Lapshin: "I wasn’t permitted to see ancient Ani"

Russian-Israeli blogger Alexander Lapshin has written on his Facebook page:

"I hoped to visit the ancient city of Ani. I don’t want to write about it, but because of the bureaucracy and the inconsistencies between the Armenian and Russian border guards we couldn’t see the ancient capital city. For permission the Armenian side send us to the Russian one and the Russian side to the Armenian. As a result, the protraction lasted 3 weeks. As a bonus, we saw how people live in border villages; a special report will be on it.

Actually, because of the meaningless bureaucracy Armenia loses its most important tourism object. The issue is that the still soviet fence goes 3-4 kilometres outside the border, and there is a military base located there. No one is permitted beyond it, whereas hundreds of buses with tourists could be taken there enabling also the local residents, who live in extreme poverty, to earn some money.

Fortunately, you are not prevented from visiting Ani in Turkey, you can wander about there as much as you like, in spite of the fact that the border is a few metres away from the ancient churches. We have been there some years ago, and you can read about it going to the link below."