This past Saturday, Jessica and I wanted to travel to the town Dilijan, about 100km from Yerevan. Dilijan is a small town surrounded by mountains and is popular in summer with both Armenians and foreigners. It is also home to many artist studios and galleries.
The first step of our journey was confirming where we could catch the marshrutka (minibus) to Dilijan, as intercity marshrutkas depart from a dozen or so different points in the city, which makes things tricky. Jessica asked some of her colleagues at work if they knew. The answer was no, along with horror that we would even consider taking a marshrutka. “A taxi will be much warmer and more comfortable!”
We were persuaded. And at only 12,000 Armenian Drams (24 Euros) for the 100km journey, the taxi was still pretty cheap. The drive also involved some winding roads, and being prone to motion sickness, I was in those moments quite happy to be in a taxi and not in the back of a minibus.
We stayed at the Tufenkian Old Dilijan Complex. The Tufenkian company began preserving the 19th century street’s architecture in 2004, and there is now a hotel and restaurant, as well as a bakery, woodworker, and a jewellery store (but only the hotel and restaurant appeared to be open in the winter).
We both remembered reading in our guidebook about a restored portion of the old town, so we went searching for it. We found the commercial centre of the town, as well as some interesting looking houses and art galleries, but nothing that seemed like a restored old-town.
We gave up and went back to the hotel. Later, when re-reading the guidebook, we realized that the entirety of the ‘restored old-town’ was the complex where we were staying!
Since there wasn’t too much to see in Dilijan proper, we decided to visit Jukhtakvank, which is located about 7km outside the city. We didn’t have enough time to walk there and back before dark, so we got a taxi to take us to where the road ends, about a 15 minute uphill walk away from the church.
In summer I am sure this would be a pleasant walk, but the path was covered in snow, and after about five minutes my boots were full of snow and my feet were freezing. I especially felt bad for Jessica, who was only wearing running shoes!
At one point Jessica felt something pushing on the back of her leg, and turning around, was surprised to see that a dog had joined us for the walk! We didn’t hear or see it coming, but it stayed with us the rest of the time, notwithstanding a few wild runs into made into the snow banks.
We found the church, which was nothing special compared to other Armenian churches we have visited, but we were glad we made the trek. We spent a few minutes inside the church, mostly so Jessica could briefly take off her shoes and warm up her feet.
We then turned back and clambered down the hill and hopped into our awaiting taxi. Often I find Armenian taxis to overheated, but this time I was more than happy with the extreme heat, and enjoyed feeling the snow melt away from my feet in the ten minute drive back to the city.
Paul Anderson 
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