written by Elliot D Huxtable
After an excellent night’s sleep at the Diamond Hotel (free slippers every day!) and an excessively detailed breakfast (five small plates of food each), we headed to the Yerevan State University. It was a bit of a trek, with our taxi dropping us off on the other side of the university, but thanks to my rather underutilised orienteering skills, (and a shortcut directly through the library) we made it just in time to catch Professor Anush Sedrakyan’s welcoming remarks.
The first speech, by Professor Sedrakyan, focused on the changes between tyranny in Antique times to that of Modernity. It was a fascinating insight into how Shakespeare views the tyrants of the past (e.g. Caesar or Titus Andronicus) as opposed to his more modern tyrants (such as Claudius). This was followed by Dr. Vahe Arsenyan’s piece on the depiction of Shakespeare’s tyrants on screen, with a focus on Kurosawa’s film Ran, which is a retelling of King Lear set in Feudal Japan. Well worth a watch!
We had a short coffee break (Armenian coffee is incredibly strong, and second only, in my view, to the Italian) coupled with some excellent local pastries, before our second round of talks for the day.
This was a panel discussion on the “Invention of the Human” with each lecturer talking about a different facet of human development. Dr. Amalya Soghomonyan began by talking about the corruption of power, followed by Dr. Natalie Gonchar-Khanjyan rather fascinating exploration of the effects of the plague on Shakespeare’s writings (and how recent events give us an insight into this…) before Lucille Janinyan’s finale on Artificial Intelligence - which compared some Shakspeare quotes to AI versions of the same quotes (naturally we got them all correct!).
In the afternoon, we went on a countryside sightseeing tour, taking in two beautiful monasteries deep in the Armenian hills. The first, Khor Virap, is a hilltop monastery that was the home (see: prison) of the intriguing Armenian figure, Gregory the Illuminator (he who first converted the Armenians to Christianity). The second, Noravank, is hidden away deep in a gorge, and what struck me here was the complete silence. If one stopped to listen, there was nothing to hear - a very peculiar sensation. There was no traffic, no wind, no birdsong, nothing. It is also the home of some fantastically preserved Armenian cross-stones (khachkar).
Thoroughly exhausted by this point, we were in no fit state to take a tour of the Areni winery, but not so tired to turn down a wine tasting! The white wine was the best, but the rose was more interesting - it is the only barrel aged rose in the world (or so they say) and the problem of ageing rose in a barrel had been solved by a ten year old who wrote in, and now was their main advisor (he’s in his twenties now).
Finally, we finished off the day with a beautiful traditional Armenian dinner at the Dalan art gallery (which is also a restaurant, a bizarre experience). The food is not dissimilar to barbeque and salads but the fish and meat were not burned beyond belief, and the salads were lively and creative, and came with plenty of lavash bread - delicious!
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