Day 10

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This morning we started walking to the metro to the Մեսրոպ Մաշտոցի անուան Մատենադարան without the parents. First we stopped at a huge statue of Aram Manougian, who was the first leader of the first Republic of Armenia. Then we moved forward to metro, the worker gave us little coins that we had to put in the machine so it would grant us entrance. They were orange and the size of nickels. We rode a fast escalator down to the waiting place. The sound of the metro approaching was so loud that we had to close our ears. The second the doors closed, the metro zoomed past the tunnel and onto the next station in 10 seconds. We got off and went up to the main building of the station and then went outside. It was a long uphill walk to the Մատենադարան so we bought water to take with us.



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The word մատենադարան is made up of two words – մատեան (old manuscript) and դարան (a place where you keep things). The Մատենադարան has two sections – the museum part and the place, where the historians read and preserve the books. We went to the museum part of course.

First, we saw an old cracked rock on which was carved in Armenian: “Whoever destroys this rock will be punished by god.” After that, we saw an old bible. It was one of three bibles in the world whose cover was coated with ivory. The first one (6th century) is kept in the Մատենադարան, while the second and third (7th and 9th centuries) are kept by museums elsewhere.

Next we saw the biggest (Մշոյ Ճառընտիր) and smallest (Տօնացոյց) books in Armenian. One of the pages in the biggest book used the skin of 1-2 calves and weighed 28 kilograms. The smallest one could fit into a matchbox and weighed 18 grams. We then went into a room where we saw different types of natural colors, one of which was որդան կարմիր, which we learned about in Armenian class. I have to say, the old Armenian artworks on display which used natural colors are much more beautiful, bright and precise than the modern paintings I have seen. We also saw the liquids that old royal drinks were made out of which was really cool.


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In the next room, there were old maps of the Middle East, taken out of books. Armenia in those maps was much bigger than it is today. It stretched from sea to sea. We concluded our trip to the Մատենադարան in that room and went to pick up our parents and drive to Tumo: Center for Creative Technologies.

First, we’d like to thank Tumo creator Sam Simonian for our fantastic adventure there. It was truly awesome. The first thing that we did at Tumo was watching a short presentation. The presentation was about how many students come to Tumo, what types of stuff they learned, etc.

After we watched the presentation we went to lego robotics. When we got there, the workers explained what we had to do. When the people finished, we got split into groups of three to make the lego robots. The group that I (Nicholas) had was me, Andre, and Gassia. We got started on the lego and we were really good at it. My group was speeding through it like a lightning bolt! We kept building and building and we were getting extremely good comments from the people there and we were happy. Our group was the first one done and we were happy. But we soon realized that it still wasn’t done. We had to plug in the wires and go to a coding app to code our robot.


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The robot had a couple of sensors: light, motor, press and sound sensors. But soon enough all that was done, too. After everyone finished, we watched videos on the trials and errors of getting a rover onto Mars. The whole point was to not get angry about your errors. You have to learn from them instead.

Unfortunately, it was raining outside, so we didn’t get the chance to play sports. But overall, Tumo was an amazing experience.

In the bus, Digin Ardemis canceled today’s trip to Grand Candy. But she said that if we behave tomorrow, we might go tomorrow afternoon instead of today.

We finished the day with dinner at Derian Restaurant. We ate some one-of-a-kind khorovats there and went back to the hotel to get some rest.

Today was a great day, and we can’t wait for tomorrow’s tour of Yerevan’s many statues.

-Vartan and Nicholas

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