Swedish freelancer (freelance journalist) Mats Andersson has a unique hobby. Once or twice a year, he takes a tourist group of his acquaintances-friends to Georgia and Armenia. The route mainly is as follows: landing in Tbilisi, 5-day trip to Georgia, then to Armenia, five days trip in our country and return back to Sweden from Yerevan.
Mats was the first time in Yerevan twelve years ago. I asked him how Yerevan is changed. He says that it has changed a lot. “To the best or the worst?”, I asked. “Well, how can I tell, – says Mats, – Yerevan has become a modern European city. A very nice, but a standard city. I love Yerevan very much, it’s not the matter, but over the years I’ve noticed how it is becoming more and more modern by losing the coloring. The members of my group say, well, now let’s go to see the old city, where is the old city, and I have no answer to them.”
Mats emphasizes that because of their route, willy-nilly all compared Tbilisi and Yerevan, and noting that Yerevan is more modern and developed, they notice that the coloring of Tbilisi, especially, in the last few years, renovated and new breath received Old Tbilisi, makes the city unique. “Yerevan has a very beautiful old precinct, the private houses behind the hill of Saryan street, only it needs to be renovated a little bit, and an investment, and it will become a favorite place for tourists,” says Mats.
And when I informed him that this precinct, Kond, is a territory on sale, and these old houses should be demolished, building a new one instead, Mats’s eyes became rounded surprisingly. It seemed to him that I did not understand me correctly, I repeat my words for several times, and then perplexed Mats was able to ask, why, when I explain that our government does not like any old thing, and considers any old building over ten-twenty years subject to demolition, Mats, hardly recovering his ability to talk, asks, “But, don’t they understand that it is your wealth? After all, it’s your history, it is much more expensive than any newly built building.
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All we need is to polish this precious diamond, and not to throw away because of being dusty.” I remind Mats about his visit some six or seven years ago, when the North Avenue was just being built. At that time, there was an architect and film director in his group. When we were passing along the dark and newly built constructions, but still not inhabited buildings of North Avenue, they simultaneously cried: “we seem to be in an Italian neorealizm films.” Mats is laughing and saying that now the North Avenue is not former inanimate skeleton anymore, and has got a bit of flesh and blood. “I see that young people like this district very much, it is very important that it becomes a history, a memory, and a treasure. But, to build the new one by demolishing the old one that has life and history, is incomprehensible and incredible.”
Mats says that his favorite part in Yerevan is the Republic Square. “This square is the most beautiful squares he has ever seen, and I can stay here for hours, to look at the square surrounding buildings, listen to the singing fountains,” says Swedish journalist and notes that one of the characteristics of Yerevan is the presence of numerous cafes and restaurants “and everywhere the food is very delicious.”
He also says that he does not like the appearance of standard European store networks in Yerevan: our city becomes more and more alike other European cities, but realizes that “Yerevan residents also have the right to have such stores.”
Melania BARSEGHYAN
Photo from Mats Anderson’s Facebook page
