From all of us to all of you...

The holiday season is upon us, and everyone involved with ISFiT are preparing for a well-deserved Christmas break. But before we do that, we have a special gift that we'd like to share with all our readers:

The Festival Blog will return in January, but until then, happy holidays everyone! 

The Dialogue Groups presents: Armenia & Azerbaijan, part 3!

Saturday 27.10.12

In Yerevan we stayed with the Norwegian honorary consul Tim, a very industrious man with a lot of projects going on. He works mainly in Yerevan with employing women in the rural regions around Yerevan. Tim was our greatest resource during our stay in Yerevan, not only providing us his home where we stayed, but also sharing some of his great experiences, insight and knowledge about the Caucasus region.

Our man, Timothy.

This day consisted mainly of interviews. As we finished the interviews, Even and I agreed that it seemed like we would have the same problem here as in Baku: too many good candidates. Interviewing is fun, especially when you are interviewing so many interesting and smart students.

We had time for a quick rest at Tim’s before we joined our friend Lusine for a proper Armenian family dinner at her parents place. According to the clock, we dined for five hours; it felt like it lasted only one. I would take that as a sign that we were having a good time. It was exactly what you would imagine a traditional family dinner to be. Great company with the parents, grandmother, sister in law and her two daughters and us.

The food was extremely good; I think “dolma" is my new favourite dish. After dinner and some cakes that were simply too delicious, we had entertainment organized by the two little ones. Dancing and singing with great talent surely took its toll, and soon after they started the girls were exhausted and got put to bed. I really wish I knew Russian—it was easy to see that Lusine’s grandmother and parents had a lot of good stories to tell, especially the grandmother who used to be a journalist during the Soviet era. We handed over a bottle of Norwegian aquavit before leaving and gave them our greatest thanks for a very entertaining evening. Their hospitality was amazing and we had a great time. We continued the dancing at some bar and we might have gotten use of the steps we learned from the two sisters at the family dinner.

Eating chocolate at a chocolate shop.

Sunday 28.10.12

This day we finish up the interviews early, something that suited us well—the nightlife of Yerevan had made its impact on us. Ane left us sometime during the morning because of her work the next day. To be honest not much more happened this day; we had a rest, dined, and hung out with Tim at a really good bar called Eden. 

Monday 29.10.12

Our last day together, and a day full of surprises. This was also the big day of sightseeing. Yerevan actually offers a lot of sights and is characterized by the huge and old Soviet monuments. We went up the stairs of the national gallery, a really cool installation with a lot of different art at each floor. This was also the time and place where we realized how close Turkey is, and that Yerevan has a perfect view over Mount Ararat. The scenery was stunning; I can’t believe that we did not see that before! As we moved up the stairs, more and more of the city was revealed, and the huge monument Mother Armenia got ever closer. We parted with Beate and Even and I headed for the huge statue.

The view over the city, with mount Ararat in the background.

Mother Armenia

Later that night we went to see the sunset, and we barely missed it.

Yes, we took a ride on that, and I don't think any of us will consider to do it again!

 I wish I had more time to stay in both Armenia and Azerbaijan.

The Dialogue Groups presents: Armenia & Azerbaijan, part 2!

Wednesday 24.10.12

Tired as hell after literally no sleep the last couple of days, we got up early and took a taxi to the bus station. It turned out that we were too late for the morning bus, and would have to wait for the afternoon departure. Luckily, there was a döner shop nearby. Our time in Baku being over, the consensus was that all of us wanted to return some time. We had a blast!

Waiting for the bus.

After two funny, but disturbingly weird Turkish movies, a lot of Balkan music and nice chats with the people on the bus, we arrived at the border to Georgia. They told us at the station that our bus didn’t go to Tblisi. Shit. Our new friends from the bus told us that we could hitchhike with a bus going to Istanbul through Tbilisi—perfect! We had been told that the people here are very friendly and they truly are. We got past the border without problems and got on the bus we had been told about. We wondered if we could get to Tbilisi without paying more money. On the bus we were greeted by the uncle and nephew who drove the bus telling us “problem no, money yes”. We chatted with them all the way to Tbilisi and when we jumped off the bus we handed over some of the chocolate we had brought from Norway. That did the trick.

Barbecue on the way to Tbilisi.

Thursday 25.10.12

We only had a few hours of sleep before we returned to the bus station in Tbilisi where we had been dropped off the night before. Our plan was to take a “Babushka” to Yerevan, a trip that would take no more than six hours. We ended up taking a taxi. The taxi took us through the beautiful surroundings and nature of Georgia and Armenia. Our driver, a huge man by all standards and by far the scariest person we had met on the trip so far, smoked a number of cigarettes during the trip to Yerevan—probably close to the amount of words in this blog. As you can hear in the video, this habit had definitely stained his voice.

The voice from Philip Solvang Wright on Vimeo.

We finally arrive in Yerevan, exhausted and hungry. Here we consume a proper English breakfast just in time for the arrival of Beate.

Beate is greeted.

After some practicalities, we went to the nearest and best car rental and got ourselves a car. Now, I am extremely happy that we did not go for the Lada, but more on this later. We also got a GPS (just in case) and got in our Toyota Matrix, this time heading for Stepanakert, Nagorno Karabakh.

