To Kaler! - Դեպի Կալեր

I headed up to the mountain village of Kaler (pronounced Kah-lehr) on a Thursday afternoon to see my good friend Karen for the last time. Thanks to Armen, a man I know from Lehvaz who goes back and forth from Lehvaz up to the mountains often, I got a free ride up. I suppose first off, I should mention that Kaler is situated in a particularly far out, cut-off, way up in the mountains type of area. If you look at a map, and then see where Kaler is, you wonder how on earth a village can thrive there. It’s in the middle of all kinds of mountains, way out from the main highway or any major hub. Despite this, Kaler has been around for a long time, and people go up to live there every year during the summertime. It’s so high up and cold in the winter that everyone abandons the place in the fall.

My friend Karen had taken his hundred or so goats up there for the summer to graze. Apparently the grass up there is good for them or something, plus Karen just loves the mountains, so he moved up there with his family in June. Not wanting to miss out on seeing Karen one last time before I left, and also just wanting to see what this mountain village was like, I decided to head up on August 1^st to celebrate his daughter Tsovinar’s birthday with them.

I rode in the back seat of Armen’s 20 year old, beige Lada Niva with a grandmother and her grandson in the front seat and Armen’s son, Raffik, in the backseat with me. Apparently it was common for him to take passengers to and from the mountains, since people had long since found out that he went back and forth often, and not many Levhaz folk have a car of their own. We turned right off the main road just before a bridge that crosses the Meghri river, and the road right away became noticeably rougher, essentially consisting of a narrow mix of gravel and potholes. We started winding upwards quickly, one hairpin switchback after another, for about 40 minutes. Finally we reached a small village, or hamlet I guess, looking like it consisted of no more than 15 structures, called Vank (translates to “monastery” in English, although I saw no monastery in the immediate surroundings). After Vank we headed up another set of switchbacks for some 15 minutes until finally reaching the high-altitude limits of Kaler. Before entering the village proper, I was dropped off near a small trail that led into the woods, where Karen and his family were already celebrating Tsovinar’s birthday. I headed down the trail and soon found myself in a clearing where Tsovinar and her friend Ani were playing around. They showed me where the rest of the family was, just a little bit further down the path. At the scene of the party/khorovats, I was first greeted by Tsovinar’s grandmother, Varsenik, who gave me a hug and then kissed me profusely on both cheeks before I could finally break free and head toward the table where Karen and the rest of the celebrants were inviting me eagerly. I gave a modest donation of plums from the garden in front of my house to Karen’s wife, Hermine, to add to the well laid out table that already included tons of fruit as well as lamb khorovats and goat cheese, all of which was fresh from right here in Kaler, I was sure. Food and vodka was pushed on me so fast that I didn’t really even have time to introduce myself to Karen and Hermine’s extended relatives at the table. It turned out that I was a bit late, and as one of the brother-in-laws I had just met put it “I had some catching up to do.” Karen was delighted I had arrived, and was in a particularly jovial mood, even for him. I waded through the usual conversation with new acquaintances about who I was and what I was doing in Armenia in between bites of khorovats and toasts to little Tsovinar (she was turning 10), and to all children, to their health, to their well-being, and to their parents, etc. (I don’t know if I’ve mentioned before but Armenian toasts tend to be quite long winded). I sat through it all happily. I guess it’s a sign that I’ve become pretty integrated that neither the rapid string of blunt, personal questions directed at me by Karen’s relatives nor the excessive amount of toasts fazed me in the least. In fact, I said a few toasts of my own, mostly just to “friendship,” and that it’s really a pleasure to meet all these great people (one of my go-to toasts at this point).

After feasting out in the woods like this for an hour or so, we started packing up to head back to the house. Most of the family rode up in a car, while Karen and I rode up on horseback. I wasn’t expecting this, and I guess Karen had figured that it would be something I’d never forget. He was right. The view as we rode the 10 minutes or so up to the village was stunning, with mountains rolling down below us in deep valleys and cliffs as far as the eye could see. 

Back at Karen’s house, we had coffee, and I hung out with the kids taking pictures and collecting my nerves after the horse riding while Karen went to gather his goats back to the barn for the night. I gave Tsovinar a small present, which mostly consisted of the last of some cheap American dollar-store toys that my parents had sent me to give out as gifts a while back, as well as a nice notebook and pen to encourage her to keep working hard at school even after “Mr. Tom” was gone. Karen came back an hour or so later, and we did another round of feasting. Before I knew it the kids had all gone to bed and it was just me, Karen, and his father-in-law still at the table. Karen was trying to teach me Armenian Army songs, which I was trying to repeat with flagging enthusiasm. Soon enough we decided to call it a night. I had been ready to sleep for a while, and I rolled out my sleeping bag and was out in seconds.

Below are some pictures of me, Karen, and family:

Karen and I sipping coffee

Karen's son, Rasmik

Tsovinar the birthday girl (right tree) and her friend Ani (left tree)

Grandma Varsenik, Tsovinar, and Ani 

I woke up early and wasn’t able to get back to sleep. When I say “early,” I mean around 7 am, but Karen and Hermine had apparently long since gotten up, had their morning coffee, and taken the flock out into the fields. Seeing neither of them around and realizing that none of the kids had woken up yet, I decided to walk around and take some pictures of the village. Eventually I spotted Karen in his usual black garb out in the fields across a valley, and headed that way. I passed an old abandoned church, and an old abandoned school (like most villages in the area, Kaler used to have a much bigger population than it does now), crossed a small brook, and found Karen tending to a handful of baby goats big enough to get around on their own but still requiring special attention. The rest of the flock, and Karen’s dogs, “Kotin and Gailuk,” were somewhere farther out not in sight. I chatted with Karen for a while, assured him that this was very likely the last time we would see each other (that reality still didn’t seem to be sinking in with him), and finally gave him a big hug and headed back to the house. Hermine was back and waiting for me with coffee and cake, which I devoured, as well as some things for me to take back with me as a going away gift: three kinds of wild mountain flowers that Armenians use in tea that she had picked that morning, a few blocks of goat cheese, and a giant two liter bottle of goat’s milk which I would never be able to finish before leaving, even if I liked goat’s milk. I thanked her profusely and headed over to where Armen and his son Raffik were staying. They were already loading up the car with a gigantic jug of milk to take back to Lehvaz. We coasted down the narrow, bumpy road back to civilization, relative to Kaler, that is.  

Abandoned School 1

Kaler House

Abandoned School 2

Young goats grazing

Mountain Tea