One lucky bastard...: April 2011

I can deny it no longer, you have to know this: I am in love with you. My heart aches with the all-consuming fire that you are burning inside me. I love you, I really do. I am dizzy with happiness for discovering you, but equally with sadness, as I know I must lose you soon. Hard and true you have hit me, as I have never known before.

Tbilisi, my darling, you have stolen my heart. You must share it, alas, but please do not be jealous. To feel for you as I do for Porto, Cape Town, Melbourne and San Francisco should be testament enough to your beauty, charm and the pure and innocent joy you have given me over the last four days. You are truly wonderful.

It was the grand magnificence of your vibrant pulse, your Rustaveli, which first awoke in me this long-forgotten passion. How Parisian you looked on that first morning, with your elegant streetlights and beautifully blossoming chestnut trees. How reassuring and heart-warming it was to see your world-weary Ladas stutter along your wide boulevards, how unpretentious you were. I strolled so easily with distraction on my mind and peace upon my face. Oh, what a first date you gave me - such promise, such hope, such anticipation for more.

I came to you as a wandering artist with his canvas blank, hoping to find inspiration but expecting grey brushstrokes and dark skies. As I stood atop your mighty vantage point, your fortress, your Narikala, you revealed yourself to me. You showed me your greens and your blues, your yesterdays and your today. You were beautiful, again. Your palaces, your churches, your hills and your life all filled me with a wonder scarcely to be trusted. Up and down your streets I wandered, joyous disbelief coursing through me as I understood what you were doing to me, how you were reaching out to me.

But it was in your old town, my love, in your own heart of history that you truly overpowered my senses, that you broke down my defences. How could I possibly resist you? As you charmed me with your delightful cobbled streets and wooden Ottoman houses, your sultry steam baths and quirky bronze statues, I could feel myself falling under your knowing spell. I tried to resist, for the love that we share does not come easily. But I gave myself to you, there, on the cobbled lanes near your oldest church and the theatre bell tower. Even as the clock struck seven times in the evening sun, and as your folk figurines danced to the gentle lullaby, I knew that I was all yours. And that you were mine, always.

I have to leave you now, my love, but do not be upset; you knew it would be so. Know you are unforgettable to me. You gave me what I sought so ardently but did not expect to find, here or anywhere. For this I thank you, and love you, my Tbilisi.

‘Have you ever done a hash?’ my host Anne asks me. The indefinite article in her sentence throws me momentarily off guard before I answer with a cautious negative. ‘No?’ she continues in the same casual manner, ‘you should try it, there’s one at 2pm today.’

Thus it is that I find myself forming a loose human circle with an eclectic group of international expats in a litter-strewn car park at the bottom a hill beneath Erebuni Fortress, 6km outside downtown Yerevan in Armenia. A 50 something German engineer with a zeppelin paunch that hints at a casual fondness for beer and bratwurst takes a bottle of Armenian brandy out of his backpack and passes half-filled cups around the circle. The drink is downed with a short song and ceremony and we set off on our run, following a chalk-marked trail prepared earlier today by the local group’s Grand Master. These are my new friends for the day, proud members of the Hash House Harriers, a self-styled ‘worldwide drinking club with a running problem’.

As would befit a social organisation founded by a group of terminally bored British officers in 1938 colonial Malaysia, the concept is endearingly simple: thirty to sixty minutes of strenuous exercise in the form of a cross-country run followed by a few hours group socialising over a beer or three. Troubled governments of the world could do a lot worse than follow the organisation objectives detailed in the 1950 Constitution of the Hash House Harriers:

- To promote physical fitness among our members
- To get rid of weekend hangovers
- To acquire a good thirst and to satisfy it in beer
- To persuade the older members that they are not as old as they feel

Relating directly to the fourth objective, I survey the mountainous course with a mixture of apprehension and brandy-imbued excitement. Although the terrain seems steep, a touch too steep perhaps for an urban office worker with a recently cancelled gym membership, the pace is gentle as the emphasis is firmly on running as a group. Regular checkpoints and false direction markers ensure that pacesetters and backmarkers are frequently reunited in the relaxed and orderly manner of a school orienteering exercise. As we run through cattle and poultry, alongside long-abandoned factories and over the never-ending trail of litter that is sadly such a frequent sight in all former soviet states, I cannot think of a better way to have started this new trip. A glance at my watch tells me that I have only been in Armenia for seven hours.

The run finished, the hashers regroup at the starting point and several car boots are opened to reveal chilled containers filled with ice-cold beers for the adults and soft drinks for the children. A financial contribution is collected from every participant, except for me: as a hash virgin, the brandy and beers are my welcome to the community.

As the drinks are handed out, the Grand Master summons us all into another circle. After a semi-serious critical appraisal of the quality of today’s trail, a number of hash etiquette violations are punished with an enforced slug of brandy in the middle of the circle. Next to me, Axel the German engineer has made the contents of another half litre bottle of local lager vanish, his third in the space of fifteen minutes. From the smile on his face and the spectacular belch that shatters the peace, I suspect that he favours the socialising over the running.

All of a sudden, all eyes are on me as the Grand Master announces the induction of a virgin into the hash community. With a sheepish smile and feigning horror at being handed a full mug of beer, I take my place in the centre of the circle as my new brethren sing me into their bosom. As the last verse begins, I quickly despatch the contents of the mug and turn it upside down on top of my head before the song is finished. I have made it: I am a hasher.

Mine is not the closing ceremony, however. Today is a special day for the Yerevan hash community and for one person in particular. Nathan, an American student with Armenian roots and a recent hash regular has earned the right to be given a hash name. As he steps into the circle, a bag of flour is passed around from which everyone grabs two handfuls. The Grand Master then blows his whistle to announce the beginning of the naming ceremony and lucky Nathan gets pelted with enough flour to turn him into a human baguette.

As the sun starts to set over the hills of Yerevan, the parents amongst our group take their children home whilst we head back into town, to Hash HQ where more beers and chicken kebabs await. In accordance with my own initiation, I am now being addressed by my virgin name of NoNameMarc, but I get the feeling that this may change in the very near future…