Kars / Ani

I expected a standard eastern Turkish city - crumbling low rise houses, tea houses full of old men, stacks of vegetable stalls. Yet this city has a very distinctly cosmopolitan atmosphere and energy : streets lined with Russian-era houses, Kurds, Georgians, Russians, Turks all walking through them. For a city of this size there's an unusual variety and amount of shops. You can find almost anything - even a disco. Yet there are also clear signs of a former age. Walking past the butcher's in the morning, I almost trip over the carcasses of two sheep, simply lying in a puddle of blood on the sidewalk. I am also shocked by the prices... soup is $3, internet $2. Maybe people are trying to rip me off. But then I go to a bakery, eat some baklava, drink tea and the guy refuses to let me pay for it.

Getting back to the hotel in the afternoon, I stumble across the man from tourist info. He's found another passanger to go to Ani - the ancient Armenian capital. He says the guy knows me. Well, he does - it's Ryouta-san, from the Iranian embassy in Ankara. Ani is beyond words. Sitting on mountain ledge between two streams, flanked by snow-capped mountains on both sides, the place is like no other. Tall grasses blow in the winds, the ruins of ancient churches stand as they've stood for a long time.