July 23
"So is Armenia a European or an Asian country?"
"Oh God, who knows"
"Ha, the world hasn't decided where they want to put you yet?"
"We haven't decided where we want to be put yet"
.
.
“Where are you going now?”
“I need to find a mechanic”
“Do you need a ride?”
“No, I’m fine. It runs just fine, I just need to fix the mirrors”
“Yeah, but traffic here is crazy”
“I think it’s fine, haha. It’s nowhere near as bad as in Pakistan or Turkmenistan”
“Haha, okay okay, you’re used to it. But I’m Armenian and even I’m scared to drive around Yerevan”
“You know what I’ve noticed here in Armenia? It’s common to see the most god-awful, barely running, beat-up Ladas riding on the streets next to black-tinted Mercedez. And the same thing always happens. The rudest drivers, the ones that always cut you off, honk at you from behind, or speed through the lights and weave through traffic are always the guys in the tinted Mercedes””
“Yes. The gap between the rich and the poor is very wide. But the funny thing is that the people who think they are rich aren’t even that rich. Those people driving Mercedes are just young guys who took out loans to buy these cars to impress women or something. They can’t even afford to buy real petrol. They use cooking gas instead”
“Are you serious? That’s awful for the engine…I don’t believe you”
“Yeah, I’m totally serious. What they do is they fill up the tank with natural gas, and then they need to store more of it in the trunk of their car because it burns up so quickly. They’re really cheap”
“That’s hysterical. And it still manages to run somehow?”
“Somehow, yes”
.
.
“You know, I love how Yerevan is mostly built out of the same stone. It’s a perfect example of vernacular architecture”
“Yes, that’s a good observation. Our nickname is the Pink City, because that’s the color of the stone they use to construct the buildings. Though most of this was built during the Soviet Era”
“What was it like before the Soviets remodeled it?”
“I don’t know, it was just a small town or a village. Yerevan was hardly anything before the Soviets came”
“But other Soviet cities I’ve been are made of really ugly concrete…like it’s all in the Brutalist style”
“We still have many of those, but they didn’t come until much much later…I think the 60’s. The pink-colored buildings were a much earlier style that they experimented with here before perfecting their mass-production buildings. This one you’re looking at is almost 100 years old”
“It’s probably the only distinctly Soviet building style that I could still call beautiful. Maybe it’s easy to say since all the other cities look like crap”
...
July 22
“Why did you come to Armenia?”
“Well, because it’s along the way from where I was coming from”
“So what you’re saying is that you don’t have a real reason for coming here”
“No, No! I guess that came out wrong. I’ve always been curious about Armenia ever since I first visited Jerusalem, because it’s a holy city divided into the Muslim quarter, the Christian quarter, the Jewish quarter, and the Armenian quarter, and I always thought to myself ‘that’s weird, they have a quarter here specifically for Armenians…isn’t that a nationality and not a religion?’…I also met a few Armenians in New York and even lived right across the street from an Armenian church”
“Really? They have them there?”
“Yeah, it’s the only Armenian church in Manhattan. I would use it as a landmark to tell people how to find my apartment, I was maybe a couple dozen steps away from it…and it looked pretty much identical to the monasteries here”
“Ah, that’s wonderful. So what do you know about our country?”
“Nothing…except I know that you suffered a genocide about a century ago at the hands of the Ottomans”
“That’s important to know. It was the largest genocide in history beside the Jewish Holocaust”
“Yeah, that’s what I heard…we even have the news remind us of it every year of it"
“Really? Wow, I didn’t know it was that recognized over in America”
“Well, it’s not gonna be a headline in the New York Times or something, but you’d definitely see it in, say, your Facebook feed”
“Okay, good. What else do you know?”
“Apparently it’s the oldest Christian country in the world?”
“Or so we claim”
“How so?”
“It’s technically the first sovereign state to declare Christianity as its official religion. But there have been plenty of other civilizations that have practiced it before us…so really it’s just a technicality”
...
