Guys, this is not a joke.

There’s an autograph of President Robert Kocharyan, on a photo at a Nato summit.

It’s bids start at £27, I’ll be interested to see how much this goes for!

Here it is

Since when does anyone in Armenia play hockey?

Who wants an Armenian scout badge from Argentina? What are you going to do with this?

day 4, noon:
Shopping in Baku. Went to quiksilver. Very nice and attentive staff. All 8 of them. In a tiny shop. Midday on a monday in november. I bought a cute roxy sweater. The staff was typical. I was followed around the store. (which is weird until you realize it is normal even in supermarkets. I tried to pay with a credit card (it was a $40 sweater) but the pulse phone line for the credit card was being used by someone talking. I paid in cash so I have to go to an atm today (but they are all over because the pension system was computerized last year). I also went to miss sixty. the tags on the clothes said distibuted by a Romanian company. hmm. I’ll have to go to one in London to see if they are selling the same stuff. now I am at cafe mozart with other foreigners sitting alone.

Okay, there is an open market for tourist goods along one of the main parts of this major shopping area. My basic thought was,
oh, more crap that I don’t need. But I did keep my eyes open for a cool Aliyev painting or something. Don’t worry Armenians,
Vernisage isn’t the only place in the world with weird paintings, Russian stacking dolls with Winnie the Pooh on them and paintings of mermaids without shirts. I saw out of the corner of my eye a Russian language cover of the album Rubber Soul. My mind went straight to EBAY GOLD! I went to look at it and this guy had basically ever classic rock album with Russian language covers. He said 1 album would be 8000 manat (a little under $2). I told him it was too expensive. He said that if I bought multiple albums, each one would be 1000 manat less. That’d be pretty cool. Then I noticed that all the albums were reissues! Printed in the late 80s and early 90s. Damn!

I thought that they were like, underground contraband rock from the 60s. Oh well. I didn’t buy them.

The major shopping area sort of needs an explaination. I wish that I could find some sort of diagram or map of it. Basically sets of shops that are in 5-9 story buildings jigjag across in various directions. The roads are made pedistrian only, so you can walk for miles down different streets for shopping. It is mainly clothes with DVD and cell phone shops thrown in now and then. Bars
and places to eat are there too, as well as nightclubs. The firt night that I was here I walked through it at 2 in the morning - quite a different feeling from today! It was packed on a random Tuesday! I’ll look online for a map. It was really neat.

Oh, also the main cinema is here. It shows a few different films, some in English. They are the latest Russian releases. That new Disney movie with the chicken is showing there now. The threatre is certainly Euro-remond. It looks just as nice as an American theatre inside and it seemed like lots of people were going to see movies. Also people around here were talking about going to the movies quite often.

With all of this stuff going on all in one area, it certainly makes for a lot of cool community interactions. Sure, people that live here full time probably prefer places off the beaten path, but you can meet up with your friends, find a place that everyone likes and wander around.

The shops here are, as I’ve said before, really quite nice. Hopefully my internet connection will stay alive long enough so that I can get the photos uploaded.

Anoher observation: in 2006, they are changing the value of the money here. Now 1 manat will be almost 1 dollar. Some places
are already changing their menus. The biggest bill here now is worth $10, so they probably need to do this. Plus, counting so high- what does it get you?

As I troll eBay looking to furnish my new house, I came upon some weird (and some good!) Armenian stuff.

More after the jump
more…

Here’s a new one, this time intended for your car.

I made a category so now you can see all of the weird Armenian stuff on eBay that we’ve posted.

Here’s today’s:

Remember when I posted those clocks and dolls that I saw on eBay?

Well, this takes the cake.

The description is weird enough:

Jesus Christ’s Face on Armenia photo! Phenomenon!
Appeared on 2 photos! This photo is over 18 years old!

see this eBay auction

Right now (1:17pm ET, June 9) they are going for over $100.

I think I bought almost the same dolls a few years ago for $5.

Maybe I should quit my job, move to Armenia, and sell stuff from Venisage on eBay.

On occasion I’ll do a search for Armenia or Armenian on eBay. Some of the more interesting things that I’ve found include drams selling for much more than they are worth, weird art, ugly dolls, and a DVD of Armenian women in their underwear, just to name a few.

Granted, my taste may be different from that of others, but these items on eBay were too ugly not to mention.

Anyone else have weird Armenicana items found on eBay worth sharing?