A Snow Storm And A Trip To Haghartsin Monastery

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It started to snow on Saturday evening, and it kept snowing. And kept snowing. And it snowed all night until about 8 AM.

My hosts started to worry about whether I would be able to get to the airport in the evening, if the mountain pass wouldn’t be cleared of snow. And even before that, we planned to go to the Haghartsin Monastery, and we were unsure how the roads were going to be. By noon, however, it looked like the snow stopped, and the roads were drivable. My hosts ordered a cab, and had a unique experience of a ride on mountain serpentine roads with at least six inches of snow!

Finally, the cab driver said that he’s not goign to get us any further, and we walked a little bit up to the Haghartsin Monastery, where we had experienced the most beautiful winter fairy tale one can imagine.

I was told that these openings in the roofs of all monastery buildings were most likely open when the monastery was built, and served to get the smoke out and some daylight in. None of the building are heated
The gravestones of the former priests are layed to be on the path of the churchgoes as a continuation of their service to their congregation
I can’t explain different time granularity in English and Armenian :); it was the same for a church which was 200 years older.
A live dove, not a sculpture!
Most likely, that was the entrance chamber of the church, and it had a roof.
A striking picture of the church with the wide-open doors and nobody guarding it
…and everything, including the Bible, the book of prayers and the priest chothing layed out in the open view ready to be put to use
We had a great converstion with the church store keeper who was saying it’s not a job, but another home, and she can’t imagine not coming there even when “there is nothing to do.”
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Published by Hettie D.

My name is Henrietta (Hettie) Dombrovskaya. I was born in Saint-Petersburg, Russian (actually, back then – Leningrad, USSR) in 1963, and immigrated to the United States in 1996. I love Saint Petersburg, the city I was born and raised in, and I think it’s one of the most beautiful places in the world. Similarly (but differently) I love Chicago, and can’t imagine myself moving somewhere else in the observable future. I have three children, Igor, Vlad and Anna, all adults living on their own, and one (so far) granddaughter Nadia. I also believe that my children are the best thing that happened in my life. As for my professional life, I am working in the field of Information Technologies. When I was twenty, I’ve declared that the databases are the coolest thing invented and that I want to do them for the rest of my life. Thirty plus years later, I still believe it’s true, and still, believe that the databases are the best. These two statements together imply that I think a person can have it all, and indeed, I think so! Keep reading my journals to find out how I did it.

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