Tigranashen... the armenian village

My favourite armenian village is called Tigranashen. I went there randomly during a motorbike trip with a couch surfer I met at my friend's place. On the side of the road there was a baby horse (the one you can see on the picture), we passed it, and then I thought 'I'd like to see this little one closer and take some pictures!'. I asked Phillip to go back and enter the village. We approached the horses and took some pictures, and then a young man approached, I started speaking to him and he offered us to come to his house for coffee (the most common thing here, happy non western country ;)).

We quickly realised that the village and its surroundings (mountains and prairies) was of remarkable beauty (especially compared to many villages where trash is pilled up on all sides), people were kind, the views were beautiful, and it was clean. When we reached Baris' balcony, we saw a beautiful young woman, Tamara, and her mother, Anna. Baris and Tamara have to little girls who started calling me little sister (kuyrik) almost immediately. These people were wonderful, I can't say it enough, kind, genuine... and so were their friends. I soon understood, with tears in my eyes, that most of the people in this house and in this village (composed of 40 houses), were christians in the original sense of the term. My heart warms up when I remember how after a few minutes on this family's balcony, Tamara took me in her arms when I answered 'yes' to her question 'so do you also know Jesus?'. 

Tigranashen used to be a turkish village (inhabited by azeris.. but armenians don't like calling them like that because they say that they are first of all turks), but at the time of the war with azerbaijan (1988-1994), the azeris left and armenian immigrants from Azerbaijan and Karabagh settled. One of Tamara's friends with whom I talked, was born in Baku and had to emigrate to Armenia at the time of the war, when azeris were killing armenians on the streets and the armenians had to hide not to be found. We were talking about forgiveness, and she explained that she deeply wants to forgive the azeri people but still doubts whether she'd ever be able to talk to anyone from azerbaijan.

That day with Phillip, Tamara, and Baris we climbed the mountain in front of the village. From the top we could see Naxichevan, the azeri enclave, and Ararat (like in most places in Armenia!).

I returned to Tigranashen last week, and had another wonderful time. On my way back, our bags were filled with village cheese, and other armenian delicacies. I will surely go back...