Armenian BASTURMA Skillet Omelet + ANCIENT CHURCHES Tour in Etchmiadzin | Yerevan, Armenia

So do you eat basturma every day or no? Almost every day. Almost every day? So everybody here in Armenia eats it almost every day? Yeah. It's like a staple, right? Basturma, I mean eggs, that's a different twist on it. What's up everyone? This is David Hoffman from David's Bin here in beautiful Yerevan, Armenia. I'm here with Lusine. Lusine is going to be with me for the next like 8 days. And today what we're going to do is we're going to do a mix, right? Yeah, we're going to see the holy center of all Armenians. We're going to see a few more churches. Awesome. And we're going to have a great day actually. Awesome. Yeah, I mean it's really sunny right now. It's a little nippy but I'm good. I know it's going to heat up. And we're going to start off right here at the Cascades. We're going to have a like, not a traditional breakfast because traditional breakfast doesn't really exist here in Armenia. They don't really eat like a certain thing. We like to have black coffee in the morning. Black coffee and like bread, right? Bread and cheese. So we're going to go to the only diner that's open which is called Aperitivo Diner. And it's here in the Cascades area. And we're going to have European breakfast basically. Yeah, right. Alright, so let's go eat and then go see the holy center of Armenia. Follow us. So, David, this is Aperitivo Cafe. And which is one of the few cafes that opened early in the morning in Yerevan. So we are lucky we found it. And by the way, we have Armenian basturma omelette in menu and Armenian tomato omelette which is like very Armenian. So we can try it. So we're not having a European breakfast. We're really having an Armenian breakfast. So black coffee and two omelettes. Basturma. I love the basturma. It's so good. It's a piece of meat with like salt and pepper. Oh, it's great. Alright, guys. So I'm going to start off breakfast with a double espresso. Lungo. Like very, very tall espresso. God, I need an espresso to wake up. I'm doing like the Armenians. Black coffee. Straight. Well, actually, I added sugar. I usually never add sugar. Strong. Alright, so here we go. We have the basturma omelette. And this is tomato omelette? This is tomato omelette. Yeah. Okay. This one looks more like an omelette. This, I don't even know what this is. Oh, it's hot. It's a beef meat. They dried a long time in a special sauce from the salt and pepper. So it's like salty. It's peppery. A lot of salt, though, so you don't really need to add more salt. And I love how it comes in this. This is super hot, though. This is like its own little frying pan in a way, right? I just love how much pepper it is. Oh, my God, look at that. It's like steaming. The secret is to understand how much salt you need to add to your omelette. You don't need to add any salt. It's like it's enough salt. Yeah, it's extremely salty as it is. I mean, you don't need to add anything else. And I like the pepper because it does have pepper. But it's way too hot. I'm going to let it sit for a bit. Do you like it? It's basically having like thin cut meat bits all over, right? And this right here, they call it the tawa, the pan. It's still really hot. And even at home, they also serve it in the tawa. I like burned my hand. So this is going in. Wow. Very fluffy egg. Very salty. I like it. It's different. Oh, look at that. It's smoking hot. It's nice. Yeah, I'm not a fan of just eating just regular eggs. I like to have something in it, you know? It's a tomato omelette. So what's this? It's a black pepper. Just adding some flavor. Yeah, tomatoes here in Armenia are like fantastic. They're super juicy. Yeah, and very sweet, by the way. Wow, it's like an overload. There's like straight up an entire tomato in there. Yeah. Mmm. Nice black pepper. It's a little moist. You know, you get all the juices coming out of the tomato in there. It's good. Even for wintertime, we also like to storage tomatoes for making tomato omelette in the winter. Because we do not buy vegetables like tomatoes, cucumbers in supermarket in wintertime. We like to eat everything on its season. Wow. Nice. So that's why tomatoes we also storage. So everything is storage. We store the basturma, the tomato, and the grape leaves. Yeah. So do you eat basturma every day or no? Almost every day. Almost every day? So everybody here in Armenia eats it almost every day? It's like a staple, right? Basturma. I mean, eggs, that's a different twist on it. But it's delicious. I mean, it's a different type of meat. I've never really had like this. You know, the meat, it's almost like a... It's not cooked. Yeah, so it's like a cold cut and then it's salty and peppery. Salty, that's why it's salty. So I think we're ready. We're gonna go? Yeah, sure. Let's do it. Yerevan actually has two stories. A story of capital and a story of a town. As a capital, it's 100 years old. And as a town, so last year we celebrated 2,800 years of Yerevan. So in case you guys don't know, Yerevan is one of the oldest continuously inhabited cities on the planet. 2,800 years. Yeah. Why we exactly know how old is Yerevan? Because not far from the city center, there is a hill. And in the middle of 20 centuries, we decided to do excavations on that hill. And we found two original inscriptions. And on that inscription, you could find the following information like... That is why exactly every year we know how old exactly Yerevan is. So it's 2,801 this year. Yeah. That's amazing. It's really incredible that you actually have a date. You know? Because it's so hard to have a date with certain places. We're finally exiting Yerevan. As you can see, lots of traffic going in. No traffic going out. And right in the distance, we have Atat Mountain. You can actually see the snow cap on top. I mean, lots of snow. Wow, incredible. I haven't been able to see it in the past two days. Now that the sky is clear, you can actually see it. And that's actually in Turkey. You know, it's right across the border. We made it here to our first stop. It