Erevan

“ The post road to Erivan makes the long deviation down the valleys of the border ranges to the junction with the road from Tiflis at the station of Delijan.
The great plain lay around us, level and devoid of objects, like the bosom of a sea. Before us stretched the mountain, the unwieldy bulk of a colossus, a formidable barrier to the country on the south. In such an expanse the human note is overwhelmed by Nature; one hardly notices the signs of the presence of ubiquitous man. There are villages which you scarcely see until you have passed within their precincts ”

“ Khoja Khan Lejchani, a rich merchant of Timur’s suite, settled here (at Erivan) with all his family and servants, cultivating plantations of rice, by which means a great Kent was soon formed. Five years later Shah Ismail gave to Revan Kul, one of his khans, an order to build a castle here, which, being finished in seven years, was named after him Revan or Erivan.” The five years of Evliya are incomprehensible to me. Erivan is mentioned by John Katholikos, who wrote in the eleventh century, as having been a considerable place in the seventh (Saint-Martin’s translation, Paris, 1841, p. 80) . ”

“ Did we not learn, that R. Eliezer said: "If a man said: 'This loaf of bread is on me,' an Erub may be made with it, but if he said, 'This loaf is consecrated,' it must not be used for an Erub, because an Erub must not be made with consecrated things"? There are two Tanaim who report the dictum of R. Eliezer in different ways.
"An Erub may be made for a Nazarite with wine." This Mishna is not in accordance with the opinion of Beth Shammai, as we have learned in the following Boraitha: An Erub must not be made for a Nazarite with wine, nor for an ordinary Israelite with heave-offering. ”

“ In Erivan itself, the chief town of a district where capital might be turned to the greatest advantage, it is impossible or difficult to find a foreign newspaper, while the industrial skill of the advanced races of Europe is not represented by a single foreign enterprise, or, so far as I know, by a single foreign man of business or industrial employee. Persons who know the country well have told me that from the point of view of irrigation, so important a requirement in a land which suffers from want of rain, it has gone back since the times of the Persians, who are experts in such arts. ”

“ In 1044 Sultán Murád marched to Eriván, and took Tabríz and the town of Eriván in seven days; he left Murtezá Páshá with a garrison of 40,000 men, and returned to Islámbol. His entrance was celebrated in 1045 (1634) by a festival of seven days. The ill-favoured Sháh (of Persia) however returned and laid siege to Eriván, which being left without sufficient strength, after a siege of seven months fell into the hands of the infidels, who put the whole of the garrison to the sword. ”

“ By the treaty of Turkomanchai, 1828, the Czar became possessed of Persian Armenia, of which the capital is Erivan. In this district are contained the two great objects of Armenian veneration, Etchmiazin and Mount Ararat. This noble snowy mountain takes the place, in the estimation of the Armenians, that Mount Sinai and Mount Zion do among the followers of other Christian sects. The foolish legends which disgrace [189] the purity of true religion usually relate to the object of local tradition which may be met with in the neighborhood of the monastery ”

“ The man is in one place and the Erub in another? He cannot even obtain it without a key. Rabh and Samuel both said, that the Erub is valid only when the cupboard is not firmly immured but is loosely built, so that the bricks maybe removed and the Erub taken out, and that the Mishna is according to R. Meir's opinion, who holds, that this may be done on a festival to commence with and that the Mishna refers to a festival only, and not on a Sabbath. ”

“ The heart of the mountain-region, the tract extending from the district of Erivan on the east to the upper course of the Kizil-Irmak river and the vicinity of Sivas upon the west, was, as it still is, Armenia. Amidst these natural fastnesses, in a country of lofty ridges, deep and narrow valleys, numerous and copious streams, and occasional broad plains—a country of rich pasture grounds, productive orchards, and abundant harvests—this interesting people has maintained itself almost unchanged from the time of the early Persian kings to the present day. ”

