CauKazEthnoexp. VII. Armenia. Part I. Yerevan

July 28, 29, 31, 2010

I had pictured Yerevan as a beautiful, tidy and well-to-do city. Turns out, it looks like ass. The city is just as featureless as every other Soviet city used to be. In other words, it’s like civilization hasn’t reached this place yet.

One of the distinctive local details—clothesline pulleys.

A bus stop.

A telephone half-booth.

A trolley bus.

An elegant roadside bulletin board.

Beautiful Yerevan trash cans.

There are gas distribution boxes in every yard.

Flammable Gas

It’s nice that Russian is a full-fledged second language here.

Multi-profile health and recreation complex. Republic of Armenia, Erevan City Hall, Ertradeservice CJSC

The pedestrian traffic light sections are located at the same height as the vehicle traffic lights. Makes you go “WTF?” every time.

Even when the vehicle and pedestrian traffic lights are on different posts, they’re still placed at the same height.

An intact Soviet newsstand (like in Saratov).

Magazines

The fences around construction sites are about as tall as a 10-year-old child.

But I did notice a trend that differentiates Armenia from Georgia and Azerbaijan. Self-built extensions to apartments are coordinated amongst all the inhabitants of the apartment building. In Georgia and Azerbaijan, someone in an apartment on the fifth floor might build a 50 m² addition without asking his neighbors down below. In Armenia, they all build their additions at the same time. Perhaps that’s why out of the three countries, only Armenia has expanded its territories, while its neighbors have lost some.

Street name plaques.

Khandjan St.

A Yerevan still life.

Repairing electricity inside the pole.

Ermunwatersupply (Erevan Municipal Water Supply).

The TV tower here is the blood sister of the one in Tbilisi. Only it’s lit up less interestingly at night.

Yerevan trash dumpsters: red with a green lid. Sometimes the lids are absent.

Almost every Armenian will make a joke about the similarity of the brand name Armani to the name Arman.

There are drinking fountains all around the city. Interestingly, you usually encounter them either in developed countries (like the US or England) or in hot ones (like Kuwait).

An Armenian digger.

What’s most incredible is that 1950s-era USSR road surface markings have survived and continue to propagate here. Back then, safety islands were marked as oblong ovals filled with diagonal stripes. You see this at every pedestrian crossing in Yerevan.