5.1 Valley of Flowers

Tyler took a Malév flight from Budapest Ferihegy Airport and arrived at Sofia in Bulgaria after two hours. It was a very large terminal and construction went on to extend the wings. Faces changed, letters changed, upside down or reversed, the whole calligraphy told him that he was in a different world. He was lucky to catch a TABSO Bulgarian Air Transport flight in about an hour and flew to Armenia. He fell asleep in the single seat on the right side of the aircraft for the length of the journey over the coastlines of Black Sea.

Five hours later, Tyler opened his eyes to see the snowcapped peak of Mount Ararat in the reddish sun and the flight was going down to land at Zvartnots Airport in Yerevan that opened in 1961. By the time it landed, it was sunset, 19:11 local time, on 18^th March 1965. He couldn’t identify a single letter or a vowel from a consonant at the crossroads of the religions, literally in Asia.

He took a taxi and arrived at Hotel Tufenkian in Kentron city centre. This hotel stood by the corner of two streets with black walls and tall pillars against the night sky. A blackwood counter, an oscillating chandelier, high ceiling and brick tones of red amazed him. He was given a room by the corner on the second floor. It looked like a castle in Transylvania and the bathroom divided in three sections. Furnished in blackwood and the bed extremely comfortable with a television that he turned on to catch a glimpse of the late Marilyn Monroe in one of her films.

He made a call to Samvel Salazar from the hotel reception who advised him how to get there. Tyler asked the receptionist how to get a train ticket.

The lady at the reception offered, “I can book it for you if you may give me your passport and fare.”

“Are you going to go there?” he asked.

“It’s not far, I can go in a taxi.”

“Where is that noise coming from?”

“It’s the vernissage.”

Tyler gave her his passport and went out to take a look at the market. It was cold, 5° C, 41° F for him.

Despite the weather, the vernissage was a lively place, crowded and lit bright. All kinds of stalls selling all kinds of things from pottery to jewellery and souvenirs, biblical caricatures made of copper and nickel, old books, textile and handmade rugs. This market stretched half a mile from the museum and Tyler just walked around the stalls. Fine people wearing taraz and arackchin enjoying music as their folks played those instruments of a kanon, a zurna, a dhol or a kemenche.

At one corner, people crowded to watch a black and white television bringing about news of a marvellous feat by the Russians that Soviet cosmonaut Alexei Leonov became the first man to walk in space. They even aired a photograph of a man in spacesuit with CCCP written on his helmet.

Next morning when he came down to the lobby, that lady was there with his ticket and passport. He had breakfast at the blackwood restaurant and spent an hour to stroll in the Hraparak, or Lenin Square, with recently erected buildings around in the neoclassical architecture with a massive fountain in the middle. He took a picture of the Statue of Lenin and flags on the posts with a blue stripe in a red background with the hammer and sickle in the canton.

There he left the hotel in a taxi and embarked a train leaving at one o’clock. Tyler was impressed by the enormity of the train station built in 1956.

Tyler Friesen arrived at a small train station in Hrazdan and his coach stopped far from the platform. As he stumbled on the gravels in the afternoon weather with two suitcases, a shoulder bag and his typewriter in the box case, a bloke approached holding a placard or a piece of paper with his name on it. He could hardly read it but Armenian alphabet, Aybuben, was unique to this ancient civilisation and rather advanced in its own right, written from left to right. Those letters looked like umbrella sticks to him.

Salazar arranged this man to take him in a white GAZ-21 Volga to the ‘Valley of Flowers’ of Tsaghkadzor – a tiny village located on the slopes of Teghenis Mountain at a height of 1800 metres above sea level surrounded by alpine meadows; the birthplace of Orbeli Brothers. At the time of the year, budding plants enhanced to sprout from dormancy but still green around with spruce, pine and fir trees. It was a quiet town with a population of 1500 and empty roads.

Hotel Zamanak stood elevated on the left side of the road on the mountain slope that could be reached by a pathway. And this side of the road retained by a wall of rocks raised to a couple of feet. The car stopped by the fence gate and Grigor helped him with the luggage up the pathway to a garden plot and the hotel entrance. A red carpet, blackwood furniture and glass doors. There stood a small diner where Kristina, the lady of the hotel, often served guests at this twelve-bedroom lodge. Up the stairs, down a long corridor, they reached his room which was elegantly furnished with a terrace overlooking the valley.

Kristina said, “We have rental bicycles.”

He replied, “I will collect one tomorrow but now I’m going to Rusadan with Grigor in his car.”