don’t let the outside appearance deceive you, the stuff they make there, is great.

Last Friday night I went to the Avantgard Folk Club to attend the “Night of the Spanish Guitar” which turned out to be a really nice evening. A few students from the Yerevan conservatory were playing Flamenco music. They were excellent musicians, and it was particularly nice that they integrated a Duduk into the music. The only thing they have to work on, it seemed to me, is the way they presented themselves. The only time a band member spoke was at the end of the evening, when he was stating that the concert was over. It was a really pleasant experience to listen to Spanish music on such a high level here in Yerevan.

On Saturday my wife forced me to watch System of a Down perform at the European Music Awards in Lisbon. She likes them a lot, especially since she saw and spoke to Serj, their lead-singer (the one with the goatie and the curly hair) having lunch at Artbridge a week or so ago. Rumor has it (confirmed by Serj while at Artbridge), that they are making arrangements to perform in Armenia next year…

On that same Saturday, my Niva finally broke down. I had had some problems with the battery before, but could always jump-start the car. This time, I pushed it down Teryan, but it still would not start. So we brought and installed a new battery, which did not help. As usual, the open hood attracted quite a crowd. At the best of times, I had 7 people standing around the car discussing how to fix the problem. One of them, Tigran, was particularly persistent. He put several tubes into his mouth and sucked on them. When that did not help, he said, we should try pushing the car again. So off we went, he sat in the driver’s seat and I started pushing: From the crossroads of Teryan/ Tumanyan to Abovyan and then all the way down to the park opposite Congress hotel. It was quite a work-out for me (and I guess quite a laugh for the people watching), but did not help to start the car. Finally we found a pretty drunk electrician, who despite his state fixed the car in about 10 seconds. He did some further repairing at his workshop and now the Niva runs like a Mercedes again. The whole episode took about 6 hours, and Tigran stayed with me for about 4 hours! I wonder whether I get special treatment as a foreigner, but the helpfulness of the people here (despite their grumpy faces) stuns me again and again.

My final post

Yes, that's true: this is my final post, at least on Cilicia.com's expat site. However, I will continue posting on my own weblog from now on, which is at armenianodar.blogspot.com.

I would like to thank Raffi for the opportunity he has given me over the past year to put some of my thoughts, ideas and observations on this site. I would also like to thank everyone who has read and commented on my logs. All the positive comments have really been a boost to my ego! :p No seriously - thank you all for the feedback you have given me over time.

I hope to see you all at armenianodar.blogspot.com.

Myrthe

Healthcare (?) in Armenia

Earlier this week I was staying with friends who live in a village near Spitak. While I was there, a neighbour came over for coffee and she told that a woman from the village had died the day before after undergoing surgery at the hospital in Spitak. I don't know how old this woman was, but my guess is she was in her mid-twenties at most, as she had been married for only five years and left three children behind. Apparently, this was not the first time something like this has happened. There are about five or six similar cases in which people died after undergoing surgery at the same hopital. All operations were performed by the same surgeon, who seems to be making a few too many mistakes. The parents of one young girl where fortunate enough to realize in time that something was wrong after she underwent surgery. They quickly took her to a hospital in Yerevan and so saved their daughter's life, as she is now doing fine.

This story is similar to an article Hetq published recently about an apparently incompetent anasthesiologist in the maternity hospital in Alaverdi. Only there at the very least the case has been brought to court, whereas in Spitak so far noone has even gone that far. As I was told: "There's no point in bringing the case before a judge. The doctor will pay money and get away with it." And he undoubtedly will continue to make "mistakes"...

These people are either way too incompetent to work in their professions or they simply don't care about their work and patients. Either way, how can these two people live at peace with themselves?

On the other hand, I know of a foreign woman working here who recently had an appendicitis that needed to be taken care of urgently. She was admitted to a hospital in Yerevan and had to stay there for several days after the operation. None of the doctors or nurses ever asked money from her. They performed their duties and treated her without trying to get extra money out of her. I would guess treating a foreigner would, on the contrary, be a reason to raise the prices, but there are apparently doctors who don't do that, as Klaus also mentioned in his blog.

