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Our initial plan this summer was to spend two months in Armenia hiking the Armenian section of the newly established Trans Caucasian Trail (TCT), from near Armenia's southern border with Iran to its northern border with Georgia. Just a couple of days after we arrived, however, the US started bombing Iran, refugees started fleeing from Iran across its border with Armenia, and it became clear that it would be both insensitive and imprudent to follow through on that plan.
Armenia sits at a crossroads between Europe, Asia and the Middle East. It is Europe-facing in many ways, but in other respects it is deeply entangled in a variety of complicated Middle Eastern geopolitical issues. It enjoys generally friendly relations with two of its neighbors (Georgia and Iran) and very troubled relations with the other two (Turkey and Azerbaijan). Russian influence, intimidation and interference loom over all these relationships, as well as ones farther afield (Europe, the US). The hottest issues concern disputes over past and present borders, which have moved often and over large distances in the more than 2800 years of Armenian history, generally through warfare.
Mount Ararat (5137m), an important national symbol to Armenians but part of Turkey since the Turkish-Armenian War of 1920, broods down on the Armenian capital, Yerevan.
Mrs. Orca looking over Dalgoto Ezero (2310m) toward Vihren and Kutelo Peaks, on the Five Mountains Trail (E4), Pirin Mountains, Bulgaria.
I was just playing around with my phone and found out it has an astrophotography setting and decided to try it out.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=CIHyAqrUVsI
Away! away! for I will fly to thee,
Not charioted by Bacchus and his pards,
But on the viewless wings of Poesy …
John Keats
In antiquity Sofia was known as Serdica, after a Thracian tribe in this region. This 4th century building--the oldest surviving building in Sofia--was built during the reign of Constantine the Great, who was so fond of the city that he considered moving his capital here before settling on Byzantium/Constantinople/Istanbul. There is not complete agreement on the original purpose of the building, but it seems most likely that it was part of a royal bath complex, then later became a baptistry and then the Church of the Rotunda Saint George (or Sveti Georgi) in the early middle ages.
In a pattern typical in the Balkans, when the Ottomans took over in the 14th century they converted it into a mosque and plastered over its ancient Christian frescoes. The Ottomans were expelled in the late 19th century, and in the decades that followed the plaster was removed from hundreds or even thousands of regional churches/mosques, revealing ancient and medieval frescoes that were often amazingly well-preserved.
After WWII, when the communists took over, they typically sought to diminish the role of religion in public life. Sometimes they just demolished churches, but they rarely did so with the most historic ones, fearing international condemnation and domestic backlash. In the case of Sveti Georgi they constructed an enormous government building that encloses it on four sides and completely sealed it off from the view of all those who did not enter into the complex.
The Church of the Rotunda Saint George, AKA Sveti Georgi, Sofia, Bulgaria.
We spent three nights in the small town of Sanahin visiting its monastery and the neighboring monastery of Hagphat, which is on the other side of Debed Canyon but connected via a scenic day hike. While they likely had early medieval antecedents, the current complexes date to the tenth century when they became centers of scholarship under the royal patronage of the Bagratid and (later) Zakarid dynasty. Both complexes are Unesco World Heritage sites and are extremely well preserved with interesting buildings such as churches, gavits, scriptoriums, bell towers, refectories and spring houses. There are however no evident traces of dormitories for the hundreds of monks who once lived here, which must have been built of more ephemeral materials. Above, the Church of St. Amenaprkitch, built in the second half of the tenth century, Sanahin, Armenia.
The concept for this Soviet Era megaproject dates to the 1920s, but construction only began fifty years later. It is a kind of grand staircase and gardens linking downtown Yerevan with Victory Park atop the higher section of the city. Construction was not yet complete at the time of the 1988 earthquake and the Soviet collapse. It is now mostly usable, with escalators and an art museum on the inside and gardens and water features on the surface, but there is still a huge section near the top of the complex that is currently just a pit with foundations, as one or more terraces of the cascade between the victory monument and existing structure have still not been completed. To reach the victory monument, from which fine views of Mount Ararat can be had on a clear day, you must divert off the complex to a side street then climb up an improvised stairway/scaffolding to come out on top. At the bottom (above) there is also a pretty whimsical sculpture garden. The Cascades, Yerevan, Armenia.
Küstenwanderung abends an der Steilküste - Panorama zur späten blauen Stunde vom Felskopf der Punta des Boc auf die Küste zwischen Cala Mesquida und der Halbinsel Formentor
Tevno Ezero (Dark Lake) (2512m) and the Tevno Ezero Shelter, on the Five Mountains Trail (E4), Pirin Mountains, Bulgaria.
Moon - A Haiku
Melancholy night
high above the ocean moon
in your hair a pearl
A moment suspended between control and chaos.
Fire spinning against neon lights, music in the air, bodies watching in silence.
Not staged. Not clean. Just alive.
Captured in Phi Phi, where nights burn brighter than days.
📍 Phi Phi Islands, Thailand
2024
📷 Google Pixel 8 Pro (Manual Mode)
I had to wonder if men were so blinded by beauty that they would feel privileged to live their lives with an actual demon, so long as it was a beautiful demon. — Arthur Golden
Mrs. Orca having a rest before we tackled Koncheto Saddle. This was the most strenuous day of the Five Mountains Trail, in my opinion. It was only about twelve or thirteen kilometers in distance, but had very steep ascents and descents, and in between a lot of traversing steep slopes and narrow ridges, which called for a lot of concentration.
