Midnight Train to Georgia!... I Mean From Georgia to Yerevan

Yesterday afternoon I left my village, crying a sea of tears with my co-teachers and villagers. My host mother dropped me off at the bus stopped and wished me well and told to call when I come back in September. I road an empty, over heated marshookah to Tbilisi and dragged my massive suitcase up four flights of stairs in 95º humid heat to my apartment. I sat in my kitchen making myself drink as much water as possible to stay hydrated. I took a shower, packed my backpack, and headed to the train station to catch my 20:20 overnight train from Georgia to Yerevan, Armenia. I decided to fit a trip in to here at the end of the semester and before I leave for Denmark a few months ago. Other volunteers have raved about it and I have been sent to explore the country, by a friend from back in Maine who has roots here and yes I am talking about Kim Kardashian. 

I decided to take this trip alone, as a lot of my friends in Georgia had already been, most of them when I was enjoying Christmas holidays in Ukraine and galavanting around the Baltic during Easter holidays. Armenia is one of those countries that most Americans wouldn't even know where it is on the map, let alone have been too. (It is surrounded by Turkey, Georgia, Azerbaijan, and Iran.) I have also been told about Armenia’s rich Christian past, the genocide that it’s neighboring country Turkey still calls an “unfortunate accident while trying to relocate some Armenians” (right into a desert), and culture in general. I cannot comment on any of this yet, because in my blog world I am just getting onto a train in Tbilisi.

I had the choice of 1st, 2nd, or 3rd class accommodations on the train and I went with 3rd “for the adventure” as I put it when I was buying my ticket. My moron of a friend said that sounded like something a rich person would say and I just glared. 3rd class comprises of the train car to have open sleeping compartments. It is also how most of the population travels, as it is the cheapest. I also find it the most fun and authentic and I am cheap. I had traveled in it, almost three years ago in Ukraine and it was terrifying, mostly because I was hungover, cold, and very confused as to why I was given a bed, when I was suppose to make it to Lviv before midnight. I later met some Peace Corps volunteers who could not believe that I was sold a ticket for it, even them who spoke the langue had a hard time managing to wrangle one as they where foreign. I had to go to two ticket counters to be offered it in Georgia. It is also generally safer as a woman traveling alone, because it’s less likely that someone will attack you in a train full of nosey grandmothers, rather then a small compartment like in 1st or 2nd class. 

When I got to the train platform I was greeted by my train car captain, if you will who, I quickly learned only spoke Russian, no Georgian, which I continued to use when speaking to him for the whole ride. I didn't care if he didn't know what I was saying by speaking Georgian, someone around my would and translate. He showed me to my bed and asked to see my passport. He was so pleased to see that I was an American he pinched my cheek and came back a short while later with some warm pear Fanta to share with me. (Yummy! nothing like warm soda!) I suspected he was a little drunk, but I could have been wrong. My cabin partner was a 21 year-old Georgian boy who scoffed when I told him I was from the Lagodekhi region. Apparently he had, had a bad football (soccer) match with them a while back. In spite of that we got along quite well, talking a little in Georgian and he even tried to share his hotdogs with me that he dipped in sour cream. I declined those, oddly enough some ended up on the floor. We also shared a huge dislike for the fact that our window could not open, due to the massive boxes of apples on the bunks above our beds that were blocking them. Apparently to offset the fact that not many people travel from Georgia to Armenia, they pack the train full of produce and other things like bricks of sugar. (Or at least I believe it was sugar and not cocaine.) We also made fun of our captain in Georgian because he couldn't understand!

Train compartment with apples

We road for a few hours, me talking on the phone and watching the newest Nurse Jackie and some Portlandia, until our lovely captain told us to get out our passports. My Georgian friend took mine when I put it on the table and examined all of my stamps. I told him of my love of Lviv when he saw all of the ones for Ukraine. He told me that he would like to have an American passport. Well, yes, wouldn’t we all Georgie?   The Georgian border guards came and collected them all and gave them back about an hour later with fresh stamps. We rode on for about another 45 minuets, until we got to the Armenian border crossing. (Why it takes that long, we may never know.) 

