#5: Windrain
June 9 — August 8
Forgetfulness
It’s not like nothing at all has happened, but somehow I had no idea how to describe what was happening and why do this. Also, I had been too annoyed and irritated. Now, I guess it’s better to start where I stopped — and I just realised that I’d written my last note before I moved into a ‘decent house with a nice piano’ — more than a̶ ̶m̶o̶n̶t̶h̶ two months ago. Well, I have to admit, a lot of things have happened since then.
The house
I moved into a house to share it with a couple of relatives of the landlord for a week. I thought it’d be a couple of days, but people are not used to hurrying here. Later, my friends and I would come up with a perfect remark about everything here: it’s just the Armenian relaxed style of life. A car without seatbelts? Dogs barking from dusk till dawn? Aggressive stray dogs no one cares about? Litter everywhere? Delivery getting lost on its way? A taxi driver talking to every other driver on the road while driving? A handyman who came, started fixing something and then departed until the next day leaving your house without hot water for two days? A cleaner who left half of the house just as it was, promising to continue the next day but didn’t come in a week? Another handyman who installed an A/C but left the power wires disconnected and disappeared without even mentioning this? Etc, etc… It’s just the Armenian relaxed style of life.
The ‘decent house’ had some broken things that required fixing, and it was all promised, but surely you already know what happened — most things are still broken and no one knows when they will be fixed, if ever. It’s always like ‘The worker should come on Wednesday… Oh, he wasn’t able to, but he’ll come on Friday… Didn’t he come? I’ll call him… He said he’ll come next Monday… etc, etc’.
The piano is decent. Requires minor tuning, but sounds and feels very nice. Too bad co-living with 6 people doesn’t help to practice often.
Suburbanism
Whenever I tell someone local in Yerevan that our house is in the Davtashen district, they always say it’s one of the best places in Yerevan — not too hot, very quiet and clean, has good infrastructure and so on. Well, I’m learning to be careful with recommendations from locals in places like Yerevan. So far, most of them didn’t lead to anything good. Something cheap — yes, maybe sometimes, decent — no, hardly ever. By the way, Yerevan is not as inexpensive as it was before, if it was not just a myth. Again, cheap things are cheap (though not always, but most of the time it’s not what you want), no mid-class anything, and high-class things are crazily overpriced. Food, service, things, everything.
So, the city centre is kinda nice, there are clearly some European vibes in places — but anything of a good quality costs more than in Scandinavia. A bit further from the downtown — and it’s basically rural Russia —mostly tasteless, cheap and unpleasant things and places. Found something good? Be ready to pay thrice or more for it. So what about Davtashen? It’s just as hot as the city centre, only cooling during the night time, but the downtown is nice at night too, while Davtashen was often quite cold during June, and was just as stuffy during hot July.
Don’t listen to anyone who says that suburban areas in Yerevan are quieter than the city centre. It’s quite the opposite: stray and pet dogs bark 24/7, roads are just as noisy. If you live in a private house, you’ll be listening to all the livestock around from around 4AM up until midnight, and neighbours’ dogs will drive you crazy — seemingly, they never sleep. Garden parties with terrible loud music is also a thing here. Public transport will make you want to order a taxi every time you want to go to the centre, and it’s not cheap if you don’t want to ride cars that fall apart. So far, the quietest and the most comfortable place in Yerevan was in some of the yards of Aram street in the very centre. But renting a flat in the centre of Yerevan now costs so much that it’s cheaper to live in western Europe. And lately I’ve been seriously considering this.
One day-long journey
There were a couple of days when a few friends of mine came to visit Yerevan from Moscow. We spent some nice time together, but one special thing was a ride outside of Yerevan: Garni — Geghard — The Sevan Lake. We hired a local driver and set off in the late morning.
At first I was quite sceptical — excursions are not what I’m usually happy about, and I had already visited Garni and Geghard before. Moreover, the cost had frightened me a bit. But the driver was such a nice and kind person, stopped everywhere where we asked, didn’t even try to do anything we didn’t want — maybe he could read minds, I don’t know. Thanks to him I saw many things near Garni and Geghard that I didn’t find the first time.
