Caucasus-Cool

Yerevan, Armenia's capital and largest city, offers pops of modernity amid old-world charm.

- By CHARUKESI RAMADURAI

Tbilisi to Yerevan is a long drive through strangely desolate territory, especially after crossing into Armenia from Georgia.

Only the skeletal remains of abandoned copper factories from the Soviet era and the occasional hilltop monastery break the tedium of the journey along this barren, brown stretch.

It is only as we approach the outskirts of Yerevan that the monochrome monotony of the landscape gives way to an urban energy that adds colour to the bleakness of the journey. The moment we reach Republic Square, Yerevan's beating heart, it's as if a switch has been flipped.

I read somewhere that Yerevan was founded in 782 BC and is one of the world's oldest continuously inhabited cities. But I did not have any idea of what that city looked like today, so I am in for a surprise.

Jazz drifts out of wine bars. The scent of freshly baked pastries wafts from French-style boulangeries. The city pulses with life: couples stroll hand in hand, friends chat over drinks, and children dart about the square. It feels like a balmy weekend evening in a European capital.

Where is the brutalist Soviet style architecture I had been expecting? In its place stand stunning neoclassical facades in yellow and pink volcanic tuff stone, gleaming in the light drizzle. In the distance, I can see Mount Ararat, a dormant volcano with great historical and cultural significance to Armenia.

Before arriving here, all I really knew about Armenia—one of the three South Caucasus countries, alongside Georgia and Azerbaijan—was its cultural entanglements with Iran, Turkey (despite a long history of conflict), and Russia, of which it was once a part. I also knew it was the first country to adopt Christianity as its official religion, back in 301 AD.