J. R. Patterson has long been drawn to the countries of the former Soviet Union, writing about translation, culture, and travel. On a recent trip to Armenia, he explored Yerevan with a mathematician and translator of Armenian poetry who has been visiting the capital for almost six decades. Together, they made an “intellectual tour” through the city, visiting house museums, attending the opera, and smoking plenty of local cigarettes.
Yerevan, the capital of Armenia, is best visited in the fall, when snow begins to fall on Mount Ararat. One squally morning, my friend and I walked half-bent down Pushkin Street, past two men playing chess behind a sheet of cardboard they had held up against the gusts. I remarked on how strange it was to see a chess game continuing in such weather.”For intellectuals,” my friend said, “Armenia has never been strange.”