Precerpt from In with the East Wind: A Mary Poppins Kind of Life - Armenia: Erevan
I have been to Armenia only once,
many decades ago, but Armenia has played an outsized role in my life.
Erevan and Mount Arafat
In the mid-1980s, Erevan, now
spelled Yerevan, was a city of paradoxes and poetry. The capital of the
Armenian SSR stood apart from European Russia in both tone and temperament,
offering visitors a glimpse into a republic shaped by ancient heritage and
Soviet modernity—and a city that glowed pink.
Erevan’s signature glow came from Armenian
tuff, a volcanic stone quarried from the surrounding highlands. Rich in iron
and minerals, the stone oxidized to hues of rose and coral, giving the city its
nickname: the “pink city.” Buildings blushed in the morning light and gleamed
at dusk, their color a quiet rebellion against Soviet gray.
On clear days, Mount Ararat loomed
in the distance—tall, dark, and solemn. Though politically inaccessible across
the Turkish border, it remained a spiritual and visual anchor. The contrast was
striking: the radiant pink city nestled below, and beyond it, Ararat’s
snow-capped silhouette, massive and unreachable. It was a visual metaphor for
longing—beautiful, ironic, and bittersweet.
Erevan thrived as a cultural
capital, with its opera house, manuscript repository (Matenadaran), and
universities nurturing Armenian identity within Soviet constraints. By the late
1980s, the city stirred with quiet defiance. The Karabakh Movement began to
take root, and public memory—especially around the Armenian Genocide—surfaced
in art, conversation, and protest.
For me and a dozen colleagues, Erevan
was the culmination of a summer spent in the Soviet Union as part of a foreign
teacher exchange at the University of Moscow. I found the city strikingly
different—not just in architecture and landscape, but in human interaction.
In Moscow, I felt at home. Maybe
not Western values, but nothing way out in terms of human relationships. In
Erevan, however, I was constantly the object of flirtation by handsome young
Armenian boys (they had no idea I was probably ten years older than they were).
They lived up to their reputation as womanizers. But they were harmless.
This playful attention was part of
the city’s rhythm—warm, expressive, and unabashedly social. Erevan’s people
were proud, curious, and emotionally fluent, offering a kind of hospitality
that was both surprising and sincere.
Life in Erevan was shaped by Soviet
routines—communal apartments, rationed goods, and centralized planning—and also
by strong kinship networks. Families gathered in courtyards, shared preserves
and stories, and navigated shortages with ingenuity. The pink stone was not
just aesthetic—it was resilient, insulating homes and echoing footsteps in
alleyways where children played and elders reminisced.
by Dr. Betty Lou Leaver
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