Dear friends and Family!

Finally again a little travelers journal. This time we send you greetings from Armenia. Armenia? The canadian-armenian director Atom Egoyan had kindly invited us since five years, to come to the film-festival in Yerevan and we were sooo curious to see Armenia, this time we went! Wim and I both knew very little about Armenia. We read whatever we could in the Traveling guide-book and found out: Yerevan is the capital City of Armenia and the country is located between Iran, Azerbaijan, Georgia and Turkey. What language do they speak? Armenian. What is their Religion? It was the first Country in the world that became entirely Christian and it still is entirely christian. How does the country look like? How do the people look like?  How do they dress? What do they eat? How do they live? and what do they live on? ... oh that all needs to be found out. Already the flight schedule made it clear: this is not a place where a lot of people fly to: Arrival time: 3:35 am! Wow. Excruciating for the people waiting for us at the airport to pick us up.

So, our first impression was Yerevan by night right before dawn....

After getting up, we went to the official blessing service of the 5th Film-Festival, to an Armenian church.

The priest and the congregation gave thanks for the APRICOTs and we all got a blessing, as the movies are the cultural fruits of the season and the GOLDEN APRICOT FILM FESTIVAL was opened.

Then we walked to the "Parajanov Museum". Sergej Parajanov (1923-1990). This name might ring a bell for some of you.

A filmmaker who did for example "The Color Of Pomegranates" in 1968. He suffered in prison under the Sowjet Union for years, because he had the guts to say what he thought. No one could stop his creativity though, and whatever material got into his hands, he created something from it. At the beautiful Parajanov Museum I was allowed to put on one of his hats.

(The elephant is for Friederike!)

The medal  for the FILM-festival is made of one of the art pieces Parajanov had created in prison with his fingernails from a milk bottle lid.The Festival director Harutyun Khachatryan (in the white jacket), a treasure of a man, re-opened with this first festival the only Cinema in ARMENIA! Can you imagine? The whole country had NO CINEMA for years. He fought for it under hard conditions and is a real hero in our eyes. He asked Wim to give the lifetime achievement price for Michelangelo Antonioni to Enrica Antonioni. A very moving moment right at the opening night of the festival.

On the second day in the warm and sunny Yerevan, we got a tour through one of those Museums that shows some of the oldest handwritten books in the world!

Truly a place of great treasures in which we learned a lot about the immensely sad - and at the same time heroic history of Armenia and its rich culture and ancient  scientific knowledge. Armenia was reduced to 10% of its original size, due to countless decades of wars....  and envy.
The tour was given in german. A lot of people speak very good german. 40 years of common Sowjet Union system, connected Armenia to the east part of Germany. These are all books drawn and written in the last centuries BC and afterwards.

When I saw these books, I had to think of Harumi and Setsuko! I think the early Armenians got inspired by the two of you! :-))) a "Master Class" (translated by an Armenian Film director) in which he told , his path from his childhood and a film projector, to his wish to become a painter and the time in Paris with the studies of edging and the daily visits in the Cinematheque, to his move to the Munich Film school in Germany 1968, how he exchanged his beloved saxophone with a 16 mm film camera and his first movies. His very personal and honest way to tell how he got into movies, and how living and filmmaking is inseparable for him, inspired the young filmmakers and actors, having come from Ukraine, Georgia and of course Armenia, to be very honest as well with all their questions and comments. It was like a personal conversation.

(Here between the students is Goga, a woman I got to like dearly! )

I realized, there  was an incredible absence of indifference and distraction.
The intensity of interest and trust was just beautiful.

Enrica Antonioni was among the students as well :-)

It was a great possibility to get to know a new generation of filmmakers, actors and producers.  Their questions and comments were practical, full of idealism and humor.

No night so far, ended without a strong moon, a festive dinner, lots of dancing and Vodka. :-)

Alright, now we are truly ready to get to know the country!

The next morning we really started our trip into the countryside with our wonderful guide Naira. (we will see her later).

Any kind of view out of the window was gorgeous! The country is full of ancient monasteries and churches, of which we visited some.

The first one we saw, built in the 4th century, was shockingly moving, not only because of its age.

The early part of the building, built into the rock, had beautiful acoustics ! We instantly started singing and even our voices created a beautiful sound. :-) The architecture is just asking for the human voice to sing. Beautiful. This must be the way monasterial-music was created, right at the beginning of christianity. We saw the caves where the monks could hide, in the times they were persecuted.

On our way out, we were were offered to eat good traditional food, like cheese bread, dry fruits, and right now there were apricots and peach available everywhere! :-)

Once we stopped at a restaurant, that still had a strong touch of the Sowjet Union charm.