Before the train stopped the captain came to collect me, because I had to leave the train to get off and get a visa, being American. We stood by the door, waiting for the train to stop. He smoked a cigarette, while asking where I was from and touching my color tattoo. (I’ve gotten use to that this past six months. No female here has a tattoo, let alone a color one.)  When we stopped a solider escorted me the length of the train, where we met up with a few other travelers from Italy, Greece, and Holland who had opted to the 1st and 2nd class accommodations. We were taken into a small brightly lit, room where I tried to fight off sleep as it was close to midnight. I filled out a form about where I was going in Armenia and for how long. All the usual paper work. I did make a few mistakes that I crossed out, hoping they wouldn’t make me start all over again. I just wanted to sleep. They processed the people from Netherlands and the Greek. When it was my turn the guard started trying in my information and the captain showed up. He started yelling in Russian about me having a Georgian passport and they shouldn’t be holding me this long. I should have been done by now. I looked at the guard shocked, and told him that I live in Georgia, working as a teacher, but under no circumstances do I have a Georgian passport. I was an American and that was the only passport I have ever had. They understood that my dear captain was mistaken, and shuffled him out of the room. The Italian just looked at me and asked what the hell had just happened. I shrugged and said he was crazy or drunk. I was then asked to pay 3000 dram ($8) and I asked if I could pay in American. The bored guard then decided to have some fun with me and tell me that I could only pay in Armenian money. I am sure I looked like I was going to cry, because then he told me that I could pay with it. I only had $20, so I paid for the Italian too and he gave me Armenian money back. I was given a visa sticker, that was printed out on a computer printer and lead into a second room, that apparently no one else had to go to, where due to my bad eye sight I could not see what was being done on the computer. I am going to thank the captain for this. I am sure they were checking that there was no way I had ever had another passport. (If anyone wants to give me an EU one I wouldn’t say no, but seriously, seriously Georgian? What would I ever use that for?)  

Mhaha! They gave it to me!

I was escorted from the room and told I could go back on the train. When I got on, it looked like a war zone. The customs agents had torn the place up looking for contraband. When I got back to my compartment, I found my counter part with his empty duffle bag, stuffing all of his football gear back into it. (He was on his way to Armenia to play.) Panicking I looked to see if they had touched my bag, my friend shook his head, they hadn’t. All they would have found anyways was some clothes, my laptop, make up, and some odds and ends. I just don’t like people touching my stuff without me present. They did however go into my carryon food bag and they touched my crackers. Bastards. (Still going to eat them!) Everyone in the train looked a little shaken and annoyed. I decided to go to bed. I didn’t care if they were still on the train, I wanted to go to bed and they could wake me up if they had any questions. 

I tossed and turned all night on the hard bed. I woke up at sometime near dawn to a woman crouched down by my bag. I started to freakout, but then she pulled out what I think was a pack of diapers, that she had hidden from the customs agents in a corner for whatever reason. I didn’t care about her illegal activities, I just wanted to get some more sleep. 

I was happy when the train ride ended a few hours later, finally in Yerevan and very ready to start my summer vacation. Even though it was another crazy night train ride, they always seem to be the most memorable. Whether it be one from Hamburg to Amsterdam where I trick a Swede into thinking that I had never had salt licorice before so he gives me some to see my reaction, or from Lviv to Budapest crying my eyes out in between border checks (did I really need to show you my pack and a half of cigarettes? Not going to let that go.), or having my best friend wake up to find me drunk off of six shots of vodka for breakfast and thinking we should skip putting me on my plane back to America and go fishing with a man in his village in Ukraine instead, on a ride from Lviv to Kiev. My life is far from conventional, but it is highly enjoyable. The real question is how I will fare during my time in Armenia and for that you will have to wait to find out...

I looked so happy with my Ukrainian friend who wanted to take me fishing!

Border Lands

I was out to dinner with friends in Lviv, Ukraine when I checked my e-mail and found out that my new village in Georgia would be Tamariani. I quickly Google mapped it and my first thoughts were, I’ve complained so much about not having a real toilet that they have stuck me in Azerbaijan! By the looks of it, it looked like I was only two or three kilometers away. Since arriving back in Georgia I had been thinking about walking and looking for the boarder for a few weeks and over the weekend when I was in Tbilisi I was talking to some other volunteers. I told them where I lived that that I was basically in Azerbaijan. All of them wanted to know know what the boarder looked like and I had to give them the bad news that I still hadn’t been there yet.

On Monday it was a really warm, sunny spring day. I decided that I might as well try to find the broader and see if it was really that close. I walked through my village talking to a fellow volunteer on the phone about the past weekend and I came across a group of students and waved hello and kept on walking. I reached the end of the village and I had made it to a field. Out of no where my fourth grade shadow came running and screaming towards me, like she always does when I think I am lost and then walks me home. I sighed and looked down at her and tried to reason with her that I was not going to fallow her back to my house today, I was going for my walk. My Georgian is still really, really bad, but her English is worse. A few other students showed up and one was an 11th grader who has a decent grasp on the langue and I explained that I was going for a walk. It appeared that my shadow was not going to take no for an answer and if I wouldn’t turn around she was going to stay with me. We walked in a barren corn field and I started speaking to her in English, it was better then talking to myself and I might as well be good company. I asked her if she was going to fallow me back to America too and she said yes. I laughed because I know she has no idea what I said, but I can picture her really trying to run after my car when I go back to America crying that I am leaving her. I suppose I could adopt her, but I’m getting ahead of myself.

