28th September: Dilijan, Armenia to Yerevan, Armenia
I write the first part of this blog from the terrace of Sevan Writers’ House, a spot I’ve wanted to come for many years. However, I had no idea they actually had a café, so being able to come and sit here on the sun-drenched balcony, overlooking the largest lake in the south Caucasus is an unexpected joy.
Sevan is a town about 40 minutes southeast of Dilijan on the main road to Yerevan, where we will head this evening. We are on a peninsular, a few kilometres northeast of the town and got here by jumping on a Yerevan-bound marshrutka, which crawled up seemingly endless switchbacks and finally through a long tunnel, and then asking to be let out on the side of a dual-carriageway. We then snuck in through a resort (a builder waved us on) and then through a couple of other privatised, but poorly fenced, beaches to avoid walking on the main road. The air off the lake was chilly and everything seemed to be very recently abandoned. These are Armenia’s only beaches, but the summer holiday season is (almost) over. This is the final weekend when the once daily weekend-only train service goes to Yerevan, or so we hope!
The peninsular in which we sit was actually an island in recent past. A century ago, the surface level of Lake Sevan was 15.5 metres higher, than it is today. In the 1930s, a pre-existing proposal was adapted by the Soviet government to extract water for hydroelectricity and irrigation. This was enacted by a two fold approach. Firstly, the only outflowing river – there are 28 main inflows – was dredged to increase flow. Secondly, and quite extraordinarily, a hole was drilled in the bottom of the lake to further enhance the flow downstream. Much like in the Aral Sea, and many other basins, these changes had major ramifications for the water quality, biodiversity, and for those who made their living from the waters. The surface level fell by 20 metres, exposing lakebed as new land which irrevocably altered the habitats of the shoreline; and caused increased turbidity and eutrophication in the remaining waters. However, unlike the Central Asian lake, this one has had much more of a reprieve, although it’s never expected to make a full recovery and could yet still fall to a total ecological collapse due to induced feedback loops. In the 1980s, two 50km tunnels from higher catchments were constructed to bring water into the lake. This has since increased levels by 4.5m from the minimum, with another 2-3m possible. I’m not sure of the knock-on impacts of this on the other catchments, however!
The other major point of interest on the peninsular is the Sevanavank Monastery. This was once the only construction on the one island in Lake Sevan. We climbed up the back way from the Writers’ House and were met by many day trippers. Monasteries we’ve seen so far in Armenia have been austere in comparison to Georgia and this was no exception. The location, though, was stunning.
We walked to the nearby train station, with far too much time to spare in what had now become a cold late afternoon. The entire place seemed shuttered up, as if it hadn’t been used for years. The only evidence of recent use was an unemptied bin. I was still confident a train would come as I could see it on today’s timetable on the Armenian Railways website. Kaja was growing more convinced we were going to end up in a marshrutka. 17:49 came and went with no sign of a train. Somebody shouted from the other side of the dual carriageway. We could make him out, so he came under to tell us that trains had finished for the year. Somebody should tell the timetablers! Anyway, he turned out to be a taxi driver (although we trusted what he’d told us) and his price to Yerevan was actually reasonable. We’d also be there 2 hours earlier than we would’ve on the train, which takes an extremely roundabout route.
We got in and began to thaw out. He offered us shots of a spirit to warm us up more quickly, but we didn’t quite know him well enough to share his cup yet! Instead, he insisted on giving us some delicious Uzbek chocolates. The sunset drive to Yerevan was spectacular, especially with his guided commentary on various sites. Approaching one bend, he told us to keep watching ahead and, sure enough, the massive conical Mount Ararat loomed 80km in the distance but still taking up a large swathe of the horizon. This is the very same peak who’s top we had seen peaking through the clouds 4 weeks ago on our flight eastwards. Now, descending towards the city I could feel the energy of a special place. We passed the convoy of the Prime Minister, Nikol Pashinyan, as we zipped downhill into what seemed to be a multi-layered, but manageably sized, metropolis. The orange glow of the sunset and the celestial presence of the sacred Ararat was quite some welcome.