The Lands Between - Armenia and Georgia

Before this trip, I had visited eleven of the fifteen republics of the former Soviet Union. This trip added Armenia and Georgia to that count (only Tajikistan and Turkmenistan remain). Both are small nations (each with about four million people, each about the size of the US state of Maryland). As I’ve traveled widely in most of the surrounding nations, there is much that is familiar here. They share with Russia the Soviet past and an Orthodox Christian heritage. They share with their neighbors to the West and South a significant influence of the Persian Empire and broad connection to the greater Middle East. History here runs deep. 

The Geghard Monastery is about an hour east of Yerevan in a deep gorge, surrounded by mountains. It was founded by St. Gregory the Illuminator in the fourth century and some of the buildings date to the sixth century. The mountains are riddled with caves carved by monks over the centuries. 

The Garni Temple was built in the first century AD by a local prince. It represents the Greco-Roman culture that penetrated Armenia and points farther east in this time. 

Mt. Ararat (big Ararat and little Ararat) dominate the skyline of central Armenia. They peaks are actually in Turkey today. Armenians once lived all around Ararat and deep into what is now Turkey. These communities were destroyed at the end of World War I.

The Cathedral of Etchmiadzin is the equivalent of the Vatican for the Armenian Apostolic Church. Parts of this cathedral date to the early fourth century and are built on the site of an earlier pagan temple. 

A medieval Armenian illustrated Bible. The Matenadaran in Yerevan collects tens of thousands of these manuscripts, some dating to the 6th-7th century. 

The Sevan peninsula juts into Lake Sevan, one of the three 'great lakes' of historical Armenia. The 'newer' churches in the background were built long after the church whose foundations are visible in the foreground. This older church represents one of the oldest churches in the world, dating to the first decade of the fourth century. 

The city of Uplistsiche near Gori in Georgia dates to the second century BC and was composed mostly of buildings carved into the soft rock. 

The city of Mtskheta is about 20 kilometers north of modern Tbilisi, the capital of Georgia. It was the capital of Georgia until the fifth century ad remains home to some of the finest ancient Georgian architecture. 

The Metekhi church (13th century) sits high above the Mtkhvari River that forms the backbone of Tbilisi. 

Food - The Heart

When we planned this trip, we deliberately made our arrangements so that we could cook for ourselves most of the time (although the amazing variety of food in L’viv for remarkably low prices by USD standards has tempted us to restaurants more often, most recently the wonder that is salmon strudel). We’ve mostly shopped for ourselves in each place and put at least two meals, if not three, on the table for our family of six each day. Since most of the kitchens in our lodgings are not really equipped for significant cooking, the task requires a reasonable portion of ingenuity, creativity, forethought, and grit. Kind of like working a puzzle. But we’ve been able to pull off mostly tasty meals. 

One of many family meals - this one in Malenovice, Czech Republic

Traveling in Central and Eastern Europe in late June and July is a dream. The fresh fruits and vegetables are coming from villages into supermarkets, markets, and impromptu ‘sidewalk markets’ where individuals sell a few items. We’ve had wonderful cherries, raspberries, currants, and a few late strawberries. The summer vegetables — squash, cucumbers, and the first tomatoes — are starting to show up in Ukrainian markets. 

If there is a staple to our diet, it is what I call ‘summer salad,’ a mixture of chopped tomatoes, cucumbers, and white peppers, often with fresh dill or parsley, sometimes with feta or other strong cheese, and almost always with the freshness of unrefined sunflower oil. At least two of these ingredients, cucumbers and white peppers, cost pennies a pound. One would think we’d grow tired of this, but we don’t seem to. Since we arrived in Ukraine, the salad has often included mayonnaise in one of its many forms (where else but East Slavic lands does one find an entire aisle of mayonnaise?). 

