#15 Place, or the Fountain
April, 2023 | Yerevan, Armenia
I’ve been thinking a lot about water lately – running water – and fountains.
I went for a run the other day with a friend, like I did once a week or so. Usually, when we parted ways on Pushkin, I made my way down my street, and thought about the fountain. Here it’s called a pulpulak, because when the water runs, it makes a pul pul sound. At least that’s what I was told.
It is one of my favorite things about Armenia – the pulpulaks. They’re all over the country, and especially concentrated in cities like Yerevan. They come in all shapes and sizes, big and small, simple and ornate. Some are unassuming, a small spigot protruding from a rectangular hunk of slate gray rock. There are those that seem to be carved of marble, others of stone, many with inscriptions etched into the sides, dedicated to something or someone. They are at once commemorative and utilitarian. They flow with fresh, cold water.
I will miss them when I go.
After every run, I would walk through the tunnel that led to the inside of my bak (or block), and swing by the gray stone pulpulak that stood in the tiny little square. The one just in front of the stairs that led to the church. The one that replaced the old one just a few months after the war ended, its inscription reading “Artsakh.”
I entered the bak that day, and walked towards the pulpulak. I stopped when I realized it wasn’t running. Usually, the pulpulaks were turned off in the wintertime, in case of the pipes freezing. They were wrapped tightly in what looked like saran wrap, and closed to the public. It wasn’t common for the water to be turned off in the spring, though, and it startled me.
No matter, my bak had an abundance of pulpulaks – five, to be exact. I walked up the church steps, to the second pulpulak, which stood next to the large, terracotta colored khachar, or tombstone.
It had been Armenian Easter the day before, and there were bunches of flowers standing in vases and resting in bouquets around the tombstone, poppies and tulips and daffodils.
I bent down to take a sip of water, and looked up again to see a short procession of women with white scarves covering their heads cross themselves before the church entrance and then walk in.
And I was struck by the way that a place can retain memory. Because I remembered one night just a couple of weeks before, when there had been a beautiful white cat perched atop that very fountain, gently lapping at the water. Its body and the marble of the fountain beneath illuminated by the church light.
So many times, I’d walked past that fountain. In the night when I was coming home from a bar, or showing the boy I liked all the fountains of the neighborhood, or carrying bags of groceries from SAS in each hand. All the times I’d walked past without even noticing the fountain. All the times…
Out of all the fountains in the city, there are a select few – like this one - that stand heavy with my memories. I lament the day I no longer live on this street, in this bak, because I won’t see them. Even if I change apartments, stay somewhere else in the city, it won’t be quite the same. That is the nature of life, of time passing.
Many of my days have been bookended by these fountains. Running water. I hope there will be many, many more.
If you’d like to go back and read my past musings and meltdowns, hit this link.