Ten years ago Yerevan's nights and evenings were diametrically different. The question "Where to Go?" was topical, because the choice was limited. Now this question is again topical, but in a quite different context. “Where to go, to have some joy?”. Too much choices and too much choosers.
Ten years ago the pubs were the bars, and clubs were discos. Many people used to backstab those who visited pubs and “pursue” those who visited clubs. Much has changed, but the problem remained unchanged. The culture of Yerevan's evening and night-life, as well as, those who enjoy it, needs to be “worked out”. If you know what the labor migration is, then you can easily imagine what a pup-club migration is. The experts who visit pubs and clubs became very dilettante in the pub-club environment.
If then there was concrete limits, now they are blurred. The status quo was violated. A person who visits pubs and clubs no longer is a separate caste living in “Parallel Yerevan”. Those who were “stars” of pubs and clubs, now lost their glitter near the glossy singers and anchorman.
The migration took place during the last 5 years, when “the qyartu”, “the glamour”, “the stars”, “the rockers” and “the bikers” gathered in one place. An area, where there gather people, living and being guided by diametrically different life-rules. Now pubs are the old and kind places, where you could gather with friends and “go crazy” or sit depressed and lonely and drink some beer. Pubs and clubs are stages, and you must stagealize here.
In the result of the invasions of “the qyartu and glamour”, the areas became smaller. Those who used to visit pubs and clubs, seeing certain challenges in it, gradually declined, giving way to the new generation. Generation, where now a speakeasy is not a speakeasy at all, because there is no any challenge (Speakeasies are the underground taverns which used to sell alcohol during the dry law in the United States).
In the result of this great confusion the second reorganization took place again. When “the glamour and the glossy” in the result of getting too close to “the qyartu” and “the bikers”, definitely lost their social position, the exclusiveness, the exclusive privilege to be in the “sky”. And so then we came up with another movement, which greatly affected on the development of the country's tourism and also introduces the night-life much better. It’s about the “home" pubs and “Noble” wine-bars. Here do gathers the Armenian “advanced”, or as our ancestors would say “the artistic” folks.
These guys convey a new social status to those, who “fell” too low. The red semi-dry wine combined with “sweety” backstabbing about others, is more suitable for their conversations and palate. All this migrations and transformations make Yerevan be more diverse and multilayer. A city with a crude night-life and callow enjoyers.
To be honest, in Armenia a “place” do not assume a “status”, because here there is no any “place” where one can't afford himself to visit it, leastwise on the ”days of wage”. In fact, the more changes the better will be. These “invasions” show that the number of folks living in “parallel Yerevan” gradually decreases, slowly but steadily.
We just have to find a common language with each other and find our place in Yerevan's nights.
Author Artyom Levonyan