Dill - our constant companion

When I lived in Russia in the 1990s, I did almost all of my shopping in rynky, markets located in either dedicated buildings with stalls or sometimes in the open air. There were few grocery stores, and the quality and price were usually better in the market. I still remember Liudmila, the lady who sold eggs in front of the Sports Palace in Nizhnii Novgorod in 1997-1998. My memory (perhaps faulty) suggests that Nizhnii Novgorod had only one true ‘supermarket,’ a place called ‘Evropa’ (Europe) on the city’s main square (I doubt a Russian supermarket would be called ‘Europe’ today…). This was the sort of place where one could find ‘delicacies' like salsa and soy sauce and shrimp for frightful prices. 

Two staples - white peppers (paprika) and cucumbers

I’m glad the girls have had a chance to experience supermarkets, markets, and other random places to buy food. They’ve seen me haggle over currants and raspberries from an old lady on the sidewalk, watched as we figured out produce weighing in grocery stores, and witnessed some confusion over Hungarian dairy products (is it sour cream or is it yogurt?). They’ve been surprisingly adventurous in their tastes (although Sophia has declared herring a no-go for her — she’s the family minority on this one). They’ve discovered whole new worlds of foods — bewildering variety of dried and salted fish, fermented milk products, endless varieties of fresh bread. And of course, an alcohol department that seems to span half the store. It’s a good reminder that food is, in so many ways, the heart of culture. 

And of course, Ukrainian chocolate composes another entire food group... 

'Smile and Wave'

Although I’ve probably driven in 20 countries, I suspect I drove more kilometers on this trip than in all my others combined. We drove from Prague to Vienna to Salzburg to Budapest to Banska Bystrica to NE Czech Republic and a couple of side trips into Poland. Here in Ukraine, I’ve made three trips into Kyiv from the outskirts of the city, my first time driving in Ukraine. 

Roads ranged from excellent (the highway across Hungary from the Austrian border to Budapest is as nice as any I’ve experienced) to positively terrifying (a couple of switch-backs in the Alps above Salzburg). In many ways, there is far more in common with driving in the US than there is difference. Yet there are a few things that really stand out. 

turning in what the girls called our 'bus' in Prague

The further east you move on the continent, the more you move from defense to offense. As crazy as Kyiv traffic can be, I found people quite willing to cede space when a sudden lane change was needed (about every 5 minutes in my experience!). If you wait for the traffic to clear, you might well wait all day. It requires a bit of boldness. This Ukrainian boldness pails, of course, to the boldness one needs to drive in Cairo or Kampala or Mumbai. 

People are also far more forgiving and tolerant of things that would bring major thoroughfares to the halt in the US. A truck double-parked on a major Kyiv prospekt? No problem. The need for a sudden u-turn when someone accidentally turns the wrong way on a one-way street in Budapest? No problem. The need to block the street for five minutes while you load your car in Prague? Only a minor problem. As a Hungarian friend assured me, ‘smile and wave.’ Indeed, this, along with foreign plates, seems to allow forgiveness of many a traffic gaffe. 

We drove for half an hour today on the ring road that runs along the western side of Kyiv. It is a three-four lane road in each direction, a combination of expressway and regular city street. You move at 80 km/hour for a while, sensing that you are on a freeway, before you come to a red light over a crosswalk filled with pedestrians. For much of the way, there are few markers defining lanes. Another lane occasionally forms. I’ve yet to be on the road this week when a break-down or an accident didn’t block at least one lane of traffic. But somehow, miraculously, it works, despite ongoing construction. 

I think this is the Kyiv ring road or one like it (I've never seen this little traffic)

In terms of inducing fear in my heart, chaotic near-freeways with no lane markings hold nothing over Central European parking garages. The four-floor descent from the Prague airport parking garage in our 'bus' was perhaps the most terrifying experience of the trip, navigating the tight switch-back curves of the descent ramp. Certainly, they deserve credit for using space more economically (and I'll not soon complain about the 'tight' parking at the Y in Grand Rapids again). Kyiv was in many ways far simpler, as people just park on the sidewalk. 

I still prefer public transport whenever possible, but I’m thankful for the opportunity to experience ‘another’ side of Kyiv this week, that from the driver’s seat. 