Tblisi
July 18
“You know what building that is for?”
“No”
“That’s the the old Prime Minister’s house”
“No way, it looks like some high-end public building”
“No, that’s no public building, it’s his private residence. He lived there even before he became prime minister”
“Is that common here for the wealthy to be the only ones eligible for politics?”
“I’m not sure. He does have good taste in architecture, though. You know all the modernist buildings you see here in the city? They’re all commissioned by him, and most of the designs are by Michele de Lucci, an Italian architect”
“What about that one that looks like a bunch of mushrooms stacked together?”
“No, that was by someone else, I forgot the name of the design firm, but they were still commissioned by Ivanishvili”
“I love it, it’s one of the coolest buildings I’ve ever seen ever since entering the Caucasus, next to the Aliyev Heydar center in Baku”
“Yeah, but pretty much every one here hates the modern buildings. The prime minister is pretty much alone in his taste”
“Really? They’re some of the most forward-looking designs I’ve ever seen”
“Yes, but people here treasure the traditional look of the city too much. They’re not comfortable with change”
“I don’t think the buildings are compromising the traditional look of the city at all”
“Yes, the designers were very smart. The composition is effective so they didn’t impose too much on the historic quarters”
“I guess that’s one thing I like about where I came from. New York has this wonderful ability to always re-invent and change itself while still maintaining a sense of historic identity”
“It’ll be a long time before this city will be ready to be that open to change. It was really an act of force that got it this far”
...
Tusheti
July 17
“Are you alone?”
“Very”
“Where were you staying last night?”
“My bike slid in the night on my way up here and wouldn’t start. I had to camp along the road last night. Luckily someone set up a tarp shelter nearby”
“Oh my god, it was raining”
“Yep, the rain woke me up. But I made it up here, so…”
“You can camp here tonight for free if you want to”
“Ha, that’s very kind of you. You’re ok if I set up a hammock along those posts over there?”
“Yeah, of course! You should stick around in the evening. Every night, we have a bonfire and drink lots of wine. You know Georgian wine is the best, right?”
“Yeah, I just came from Telavi last night. The wine is pretty incredible”
“Up here, we make it all homemade in small quantities. And Dja-Dja. It’s like vodka, but better. You tried?”
“No, not yet, but I have to warn you I can’t take liquor. But some wine, I’m okay with”
“How much you want, a glass, a bottle, a pitcher?”
“A pitcher?”
“Yeah, here”
“This is literally a lemonade pitcher. You drink this much every night?”
“Every night”
...
Kakheti
July 16
“Would you like a wine tasting? We have it here”
“Oh, no thanks. I already had some at the Kharebi vineyard. I was actually interested in just seeing your bottling plant”
“Ah, unfortunately they’re doing construction on the site, so it’s not allowed. If you’re interested in having a tour, you’ll have to go to Khareba”
“No, I know. I just came from there. I just wanted to walk around here to see the machinery”
“Ok, just make sure you don’t go beyond the sign. Are you sure you don’t want wine?”
“I’m sure, thank you. I’m driving so it’s not such a good idea”
“Ok, no problem. Where are you from?”
“United States”
“Which state?”
“I was born in California, but was raise most of my life in Texas”
“Wow! California, it’s my dream to go there”
“Really? We grow wine there too, you know”
“Wait, the USA grows wine?”
“Yeah…we do. Most of it comes from California”
“Wait, you’re right. I do remember having some wine from the U.S…it was…pfft! It was not so good. It reminds me of Russia. Countries that say they produce wine, but don’t know anything about it”
...
Quba
July 14
“Hello!”
“Hi”
“What are you doing here?”
“Um…just talking around, really. I'm a tourist”
“Do you want to come to my home for tea?”
“No, no thank you, I just had tea at another house. I’m all tea’d up”
“How long are you here for?”
