Somusing

Dad (Jon) and I are roughly three weeks into a month-long trip around Eastern Europe and the Caucasus region. We started in Armenia, made our way through Georgia, across the Black Sea to Ukraine, through Moldova and now to Kyiv, Ukraine. We have one more stop, Lviv, and then it’s back home to Idaho. I’ll cover our first two weeks(ish) in this post, from the start to the Black Sea ferry. This trip may sound familiar, as many of our destinations match up with a trip Dad and Phin took in August 2013. They wrote about their trip in several posts: Let sleeping dogs lie in Kiev Kiev Pechersk Lavra More Kiev churches and sights Ukrainian miscellany Tbilisi, Georgia Enlinking the Caucasus from Tbilisi to Yerevan Yerevan, Armenia sights Burning rubber in Yerevan, Armenia Garni & Geghard, Armenia Ejmiatsin, Armenia Dad and I have been interested in Eastern Europe for a long time, so this trip has been a great opportunity to see a lot of new places in the east. A lot of plac...

Phin and I visited Vagharshapat, Armenia , about 18 km away from Yerevan. There was supposedly a marshrutka or bus that went there, but we couldn't find it and ended up taking an absurdly cheap old Lada taxi out there with a friendly taxi driver for about $2.50. The driver on the way back was less friendly and despite us agreeing on a fixed price before leaving, he tried to get more money out of us than agreed upon when dropping us off. Which we didn't go for. The city was known officially during Soviet times, and unofficially still, as Ejmiatsin or Echmiadzin, after the name of the Etchmiadzin Cathedral , the central cathedral of the Mother See (spiritual and administrative headquarters) of the Armenian Apostolic Church. I read that the original cathedral was built in the years 301-303 by St. Gregory the Illuminator, and the current one dates to 480, with a stone dome added in 618. The cathedral had scaffolding up when we visited. We went inside briefly, and continued to ...