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"Oh", said the young woman standing beside us at the baggage queue at the airport in Yerevan, "they've changed already".  Blowing kisses to the two little girls peeking from behind bouquets of roses, she told us she lived in Kosovo with her husband who is with the UNDP peacekeeping mission.  "I come home every three months, but children change so quickly."  I agreed it must be difficult and then she said, "But of course you know our history. It is important that my children stay in Armenia and speak Armenian." The young mother assumed we were visiting our family. Armenia sees few "pure" tourists: those not affected by the Diaspora of the 1915 genocide.  Most tourists are visiting their homeland, or travelers on a pilgrimage to the early churches. We were neither. You might say we came on the wings of words.  Carroll, my husband, and I knew something of the 1915 genocide of the Armenians orchestrated by the Turks.  We had been introduced to Armenia by the Armenian-American writer, William Saroyan in "My Name is Aram".  Our interest was further heightened by Bitov's lyrical "A Captive of the Caucasus" and the bittersweet memoir of Peter Balakian's "Black Dog of Fate".  We were anxious to see the Low Caucasus Mountain Range, the early churches in this land that in 310 A.D. was the first to accept Christianity as a state religion and the imposing Matenadaran housing illuminated books dating to the fifth century.  Our taxi salaamed around potholes as we entered Yerevan, the capital of The Republic of Armenia.  The city, scattered on either side of a deep ravine, appeared forlorn.  Store windows were empty or sparsely stocked.  Huge cranes, their wrecking ball missing, stood idle beside staring holes of windowless buildings. Incongruously, the only construction seemed to be the multiple pools of an aquatic park.  Impressions began to change as we passed between startlingly huge complexes, one a hillside cognac distillery and the other a former winery, now a museum.  Near the center of town broad leafy avenues named for poets and writers and several impressive statues lifted our spirits.

When we reached Republic Square, the scene changed as quickly as a mouse click, dropping us into another time, another place.  Ornate buildings of rose or yellow tufa ringed the square of joyful people.  Filled with merry-makers, a coach and four trotted around the square.  The cafe crowd, mostly businessmen and Red Cross personnel, sipped beer and lattes under umbrellas in front of the Hotel Armenia.  A band played beside the gushing fountain, the centerpiece of Republic Square, formerly Lenin Square during the Soviet occupation.  The square pulsated with the exuberance of youth. Young women in short black dresses with frilly white aprons teetered above platform heels, their partners, young men in black jackets with white lace and rose corsages, everyone celebrating the last day of school and graduation. Our black and white entry into Yeravan had, by midnight, turned into Technicolor reflected in the eyes of the young as the grand finale fireworks lit up the sky. 
The major sites that we wanted to see lay in the four cardinal directions and so each day as we cleared the bruised city we quickly entered a gentle green land of shepherds whose sheep grazed under cobalt skies.  An ancient church at the end of each road drew us slowly and inextricably into a pilgrimage..
 

We stopped the first day at the slender Arch of the poet Yeghishe Charents.  Gagik roughly translated the inscription: "You may look the world over and never find such a mountain as Ararat."  Often hidden in clouds, I photographed Mount Ararat framed perfectly in the arch, but alas, only I could find the snow-capped mountain in the clouds.  How frustrating for Armenians, with Ararat heartbreakingly close but lying in forbidden territory.  Armenians must negotiate a trip to eastern Turkey through Georgia to visit Mount Ararat where Noah is thought to have moored his Ark. Armenians call their country Hayastan and trace their descent from Haik, Noah's great-great-great-grandson. Afterwards we visited what looked like a small Roman temple, The Temple of Garni, dedicated to the sun god Mithra, built with funds and slaves sent by Nero.  But I remember Garni as the place where grandmothers sold roejik. These delicious sweets hang like curtains of brown candles but are strings of dried fruit, rolled thin and wrapped around walnuts. We quickly became addicted and stopped everytime we spotted them. Each morning Gagik scoured  roadside markets for picnic supplies: lavash, parchment thin bread, to wrap around soft cheese, olives, green onions, cucumbers and tomatoes.  As we approached Geghard, the 10-13 century monastery, a scene straight out of my Sunday school coloring book sprang to life. A family group, leading a sacrificial lamb was met by a group of pied pipers who piped them into the church. The lamb would later be butchered and a grand picnic held on the banks of the river. Geghard was also the church where a group of teenagers sang beside the chapel where stones are pressed into the wall and if the stone sticks your wish will come true.  Gagik said, "They are singing for the freedom of their friends in Karabakh."  (An Armenian enclave surrounded by Azerbaijan). Geghard is an architectural wonder.  Carved in solid rock, it is a collection of several churches chiseled from the mountainside as a sanctuary for the early Christians.  Memorable as Geghard is, it's Gagik's song that I remember.  He stood in the center of the original church surrounded by columns and walls carved from one stone and sang quietly - perhaps to himself, perhaps to his God, but the curved stone vault increased the volume until, by the time it floated skyward through the round opening, it was a heavenly chorus.