“I have to leave back to Baku today”
“No! No no, you must stay with us! Come sleep in our house tonight”
“That’s very kind of you, but to have to get back to Baku”
“Why?”
“Well, because I’m on a tight schedule”
“Why?”
“Because I need to get to Europe before the end of September”
“Why?”
“Well, because that was my plan for this trip”
“Why?”
“I don’t really know. I just want to”
“…”
“But I’d be happy to come to your house for breakfast though. Do you have some?”
“Ok, let’s go!”
...
Baku
July 11
“So what kind of research does your team do?”
“We primarily focus on economic rends and how it affects the region”
“The region as in the Caucasus, or bigger?”
“The Caucasus”
“So what are the main economic trends affecting Azerbaijan at the moment?”
“Well, right now it’s trying to move our economy away from oil dependence”
“How much of Azerbaijan’s GDP comes from oil revenue?”
“It’s a lot…80%. When oil prices dropped, like recently…we definitely feel it. Everything becomes expensive for us. It used to be that the manat was worth two dollars. Now it’s half”
“Oh god…I guess you have us to thank for that”
“Yeah, a lot of it is because U.S. oil production has increased so much over the past few years”
“And how much of Azerbaijan’s oil production is nationalized?”
“Almost all of it…well actually, the government contracts it out to private companies, but it’s ultimately the government’s money that’s going into all the production infrastructure”
“So I’m guessing the other 20% just comes from private, small-day-to-day staples like groceries and banks and clothing stores…”
“Yeah…our only other major export is cotton, but apart from the basic stuff like you said, we have to import just about everything else”
“That’s….to tie the economy to a commodity good…that’s way too risky of a situation to be in”
“Yeah”
“So if the government is in control of 80% of the economy, it’s up to them to start spending on other sectors”
“Yeah”
“And are they doing that?”
“No”
.
.
“After living in New York for four years, what did you notice changed about you the most when you returned to Azerbaijan?”
“I think…haha, I think I became more capitalist”
“Really? Most people would consider that a bad thing, or…it’s not something I hear a lot of people proudly proclaim. It’s become a dirty word of sorts”
“Yes, it’s very strange, isn’t it”
“But what do you mean by it, exactly?”
“Well, I noticed I became more annoyed with this sort of behavior, and I think it’s a common mentality of former Soviet states…is this idea of “impossibility” in organizations. Like, people are very eager to block a project or say that something can’t be done…even when the obstacle is minor. I learned in New York that anything is possible, there was such a hustle, a ‘do whatever you can to figure it out and get it done’ mentally. It was very inspiring. For example, one of my fellow research team leads was told she can’t carry out a crucial piece of the work because they didn’t have the right people to do it. Well…just hire those people you need! I became less empathetic towards this limited mentality”
“Yeah, that behavior still occurs in the U.S. though, I’ve seen my fair share of bureaucratic slugs. At a certain point, you realize that just about every organizational obstacle is more or less…”
“…a construct. But it happens all the time here. People think that their job is to do what they’re told. Even leaders and managers. They don’t know what it means to have a sense of ownership. As long as they keep getting paid, you will be happy to just follow the book. And that means it’s easier to say ‘it’s impossible’ when confronted with a challenge because when something is ‘impossible’, you can’t be held accountable for it”
...
Bestekar Firet Emirov
July 09
“Ok, you’re stamped out of the country. Wait right outside the port office and we’ll let you know when the ship will be ready to depart”
“How long do you think I’ll have to wait?”
“We don’t know. There’s no schedule“
“Wait, why?”
“It depends on when they finish unloading the cargo and the next set of containers are brought onboard”
“I can’t board the ship and wait while they finish?”
“No, you have to wait here”
“When do you think the ship will be ready?”
“I don’t know. Maybe in the morning”
“I…am I supposed to just sleep here?”
“Yes. We’ll wake you when it’s ready to depart”
...