Driving to Armenia - Tbilisi to Yerevan

The road out of Tbilisi followed the river as it flowed east and then split, one way to Baku, and Azerbaijan, and the other, south, to Yerevan, and Armenia.  Road signs listed faraway places only so far imagined.  Fantastic.

Leaving Tbilisi, there were miles of blocks of flats in the Soviet style, but you could see enterprise and hope in Georgia.  Good standard roads and towns on the outskirts of the city, for example, had shiny, new, police stations.  Someone is certainly putting money in - the US taxpayer most likely.

To cross into Armenia, we had to get out of the car and queue, so the official in the office, who we could not actually see, could check through an open panel in his sliding window that we matched our passports.  There were a few people hanging about, and the building could have done with a lick of paint.  Contrast with the Georgian border post, all glass and new, built, I saw, by the US.

First stop in Armenia

At the border crossing, there were only a few people crossing into Armenia, even fewer vehicles.  No queues of trucks waiting to cross that you might see at other countries' borders.  There were no big towns near the border but the dearth of economic activity served to emphasise Armenia's isolation.  And, my word, it was freezing.

There were two things I wanted to see between the border and Yerevan - Mount Aragats, to the west, and Lake Sevan, north of Yerevan.  I wanted to go in one way and out the other so we would see as much of Armenia as we could.  At the point of choosing, the driver asked "Sevan" or "Spitak".  The Sevan road looked poor so the choice was Spitak.

We would be crossing the Lower Caucasus range - not the intimidating scale of the peaks around Kazbegi but more cliffs and gorges, the first being one of the most spectacular, the Debed Canyon, running along the Debed river.

As we progressed, occasionally seeing vultures and other birds of prey, it was clear that March was not quite the best time, overcast as it was.  A railway ran alongside the road though, as John Green pointed out, we never actually saw anything moving on it.

Most of the towns on this road seemed to be post-Soviet industrial hell-holes.  The Russians, obviously not daft, seem to have used the satellite lands they held under the old Communist era to put their chemical works and whatever else needed hiding.








Allaverdy sat in a bowl, surrounded by mountains and had a sprawling works at the base of the valley.  A huge pipe lead hundreds of feet up the side of the mountain where a chimney belched out noxious smoke.  At least the pipe was there taking the smoke out of the valley where the people actually live.  There was a huge cable car going from the road level, across the valley, up to the crest of the hill, presumably for taking the workers up.  This was where the road started to climb and, oh dear, oh dear, oh dear, the first snow flakes appeared.

As we climbed the snow got worse.  My visions of a roadside bar, a coffee, beer, barbecued pork lunch, maybe a riverside and sun, evaporated unmentioned.  Still climbing, the snow now being blown across the road like sand, less and less traffic, as mutterings from the Doc in the front grew.  The heavy grey snow clouds gave a foreboding feeling.  Each town we passed through was similarly grim - endless disused works made of concrete, windows long smashed and roofs gone, along with anything of value, and featureless blocks for the workers.  The only obvious source of work was motor repairs.

Despite the weather, a lot of the flats had their washing, sheets and blankets hanging out.  A depressing job pulling those back in would be.

The snow was now heavy.  Sometimes, we could not even see the road and could only drive based on the line the traffic coming towards was taking.  John Doc suggested turning back, but there was no guarantee it would not be worse behind us so we pressed on, passed Spitak, and through the Pambak Mountains, crossing what we hoped was the highest pass on the road, about 7,000 feet.   

"Remind me.  Why didn't we go to Tenerife ?"

Mount Aragats was on our right.  Somewhere.  Probably.  All we could see was white and no idea of how far we could actually see.  I do not doubt my story does not do this side of Armenia justice whatsoever.

I am sure we missed stunning views, mountains, gorges, ancient churches and whatever else the country has to offer.  We managed to drive by a 13,000 foot mountain without seeing it so please accept my apologies.


The journey was supposed to take five hours and we eventually reached the outskirts of Yerevan after nearly seven hours.  There were huge signs advertising its' hosting of the Junior Eurovision Song Contest.  The Doc surprised us by explaining how the Eurovision is another massive bevvy session, where people go every year, meeting old friends from other Eurovisions, going to out of the way places across Europe.  Sounds great.    A Scotland trip by any other name.

I wondered if you get the Eurovision equivalent of Dave's, groundhoppers who can outdo each other with their exploits, how many successive Eurovisions they have attended and so on.

Yerevan.  We had arrived.  It was snowing and we were in need of a beer.  And I was hungry.