looks like a really, really old church. Like, this is an Echmiadzin. But this is not the Holy See. We are going to see the Holy See after. And this is one of the first examples of cross-shaped cupola churches in Armenia. It's from 618. All over Armenia, we have water fountains. We call them çay takpiyuş. We have, like, fresh, free water everywhere. They have meaning. Most of them are built in a memory to somebody or something. And they are low so you can bow down and then drink water. Bowing down to a memory and then drinking water. That's one of my favorite things about Yerevan is that everywhere you can get this, right? So if you're thirsty, you don't have to buy water. You just go and drink. Oh, man. Super fresh water. This is really amazing. I love that story because I didn't know that. I thought it was just water fountains. So there's a meaning to each one. And this is St. Rusime Church. It's one of the oldest surviving churches in Armenia. It dates back to 618. As you can see, they used a tuft stone, right? The volcanic stone. So lots of different colors, lots of different colors, tones. There's over 40 different colors in that rock. This is one of the first examples of cross-shaped cupola churches in Armenia. It's from 618. Main highlights of Armenian architecturing is the constructional solutions we have in our churches. And one of those solutions are these corners on the walls. You can see right here. Quite big, these ones, by the way. Almost all Armenian churches have these corners. And they are for seismic stability. During the earthquake, during the vibration, they don't let the walls to shake much. And they keep the church stable. Look at this shape right here. So it comes out, it goes around, it goes back in. And the reason for that is to keep it stable in case there's an earthquake. So are there a lot of earthquakes in Armenia? We have quite a lot of earthquakes. Oh, yeah? You do? I didn't know that. I didn't know there was a lot of earthquakes. It shakes all the time. Not big earthquakes, but there are vibrations, underground vibrations we have. So let's go inside the church now and see the crypt of St. Rusime. Okay, as soon as you enter this church, you can really feel how ancient it is. I mean, really, really old, 1400-year-old church. And right here to the left, we actually have the original door. Look at this. You have the cross. It was open air, obviously, as you can see. So it had two holes here. And right here, they probably had, you know, door handle. Yeah, really, really cool. And then over here to the left, we're going to keep walking. And over here is the crypt. David, follow me, and we are going to see the grave of St. Rusime. And I will tell you her story. This is St. Rusime, and she fled from Rome with other 35 nuns. And Roman Emperor requested for them, especially for her, she was hiding in Armenia. And when our king found her, he fell in love and wanted to marry to her. And she refused. So the king got very angry and ordered to kill all of them. So she was stoned in this area, and then she was buried in here. So after, as you see, we have a church in memory to her. So actually, she is one of the first murders of Christianity in Armenia. A few years after the passing of St. Rusime, the country of Armenia adopted Christianity. So the first country to adopt Christianity. Right after that, they built a small chapel, wooden chapel on top of her grave. And then 300 years later, they built this incredible church. And you were saying this is like a prime example. Very typical architectural style for that era. So this is basically what medieval churches looked like during that era. Beautiful church, I highly recommend it. And now we're going to another church. What's the next church? Next church is St. Gayane. Let's go. I just learned that this church is part of UNESCO. There's actually 9 UNESCO World Heritage Sites in Armenia. And because Armenia was the first country to adopt Christianity, they have some of the oldest churches. And that's like a super prime example of medieval churches. You know, the cupola, the stone. It's really beautiful. Now let's continue. Let's go see some more churches. So we are in Echmiadzin now. Echmiadzin is the holy center, spiritual center of all Armenians. And the name Echmiadzin means descended, the only begotten son. Echmiadzin is one of the ancient capitals of Armenia. There's actually 12 of them. This is one of them. Right now it's a small town, very beautiful. But here are the two churches. So we just saw one. The other one's coming up right here to the left. So as soon as you walk into this complex, as you can see, it's a little different from the other church. This one has a garden. So it has a garden to the right and the left. And one of them has tombstones. And who's buried here? There are buried priests and other people that served to this church. And also we have another yard with the gravestones where famous people are buried as well. So this is church of Saint Gayane. And she was the leader of the group, the nuns that fled from Rome. The 36 nuns. The 36 nuns. So Ripsime were among them. And Saint Gayane, she was the leader of that group. Okay. So she was the leader. She was also stoned in that same time period. She was also killed in this area. And then she was buried in there. And then kind of the same story, the church was built on the top of the gravestone. So this is 630. 