Some other things the girls observed on public transport:

1. The marshrutky (route taxis) that arose in the early 2000s (late 90s?) are a commanding force in Kyiv transport. These are commercial routes, privately run, yet still somehow part of the city transit system. Everyone pays on these, even students and pensioners who are free on most other forms of transit (I have seen the occasional pensioner haggle a free fare). No two marshrutky are alike. Some are rather cobbled-together affairs. But they tend to be fast and reliable and frequent and they’ve gotten bigger through the years. I doubt the girls will forget an altercation between a middle-aged man and a grandmother when the man chose to break the rule of not talking loudly on his mobile phone. Loosely translated, she asked him ‘have you no respect for anyone?’ While what was often called the ‘babushka patrol’ I experienced in 1990s Russia has lost a bit of its bite, you can still count on the older ladies to keep people in line. 
2. The girls were amazed by the escalators in the Kyiv metro. The ones in Prague and Budapest amazed them, but the ones in Kyiv, which are probably twice as deep, were almost unbelievable. Arsenal'na, the station near the Caves Monastery, is supposedly the deepest station in the world. Riding the rather speedy escalator down takes a full three minutes by my watch. You can barely see the bottom from the top. It must also be one of the world’s cheapest metros, with rides costing about US$ .12. 
3. The tram that comes to Pushcha-Voditsia on the edge of Kyiv is known as the ‘forest tram,’ as it travels for nearly twenty minutes through the forest zone that surrounds Kyiv before entering Pushcha. The line stretches all the way to Kontraktova Square in the lower city of Kyiv. The entire route takes about 1 hour and 10 minutes. In modest traffic, you can drive the route in about 40 minutes. But the tram allows you to see a panorama of Kyiv along the way — shops, wide boulevards, factories, open-air markets, and, of course, the forest, which is mesmerizing. And of course, the life that passes inside the tram is also of great interest. My Russian teacher in Nizhnii Novgorod told me many years ago that ‘trams are the slowest mode of transport, but they are also the most reliable.’ I find this remains true, 20 years later. 

The forest tram - from Wikipedia

"The West End"

I did not realize until my recent travel to Tunisia that my experience of the Mediterranean has been disproportionately of the eastern end of this amazing region. I’ve walked the Mediterranean coast in Italy, Greece, Turkey, Lebanon, Israel, and Egypt. I’ve not experienced much of the 'west end' of this great sea or its diverse and ancient cultures. 

An early Christian grave - 5th century - Bardo Museum

I’m enough of a student of history to know something of the role of North Africa — today’s Libya, Tunisia, and Algeria — in the Greco-Roman world. This was the land of Hannibal, of Saints Cyprian and Augustine, of Tertullian and other Latin fathers of the early church. It is easy to forget in the modern world that Carthage, just north of modern Tunis, was one of the main centers of the early Christian church, as this church largely, if not completely, disappeared by the Middle Ages. 

Early Punic sculptures, showing Egyptian influence - circa 1000 BC

Yet there is abundant history before this, the history of the city of Carthage before its defeat and destruction by Rome 146 BC. Carthage was a Punic city, tracing its roots to Phoenician traders from what is now Lebanon at the dawn of the first millennium BC. Carthage presided over a rich and wide-spread Punic civilization that stretched across North Africa and into the Iberian Peninsula. A few remnants of this society can be seen in the archaeological sites of ancient Carthage, but most — including nearly all the written archives of this civilization — were lost in the final battle with Rome. The millions of Berbers/Kabyle who still live in Algeria, Morocco, and Tunisia (among other places) continue to trace their links to these ancient civilizations. 

Pre-Roman deities - circa 200 BC - Bardo Museum

Carthage arose again as a Roman city, the gateway to the rich and fertile breadbasket of North Africa that provided great wealth to republican and imperial Rome. Christianity came early to the region. St. Cyprian presided as bishop of Carthage in the third century and was martyred there. Augustine wrote and stayed there (although one dare not raise the question today of whether Augustine was Tunisian or Algerian!). The council that affirmed the canon of the Bible was likely held there. 

