Anthony Bourdain had never been to Armenia, though a part of him always wanted to go.
In 2017, early in Parts Unknown’s penultimate season, Systems of a Down frontman Serj Tankian reached out, and it all fell into place. Bourdain found himself in the South Caucasus, a complex corner of the world at the nexus of Europe, Russia and the Middle East, where nothing is black and white.
Literally, as it turned out.
In the end, Tony Bourdain’s 2017 sojourn to Armenia proved to be a Parts Unknown outing filled with tales of the Armenian diaspora, BBQ, and plenty of lavash. Watching that episode today, nearly 10 years later, it’s easy to see why Bourdain touched such a nerve with the world at large, and why he is so missed, these somany years later.
Perhaps even more so today, given the state of the world.
CNN couldn’t have known it at the time, of course, but Parts Unknown had so much to say about the news of the world. It wasn’t just another food show with five-minute commercial breaks, nor was it a pale, pallid Rick Steeves TV guidebook to safe, easy-to-visit destinations around the world.
Armenia, as a country and as a people, has always had an ill-fated history, and that’s what Bourdain chooses to focus on, in his unique, inimitable way. (His imitators may be legion but, let’s face it, they can’t hold a candle to the original.)
First and foremost is Bourdain’s idea — I’d say it would become his calling, but truth is it was there from the very beginning, going right back to A Cook’s Tour — that few problems can’t be solved, or disagreements between people unresolved, over a decent meal and candid conversation. God only knows what he would’ve made of Gaza today, or Ukraine — the good he could have done.
Here is the Armenian-American alt-metal headbanger and social activist Serj Tankian, frontman for the alt band System of a Down, posting to his 2.2 million followers on Instagram, shortly before the episode bowed on CNN:
“So I guess the cat’s out of the bag about my trip to Armenia last year. Pictured next to me is one cool cat named @anthonybourdain. Catch us on his show @partsunknown on May 20 on @cnn as we cruise around Armenia in a sweet black Volga.”
That would be the car, not the river, which is more blue than black, but which you just know would’ve been just as much fun.
Tankian, Bourdain’s sidekick in Armenia — one of several — is both spiritual guide and loyal companion as they cruise around Dilijan, “Armenia’s Switzerland,” in Soviet-era wheels.
“Sad to leave you this morning, Armenia,” Tankian posted, at the time of leaving, “but happy I got to spend some time with you again this year.”
Tankian, who, like Bourdain, had his spiritual roots in America, at the time America was still welcoming to refugee families, returned to Armenia during the “Velvet Revolution,” one of modern-day history’s occasions when thousands of protesters, ordinary everyday people, took to the streets, demanding the resignation of a leader they had lost faith in. They succeeded.
Had they not have succeeded, the story would not have ended the same way but, hey, sometimes, not often but on occasion, history breaks the right way.
Tankian, again, posting on social media — yes, social media can work for the good and not just for Bad-Influencers — “From the stage celebrating the people’s victory in Armenia … The elation, the spirit and hope is palpable, and overwhelming. Today is the first day of a new Armenia.”
Elation, spirit, hope — these are words we associate with Bourdain, when he was at his best. By Parts Unknown’s 11th season, the seams were already starting to show — he looks haggard, tired even, visibly aged — but the old flame was still burning. Sometimes, the brightest flame burns on the inside, not on how someone looks on camera.
While in Yerevan, Bourdain talked life, politics and the world at large with Richard Giragosian, political analyst and director at the time of the aptly named Regional Studies Centre, a kind of think-tank for talking heads and enquiring minds. Think of all the tedious back-and-forth you’ve seen on CNN over the years, with talking heads striving to keep viewers awake by trying to snap off witty soundbites between five-minute commercial breaks for boner pills and insurance companies.
This was not like that.
As Giragosian told Bourdain, at the outset and straight up: “We need to go beyond victimization and take more pride in survival.”
And then there was Bourdain’s way with words, always, ever-present even — especially? — as he was winding down his years on Parts Unknown.
Armenia, Bourdain noted, as recorded for posterity on the site Explore Parts Unknown (https://explorepartsunknown.com), is a nation that, “remains a dream, a subject of stories; it is still, against all odds, a place,” a society and a people that have been engaged in a “long, existential struggle for survival” for decades.
It’s worth noting — and not for the first time — that Bourdain did not use writers. He wrote his own words, and then voiced those words as he had written them.
Why would he not? His thoughts were original, unique, and they were his own. Always. There is not a single moment in any Parts Unknown episode, ever, where Bourdain appeared to be parroting someone else’s thoughts and words.
“When Armenia was swallowed up by the Soviet Union in 1920,” Bourdain continued, “it became the Armenia Soviet Socialist Republic” — which is funny in a way, because it was neither truly Soviet, nor a union, nor particularly socialist, nor yet a republic.
“With that came purges and paranoia, but also a rapid industrialization, the evidence of which is still seen today int he abandoned factories and workers’ blocks of another time … Armenia enjoyed a somewhat celebrated status during Soviet times.
“Russian influence is everywhere still. Chess is taught in public schools, a basic life skill. It’s probably the fact that Armenia was such a powerhouse of smart, highly educated brainiacs with strong backgrounds in engineering, math, rocketry, and technology—a veritable Silicon Valley of the Caucasus, which largely spared them the worst of Soviet rule.”
And under Stalin, that rule could get quite grim, especially if one was chosen to “provide” paving stones for “the Road of Bones,” the R504 Kolyma Highway, part of the M56 route through Russia’s Far East, as travelled by Ewan McGregor and Charley Boorman in their groundbreaking (sorry) TV road trip Long Way Round in 2004.
Part of me wonders what a trip McGregor, Boorman and Bourdain could have made together, TV cameras or no TV cameras, 19,000 miles (or 31,000 km in English money) on heavy duty road-worn choppers, Easy Rider for the Bourdain set. Oh, well.
Somehow, I think Bourdain, Boorman and McGregor would’ve got along famously, but that’s a dream for another time.
The last word, as always, belonged to Bourdain, from his Field Notes, posted on Medium just days before Armenia’s premiere on CNN.
“The connection, the collective yearning, and the flow of money, resources, and people from the Armenian diaspora back into the homeland are powerful and important — as you will see. They are also vital to the nation’s survival. An astonishing amount of money is returning home from abroad — for schools, hospitals, and institutions — to help the country grow. An ever larger number of overseas Armenians are returning, to see where they came from, to enjoy the food, and to reconnect — if they still can — with family, tradition, a way of life.”
Not unlike Bourdain himself.
Supplementary reading:
https://explorepartsunknown.com/armenia/armenia-behind-the-scenes/
https://eatlikebourdain.com/anthony-bourdain-in-armenia/
https://explorepartsunknown.com/armenia/what-you-need-to-know-about-armenias-velvet-revolution/
Supplementary viewing:
CNN