As we walked, we went over the alphabet and numbers up to ten. I felt like we were making progress on our English. Every once in a while she would point back to the village and say that we should go back. I would say no and that she could go back. She acted like she was going back a few times, to see if I would fallow, but she quickly caught on that I would not fall for that game. 

We came to a four way intersection of dirt roads, one was the road we came on, one road went over a bridge, one road lead back to town, and the other road went along a river. I went with the last one. I told my shadow that I was looking for Azerbaijan and pointed in the direction that we were heading in and she told me that I had it all wrong, that Tbilisi was that way. I told her I had looked it up on Google maps and I had been to Tbilisi the past weekend and I knew it was the other way. We walked along the river and stopped at one point to take a few photos. On our other side was a field with horses and I asked if we should go ride them. She shook her head no. (Swear to God this child knows English, but pretends not to just to annoy me.)

I saw two men approaching in the distance and assumed they were the farmers who owned the field and I didn’t want to be rude so I walked towards them. The closer I got, it became clear that they were in fact soldiers. Soldiers with big automatic weapons and binoculars. Oh shit.

They came up and said a curt hello and it became apparent quite fast that they didn’t know English and well my Georgian is again, crap. They tried asking what we were doing here and thank god my shadow started talking a bit. I used my crap Georgian to tell my student to tell them that I was her teacher, we were just going for a walk and taking photos. (It’s funny, but kids seem to understand me better. Adults just don’t listen.) They asked “Document?” I pulled out my cellphone and iPod and was like “no document, I was just going for a walk.” One pulled out his walkie talkie and the younger one pulled out his cell phone. They told us to wait there. There was some conversation and I kind of stood around kicking the dirt with my boots and looking up into the bright sun, thinking can we go yet? I turned on my camera and started to take a photo of my shadow and they said no photos and made me show them the ones I already had. I flipped threw a few and then realized I still had ones of me being silly to have a profile pictures with my new glasses on so I stopped. I was happy to see that they didn’t care, that I didn’t show them all to them. 

I pulled out my phone and called my co-teacher, like she said to do if I ever needed help, and handed it to one of the guys. He handed it back to me and she said, “Emily, listen, you are on the boarder lands. You should not be there. You see the river? Half that river is Georgia, half the river is Azerbaijan. You must stay there until the commander comes in 10 or 15 minuets. Ok, Emily?” The border lands? Where the hell is the “Welcome to Azerbaijan” sign? Shouldn’t there be a fence?

The soldiers just kind of stood around smoking cigarettes, the younger one kept playing with his cell phone. I stood around a little bit more, but I felt a little stupid so I just sat down on the ground and picked at the grass. My shadow was unfazed by the whole thing and was playing with a thorny plant, pulling it apart. The young soldier asked my name and I asked his and he laughed when I said it wrong. It was clear this conversation was going no where.

In the distance we saw dust and a pickup truck speeding towards us. A middle aged man got out and I was relieved that he spoke decent English, at least it was good enough to interrogate me. He again asked for my documentation and I explained that I had just been going for a walk and was unaware I had stepped into the “Border Lands.” He asked my name, nationality, what I was doing in Georgian, when I came and when I was leaving. He didn’t badger me and could see that I was indeed a harmless American. He told us that he would drive us out of the “Border Lands,” even though I was sure we could walk the 500 meters there ourselves. When we reached the edge he said he could drive us home and I said that would not be necessary, I did not want my host family freaking out. We were greeted by a handful of my students when we got out of the truck. One girl gave me flowers, a welcome back to Georgia present I can only assume.

I walked my shadow home for once and headed on to my own house. When I got there my host family was sitting outside talking to a neighbor and I thought, yes they have no idea. I stopped at the picnic table to say hello and they said they had received an interesting phone call from the sheriff. My host dad asked if the army was good. I said yes. My host mom made a gesture that said she knew she should be mad at me, but found the whole thing really hilarious. 

Two days later my host family is still making fun of me every chance they get. I go along with it. I understand I am entertainment for these people. I wasn’t harmed in anyway and I am sure that if I spoke half decent Georgian I would have gotten a date from that solider. I also thought about baking them cupcakes and bringing them to them as a thank you for not killing me, but I am living in Georgia and the closest grocery story is two hours away in Tbilisi, because you know I can’t make cupcakes from scratch. I also would have to go back to the “Border Lands” to deliver them and I don’t want to do that anytime soon. I am however really tempted to go back with a hand painted sign that says, “This Is The End Of Georgia” and maybe some of that yellow cation tape and make my own fence, because really having another country a thirty minuet walk from your house isn’t all its cracked up to be.

I can see Azerbaijan from my backdoor! 

My silly photo that I didn't want the soldiers to see.