On our way back I was in a very uplifting mood, thinking that this day was spent perfectly and a little trip with good friends was just what I needed, even if so brief. I parted with money without a slightest regret.
We went for dinner at one of the nearby restaurants, and there it all came back — a few local musicians entered the hall not so big and started playing some local folk music. As far as I could see, they didn’t use any amplification. Still, sitting as far from them as it was possible, we had to close our ears at times because the loudness was simply unbearable.
Then my friends told me there’s an old abandoned cinema building that had been converted into an art-space and some interesting electronic live music was going to happen there that evening. I decided to join my friends. The space was quite interesting, there were many exhibitions happening, a marketplace with some weird stuff, and a DJ was playing something weird. Though it was impossible to enjoy some hipster fast-food outside because almost everyone was smoking here and there, I didn’t notice any problems inside at first, but while we were waiting for the live show to start, my head was getting heavy. And then I noticed many people smoking right near the entrance, many of them walking inside and outside with their cigarettes. I looked around paying attention, and saw about half of the people smoking inside too. Though the space was huge — a grand cinema hall, there was hardly any kind of ventilation. I decided to leave the place before I had a full scale headache, disappointed. And on the way home, cars and drivers just slowly killed the remains of blissfulness I still had in my head, deafeningly hooting for no reason here and there and driving like idiots. At some point, hopelessly angry, I just ordered a taxi cab.
Another one
There was another one-day trip that I had with my team-mates the other day. We rented a car and reached the Sevan Lake again, but this time we went straight there, so we had a chance to check the surroundings thoroughly. It was another day that brought some bliss, but again of the bittersweet nature. This time, the litter kept me from being properly ‘happy’ about the trip. If you look up and try as hard as possible not to notice what’s around you on the ground, it could be fine but take a brief look down— and you’ll want to leave any of these places ASAP.
Yerevan is dirty, which is bad but understandable — but it’s not much better outside and around. Luckily, I did not have to deal with crazy drivers on the way home this time, because we came home by car. But all this garbage everywhere and a weird headache that came in the evening spoiled this trip to almost the same degree as the previous one.
Music, nights
At first I had an impression that soon all interesting and worthy musicians from Russia and around will come to Yerevan — many places were opening, all very ambitious and crazy in a good way. I saw some exciting announcements about some not very popular musicians coming to play in the opera theatre. But, as it always happens, it was actually only the first impression, or maybe it was spring. Quite quickly I lost interest in modern music that was playing in the trendy new and old clubs and bars. There is some classical music in the opera theatre and in the philharmonic hall, but very rarely something really exciting. Though it’s difficult to complain here — even in Petersburg full of classical music halls I had to go through endless lists of boring concerts to find something really moving. That is not to say that Petersburg’s local musicians could rarely play even very special music not in a boring and dispassionate way, so what am I asking for in Yerevan?
About a month after I had moved into the house, I somehow managed to transport most of my instruments from Petersburg. I thought I’d feel thrilled once I reunited with them, but alas. Apparently, stress destroys everything. Nevertheless, I started rehearsing the live program I had wanted to re-start my music life with in Petersburg in April. The good news was that I hadn’t forgotten everything completely, the bad news — I was in such bad shape physically and mentally, it all just didn’t make any sense. The musician in me was practically dead. A month later I managed to revive a kind of a zombie of this inner musician, but well, it really felt like it was just a zombie. I still watch people playing live and think ‘I should be there, on stage!’ and I want to, but then an inner existentialist comes and asks unanswerable questions, and his points are only becoming stronger with time.
The other day I had a sudden desire to write a song. I’ve got words, I used one of the hundreds of old music sketches. Then I tried to record the vocal parts and after two days of tries, everything was sour again. I didn’t like the words, the vocal parts, only the music was still decent. And I still have no idea what to do with the album I finished last autumn. I even started writing letters to a couple of labels, but then got stuck with this stupid feeling like I’m asking for a favour in a self-humiliating manner.
At least I can still help my friends when they need some sound-design and mixing for their music. Slowly but surely I’m mixing an album for a friend.
The curious thing is that it still works better when it’s dark and closer to midnight, and I still haven’t found out why. But what I can’t leave unnoticed is that I’m having very different thoughts during the night, and I even think them differently.
