MY FIRST long trip was to Lake Sevan.
Sevan lies in the middle of a great scattering of stones. It is very strange—amid the stones you suddenly see deep-blue water. Sevan has nothing in common with the dry, stony earth—just as a bright faceted jewel has nothing in common with the black velvet on which it rests. The dry hills and mountains have been baked by the summer heat and winds, smoothed by the geological weight of time—and there amid them lies deep-blue water. Usually water and dry land are connected. Usually there is a gradual transition between them—damp sand, a squelchy, boggy, gradually descending shore, lush grass, reeds, willows whose leaves are constantly peering into the lake, as if they breathe not air but water. Here, though, the baked mountain stone and the deep-blue water are separate and equally self-contained. This blue water seems unearthly; it seems to have peeled off from the sky. Probably it is closer to sky level than to sea level. It even seems strange that fish can live in this cold, transparent, deep-blue water; what one expects to see, flying beneath the surface, are the birds of heaven. Admittedly, there are some very special fish in this lake—the silvery-gray trout, speckled with stars, that the Armenians call ishkhan, or prince fish.
A tunnel has been drilled into the side of the stone bowl that contains Lake Sevan, and through it the water crashes into a valley, driving turbines with its deep-blue weight, creating light and electricity. There in the valley the water loses its deep blue and turns gray or green; perhaps it is its special blue, its Sevan blue, that is transformed into electric light.
The whole of Armenia is awash with light. Villages lost in the mountains, the ancient caves of Zangezur, inhabited to this day—all are lit by electricity. These caves were inhabited for thousands of years before our era, before the rise of ancient Sumer, probably even during the Stone Age and the Bronze Age.
Most of these caves’ present inhabitants, however, are working in factories that make precision instruments. These electrically lit caves now contain radios and televisions. Electricity is everywhere—in the action of motors, in electric trains, in music, in the changing frames of a film, in the smooth rotation of the telescopes on Mount Aragats. Lake Sevan is burning its blue body, turning it into light and heat. The water level in the lake has dropped by eleven meters; where there was once deep-blue water, there is now only a band of dark, murky stone. The lake is disappearing from its stone basin. Armenia, awash with electric light, grieves for Lake Sevan, which is perishing. There is now a project to redirect a mountain river and make it flow into Lake Sevan. But in the meantime, the deep-blue pearl is melting away, becoming smaller every day.
What will artists do if Lake Sevan dries up? I have seen any number of Lake Sevans in Yerevan—in the picture gallery, in hotel rooms, restaurants, railway-station halls, and public places of all kinds. I have seen Lake Sevan on postcards, in book illustrations, and in advertisements for food and industrial products.
What will Armenians do if they cannot come to Lake Sevan, if they cannot come and eat trout in the Minutka restaurant?
After yet another twist in the road, our car seemed to be soaring over the lake: We saw the snowy crests of mountains lit by the sun. They were pale blue, as if the snow had absorbed both the blue of the sky and the blue of the lake. And there on a rough stone dish—a dish that was black and brown and the color of rust—lay Lake Sevan, deep blue, almost boundless.
On a humpbacked island, now joined to the mainland because of the drop in the water level, stands an ancient chapel, built with a simplicity and a perfection incomprehensible to modern man. According to legend, Princess Mariam built this chapel for a young monk whose beauty had filled her with awe. The air here is transparent and clear, and so, every morning, the princess was able to see the young monk from the windows of her mountain castle.
Goethe once said that during eighty years of life he had known eleven happy days. I imagine that everyone, in the course of their life, must have seen many hundreds of sunrises and sunsets; they must have seen rain, rainbows, lakes, seas, and meadows. But of these hundreds of scenes only two or three enter a person’s soul with a miraculous power and become for them what those eleven happy days were for Goethe.
One person may never forget a little cloud lit by a quiet sunset, even though he entirely forgets hundreds of more splendid sunsets. Someone else will never forget a moment of summer rain or a young moon reflected in the pockmarked surface of a forest stream in April.
For a particular scene to enter into a person and become a part of their soul, it is evidently not enough that the scene be beautiful. The person also has to have something clear and beautiful present inside them. It is like a moment of shared love, of communion, of true meeting between a human being and the outer world.
The world was beautiful on that day. And Lake Sevan is one of the most beautiful places on earth. But there was nothing clear or good about me—and I had heard too many stories about the Minutka restaurant. After listening to the story of the love-struck princess, I asked, “But where’s the restaurant?”