Classical mosaics - 3rd century - Bardo Museum

Today, Carthage is a ruin. Unlike Athens or Rome or Jerusalem, which have had layers of civilization sprawling across them since ancient times, Carthage was largely abandoned until recent decades. Today, the Tunisian presidential palace stands on the hill overlooking the Mediterranean. The homes of the rich have clustered around it. At virtually every corner, however, is an archaeological site of Punic, Classical, or Christian Carthage. The view over the brilliant blue sea and the mountains of Cap Bon peninsula is stunning. 

Ruins of the Basilica Damous el Karita - probable site of early Christian councils

I’m reminded again how deep the well of history goes in this region. This trip certainly reminded me that there’s a ‘western’ end of this story of which I’ve known very little.  

The ruins of the Cathedral of St. Cyprian - Carthage with the Mediterranean and Cap Bon in the background

Tourism and Terrorism

This is my first visit to the North-African nation of Tunisia, a former French colony that gained its independence in 1956. The capital, Tunis, remains deeply influenced by France. While Tunisian Arabic is the language of the street, nearly everyone I’ve encountered speaks very good French as well. The presence of numerous street cafés, pâtisseries, and even the architecture of Tunis evoke an admixture of France, the Arab world, and Africa. 

A street in the Medina of Tunis - these types of doors are typical

Tunisia has, for the most part, been a very stable nation in a very unstable region. Despite this stability, tourism, which constitutes a significant part of the economy, has fallen significantly since the terrorist attacks on the Bardo Museum and the beachfront at Sousse in 2015, attacks in which more than 50 people died. Egypt, where I spent time earlier in this trip, is even more tourism dependent, and has seen an even greater fall in tourism since the Arab Spring. 

Travel always makes the theoretical very real. Distant headlines take on human form. This happened for me yesterday when I hailed a cab in central Tunis to travel to the Bardo Museum. It was cold and rainy, and I was not prepared for that kind of weather, so I made what I knew would not be the best financial choice and chose a cab parked along the main boulevard of the city. The driver, Mohammad, was a man around 60, who told me he had been driving a cab in Tunis for 38 years. As we drove for 20 minutes to the Bardo Museum on the outskirts of town, he told me of his love for his city, of many beautiful spots to see in and near Tunis. He also told me of his work on “18 mars,” using this date in March of last year in the way that Americans would use 9/11. He had met an Italian family at the cruise ship port near Tunis and was taking them on a day-long tour of the ancient city of Carthage, the Tunis Medina, and the Bardo (he could do the same for me for €60, he worked in!). As he drew near the the Bardo that day, there was an explosion and something was clearly very wrong. Several hours later, he returned his passengers safely to their cruise ship. They were to learn that several of their fellow passengers were among the 18 killed that day. He retained and showed me the work-order dated 18 March 2015. What struck me about the conversation was the way in which he articulated the sort of unbelief and disruption that this day raised, again not unlike Americans’ feelings about 9/11. These sorts of things were not and are not common in generally peaceful Tunis. It put an entire nation into a state of disequilibrium. 

A few of the amazing Bardo mosaics

The Bardo is magnificent, and is arguably now one of the most protected places on earth. Yet the truly sublime museum of Carthaginian, Phoenician, and Greco-Roman art was nearly empty for most of my visit. Galleries stood dark, the café was closed, and the bookstore seemed to have a few too many books in German. Many of the stewards showed great pride in the truly amazing collection, as well as in the expanded museum structure that involved majestic modern architecture. By the time I left nearly three hours later, several buses of Russian tourists had arrived, yet I walked away a bit sad. 

In the wandering streets of the Medina, a mishmash of tourist kitsch, genuine hand-made arts, and day-to-day Tunisian goods like towels and auto parts, several sellers reached out to me not in French or English, but in really bad Russian, assuming that I was a Russian tourist. This was a good guess, as most of the few foreigners around were indeed Russian-speakers. 