A friend of ours once sat out the night in a thunderstorm in that small metal emergency shelter (2760m) in the distance. He recalled it fondly but it was not an experience I would have cared to share. Mrs. Orca near Banski Suhodol (2884m), on the way to Koncheto Saddle, Five Mountains Trail (E4), Pirin Mountains, Bulgaria.
A Soviet Modernist metro station from the last decade of the USSR. The fountain in the center was not working when we saw it. Republic Square Metro Station, Yerevan, Armenia.
In the Ottoman Era (mid 14th to late 19th century) Plovdiv was known as Filbe (essentially Turkish for "Philip's city," after the Greek name, Philippopolis). During this time the city would have had many public bathhouses, but I believe this is the last remaining one. It was constructed with facilities for both men and women in the 16th century and functioned as a bathhouse well into the 20th, but has since been converted into a contemporary art gallery. We tried to visit several times, but always found it closed. Chifte Banya (Ancient Bathhouse), viewed from Nebet Tepe, Plovdiv, Bulgaria.
This room (the gavit, or zhamatun) is one of the unique aspects of Armenian medieval architecture. It doesn't have any western equivalent, but it is a kind of large multipurpose hall that was attached west side of the church, generally some time after the construction of the church itself. They were gathering places for monks and parishioners, work spaces and burial places (note the many gravestones above). They often have a large oculus or lightwell in the ceiling, although this particular one, unusually, did not. The early thirteenth century gavit of the St. Astvatsatsin Church (first half of tenth century), Sanahin Monastery, Armenia.
A much-graffitied Soviet-Era train still in service at the Yerevan Railway Station, Yerevan, Armenia.
Tourists visit Sanahin and Hagphat on day trips from as far away as Yerevan and Tbilsi, Georgia. So, between the pancake hour and the cocktail hour they can feel a bit like a tourist zoo, filled with hawkers and people taking selfies. In the evening, after the busses have left, they take on a much more solemn feel.
From the middle ages until modern times the Armenian Apostolic Church was the most important institution in maintaining Armenian identity through successive occupations. In 1920, when the Soviets took over and established the Armenian Soviet Socialist Republic, Armenia had hundreds of active monasteries, and they quickly became the target of Soviet policy. Church land was confiscated and monks and clergy were forced to renounce their offices or else be murdered, imprisoned or shipped off to gulags.
Today Armenians are still quite religious, but little survives of monastic life except for the buildings. Religious service is kept up at the sites, however, after the touristing hours are over. We were fortunate to see an Apostolic service at Sanahin, though it was attended by no more than a half dozen parishioners. Later that night I awoke at midnight in our B&B, which was right next door, and heard the clergy singing the service again. Armenian Apostolic clergy at the tenth century Church of St. Amenaprkitch, Sanahin Monastery, Armenia.
This bridge, connecting Esztergom and Parkany, Hungary (now Sturovo, Slovakia), was completed in 1895, before the dismantling of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, which is to say, at a time when the Danube was not a border separating the two cities. It was severely damaged in the aftermath of the First World War, when Hungary and newly created Czechoslovakia set upon each other in a conflict over how to draw borders. By the time it reopened Austria-Hungary no longer existed (the empire having been dissolved) and the Danube marked the boundary between the two nations.
On December 26, 1944, toward the end of the Second World War, the bridge was more comprehensively destroyed by retreating German forces, who blew it to slow the progress of the advancing Soviet Army. In the Cold War that followed Hungary and Czechoslovakia, though both communist, were not amicable, so the ruins of the bridge stood for decades as a reminder of the 20th century wars that plagued Europe.
The bridge was not rebuilt and reopened until October 11, 2001, with European Union funds and as part of European integration. The two countries officially joined the EU in 2004, and the passport control on the bridge was removed in 2007. We walked across its broad pedestrian way filled with tourists and commuters, paused to snap photos, and thought about the remarkable and ongoing, but fragile, transformation of Europe. The Maria Valeria Bridge, the Danube, and Sturovo, Slovakia, viewed through a window from Esztergom Castle, Hungary.
Macarons: A sweet cookie to try when it’s not so outrageously expensive. In France, best to try and buy outside of the tourist areas.
On the ridge above Ribni Ezera. Our guidebook described the climb of the next hour or two as the most difficult and technical section of the E4 in Bulgaria, but it didn't seem that way, perhaps because soon after I took this photo the clouds came in so thick around us that we did not see much of the terrain and it was really just a matter of one foot in front of the next. It was also supposed to be among the most scenic but, for the same reasons, that wasn't really the case. Looking down on Ribni Ezera (2230m), where we spent the previous night, on the way to Makedonia Hut, on the Five Mountains Trail (E4), Rila Mountains, Bulgaria.
This is in my mom's front yard. A flock of wild turkeys has lived in her neighborhood for the last dozen years or so. They are totally fearless. While we were there at Christmas two males stopped traffic in the middle of the road while they engaged in a prolonged standoff. The above is the only one I have seen with this very pale coloring. Wild turkey, Concord, California.