Lost on the Way to Armenia

  From Armenia we took a train across Georgia to Batumi, and a freight ship across the Black Sea to Varna Bulgaria, and a train to Brasov, Sighisoara, and to Cluj Napoka, Romania. Another first class city in Eastern Europe, somewhat like Tbilisi or Yerevan.  But we also have connections here. Unitarian connections. While we’re Unitarian-Universalists from the US, and I’ve visited with Unitarians in the Khasi Hills in India, the Transylvanian Unitarians are their own branch.  So let’s back up a few centuries. In the year 0 CE, Christianity begins. In 301 CE it becomes the official religion of Armenia. We visited the church where that started. We call this the Apostolic Church, after the twelve apostles.  Next came the Council of Nicea in 325, which was centered on figuring out just what was meant by the Father, Son and Holy Ghost, a.k.a. the Trinity. This marked the first major split between Catholicism and Eastern Orthodox.  Skip ahead several centuries, and thi...

Three days on a cargo ship. We spent 3 days from Batumi in Georgia crossing the Black Sea to Varna in Bulgaria. This wasn't so much a ferry as it was a cargo ship that took passengers on. We watched his endless trucks loaded onto the ship and truckers Gathering their things and heading to the purser's office to obtain keys to a large assortment of very plain cabins.. The coast of Turkey as seen from the ship And arriving at the ship was itself an adventure, being dropped off by an Uber at the entrance to a cargo ship terminal meant that we had to walk through past trucks and security guards and actually walk onto the ferry ultimately using the ramp that the trucks used. There were four Suites on board and we took one of them. It was a trip back into the late 1980s. This cargo ship, built in 1989 for service originally in the Baltic Sea based out of Lithuania had been repurposed late in life to this cargo ship run back and forth across the Black Sea. We were determined to be co...

  The time has come to say goodbye to Armenia. The passage of a very busy two months has been heralded with shortening days and lower sun angles as our planet's northern hemisphere marches steadily now toward the winter solstice. The monastery above the town of Tumanyan A lot has been accomplished. The window for gaining citizenship in Armenia has been temporarily halted and is likely to be closed in the near future. I am very glad to have this chess piece in my pocket. Our time with the Armenian Volunteer Corps (AVC) was a highlight for us both. The friendships that we made and the mutual benefits of sharing our time and ourselves with others was just fantastic. Our volunteer opportunity: teaching English language skills Gary feels right at home learning Armenian language. Actually it's tough for both of us! The next big piece of the puzzle will be to look at real estate but, with time running out, that will have to wait until next year. Our first stop on our way hom...

It has been three weeks since we arrived in Yerevan, Armenia.  During the first week, I made an appointment to secure a passport at the local immigration office.  A week later and I was pledging allegiance to the Republic and signing my name on my new passport as an Armenian Citizen.  Dual citizenship has its privileges and provides me with many more options in a politically unstable world. New Citizen and Very Happy     Taking the Oath of Allegiance   And then there were now two passports   With paperwork out of the way, we decided to engage in a few tours around the country using a tour operator.  Renting a car is out, for now, as I do not have my international drivers license and that is definitely required in Armenia (and Georgia).  Surprisingly, Turkey did not require an international drivers license.  Tours in Armenia are super cheap and I would highly recommend them to anyone visiting for the first time.  We never spent more ...

  Reflections on two months in Armenia.   Language. Armenian is a very, very distant cousin to Latin, so trying to apply any words we know in English, French or Spanish to anything Armenian doesn't work.  And their written language was invented in 405AD and is used only inside of this country. Their neighbor Georgia has their own unique spoken and written language.  Another neighbor,  Turkey,  used to use written Farsi but changed to the Latin alphabet about a century ago and saw their literacy rate explode from 10-20% to 80-90% in a generation.  Another neighbor,  Russia, has their own written language,  but it's based on Greek, which Latin is also based on,  so that's not quite so strange.  Proto-Indo-European began just north of here around 4500 BCE between the Caucasus mountains, the northern shore of the Black Sea, and the Asian Steppe. From here it spread southeast and became Farsi,westward to become Latin and Germanic, a...

 It was time to move on to Armenia.  We had planned to spend more time in Georgia exploring the country but, fate had other plans.  As you already are likely aware from previous posts, I have an Armenian heritage on my father's side.  My grandparents arrived in the USA as a result of deportations from their Armenian lands in Turkey which left them country-less in their home lands.  The Armenian government has been actively assisting those who were displaced by offering repatriation to Armenia.  I took advantage of this program by visiting the Armenian Embassy in Washington, DC back in December of 2025 and applying.  While we were in Sivas, Turkey, I received an email notification from the offices in Yerevan that I had been given citizenship to Armenia.    With this exciting information, I realized that getting my passport and citizenship papers was of the utmost importance going forward.  Knowing this, we began an accelerated trip o...