“ And if we missed the gardens and the immense expanse of the campagna of Erivan, this open plain seemed to repeat the surroundings of Ararat on a scale exactly suited to Sipan.
Near the opening we passed the tiny village of Burnu Bulakh, inhabited by Kurds. We doubled the long promontory; it was evident it had been pushing us away from our true course. Once rounded, we pursued a south-easterly direction, keeping to the base of the hills to which it belongs. In these solitudes a human figure is an unfamiliar object ”

“ The sages that differ with Samuel and assert that new bread may be used on the eve of the second day maintain, that the Mishna merely administers good advice and tells us, that we need not trouble ourselves to make a new Erub in case the first one is lost.
MISHNA: R. Jehudah said: "If a man apprehend that the new year will be celebrated two days, he must prepare two Erubin." ”

“ In some sort the little man became his idol; a constant presence before which every act of his days must be judged. Teevan was a smiling but inexorable arbiter of his destiny: a judge humane but incorruptible, a man experienced in the obliquities of human nature, but never tolerant of these.
Teevan showed him pictures, the work of masters, piloting him through galleries with instructive comment. [166] Ewing instinctively felt the accuracy of his taste, and divined the soundness of his technical knowledge. Often he overlooked a blemish of bad drawing till Teevan pointed it out. ”

“ Ebron lies seven leagues from Jherusalem, and is the chief city of the Philistines; on Ebron are the graves of the patriarchs, Adam, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and of their wives Eva, Sara, Rebecca, and Lia. There is a fine church which the Infidels take great care of, and hold in great honour, because the holy fathers lie there; they do not allow either Christians or Jews to enter, unless they have the permission of the king-sultan, and they say, we are not worthy to enter so holy a place. ”

“ The plain itself, on the confines of which, and opposite to one another, these several ranges and mountain masses rise, is not unworthy of the works around it, and spreads at their feet a long perspective of open and even ground. Where the valley attains its greatest extension, just west of Erivan, the width of its floor, or level surface, is over twenty miles; and even when the spurs of the Lake Sevan system have inclined the northern boundary to the south, the space between these spurs and the extreme base of Ararat is scarcely less than ten miles. ”

“ Should a householder be in partnership in wine with two of his neighbors (residing in the same alley) , they do not require an Erub; if he be in partnership with one in wine and with another in oil, they do require an Erub. R. Simeon said: Neither in one case nor in the other do they require an Erub.
GEMARA: Said Rabh: "Such is the case if the wine was contained in one vessel." And Rabha said: "This may be inferred from the Mishna itself; for the latter clause of the Mishna states, that if the householder be in partnership with one in wine and with another in oil, they require an Erub. ”

“ R. Eliezer said: When a festival precedes or succeeds a Sabbath (by one day) , a man should prepare two Erubin and say: My first Erub is to be valid for the east and my second for the west; or my first for the west and the second for the east. My Erub is valid for the first day and the second day I am like the rest of my townsmen, or my Erub is good for the second day and the first day I am like my townsmen. The sages however hold, that one may prepare his Erub for one direction only ”

“ Education is not a department of human activity which can be properly conducted upon military principles. The only discipline healthy for the mind is that which is derived from the unfettered exercise of the faculties with which it has been endowed. In Erivan I had occasion to remark the contrast in intellectual atmosphere between the Russian and the Armenian school. Here were offered two typical examples of these diverse species, still existing side by side. As the capital of a diocese, the Church has still the right to possess a seminary in the town of Erivan. ”

“ If the Erub rolls (or is moved) out of the limit of the Sabbath distance? If the time when it took place is doubtful? If a clean and unclean loaf were before a man, and he was told to make an Erub with the clean one, but did not know which was which? Said R. Na'hman to Rabha: If thou wilt measure a whole kur of salt and present me with it, I shall tell thee the answer. A man may make his Erub conditional. If one of the two sages had been the man's teacher, he must go to meet his teacher. It frequently happens that a man has a greater fondness for his colleague than for his teacher. ”

