There is a KFC and Pizza Hut on the fanciest, busiest street corner in town. But other than that. the tentacles of globalization have not reached their sticky selves into Armenia. In this place that's not exactly Europe but maybe not quite Asia, I felt like we were just on the edge of everything.
Getting to Tbilisi, Georgia from Yerevan is not as easy as it should be. The cities are 300km apart (180 miles). There are almost no flights. There is an overnight train (literally a midnight train to Georgia) which is slow and expensive. You can take a five hour taxi ride (no meter, thank goodness) or a minibus that leaves as soon as it's full. We make the trip as tourists are meant to - with a bus tour. On our ride north, we stopped at three ruined monasteries from the tenth century. We saw beautiful natural scenery from the snowy mountain passes outside Yerevan to the rocky Debed river, which flowed alongside us most of the way. We also saw old Soviet factories, mostly abandoned or working at a fraction of their capacity. We stopped for lunch at a family's home which was made from two shipping containers with no indoor plumbing. The food was delicious but I couldn't help thinking of that novel about the boxcar children.
The huge monasteries we visited have stood solid for centuries, and you can still see their delicate carvings and paint on the walls. But all around them, years of colonization took their toll. People are living in apartments with broken windows, or sagging houses patched with scrap wood. At least, our guide pointed out, under the Soviets everyone had a job and a free education.
There is no McDonald's in Armenia. Is that a good or a bad thing? I'm not sure.
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