1st October – Yerevan, Armenia

We had another relaxing day, wandering the streets of Yerevan. We seem incapable of walking fewer than 16,000 steps, even if we actively plan to have a chilled day (my cheap Fitbit tells me 17,200 steps is my average so far for the trip). At least I can feel my legs getting gradually stronger again!

First stop, again, was lunch at the same lovely little restaurant as yesterday. They made a beautiful vegan Caesar salad, topped with breadcrumbs, tofu and vegan parmesan. We also filled up on a breakfast burrito, which had rice, tofu, avocado, chips, and beans; and a mango and chia smoothie. Most of our time there was, however, spent planning our China leg whilst drinking a pot of Chinese tea. Our current plan is to gradually head south from Beijing towards Chongqing over the first 4 weeks, but lots of things are still undecided. Train booking open 14 days in advance and some routes sell out quickly, so we have to start booking in around a week’s time.

It felt warmer today in the morning but actually spotted with rain as we left the restaurant. We decided to try out the metro whilst we waited for the damp to pass, entering through the sunken fountain plaza of Republic Square Station. The network (well, line) still partially runs on a token system, although it appears that this is being phased out for a QR code and contactless system. A journey between any of the 10 stations is 100 Dram (just under 20p). Trains were around every 7 minutes but were just two carriages long and filled up quickly. Given the crowding, even at 14:30, we made a split-second decision to jump off early and walk. The city clearly needs better public transport options – buses and trolleybuses get snagged in the traffic – but the lack of investment (and maybe political will?) is a common story. Yerevan is fortunate to have an underground network at all as, usually and fairly strictly, Soviet cities had to reach 1 million population to get one. The network here was primarily built due to topography meaning that any practical tram system (the next rung down the Soviet transport hierarchy) would’ve required metro-like tunnels anyway.

We wandered into the old district of Kond. The seemingly well guarded posh diplomatic hotel on the top of the hill was in extremely stark contrast to collapsing ramshackle houses literally right across the street. It’s almost as if the Armenian government want foreign power brokers to see the poorer side of the city up close, which seems a novel and interesting approach. The old streets themselves had the occasional small café and piece of street art. Apparently, they are a favourite of travel photographers but, honestly, our presence felt intrusive enough that we quickly moved on.

We exited towards the Blue Mosque. This is the final mosque in Yerevan and is under the custody of the Iranian government as part of a deal where some Armenian churches are also maintained in north-west Iran. After security checks, which included making sure my camera was genuine and turned on, we were permitted to enter the courtyard. The recently repaired blue dome and minaret were perhaps the most spectacular we’ve seen on any religious building so far on this trip. Once again, Persian architecture has blown us away. Iran is definitely high on our list of places to visit in future.

Yerevan feels like a very liveable city in many ways. We both thought that we could definitely live here, before realising that the number of cars and road crossings would most likely ‘drive’ us up the wall. It’s a shame that such a potentially walkable city core is broken up by incessant wide boulevards requiring people on foot to repeatedly pause their journeys for the convenience of others in hunks of polluting metal. Even some main squares are adorned with parked cars. Presumably this must be for decorative purposes?! I know I go on about cars a lot, but they really are the enemy of urban communities, and the reality is that you end up with what you plan for. As much as I appreciate the aesthetics of former Soviet cities, the once-abundant public transport systems have unfortunately suffered from three decades of chronic underinvestment under capitalism, and this coupled with the wide boulevards means the obvious choice for those who can afford it is, sadly, to drive.

As, I write this there is some uncertainty over the two flights we have to take to get to China, via Qatar. Airspace is closed across Iran, Iraq, and Jordan in case of further Israeli attacks. The usual flight path from Tbilisi to Doha is predominantly over Iran and the way around to the east is quite substantial. We’ll keep an eye on flights over the coming days to see if ours is likely to go ahead, or if we must find alternative arrangements.