“ The population of Erivan is very much mixed, but the larger number are Armenian Christians, who control the financial and commercial affairs, as they do everywhere else in this section, and have displayed that remarkable aptitude for commerce and accumulation that is characteristic138 of the race. There are many Turks, more Persians, and still more Kurds, who do the teaming, drive the cabs, and load the camels. The heavy labour is done by Kurds and Tartars, and the trading by Persians and Armenians, as it is elsewhere. ”

“ In that assurance my thought has left the road to Nevers to follow that for Toulouse, where Eran is going, always with the same cortége 'of wind, of cold, and of rain.' Poor Eran! He left me with an emotion that touched me very much. This journey to Paris, and all that has happened in a few months, has drawn together and mingled our lives (Eran's and mine) more than twenty years had been able to do. We have always lived far away from each other, and our characters have not helped much to make up for distance. ”

“ But nothing was done to disturb the daily life of the Armenians who grew numerous and flourished in that part of the Caucasus that was under Russian surveillance. The Plain of Erivan and the Valley of the Araxes River are their chief residing places. Here, though in close contact with Tartars, Lazes and Kurds, they have preserved their [3] separate existence, and have cherished with ardor the details of their older life. Etchmiadzin was originally a religious settlement—a monastery encircled by high battlements. But for the Armenians it is not only a religious center. ”

“ Perhaps the best introduction to the population of a city consists in a visit to the schools. Erivan is better supplied in respect both of elementary and secondary education than any other town in the Armenian provinces of the Russian Empire. ”

“ R. Johanan ben Nouri, however, maintains, that the wine and the oil are attached to each other and therefore both become unclean.'" In our Mishna, the sages hold with the sages of the Mishna quoted, and R. Simeon holds with R. Johanan ben Nouri.
We have learned in a Boraitha: R. Elazar ben Tadai said: "In either case they require an additional Erub." Even if both vessels contain wine an additional Erub is necessary? ”

“ From time to time there may come an embassy to your overlord of Persia, and there will be a report to dictate upon the size and splendour of the cavalcade. The beauties of Georgia and Circassia luxuriate in the adjoining halls, and water flows in abundance everywhere. The governor of Erivan was quite a little king in the country, and, when he travelled, the inhabitants of the villages along his route would immolate an ox in his honour.12
Fig. 46. Erivan: Interior of the Kiosque of the Sirdars. ”

“ Evarne flung herself amid the purple cushions of a big chair and shut her eyes. Ere long one idea evolved itself from the tangle of confused thought, and placed itself—clearly and shamelessly—before the bar of her reason, to be relentlessly judged. Did she indeed owe all that Mr. Kenyon was doing for her—was giving her—simply to the fact that she was Leo Stornway's daughter, or were her own youth—her beauty—her sex—the real forces that prompted his generous actions? ”

“ New batteries poured for four or five successive days a heavy but fruitless fire into the place, and not a single man suffered from its effects. At length, on the 1st of July, after the investment of the fortress had lasted for eight weeks, the Imperial army broke up from before Erivan, and General Paskiewitch, leaving that stronghold behind him, marched on Nakhtchivan, after having sent his sick and wounded men to the Monastery of Etchmiadzeen. Thus for the third time the troops of the Czar failed in their efforts to take the fortress of Erivan. ”

“ If we should say, that he has not the four ells, it will not be made easier for the wealthy, but on the contrary stricter?" It will not be stricter? For he would rather lose the four ells and be enabled to send a messenger in his stead than to go himself.
MISHNA: If a man (on the eve of Sabbath) had been despatched by his townsmen to combine by an Erub a town (or village in the vicinity) and was subsequently induced by a neighbor to go back (before completing his errand) he is permitted to go to the place in question (nevertheless) ; all his townsmen, however, are forbidden (to go thither) . ”