The well-trodden path of the 259 bus to the edge of the city marked the start of my final departure from the Armenian capital of Yerevan. My stay in this city nestled in the mountains of the south Caucasus had stretched to six months. I had no plans to hang around for that long, but life decided to weave that path. I’d enjoyed my time, but now was my moment to leave. In a few days we’d cross the Anatolian plateau and arrive in the metropolis of Istanbul. I’d be back where I’d started half a year earlier.
A couple of nights previous we’d had an incredible send-off at one of Yerevan’s local bars. Great friends were in attendance, the drinks flowed around the room – sometimes all too literally – and the following day was a haze of fuzzy heads and that slight feeling of sickness. All round a successful evening.
It would be sad to leave all these people behind. Some of them I’ll likely never cross paths with again. Everyone I spent that final evening with I hope I see again, and I’m sure a lot of them I will – whether it will be in Armenia, or somewhere else around the globe.
So, there we were at the side of the road. Armenia was cold, brutally so. Wrapped up in our layers we hoped that Tbilisi – our destination for the night, would be warmer. Fortune was with us. After hitchhiking a few rides, and one tour of the Armenian military frontier with Azerbaijan later, we arrived in the considerably warmer Georgian capital, peeled off some layers of clothing, met up with a friend, and the following day we wandered the city.
Tbilisi is beautiful, and feels way more Europeanised than the more Soviet feel of Yerevan. Western brands marked the sidewalks, locals dressed more wildly than in Armenia, people were instantly friendlier. I was surprised and pleased to arrive at the open-air market to find that most stall owners spoke English. This I was not expecting after many weekend afternoons spent at Yerevan’s Vernissage market.
With Georgia being the land of Stalin, there was an abundance of Stalin-related paraphernalia for sale at very reasonable prices. Having decided that a huge portrait of our murderous friend would be neither practical, nor politically correct to strap to my backpack for the rest of the trip, we moved on. The camera lenses were much more my scene. Unfortunately I couldn’t spare the cash.
The following morning we left Tbilisi behind. Following some directions I found online, we negotiated our way to the edge of the city, where we bargained ourselves a ride to the city of Batumi, on the Georgian border with Turkey. The trip was uneventful, we were dropped off in the centre of Batumi, and promptly talked a Lebanese man living in the city to pull a U-Turn and drive us the 15 kilometres that remained to the border. Thanks, Mansour.
Arriving at the frontier is usually a non-event, however, the former Soviet Union, in all its bureaucratic glory, decided to give us one final throw of the dice. I handed my passport to the border guard to exit Georgia and waited. As usual, the various visas adorning the dog-eared pages of my ageing travel document were given the thorough once over. It was when the lady started getting her magnifying glass out, and looking closely at the first and last pages I started to worry.
No problem, I thought, she’ll hand it back in a second. No such luck. Ten minutes passed, as the ever growing line of people behind studied me with interest and suspicion. I was asked to sign a piece of paper multiple times, and in return was told that my signatures didn’t match. Considering I got that passport when I was 19, and I’m now 27 I didn’t think I’d done a bad job, but hey. Mrs Borderguard clearly thought my passport was stolen.
Once again the photo page was given a thorough going over. Unsatisfied, I was asked to give my date of birth, place of birth, and asked where I’d got this passport. Short of telling her that I was actually a terribly British sounding Georgian smuggler trying to smuggle vast quantities of Georgian wine in an old backpack my brother had found at a ferry port in Greece some years previous and given to me, and that I’d stolen the passport from my doppelganger and perfected an English accent, whilst also successfully stealing residency of Canada, I told her I’d got it in the UK. Surprising really.
Next I was asked to produce more identification. My Canadian ID was not enough, neither was my drivers’ license or visa card, and eventually another guard was summoned, who took away my passport for further investigation. I was told to stand aside and wait. I was half-expecting to have someone grab my by the shoulder at any moment, and be handcuffed, then led off for questioning in some mirrored room with a tape recorder.
I waited. Mrs Borderguard continued to stamp others out of Georgia without a care in the world. Ever so often she’d eye me suspiciously. She gave the impression she’d thought her victorious day where she’d discovered a spy had come. I continued to wait, and watched the last light of day fade.
Eventually, the second guard returned, and the passport was given back to Mrs Borderguard. Meekly, she summoned me back to the desk. Stamping me out of the country, she returned my passport back, with a quick “have a nice day”. Yes, thanks, lady. I was officially out of the former Soviet Union. Huzzah.
