Hardly it will be interesting to tell something about the vacationists
lives, because there is no beach in Tavush region, no wanderful bars or
restaurants, and no other new places for spending time to tell about.
I.e. there is not beach at all, and the bars and restarants are limited
with barbecues, “Shant” isecream, Fanta, Cola and uninteresting things
like that. And the market relations here are met close to a not clear
lake, which is called as “Clear Lake”, where they let you have a little
bit rest in a small bower for 5.000 dram. To the logical question, that
why 5.000 dram, they don’t answer that they clean the district and so
on. Later we found out, that all the clening work is done by a NGO
called as “Burg”. And they answered to our question, why 5.000 dram,
that they could make the price down. And to the question how much they
could make the price down, they answered, that about for 1.000 dram,
which lets us think, that the market treatment in our own nature costs
a litle bit less than ten dollars.
Actually this bower blongrf to the restaurant on the left bank
of an unclean lake, which was called as “Clean Lake”, and this 5.000
dram was a “punishment” for the people, who didn’t want to use the
restaurant services, for those, who managed to go there with their own
food. And I asked whether we had to pay if we ordered something from
them (barbecues or something like that). “No bro”,-says the businessman
of the nature,-“it is free for the clients”.
Just at the first day of my holiday I left that place with the
feeling of javing been entrapped, not even thinking about, that
somewhere else, not far from a museum, they would ask 200 dram from me
for parking the car. Thinking, that probably this is one of the 40.000
vacancies the president had promissed somehow, I paid that money, and
the inspector of that district, seeing that I worried, came up to me
and whispered, that it was cheaper for local people. I understand the
foreign armenians and the foreigners, who somehow come here, and who
already know, that tourism is a way of making money with all the
possible ways. And they not only know this, but also sometimes they
come here to teach tourism management to the villagers. Not far from
another well-known museum we wanted to buy some mint, which was for
sale on a table. I asked the price. The seller looked my family and me
very long to find out whether we were local or not. And when got
assured, that we were eastern armenians, said that the one in a plastic
bag costed 500 dram, and the other one in a cotton bag costed 1.000
dram. The cotton bag, on which they wrote “mint” in an unskilful way
and painted a flower, which was not connected with mint at all, made
the price up for more than one dollar. It turned out, that some
“instructor” passed near there, and leaving management and marketing
aside, explained to them, that mint culd be twice more expensive in a
cotton bag.
I have nothing to say, even more, I don’t want anyone to think
that I don’t like the economical relations and especially tourism, but
after the state-planned economy collapsed, I can not understand the
process of forming the prices. Even understanding the theoretical ideas
of demand and supply, I can not understand how we can pay 100-200 dram
for parking a car once, and 70-100 dram for one kilo of cucumber. And
how the price for entering a hystorical museum public art, which has
not changed anything for a century, be 1.000 dram (5*200), when you can
buy 3-4 kilos of dewberry. For those people information, who don’t know
about this, I would like to say, that though they don’t make any
efforts for this fruit growing, but it is very difficult to pick them
up and it is enough for the price to be minimum twice more.
I found a paper among the papers in that building with a circle
stamp, according to which it was stated, that each person had to pay
200 dram for enjoying the hystorical things there. 200 dram without
telling about those things, and the lady working there asked: “Do you
want me to tell about these things?” Those people who want to have a
good rest, of course, shouldn’t refuse her service, but looking at the
show plates, I didn’t understand what was this young girl gonna tell
me. The fact, that a self-tought sculptor tried to carve the monument
of Andranik, but later it turned out that it is more like Gevorg
Chaush, is clear without any explanations. That the painting of an
artist is called “Calm” doesn’t give me reasons for asking anything, as
I would ask in case of being “Silence”, “Grief”,”Misery” or something
like that. For the fact that they wrote “Plate” under the arms of the
Soviet Union carved on wood, no explanation will help. And that our
grandmothers had made thread with the instrument shown there was clear,
because we know that from our childhood from the poem of Ghazaros
Aghayan “Chakharak” (the old instrument for making thread from wool),
one of the heros of which, Tigranik (don’t dispute with the author
please), which hero had no socks and “went to the grassland without
having any socks put on”.
At the end, the worker of the museum, who hadn’t been given a
chance to explain everything there, asked the tourists, who had enjoyed
everything in the best way, go to the souvenir place close to it, which
is actually a show of earthenware. The three number prices were met
seldom there. Mainly the prices were four number prices, and actually
those earthenwares didn’t concern the hystory or the culture of that
place and would not remind them about their holiday in any way. The
young man, who was probably the author of those pieces of “art”, didn’t
wait for the moment we would burgain with him, and made the price down
himself, sometimes making the four numbers down to three numbers.
Anyway, I thought probably this was one of the 40.000 vacancies,
president had promissed. Here I bought a little ewer as a favour. The
young man took the 5.000 note and run somewhere to exchange. He
returned in half an hour. “The ten days of my holiday was lost without
any sense”,- I thought captiously, and then turning back and looking
around, I noted how beautiful our country’s.