Nothing came of my meeting with Lake Sevan; it did not enter my soul. What is pure and divine in me did not get the upper hand. As if I were a base animal, with no wings of imagination, all I could think about was Sevan trout. Unfortunately, just as we were setting out, Martirosyan had poisoned me with the words, “They don’t have trout at the Minutka every day.” These words had troubled me all through the journey.
In Moscow it is impossible for an ordinary mortal to eat Sevan trout. Apparently it is sent from Yerevan on the fastest planes and then delivered straight to the various embassies. And the catch, in any case, is small. It really would have been upsetting to travel three thousand kilometers, drive to Lake Sevan, and then learn that on that day the Minutka had no trout.
Or was it the thousands of paintings I had seen? Were they what poisoned my encounter with the high-altitude lake? We always think of the artist’s role as entirely positive; we think that a work of art, if it is anything more than a hack job, brings us closer to nature, that it deepens and enriches our being. We think that a work of art is some kind of key. But perhaps it is not? Perhaps, having already seen a hundred images of Lake Sevan, I thought that this hundred-and-first image was just one more routine product from a member of the Artists’ Union.
I have to say that the paintings by Saryan[33] that I had seen in Moscow did nothing to help me sense the reality of Armenia. My own perception of Armenia is different. To sense Armenia’s tragic landscape and its misty, ancient stone I found I had to erase from my soul the brilliant joy of Saryan’s paintings. Maybe poetry and painting can be harmful. Maybe they can limit the soul rather than deepen it.
That day, however, the Minutka restaurant did have trout. This meeting, at least, really did take place.
The restaurant, a single-story wooden building with a terrace, stands a little above the lake, at the foot of a mountain. The plank floor in the vestibule creaks loudly as we walk in. We enter a large, chilly room. There are fifteen tables with white tablecloths. The windows look out onto the lake, but the room is somewhat dark—because of a covered terrace that goes all the way around it.
We go up to a serving table. There, under a glass cover, on round and oval dishes like ancient shields, lie marinated green and red peppers, fresh herbs, stuffed eggplant; beside them stand tall bottles of wine and cognac. This was the trout’s escort, its entourage—its drummers, pages, and maids of honor. The trout itself was evidently waiting behind the half-open door. A few minutes later, a smiling gray-haired waiter took up his position behind this table, and a tall pale young man with curly disheveled hair came into the room. You could see at a glance that he was a poet.
The young poet was delighted, overawed, to meet Martirosyan. I was introduced. The two of them continued talking in Armenian, which I did not understand. But I did understand that they were saying something good and important. Martirosyan and I sat down at a little table by the window, had a quick look at the lake, and then turned towards the kitchen door through which the young poet now disappeared.
Martirosyan summarized the poet’s words: They had a fresh trout in the kitchen. It had been caught that morning. They were going to boil it for us, in water from the lake. This would lend the fish a particular taste. We would be drinking cognac and Jermuk mineral water.
It grew quiet. The blue lake was silent outside the window, and we were alone in the empty room. The waiter from behind the serving table came up noiselessly and placed on the table a carafe of some yellowy-green liquid that looked like a young wine. Martirosyan explained that this was a special kind of wine vinegar, very soft and delicate. Then the noiseless waiter brought plates of salted peppers, eggplant, and fresh herbs. Then a bottle of cognac, which he uncorked. He opened a bottle of Jermuk, poured us each a glass of iced water, said a few quiet words in Armenian, and walked noiselessly away. We remained silent; we could hear the popping of the swift bubbles of gas in our now-clouded glasses.
We each sipped our water, tasted the fiery herbs and the still more fiery peppers, then gulped down more icy water. Everything was quiet. The waiter approached again. He inspected first the table and then us; he could, I felt, have been the organizer of a bullfight inspecting his bulls before releasing them into the arena. With the help of a napkin, he wiped a few nonexistent crumbs off the fresh white tablecloth and went back behind his serving table. We remained silent.
The kitchen door was noisily flung open. A short, very stout woman in a white gown appeared; she had black eyes and a pink face. Then came the sound of laughing voices—both men’s and women’s; there was a sense of restrained excitement. Then the young poet returned. Head thrown back, he held a large white dish high in the air; it was giving off clouds of steam.
Just as someone describing a wedding breaks off as the young couple enters the bedroom, so now will I—as the dish with the trout is placed on our table and Martirosyan pours out two glasses of cognac.
My meeting with Lake Sevan was a nonmeeting. I had no wings to fly; I was grounded by the trout.