Reply To: Caucasus trip report

[davefl]

stankpa wrote:

Thank you for a great trip report @davefl. Did you prefer Armenia or Azerbaijan? Definitely want to visit both, just deciding the order.

Thank you. As I noted above due to the political situation you can’t go directly between Armenia and Azerbaijan. The Armenians won’t let you in with an Azerbaijan stamp in your passport (or so I understand), so you need to go “clockwise” via Georgia or visit Armenia and then go somewhere else, and then on to Az. So ultimately your decision as to which one first is made for you unless you’re at the end of a passport and need a new one so you can lose the Az stamp.

It’s hard to prefer one country over the other. If you like architecture then Baku wins hands down but the rest of the country as I saw it was pretty boring apart from my 30 mins in Sheki. The Heydar Aliyev Centre just has to be experienced (from the outside though, the inside is irrelevant). It shouldn’t exist, just beautiful from any angle. I don’t think I’ve ever just sat and stared and walked around admiring a building like I did there in any of the 50+ countries I’ve visited. Yerevan is distinctly more soviet with little in the way of “modern” buildings but much nicer open spaces, parks, museums etc. Baku is definitely trying to match the gulf states with it’s opulent ultra modern buildings but then it has the oil money and Armenia doesnt.

I found the people in Yerevan warmer and friendlier. Did a lot of walking in both cities. Armenia has more ‘history’ but when you talk to people it’s sad because of the bitterness between them and Turkiye and Azerbaijan. They want their lands back. You can really feel it when you stand in Yerevan staring at the symbol of the city Mount Ararat and are constantly told it’s ours but it’s on the Turkish side of the border. All the cuisine and the wine was “invented here” but yeah the historical movement of people between Armenia, Georgia, Iran and what is now modern day Turkiye is a muddle of family, war, collaberation, trade and everything in between.