Street Cafés -- Avenue Bourguiba

We live in an age of fear. The events of last year in Tunisia, as well as some of the events that have struck Egypt over the past few years, are indeed terrible. Yet it seems to me that a foreigner is much more likely to be harmed or killed in Cairo or Tunis or Alexandria by failing to properly navigate the dizzying act of crossing a street of traffic. Arabs are amazing hosts, quick to engage their guests in witty conversation and to offer advice. It is sad that a climate of fear keeps so many away from these beautiful places and abundant hospitality. Of course there are risks of all sorts and types, as there are anywhere (New York, Paris, Brussels, Kunming, Bamako, Mumbai, etc., etc.). Foreigners’ hesitation to behold the treasures of these Mediterranean lands, however, is contributing to the economic malaise that only feeds extremism. It’s easy for me to say that. I’ve traveled a lot. I’ve internalized a lot of the unwritten rules of travel. I thrive on intercultural and even linguistic challenge. I probably wouldn’t recommend solo travel to Egypt or Tunisia to the inexperienced, just as I wouldn’t recommend such travel to China or Brazil. I’d encourage potential travelers to seek out help, guides, aids, which are abundantly available. Most of all, I’d encourage travelers to ask good questions and listen. Such experiences are life-transforming. 

And perhaps most of all in these uncertain times, such exchanges fight and overcome fear. 

My taxi ride with Mohammad was a brief twenty-minute encounter. It involved some significant haggling over the fact that I really didn’t want him to take me to see various beautiful villages near Tunis for a “special price.” As I expected, he did overcharge me, asking for about US$5, rather than what should have been US$2. I paid for the convenience of not waiting in the rain to hail a “moving cab,” and for his ‘expertise.’ It was a $5 well spent. 

A narrow street in the Tunis Medina with Zeytouna Mosque minaret

Streets of Food - Inspired by the Streets of Hanoi and Yangon

America tends to keep food on the margins, sequestered in restaurants and dining rooms. Unusually strong cooking smells outside of the kitchen are not particularly welcome. Food purchases tend to be made in organized markets, with items packed individually. Any unusual smell is, again, not welcome. 

Street fare in Yangon, Myanmar

Asia is simply not like this. Food is a much more integral part of life, often quite literally spilling into the street. A stroll down any Southeast Asian city street will probably include ladies selling fresh fruits and vegetables, while older men often roast meats. Any number of “street foods” can be found, from pad thai in Bangkok to Pho Ga in Hanoi; Mohinga in Yangon to Soto Ayam in Surabaya. Piles of fish jostle for their place, fresh from the sea or the rivers. A cow or goat being butchered in full view of potential customers is welcome. Tables and small stools crowd the sidewalk, along with patrons (and their motorbikes). The lines between traffic, pedestrians, and commerce that are so starkly drawn in most western cultures, are virtually non-existent in Southeast Asia. The lines between food sales, preparation, and consumption also blur. 

A world sanitized of cooking smell is unthinkable. Fresh-cut fruits, pungent fermented and dried fish products, and aromatic herbs all compete. In Vietnam, where so many dishes involve serving noodles in broth, the scent of strong, rich beef and chicken broth is never far away, often boiling away in ingenious mobile contraptions on the street, spiked with the tang of fermented fish sauce and enlivened by fresh herbs and lime. 

A soup seller near the port of Yangon

The other element that is ever present in Vietnam is coffee, and not just any coffee. Deep, rich, mocha-like coffee that at times can take on an almost muddy consistency, enriched and thinned by rich milk. Served hot or, more often, over ice, this treat wins you over. 

One of the things I love about all of this is that food is intensely real. There’s no avoiding the fact that chicken soup requires the death of a chicken. Fruits and vegetables seem to fly rapidly from their natural just-out-of-the-ground state to some cooked wonder by way of a few seconds of well-timed knife work by a lady perched on a street corner. The processes, reality, and — at times — disturbing nature of food are out there for all to see — and enjoy.