Health
They’re quite relaxed about health here. Got ticks in a forest?
— Oh, no worries, no need to test them for any possible infections. Still want to? Okay, let’s test just one of the three you found, it’ll be cheaper. What do you mean ‘It doesn’t work like that’?
That’s how doctors were talking to a couple of my friends who brought the three ticks found on their skin after returning from a forest trip. And it cost a lot.
I have tried some local dental clinics, and wasn’t really happy about the experience either. I mean, they’re all very kind and supportive, but sometimes you just can’t leave unnoticed how careless they are. The X-Ray machine doesn’t start? Well, let’s just kick it a couple of times and, see, now it works! Putting lead vests on everyone in this tiny x-ray room, or at least on me? Nonsense, let’s just leave them hanging where they are! A room full of unrelated people, some of whom don’t even look like staff and everyone’s chatting with everyone else including your doctor who’s right now doing something inside your mouth? Easy! And then materials — they’re mostly Asian and of not very good quality, which they admit themselves. They won’t tell you the reason, but it’s clear again — not many can afford decent materials here, and those who can — they can as well afford the luxurious ones, so you can mostly choose between cheap or luxurious. And the latter cost thrice as much, being imported in low quantities.
Wind and rain
I always admired warm summer rain. Obviously I have never dreamed about living in southern countries during summer time, but it still surprises me how my admiration for rainy summer days transformed into an obsession. Especially when it’s light during the day time, and more serious at night. The first reason is that it helps breathing, keeping all sand and dust from being inhaled or flying into your face in clouds that stick in your hair when the wind rises in the evening. Which, by the way, happens everyday, so much it can easily make everyone not accustomed to it worry. If you leave windows open in the evening, after a couple of hours you need to clean up the sand from the floor. But on the bright side, I should admit, sometimes I like the wind when it gets really crazy during the nighttime — apparently, it scares dogs and keeps them mostly silent, which is priceless. But there’s something that works even better and keeps them completely silent — this is the second reason for my affection for the nightly rain. The only problem with rain is that it happens so rarely, I can’t remember whether the last time was a month or two ago. We have a huge gorge with a river nearby. In the beginning of summer its walls were all green, but after a couple of hot and dry months, you can imagine how it all turned brown and dead.
Objectives
Reading all this, you, perhaps, have got the picture of how unhappy and dissatisfied I am with my Armenian days. Indeed, there’s nothing more to add. No shades of grey, no uncertainty — I see no positive points in staying here. I even thought about returning to Russia when I saw how many of my friends who remained there started travelling around Europe about a month ago. Finland lifted all COVID restrictions, there are no unsolvable problems with visas, and no problems with leaving Russia at all. All the real problems that exist in Russia I have even here, partly because instead of becoming an associated member of the European Union, the Armenian government suddenly decided to join Eurasian Economic Union created by the Russian government back in the days. And partly because I have only Russian citizenship so far, and there’s no possible way for me to acquire another one.
Recently I’ve come to one conclusion, which could be good advice: if you’re not incredibly wealthy, don’t ever think about living in a poor country.
What makes me stay here? Nothing really. Or the fact that I can’t stay longer than three months anywhere in Europe except in the UK, where I can stay for up to 6 months, but then I wouldn’t be able to get a new visa and return — they’ll have questions. So, I’m looking for ways to stay longer in a decent place knowing there’s not much to look at. Basically nothing. Staying somewhere illegally is not an option. I thought about getting a volunteer or an educational visa, but couldn’t find any programs that would fit someone with a day job and be interesting to me.
What’s left is start-up and work visas, and here I have some options and ideas, but all this would mean some radical changes. Not that I’m not ready for them, actually I’ve been thinking more and more about them lately, but it’s just that I want to make it cleverly smooth, however radical it would be. Although, of course I’m totally ready for the universe to mess it all up again, as usual. Essentially, that means I just want to reach some point at which I know, there are no other options left. And then I’d just let it be whatever it would be. After all, what I need is just a safe and friendly place to live and write music, with friendly people around and an ability to travel whenever and wherever I want. Not too much to ask for.
