Railway Station, Yerevan, Republic of Armenia © Onnik Krikorian / Oneworld Multimedia 2007

It’s all a little quiet for me in terms of work at the moment, but rather than just find myself out almost every night drinking with friends until the early hours like I did last week, I thought I’d start to do something a little more constructive. Basically, I decided to update my photos of Yerevan with newer shots as well as make a few return visits to children’s institutions I haven’t been to for something like a year now.

First stop on my photographic return visit today was Yerevan’s Central Railway Station which I think many tourists seldom visit. That’s a pity because it’s quite an interesting place for people watching and the interior architecture is magnificent, in my opinion. It’s unfortunately better known for being the location where Soviet troops shot six people to death in 1990.

And although I do remember an short article in The Times newspaper in England listing it among the top ten most architecturally interesting railway stations in the world, there’s little information available on it on the Internet. Indeed, all I really managed to find was a passing reference to it from an old Soviet guide reproduced on Cilicia.com, and even then that information is really only about the metro station underneath.

Its one of two ground stations of the Yerevan Metro. The moving staircase descends you into a wonderful entrance hall, decorated with bas-reliefs, subjecting ancient Armenian heroic epic “David Sasuntsi”. Through the underground passages under the railway platform, one can approach the railway station of the city with a square adjoining it. In the middle of the square there stands a grand monument to the hero of the epic David Sasuntsi (author–E. Kotchar). The building of the railway–station is the visit-card of the whole ensemble. For a tourist who is on visit to Yerevan there is always a chance to get photoed at the monument.

Nowadays, the square is turned into a large construction site: a cornfortable hotel with capacity of 500 living rooms is in the stage of finishing and its going to be one of the main elements of the whole ensemble of buildings situated in the square. To the left from the square goes the Hoktemberian Avenue, linking it with Lenin Square, to the right–Bakvi street, leading to an ancient fortress–Erebuni.

Unfortunately, the sun was behind the station when I arrived this afternoon and so I couldn’t get any shots of the building from outside without it flaring in my lens so I instead hung out inside and spent about 40 minutes wondering what it must have been like in its heyday. With the railway line to Iran now nonoperational because it goes through the exclave of Nakhichevan, and with no trains going to Baku (both for obvious reasons), there are few passengers.

But there are some — from the grandmother traveling with her grandson back to their home in Ararat the cheapest way possible. It was also the place for an unexpected reunion as the woman selling snacks to the two dozen odd people waiting at the station recognized the grandmother as an old friend. Among the local market traders who appear to be using the train as the best way to transport their goods to Yerevan, two Yezidi women were also waiting to return home to Armavir.

And, of course, there are still albeit slow trains to Tbilisi and Batumi. Indeed, I think Thomas from Follow The Way took the train to the Georgian capital last week and has just returned. So, if you’re reading this and have the time, Thomas, it would be interesting to hear of your experience riding that journey. As I’ve only flown or traveled by road to Tbilisi, I should probably consider the train next time. Not for convenience or speed, of course, but just for the experience.

The Yerevan Guide produced by self-confessed Armenophile Rick Ney and Armenia Now, and which is available for download in PDF format, has more information on the routes offered from the train station, when the trains go, and how much the journeys cost.

Railway Station, Yerevan, Republic of Armenia © Onnik Krikorian / Oneworld Multimedia 2007