This region feels like its about to explode into a five country war. Georgia is trying to join NATO so they can drag the Europeans in. Georgia was a pretty cool country, Batumi my first port of call is full of 10 storey testaments to Soviet archictecture covered in rusted tin, ancient cars from the edge of the industrial revolution that putter along at 30km an hour and one of the most interesting looking upside down scripts I have seen. To north of the country and a town called Kazbegi I headed, 20km south of the Russian border and the disaster that is Chechnya and some truly beautiful mountains. This country has such an undeveloped tourist infrastructure that accomodation consists of homestays and a few business hotels, intermittant water and electricity. I was told in Soviet times the water and power never cut out, if it did the person responsible would be gaoled. In Kazbegi I stayed at a homestay run by a guy named Vano who spoke 8 languages. He reackons he had some Basque tourists stay and he could understand them, their language is a form of ancient Georgian. Some Armenians I spoek to disputed this by saying that Georgians know nothing, they are a stupid people who only drink and dance, all the surounding countries want to finish Armenia off. Georgian sits outside of the Indo-European realm in the langauge family Kartvelian, related to the Caucasian languages. In Kazbegi I met a guy who claimed to bit part of the Georgian mafia, he gave me some weed, showed me his bullet hole in his chest and said he had spent seven years in gaol. He got his bullet hole fighting the Russians who are trying to retake Georgia. There are two areas bordering Russia who have broken away, the Georgian government has no control, there used to be three breakaway states, this is a country of five million. In Tblisi, the capital of Georgia I met some guys who reackon they'ld just come back from Iraq, Georgian special forces, they showed me there various bullet holes. There is a strange veneration for Stalin here, Vano's house had a few portraits of him, although Vano didn't think much of him. His mother did some Georgian magic on me and put me to sleep after cooking an onion an open flame, dausing it in honey and putting it on a festering wound underneath my arm. This didn't really work, I had to see a doctor in Armenia. Onto Armenia, full of cops with the biggest hats I have ever seen, the first country to adopt Christianity as the state religion, a dubious distinction, and home of their own brand of Christianity that sits outside the Catholic, Orthodox Prodestant fold. They broke off way before the Orthodox-Catholic split and have a few interesting looking Churches where the floor is a grave, walking on peoples tomes is more than acceptable. They are a truly interesting people the Armenians, they have an ancient culture and attachment to this part of the world. They used to have a massive empire that has been whittled away by successive invasions and genocides. Its difficult to find a person who does not recount, within the first 10 minutes, the genocide by the Turks around the time of the first world war, 1.5 million Armenians died. The Turks say it wasn't genocide, there was no state policy, they had some problems and had to move the Armenians and in the process 1.5 million died, it was simply a matter of bad luck that they died whilst been marched through the desert. Armenia claims about half of Turkey. Currently Armenia has no open borders with Turkey and all but one Armenian I met is stuck on Turkey's refusal to recognise its past attrocities. This one guy said the economy is floundering, a million people have left the country in the last ten years, they now only number three million, if they don't start trading with Turkey the country will vanish. The country is a semi-dictatorship, Russian troops on the borders, demostrators get beaten, elections rigged, five guys control the economy and they get their oil from Russia, Iran is on its border. In the homestay in the capital Yerevan, the owner said to me "how can we exist with enemies all around?" Armenia wants to take back its old lands, Vano said the only thing stopping Azerbijan, Turkey and Georgia finishing Armenia off is the presence of the Russian troops and according to him, but no Armenians, Russian nukes pointing at all the surrounding countries. This may all sound a bit confusing but I'll try and simplify this. Russian and Armenia are aligned, Azerbijan and Iran are aligned because of their shared Shiteness, Azerbijan and Turkey are aligned because of their shared Turkic language, Armenia wants to retake the whole region because it was their's in antiquity, although very few Armenian speakers live in the surrounding areas and Russia wants to retake the whole area becasue it was part of the Soviet Union. Turkey wants to finish the Armenians off but is been held back by the EU. Armenia retook part of Azerbijan ten years ago, this is Nagorno-Korabahk, no one in the international community recognises this and Azerbijan is itching to take it back. Georgia is courting the US and the EU. What a fucking mess!!! I went to Nagorno-Korabahk, disturbing but friendly place, used to have a mixed Azeri, Muslim, and Armenian population, majority Armenian, now their are no Azeri's. I went to this city Adjam, used to have 100,000 people in it, now it has none, all the buildings are rubble, no roofs, barely any structures left standing, complete depopulation. This is on the border with Azerbijan, I couldn't get a permit to go there but went anyway, loads of military, no where else I've been comes close to this place, its truly deserves the title of apocalyptic. Nagorno-Korabahk is supposedly independent from Armenia but is full of Armenian troops, Armenia does not want to formely annex the place for fear of international repercussions. Its currently in search of international sympathy and UN recognition of the Turkish genocide. Nagorno-Korabahk used to be part of Armenia but Stalin moved it into the Soviet Republic of Azerbijan. On the minibus out of Korabahk there were two drunk Armenians who gave my Vodka and bought me a meal. One was in his eighties, he was still wearing his medals from the great patriotic war against the Nazi's. They both bemoaned the state of Armenia, the current leaders are nothing like the great leaders, Stalin, Lenin, Mao and Pol Pot. I asked them if they were communists, "no, we just want a great marshall". Back to Armenia proper and a little description of the place. It is a museum of Soviet architecture, functional buildings, public monuments in the middle of the countryside and public art depicting the utopian mechanical man and woman. This country is de-industrialised, full of abandoned factories, no roofs, no windows, nature is on the come back, overgrown with weeds, a few factories survive outside of pollution laws showing an eiree glimpse of what the world may look like if all collapses. Yerevan the capital has a European feel to contrast with the death in the countryside, full of cars that don't give way and people dressed up in their finest. The womam I was staying with in Yerevan said the country is in the shape of a side shot of a sad girl. I said that I admire there will to survive, they are like Israel and the Jews, the reaction was not good, they don't like the Jews. The Armenian language exists in its own branch of the Indo-European family. Its an interesting place, on one hand I think they will struggle along going no where because they are so chained to their history, on the other hand these chains keep it alive. I wanted to go and track down these Yizidi Kurds, their religion is related to Zoroastriaism, the Armenians I met said they are devil worshippers but never found them. Now I am in Iran the home of Zoroastrianism, the religion that the Jews got a lot of their ideas from, but I don't know if I will be able to track many of them down, Islam has not treated them kindly. All up two or maybe its three, very friendly but mixed up countries, I wonder if they will exist in ten years? I have a good feeling about Iran, I have a lot of phone numbers from drunk Iranians I met in Armenia and a guy on the bus said he was agnostic, in the hotel I am staying one of the Iranians is eating during the day and said he washes his hands of the Imams. I've uploaded a few photos of Adjam, Armenia and Georgia and rebuilt my website: http://wokling.com

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