I had an hour to walk around earlier and decided to photograph a place that I have often walked through bu not taken any stills of. It's a quiet and old Soviet neighbourhood that has some interesting high rise architecture to it. You really feel the age when you walk through it. Ranging from the 1950s to the 1980s. Pieces of buildings thrown together with weird additions of balconies and changes that have illegally been made throughout the years. I think with a wide angle lens this would be really fun to capture. Though I had the 35mm lens on today and captured what I could. This neighbourhood remains quite dense. A lot of people walking through it. A lot of cars driving through. Small shops and bakeries and various markets survive by selling the necessities to those who live around. Though the buildings remain a short walk from the main road which sits above Yerevan's centre.
Signs of the Soviet Union remain here. Sometimes it's the old architecture, the gates and fences. The gardens and old cars that have been left to collect dust from the inhabitants of the area of who have unfortunately since passed. Volgas and Ladas that have seen better days. Sometimes it's the windows and doorways, the little information boards on the sides of apartments that would've once advertised various things of importance to those who live above. I found this little container which even said USSR in Russian on it, detailing a former agricultural pursuit in the area for some reason. I love seeing these things. The little artifacts that present a history. The signs of another era. Capturing snippets of that past and forming together a story that has long been lost.
Moving through these areas, you feel like you have stepped back in time. And in some ways it's quite a humbling experience. Not that these people aren't well off in any sense, but that it connects you more to the space you're in. Things aren't flashy and new. They're decayed. Rundown. Quiet and forgotten. Old faces are just as frequent as young ones. And it's interesting to see how people live. I've lived in a similar space myself, twice in two different post Soviet nations. But now I live in a more luxurious space that is quite different to how much of Yerevan, and definitely Armenia, actually is. No cafes below. No easy shops. No easy access to Wildberries and Ozon deliveries. Where in some of these spaces electricity outages are more common, as are the water outages given Armenia's struggles to remain more independent as a landlocked nation with limited resources and few friendly neighbours.
I think this space felt more unique with the changing weather too. Still a bit chilly, but some warmth from the sunlight. Clear skies that pushed those warmer tones into the old buildings. The ice still present in some areas, the crunch of it beneath the boots. The sounds of dripping water as it continued to melt from rooftops of garages and buildings.
