Vanadzor

The Brits dropped me off in Vanadzor and then I walked to the train station to see about a night train to Yerevan.  There was indeed one so I walked around to find some internet, some food, and some tea.  I found two of those things in an internet café/someone’s apartment.  I sat in their kitchen while they made me tea, hand-cranked up the old internet machine, and then talked to me about Armenia’s place in the world.  They hate the Turks, hate the Azeris, don’t like the Georgians, and they made conflicting statements about the Russians.

If the opportunity ever presented itself, I would marry this map.

On the one hand they believed that all peoples of the Caucasus had the right to self-rule, but that everything was better under the Soviet Union because the Russians controlled everything and kept nationalism down.  The most articulate of them explained that they are currently slaves to the Russians more so than they were under the Soviet Union because the Russians have bought up all the Armenian companies but provide no structural support at the state level.  I wish the subalterns would just make up their minds and pick what sort of colonialist regime they want to live under so we can just do this and move on.

At the train station I had a whale of a time with Oksana, the ticket saleslady who was a sassy minx full of piss and vinegar.  She prepared my ticket, which actually took about 15-20 minutes.  To cut one train ticket.  Literally cut.  She had to pull out scissors and cut an ornate pattern through a standardized ticket to show how much I had paid.  Whoever designed this system should not have been encouraged as a young child.