(Bei dieser Lampe musste ich an Oda denken! :-)))  Fresh herbs, thin bread, fresh cream and grilled beef were served.
When we looked outside, it just fit perfectly. :-) And one thing we discovered, cows have shepherds, as there are no fences!

Oh, I took many black and white images in between, as you can imagine. We went to villages, (way too short for my taste of course) and met some beautiful people. (You might see them in my black and white analog selection another time. :-)) We witnessed areas that had still not recovered from the Soviet Union times.

An earthquake in the late nineties had on top of it, erased big parts of villages and towns of the country. People still have to live in containers ever since, as they have no means to built their own homes. But we heard no complains!!! People seem refuse looking at the negative side of life. They give thanks for what they have. Wow. Christianity at it's best! I was humbled.

( Tamara, beim roten Mädchen habe ich an Dich gedacht :-)

Guten Morgen, liebe Freunde und liebe Familie!

Another amazing day started in great weather! can you see? Mount Ararat! Breath-taking.
This beautiful mountain means soooo much to Armenia, but it is on turkish territory. 

  

At the end of the field is the border to Turkey and even though you don't see it, it is a tough line that no one can cross....  Looking around, we felt much suffering since the very ancient times.

Graves... oh, we saw many on our way throughout the country - Wim took a huge series of Photographs with graves and the stories they tell. They mostly have portraits on them and they give an idea of why or how the people died.

A young boy for example on one side of the stone and a terribly young looking soldier on the other side. Story told. Heartbreaking.

This image needs no words...

or: four young people and a car on one side of the gravestone... and the grandmother who had out lived them for maaaaaaaaaany years on the other side...

The many monasteries in the country, of which we saw some, had one thing in common: A peace that was literaly "out of this world".

We found a painter at work in one place, and bought his painting that was not dry yet. :-)

(Helmut, Dir würde es hier gut gefallen! Es gibt auch sooo viele alte wunderschöne Werkzeuge zu finden, die noch benutzt werden!) At another monastery, a priest built up a summer-school for children of the neighborhood to learn how to use the computer. That will give them the opportunity to be part of society, even though they come from the countryside.

In many places we wanted to stay much longer than our schedule allowed. "Next time longer" we always said. Naira our guide, took care of us and helped us not forgetting the time entirely.

Talking about time... sooner then later we found ourselves on the way back to the Filmfestival in Yerevan and on our way from the north, we came through a mining-town. Wim was carried back to his youth in Oberhausen, because of the smell that connects probably all mining towns in the world. He felt home immediately. :-)

Then we had to pass many little towns and places, oh, there is soooo much more to be seen! I could only say: "lets close our eyes and pass by quickly!" otherwise I would have wanted to jump out. What a rich country! And it only has the size of Bavaria in Germany!

Getting close to Yerevan, our departure was about to come. Right at the entrance of Yerevan, we saw a palace next to the freeway that was just too much! It belonged to one man, who controlls the materials for the building-industry in Armenia right now. :-)

500 Meters away from it another kind of living palace for more then one person from the Sowjet Union times ....

Back in Yerevan, Wim gave another lecture and the 2.nd masterclass, which was just as up-lifting and inspiring on both sides as the first one. We did not want to leave. Life is beautiful in Armenia. We were treated like the royal family. But, even walking with a backpack through this country, we will be back, God willing. The last evening we went to a painters atelier with Ruben, (sitting here). Ruben had organized the whole trip through the country for us. He is a wonderful filmdirector and one of those people, who you need to see once in a while, if you don't want your heart ache too much, because of his absense.

The very moving end of our time was the final ceremony. Along with all the young great filmmakers Wim got a prize for inspiring so many filmmakers in the world with his movies. Atom Egoyan gave him the price with a moving speach. Wow. What a generous gesture, how much friendship and respect. We were moved to the bones. And we say THANK YOU ARMENIA,  THANK YOU ATOM, THANK YOU HARUTYUN KHACHATRYAN,  THANK YOU TO ALL WHO MADE THIS

TRIP POSSIBLE. And to Barbara Siebert, von der ich gaaar kein schönes Bild zu meinem eigenen Erstaunen auf dem Chip gefunden habe! ooooh!

e will go back to Armenia, the Country that has burned itself so dearly into our souls.  Over and over I thought to myself during this trip: "The last will be the first." And before we knew it, we were back in the plane, going west for some days, before we went much further east, and found ourselves on the roads of

KOREA. The next time you will hear from Seoul again and Tokyo and why we were there. :-)

Big hug to all of you, right now already from Tokyo. Love, as well from Wim, Donata.