Our favorite trip was to Hamberd, a fortress and church high upon the slopes of Mount Argats. On the slopes, higher even than the fortress we found the distinctive rectangular steles of the pagans.  These stones (khatchkars) were later inscribed with intricate filigreed crosses and thousands of them are found all over Armenia. 
 

As we approached the fortress we saw a school bus and a rollicking party in progress.  It was an end-of-school picnic and the English teacher suggested that while we looked at the fortress and church she would make coffee.  The teachers second question after, "Where are you from?" was, "Have you heard of the Genocide?"  One of the women offered to sing for us and we heard for the first time the poignantly beautiful song, "Your house is in front of my house, but I don't see you anymore."   The teenagers then turned up the boom box and the dancing began.  We spent a couple of hours eating grilled chicken, drinking vodka and dancing.  An added attraction was the daring feat of a local youth who scaled the fortress wall sans ropes or shoes.  It was for us a moment in an Armenian paradise.  The last day we stayed too long at the imposing Matenadaran, the library that holds thousands of books dating to the fifth century documenting the history of Armenia.  But to those in this shrunken landlocked country that once spread to three seas, The Matenadaran is more than a library; it is the depository of cultural history and is spoken of in reverential tones.  It is like scaling a mountain to get to this lofty mausoleum-like building.  On the first terrace is a statue of Mesrop Mashtots who, as every school child in this land of 98% literacy knows, created the Armenian alphabet in 405 A.D.  On the second terrace are granite statues of writers and finally inside a wide staircase leading to the exhibition room.  Here are the intricately illuminated manuscripts bound in leather, ivory and filigreed silver and parchment books of botany, math, science, geography and astrology. Gagik proudly pointed to the framed pictures and quotes of William Saroyan who in the early twentieth century introduced  the Armenian people to the world in his plays and novels. He also shyly told us it was his father who showed Saroyan around when he visited Armenia.

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When we finally reached the Genocide Museum, the door had just been locked but Gagik explained that we had come from San Francisco to see the museum. Without hesitation we were ushered into the underground gallery where grainy photographs depicted the suffering of the Armenians who were "relocated" from ancestral lands by the Turks.  Although in 1915 the word "genocide" was not known, over 1,500,000 Armenians perished in the world's first genocide. The Treaty of Sevres, the last treaty of World War I, granted lands lost in the genocide to Armenia and demanded punishment of the perpetrators.  But by 1923, western powers caught the scent of Ottoman oil and signed the Lausanne Treaty.  Reparation, restitution, retribution and Armenian dreams slipped into fields of black gold  The remaining sliver of Armenia was incorporated into the Soviet Union until its breakup in 1991. 

After visiting the Genocide Monument, 12 leaning stones surrounding the eternal flame and the slender sky-piercing shaft representing the hope of the Armenian people, we sat on the ledge of the courtyard waiting for a last glimpse of Mount Ararat.  This is a true "court" yard formed by a semicircle of 12 basalt slabs inscribed with statements by politicians, writers and scientists. Each visitor is a witness who can make his own judgement regarding the Genocide. 

Even though the sky had turned fittingly somber, we hoped for a last glimpse of Mt. Ararat.  It didn't seem strange to sit silently with Gagik who actually spoke little English and who in retrospect I thought of as a spirit guide.  Gazing over the rooftops of Yerevan, I thought of my childhood during the depression on the high plains of the Texas Panhandle, and my mother's frequent admonition: "Dorothy, please finish your dinner.  Just think of the poor starving Armenians."  If I had had any inkling of the starving Armenians, I wouldn't have been able to choke down a bite.  And I thought of what Peter Balakian had written about his Armenian grandmother in  "Black Dog of Fate":  "She was history knocking on the door of my heart." 

I gave up on Ararat.  I knew the mountain was there but this was to be a "wasn't" day.  Peter's grandmother had begun all her stories, not with "Once upon a time," but with "A long time ago there was and there wasn't."  A few drops of rain fell.  And then, like an answer to a prayer, Ararat  "was".  The mystical mountain, ephemeral, hauntingly near and illusively far, billowy clouds becoming mountains and snow covered mountains tops becoming clouds.  A tantalizing glimpse and it was gone.  But I knew that on whichever side of a man-made border Mount Ararat lies, there lies the soul of Armenia. 

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