As mentioned earlier, the nature was absolutely stunning, but the dark night was approaching quickly and we were still some hours away from our destination. The drive was really challenging, not only because of the pretty bad roads, but also due to the fact that most of the other cars had really bad drivers; some of them even drove without lights! To top it off, every time we passed a police car it put on its sirens and lights and pulled some random car off the road, and that happened a lot! After a short stop at the border sharing some pomegranates with some guards, and after a bit more than an hour in the car we were finally at Stepanakert. We checked in at a hotel and met up with Marut, a local friend that was in the Dialogue Groups back in 2011. As we were mighty hungry he took us to a restaurant where we got ourselves a proper meal.

Friday 26.10.12

Finally, a full night’s sleep! We met up with Marut again after a big breakfast and joined him at his office. He is working for an NGO called Stepanakert Press Club, an independent magazine publishing articles in cooperation with journalists from both Georgia and Azerbaijan. Later, we visited the museum of fallen soldiers of the Nagorno-Karabakh war. All the walls in all the rooms were filled with faces of the soldiers who perished on the Armenian side. We noted that some of the soldiers were under the age of 18 when they died. Upon leaving we were handed a notebook each, covered in pictures of military effects and soldiers. We wondered if these are the notebooks that are handed out in the schools as well.

           

The walls inside the museum.

Marut and Even in front of Stepanakert Press Club.

Even and Beate in front of the University of Stepanakert.

The clock was ticking and as the designated driver, I was not too eager to drive much in the dark. We rushed to our interviews, finished them, said goodbye to Marut and his very helpful French-speaking friend and drove off. A few kilometres from Stepanakert lies Shushi, an ancient and strategically placed city on the top of a ridge. We drove through the city and saw among other things a very impressive church. Although we still had some daylight, there was no time to stop for sightseeing. However, we managed to get some snapshots through the windows of the car.

At last, we arrived at the trip's final destination. First of all I would like to personally thank the people who invented the GPS—without it we would either be somewhere in Iran or still driving one of the many roundabouts in the city centre of Yerevan.

Part three, which is the final part of this story, will be published on Friday the 7th of December.

The Dialogue Groups presents: Armenia & Azerbaijan, part 1!

The ISFiT 2013 Dialogue Groups travelled to Armenia and Azerbaijan last October, and they have written about their journey. This story will come in three parts. Part two will be published on Wednesday the 5th of December, and part three on Friday the 7th of December.

Part 1

Monday 23.10.12

I came to Baku after a long trip from Norway through Moscow, and to be honest, I didn’t get much sleep. It didn’t matter; I was there and ready to start the interviews. I met up with my friends at the hotel, had a quick shower, and off we went.

Even in front of Khazar University

We had arranged for a room at a downtown university and after some well spent time finding the centre of the city (none of the taxi drivers we met during the trip knew English or how to read a map), we were finally there, at Khazar University. We met with the Dean, and he took us quickly to the room we were to use for the interviews. There must have been some kind of misconception—we were going to interview a lot of people, but not all at the same time.

The room where the interviews were held

The interviews went really well; we were very impressed by the students and our expectations for the seminar at Røros grew considerably. On our way home, after the interviews, we decided to take our chances with the metro. This old colossus from the Soviet era lies beneath all the big and modern buildings of Baku. The fact that it probably took us three times longer to get back—partly due to our own incompetence for not bringing a map – didn’t matter that much when we had so much to look at.

The trip back to the hotel had made us hungry and after a short rest it was time to try some Azeri food. A quick look in the Lonely Planet guide directed us to a cosy and cheap restaurant in the city centre.

Even gazing at the menu

As experts in drinking beer, we must say that the local one was very tasty!

I really don't remember the name of the dish I had, but it was delicious.

Before bedtime, we had tea, dried fruits, nuts, and a shisha at a traditional teahouse in the beautiful old city.

Ane in front of one of the many fountains in Baku.

Although we walked through many dark alleys, we never felt unsafe in this city.

The wall surrounding the old city.

Shisha after the tea.

Tuesday 23.10.12

Even and I got up early to do the rest of the interviews while Ane went out for some meetings. We didn’t have that many interviews planned so in our break we sat down at the university café and had a coffee with some local students. We had a great time and suddenly our break was up—it is amazing how quickly two hours can pass. We finished the interviews, handed over some chocolate to the Dean and took off to ISR Plaza where we were going to have a meeting with the Consul of the Norwegian Embassy. Luckily there was time for a quick döner on the way.

The meeting was excellent and gave us a lot of new information and contact with people who fight for human rights in Azerbaijan. The intern at the embassy, Hedvig, was especially helpful.  After the meeting, we dashed back to the hotel repeating the same routine from the day before, a quick rest and then out to eat. After dinner we met up with Hedvig and her friends at a bar in the city centre. We wished we had met her friends before because they gave us some valuable insight and information. They were from Azerbaijan, Canada, Latvia, Poland and Turkmenistan, and were great people to hang out with. By the way, did you know that apart from being the second most closed country in the world after North Korea, Turkmenistan has its own carpet minister?

Stay tuned for part 2 of the journey, which will be published on Wednesday the 5th of December!