An Armenian Grandmother's tale

For my Armenian lessons, I go to the private house of my teacher every week. It is an old house in a nice neighborhood. My teacher lives there together with her mother Ashghen, who is now 91 years old. Every time, I go for my lesson, I have a short chat with her, talking about the weather etc. One day I asked her to tell me her life story (in Russian, as my Armenian is not that good), and it was very interesting to hear a truly Armenian story. Here is what she told me:

Ashghen was born in Baku in the year 1914. Her parents had originally lived in Karabakh but went to Baku to work and study. Ashghen’s father was a successful trader and was able to buy a 2-storey house, where he lived with his wife, Ashghen, two sons and another daughter. However in the year 1917, the family was forced to flee from Baku because of the violent uprisings against Armenians. On the eve of their voyage, the family gathered one more time to have dinner. Ashghen was too tired to eat, and afterwards she was always told that the melons she had not eaten that night, were still waiting for her in Baku…The family took a steamboat and crossed the Caspian Sea to Russia, where they lived for three years. Soon after their arrival, Ashghen’s mother died at the age of 38.

After Azerbaijan became a Soviet Republic, Ashghen’s family returned to Baku. They were not able to live in their old house, which had been occupied by other people. Instead they were given an apartment in the centre of Baku. (According to Ashghen, the Azeris were very dirty, but fortunately not a lot of them lived in the centre of Baku.) Ashghen’s older brothers and sisters all had to work to feed the family. Her father often went to the house, he still had in Karabakh. From there he brought milk and cheese for his family. Ashghen was able to go to an Armenian school in Baku and finished 9th grade. One day at school, after Stalin had come to power, she and her schoolmates heard a horse wagon enter the school yard. Several of the Armenian teachers were dragged into the wagon, never to be seen again.

After finishing school in 1931, Ashghen went to Stepanakert, where her older sister lived with her husband. There she started working in the Silk factory. After some time at the factory, she became an accountant and later even senior accountant.

However, as it was Asghen’s wish to continue her education she decided to leave Stepanakert, where no higher schools existed. She wanted to go back to Baku, where all her family lived, but on the way to the train station she changed her mind and bought a ticket to Yerevan, where she did not know a soul. She just thought, that with her Armenian education she would have more chances in Armenia. So, with nothing but one little suitcase in her hands, she set off to Yerevan. Luckily, on the train she met a girl, who invited her to stay with her family for the first days in the new city.

After ten days in Yerevan, she was able to find work as an accountant in a construction firm. She ended up marrying one of the engineers of that firm. He was a native of Van, from where his family had to flee during the Genocide. According to Ashghen, he was a rather dry man, not very romantic and not very talkative. Sometimes, however, he bought her flowers. (It was very important for Ashghen, that she actually earned more money than him at the time of their marriage.)

They got married in 1938 and a year later their first son, Samvel was born. 2 years and 2 days later the war began for Russia. Both of Ashghen’s brothers served in the war. She even showed me a picture of them in front of the Reichstag in Berlin.

The years after WWII were rather uneventful. Ashghen changed her job twice and gave birth to 3 more children. She retired after some 40 years of working.

In the 90s, life became very hard for her family. Her husband had saved some 9000 rubles (the equivalent of about 9000 US$), which was quite a lot of money at the time. After Armenia introduced the dram, her husband found almost nothing left in his bank account. This shock was too much for him, and soon after he died. Ashghen herself, after 40+ years of working, nowadays receives a pension of 12.000 drams a month. She is not very impressed with the new Armenia. She and her family lived much better during Soviet times, even shortly after WWII it was not as bad as it is today. In the Soviet times they were able to drink, eat and dance, she had a secure pension, and life in general was very secure. Nowadays, none of that is left, and ugly cafes are springing up everywhere.