lav k'lini

I have about 2 weeks left in Armenia, the end has come. I am photographing the little things that I have found oddly charming but never thought they could really tell anyone much about Armenia. Like this bed, that struck me as a possible metaphor for what I've come to know about this country, which carries a simple austere beauty that reflects the waiting I feel like people are doing here. Waiting for the day to pass, the seeds to grow, a job to materialize, a child to be born, the next pension paycheck to arrive. It's a post Soviet country that has been torn apart by Communism and is still struggling to recover from the abandonment. Slowly things are getting better, but not for everyone. Outside of Yerevan, the people of this country sit waiting.....for something to happen.

I finally finished reading Robert Kaplan's "Eastward to Tartary" which is a great geo-political travel book about this part of the world. In it he says this, which I think echoes the status quo regardless of the fact the book was published 10 years ago, "Americans are triumphant about the collapse of the Soviet Union. But throughout the Caucasus and beyond, I experienced firsthand how the Soviet collapse, while a blessing in the long run, has meanwhile ruined millions of real lives. Communism, however disastrous, was still a system that provided pensions, schooling, social peace, and physical security for a multitude of people who often had no recollection of anything better. The collapse of that system has left a chaotic void that, so far, has made life here much worse."
There is still a wonderful spirit here - an identity that is very strong and persistent. And with this, I hope, there will be more on the coming horizon.