Journey to Georgia

In case you may have been wondering (worrying?), your humble correspondent eventually decided against forgoing the daily stresses of life as a trainee in the litigation department of Teacher Stern LLP for two weeks in a war zone.

Having checked the Foreign Office’s website on the morning of my flight, I felt reasonably confident that the uneasy truce between Russia and Georgia would hold sway for the duration of my trip.

These hopes were, however, utterly shattered when later that same day, in the departure lounge at Heathrow, I found myself gazing in utter amazement at wall-to-wall coverage of Russian tanks rolling into the breakaway region of South Ossetia.

Understandably, I boarded the plane in a most despondent mood. Dodging mortar fire was not how I had imagined spending my two weeks of annual leave. Nevertheless, I was at least thankful that my outbound flight was via Vienna rather than direct to Tbilisi.

On landing at Vienna, I was initially given the option of either waiting to continue onto Tbilisi or returning back to London immediately, and having my ticket refunded. Rather than putting my life at unnecessary risk or heading home defeated, I decided instead to avail of Austrian Airlines subsequent offer of an alternative destination.

Unfortunately, given the lateness of the hour, the only flights then available were to Yerevan in Armenia and Nicosia in Cyprus. Having already been denied entry into one region of the Caucasus due to the outbreak of war, I decided for some unknown reason to tempt fate by journeying to another less hostile part. 

My arrival in Yerevan was anything but pleasant. Imagine, if you will, the following scene:

Having condensed an entire day’s work into half-a-day, you embark on a flight from Heathrow at 4.00pm. You then arrive in Vienna at 7.00pm and wait for 3 hours to find out whether or not your plane will depart for Tbilisi. In the interim, you determine to pre-empt any decision on the part of Austrian Airlines by choosing instead to fly to Armenia. You depart Vienna at 11.30pm and arrive in Yerevan at 6.00am, on the following day.

Disembarking the plane you are informed by Austrian Airlines for the first time that you will need to purchase a tourist visa. Not having any local currency you are obliged to exchange 100EUR into Armenian DRM at an exorbitant rate. You then queue for over an hour in order to be issued with the said tourist visa.

Once at the front of the queue the man behind the counter informs you that must pay him 15,000DRM. You draw his attention to the fact that the visa application form explicitly states 10,000DRM. He smiles and tells you once again to pay him 15,000DRM. Reason and logic being of little use, you agree to pay the man 15,000DRM.

You then queue for more than two hours to get beyond passport control – the sole purpose of which is to satisfy a similarly, stern-faced apparatchik that the visa you have just been issued with by his comrade is valid! “Romantic Ireland” may, as WB Yeats observed in September 1913, be “dead and gone [and] with O’Leary, in the grave”; Stalin’s dream of Kafkaesque bureaucracy, however, is seemingly ‘alive and kicking’ and living in this former soviet state.

After three hours, having finally overcome the trials and tribulations of visa / passport control, you are then amazed to find that the entire flight’s luggage has been strewn in an unseemly pile on the floor of the arrival lounge. Sifting through the mess, you slowly realize to your increasing horror that your own bags have either been lost or stolen. On being informed of your grim predicament, a female member of staff turns to you and laughs: “Welcome to Armenia!”

Welcome indeed…