630. So this is built like 12 years after the other one. Yeah. Exactly. Wow. Beautiful church. Very similar to the other one. It's a little different. This one has like two different cupolas to the right, like smaller ones, right? You have the middle one and then on the right. And then you have like three like archways here. Yeah. All right. So let's go inside. Let's see it. This is a four-pilon dome church. The construction in this style is a little bit different from the first one. But anyway, this is also very typical for that era styles, church styles we had in Armenia. We have also tombs for the priests that served to this church. You can find... When you come into any church, you have to be really quiet. Respect. So her gravestone is this one you see on your right. And this is a new painting where you find 36 nuns. It's a little different from the other crypts because over here this is not like a tomb where her body is. Over here we just have tombstone like on the wall, not in the center. Over here we have, you know, a painting depicting the 36 nuns who fled from Rome. And over here we have another thing. That's Guyana. Okay, that's Guyana. Wow. And this is right under the altar, always under the altar. So as she mentioned before, this is a four-pillar cupola church, not a cross shape. Very different from the last one. It's very different. Yeah, you can see, I mean, so we have the four pillars. You have lots of paintings. You have the altar in the back. And you also have beautiful light coming in. So it really gives us like a spiritual feeling here. And then over here in the back far left corner, you have a small gift shop. There's some rosaries for sale there. But they also have candles for sale. So, you know, in Christianity, whenever we come to a church, we usually buy a candle, light it, you know, make a prayer for a loved one. And that's it. And yeah, guys, I mean, this is what it's like. Really medieval, really old, really beautiful church. Yeah, I mean, I really like this one. The other one's a little different. But this one's really cool as well. I mean, you can see these pillars are just massive, huge stones. And it's really, really old. Again, like 7th century. I'm very glad you liked it. Yeah, no, I love it. I love it. I'm all about churches. Like I can go to a million churches, you know. Anything historical, I'm all about it. So the church dates back to 630. But the outside, like the very entryway, that dates back to the 17th century, correct? 17th century, yeah. So these tombstones, who do they belong to? They belong to high position priests, like bishops, archbishops, even catechosis. Catechosis is the leader of Armenian church. Okay, so these are all 17th century, basically, priests or high position leaders of the church. And then right here at the very entry of the door, you have this incredible painting. Look at this painting. Wow. Really beautiful. Really old. Another really beautiful detail here is this. You have this really, really old cross as well. So it's like stone. It's tilted away. And this must be, is this 17th century? Yeah, also 17th century. Okay, it looks older. This looks like 7th century. It's older. Like, I guess they found it from the yard and they just didn't want to lose it, so they used it just for a wall. Wow. Yeah, but it really looks very old, like can be 13th century even. Two medieval churches down, and that one's also UNESCO. So these are two UNESCO of nine, right? Yes. And we're going to another UNESCO heritage site, that is Holy Mother Cathedral. It's a two-minute drive. Two-minute drive? Yeah. So three UNESCO World Heritage Sites in this small of an area. Really amazing. It was literally like a two-minute drive. Not even. Wow, that's it? The entrance? Incredible. These are the main gates of Holy Mother Cathedral. And up in there, we see our king, Derdad III, who adopted Christianity. And we see our first catholicos, Grigori the Illuminator. So you can see the sense how they are greeting each other. It's a pretty massive gate, no? Yeah. These are new gates, and part of this gate is open altar, right here. Over here to the left, we have a library that was built in 2012, that houses over 70,000 books in 40 languages, correct? Yeah. And you were saying it's a really important book here. The most important book is first printed Bible in Armenian language, and by the way, it was printed in Amsterdam. So the book was printed in 1666. In the early 20th century, there was a genocide in historical Armenia, which is actually part of Turkey today. And during Soviet time, no Armenians were allowed to talk about it. They were basically silenced. Being a part of Soviet Union, we basically were not allowed to announce about it. But we did a huge demonstration in 1965 in Republic Square in Yerevan, and we allowed to build a memorial in Yerevan. But before the memorial, we put this cross on right here, in a memory to the victims of genocide. It's 1965 again. And this is like the first official announcement about genocide, that it really happened. David, this is the first official church in the world, and some say oldest cathedral in the world. It was built in 301, when we adopted Christianity. And our first patriarch, Gregory the Illuminator, he had a vision how Jesus Christ descended with the hammer and showed where the Holy Mother Cathedral should be built. And he chose this place. We built the cathedral right here, from 301 to 303. And unfortunately for us, it's under restoration. But it's actually a good thing, because when you guys come, it'll be restored. And besides having the oldest cathedral in the world, they also have the oldest printing house in the Caucasus, which is right here. And you said, what's the date on that? 1771. And yeah, guys, I mean, that's our tour. We had an incredible day. I mean, it's been like non-stop UNESCO World Heritage Sites. We started off in Yerevan, went to Aperitivo Cafe. We had delicious breakfast. Pasturma, pasturma omelette. Oh, so good. You're still talking about it. I know, I know. I mean, I love it. I love it. It was so good. It was just salty, very meaty. I love a little bit of meat in the morning. For me, it's the best. And then after breakfast, we came out here to visit some of the oldest churches on the planet. All UNESCO. This is the oldest cathedral in the world, 301. The other two are from the 7th century. Really historical, really significant. So when you come to Yerevan, you have to make your way out here and visit them. Well, guys, I hope you loved this video. If you did, please give me a thumbs up. Leave me a comment below. Subscribe to my channel for more awesome travel content. And we'll see you in the next travel food adventure in Armenia. Peace.