The Hostel

Yerevan is a safe city. But the airport here makes Johannesburg airport look like a puppy salon. As soon as you get through to arrivals, you’re mobbed by taxi drivers touting for trade, old men armed with religious symbols trying to swindle you out of money, people trying to sell you flowers. I bought an Armenian SIM card and made a dash for the closest minibus I could find. I lucked out – it was going to Republic Square, just a block from my hostel.

There was a smiley woman at the hostel’s reception desk, who spoke Armenian, Russian, English, Spanish, and Portuguese. I pretty much had my pick of language. I was tempted to opt for Portuguese, but I expect knowing how to say ‘thank you’ and nothing else wouldn’t have got me very far. But I was determined not to be that guy who’s too lazy to speak in any language other than his own, so I tried to speak Russian. Beyond the reception desk was a busy little lounge lined with sofas and with a little coffee table in the centre, where people were tapping away industriously at their laptops. The woman at the reception desk showed me around.

Past the reception and the lounge, there was a little kitchen with a microwave, fridge, kettle, and hob (but no window – fatal error). There were also two toilets and three dormitories, averaging about 6 beds each. My dormitory only had four beds – two bunk beds. I was on the top bunk on the right. The bed underneath mine was draped with towels, suits, and coats which hung over the side, providing a sort of veil, so that you couldn’t see the bed itself. As I got my books and laptop out, the towel and coats parted, and a man emerged from the bottom bunk. The man was Jimmy. Jimmy from Taiwan. A very smiley man, and clearly sociable too, Jimmy seemed very keen to chat. Specifically, he wanted to chat about his kidney stone. I should add that, adhering to the universal rule of everyone in the hostel speaking in at least their second language, Jimmy was speaking English.

No sooner had I ascertained that Jimmy was called Jimmy and was from Taiwan, than I asked the calamitous question: ‘so how long are you here for?’

‘I was supposed to fly out on Sunday, but I’m afraid that’s not going to happen now.'

‘Why not?’ I asked, with no idea of the idiocy of my question.

‘A few days ago, I woke up with a horrible pain in my side.’ He said. ‘I went to the hospital, and they told me I had a stone in my kidney.’ He pointed helpfully at the rough area of his kidney. ‘They gave me pills.’ He waved a sheet of pills at me. ‘I hope they work! If they don’t work, they’ll have to do something much more painful.’

I winced. ‘Cut you open and take it out?’

He chortled, a masochistic gleam in his eyes. ‘No.’ He said. ‘Worse… Much much worse.’

‘They get this thing...’ He mimed out the ‘thing’, by bringing his index finger and thumb together while lifting his hand upwards, conjuring the image of a nasty pointy implement.

‘… and they put the thing up my pay-nis.’

I’m not too English. I’m not so bound to social mores that I shy away from any uncomfortable topic. But I had heard enough to know that this was a topic that would make me more than uncomfortable, it would be physically painful to discuss. So I tried concertedly to change the subject.

Grimacing, I said ‘Ouch, that sounds painful, but…’

‘RIGHT up my pay-nis!’ He said, eagerly. ‘Right up my pay-nis and alllll the way to my kidney!’

… at this point it was clear that Jimmy would not allow the subject to be changed. Someone wandered into the room, gave Jimmy a tired wave, and fell into their bunk. But Jimmy was indefatigable. He began miming out the process of his looming operation very graphically, complete with winces and little whimpering noises. One hand (presumably the implement which will be doing the removing) was rammed through the loosely clenched fist of his other hand (presumably his pay-nis) in a kind of twisted triumphal punch. I was beginning to think that he wanted those pills not to work after all. Then, his enthusiasm waning slightly, and his eyes clouding over, he sat down on his bunk, chuckled softly to himself, and bit the knuckles of his clenched fist, rocking gently back and forth.

I went out to the shops, in the hope that the fresh air would stop me feeling queasy at the thought of Jimmy’s upcoming torture. The centre of Yerevan was beautiful and vibrant – like a Eurasian Paris. I bought some milk which turned out not to be milk (they have a sour dairy drink called tan which is very popular here – 1/10 do NOT recommend with cereal).

Another big personality awaited me in the kitchen. To this day, I still don’t know wise Armenian guy’s name. He always addresses me as ‘My Dear Boy’. He’s got the most eccentric look – a long grey mullet but bald on top. He always wears red jumpers and a grey beret. He was absolutely gassed to discover I spoke a bit of Russian. It was like someone had told him that he’d won the lottery AND he had The Force. His jaw dropped to the floor and he started jumping up and down.  Then came the questions. There are always questions.

‘What Russian books do you like?’

‘Was Princess Diana’s death engineered by the Queen?’

‘Where are women more beautiful – Russia or Armenia?’

