Armenia

Armenia: F*%k, another alphabet to not learn

Written by Tyler Cole | 14 June 2011

Armenia was…nice. Nothing mindblowingly incredible, nor anything that was difficult besides trying to get around with little Latin script outside of Yerevan, the capital. Armenia, like Georgia, has its own language and writing system that looks like this: շատ շնորհակալ եմ (Thank you very much). And no, I was not about to learn a new alphabet for less than two weeks in the country.

Although there are efforts to teach English, it was not very widespread and Russian was far more useful. Unlike Georgia, Armenia has a decent relationship with Russia and we didn’t have to be so judicious in our use of the language. Unfortunately, my exploration of Yerevan was limited due to handling business back home with medical school applications, and during our few trips into the city center I managed to forget my camera. Overall, Yerevan had a more spacious and slightly more modern feel than Tbilisi, but for whatever reason didn’t quite match the jumbled Tbilisi alleys in stroll-ability.