The questions came one after another, he didn’t even pause to let me answer them. Soon ‘the phenomenon of the English boy who speaks a bit of Russian’ had become well-known throughout the hostel, and Armenians, Ukrainians, Russians, Uzbeks, and even one Iranian guy who doesn’t speak any Russian crowded the entrance to the kitchen watching me being grilled by wise Armenian guy. They even started shouting questions of their own:

‘Why are you studying Russian?’

‘What do you want to be when you’re older?’

‘Do you support Manchester United or Chelsea?’

But in the end I didn’t get the chance to answer any of them. Wise Armenian guy raised his hand and the crowd fell silent. ‘Now I have the most important question for you, My Dear Boy.’ He said. ‘We all know that England has produced some of the best musicians of all time. But once upon a time, decades ago, there was a single music group that everyone enjoyed. No matter their nationality, no matter their age. There’s one group that everyone loved. What was that group, my dear boy?’

‘David Bowie?’

‘No.’

‘The Beatles?’

‘No.’

‘Sting?’

‘What? No!’

‘Uh… ABBA?’

Wise Armenian guy sprang to his feet and hugged me.

‘I knew you’d say that!’ He gushed. ‘I knew you’d know the answer! I thought to myself “he looks like a clever young man, he’ll know the answer to that question straight away."’

‘But I didn’t get it strai…’

‘I just knew you’d get it!’ He interrupted. ‘ABBA.’ He said once again, fondly.

Wise Armenian guy’s other quirk – and by far his most annoying one – is playing ‘The Circle of Life’ by Elton John out loud TWICE every evening at around 23:30 and every morning at around 08:00. He plays it through speakers in the reception so the whole hostel is reminded of his favourite song. It’s amazing how quickly that song goes from being uplifting to rage-inducing.

Then there’s the German guy whose name is Haiku and who speaks Armenian (he actually pulls off the name, which is quite something). We talk in English, because he doesn’t speak Russian. I showed him the meme about Germans speaking perfect English. Here’s the meme:

He looked at my phone screen for a good two minutes, and then handed the phone back to me without making eye contact. ‘Do you get it? I said’

...

‘Wait, give me the phone again.’

I handed him the phone. He stared at the screen for another few minutes, and this time read every word aloud. Then he handed it back to me ‘no.’

And then there’s the Georgian guy who I think is a member of staff for the hostel. He has a greeeeat big bushy beard and long black hair. He’s proud of his good grip on the English language, but he speaks with both an American accent and a kind of desultory throwaway intonation which dips at the end of every phrase. I also couldn’t help but notice that he says every sentence twice – with more emphasis on the second iteration. The first conversation I had with him was about travel. He’s travelled pretty extensively, but about two minutes into the conversation, we were at

‘You know, we’re in between incarnations. In between incarnations, you know? And you know, Paradise is WITHIN the worldly circle of life. Within the worldly circle of life, you know? It’s like.’

Oh yeah, he also uses ‘it’s like’ as a filler.

And there’s the smiley Iranian guy who says ‘hello sir how are you?’ as a greeting, but never waits for a response. I guess he thinks it’s just a fixed greeting. The result is that our conversation is always exactly the same:

Iranian guy, walking past: ‘Hello sir how are you?’

Me: ‘I’m good thanks. How are you?’

Iranian guy: *has walked off*

There’s also the old Armenian woman, who only just arrived today. She obsessively cleans the hostel kitchen, even when she hasn’t used it. She also kind of clings to me. When I left the kitchen to avoid her incessant flood of questions, she came and sat next to me in the living room. So I got my laptop out and started typing things. She leaned over and looked at my screen ‘ah, this is in English, yes?’

‘Yep.’

I decided to try another tactic. I got my phone out and opened a snap from one of my friends.

‘Ah, is that your mother?’

‘What?! No, it’s my friend! She’s younger than me!’

‘Your friend? Ah.’

She smiled malignly.

Two minutes later I opened another snap from her. The Armenian woman leaned over and looked at my screen.

‘Ah… you love her, don’t you?’

‘What? No! She’s my friend.’

The Armenian woman seemed put out. I went back to writing my blog, and tried concertedly not to look at her. But she leaned across again, and this time, just put her hand on my shoulder.

‘Ah. Young man. Clever young man!’

I don’t know what gives her the idea that I’m clever. Probably the same thing that gives her the idea that I want to talk to her.

And finally, we come to my third roommate – Tim from Tomsk. Tim is originally from Kyrgyzstan, but he’s studying medicine in Tomsk. He’s my age, and about ten billion times cooler than me. He goes for the classic Siberian look of £150 trainers, ripped jeans, one dark-coloured hoodie with the hood up and one dark-coloured coat with a fur-trimmed hood that you never put up. Also a hat underneath the hood of the hoodie. He’s stupendously energetic, so I quickly decided he’d be the ideal travel companion, which actually turned out to be good logic in the end.

Anyway, I’d better go to sleep – the fourth daily rendition of The Circle of Life is playing.