Questions regarding life in Yerevan.

Hey there!

I'm a foreigner living in Armenia and I have lived here for about 5 years therefore I can inform you about the way of life here for a foreigner. First of all, living here is definitely extremely different with visiting it for only few weeks.

Finding an apartment is pretty easy and the rent really depends on the location and the quality of the apartment, it can be as cheap as $20-$30 for a night. There are many decent hostels around too. After all getting a place to stay is not a matter of utmost concern.

As a musician myself I can say that music scene here is absolutely terrible for genres like Jazz, Classical, Avant-garde and even rock and metal. People here just listen to popular stuff. But what music are you talking of? Can you please be more specific?

Art scenes - I haven't seen any. But again can you please be more specific? It really depends what we're talking of, people tend to be interested in popular stuff here, there are no avant-garde scenes here, actually no scenes at all when it comes to art. This is the truth, art here is terrible and I have looked for it for so long.

Yes there are many courses that you can find here to help you learn Armenian and they're extremely easy to find.

The question about hitchhiking is really a very hard one to answer, it's not possible to give you a very certain answer. Armenia cannot be considered a dangerous country but crime is a possibility almost anywhere in the world, if you follow up the safety tips I guess it'll be fine but again I don't want to give a wrong answer on this one, anything is possible when hitchhiking alone.

Hi there,
Thank you so much for your reply. Really appreciate it!
As for music scene - I was talking about more of alternative, indie rock, experimental, noise kinda genres. The reason i asked was because I work as a part-time music promotor, and I bring bands over from other parts of the world. So i was wondering if the scene is already developed or not.
For art scene i meant by different types of exhibitions, workshops of some sort.

Also one more question - can a foreigner own business there? I have been living in Vietnam for over 4 years and I had a coffee shop there. It was a lot of hassle just to get the right documents and dealing with the local authorities was something I absolutely hated, because of all the corruptions and what not... So i was wondering if it's the same over there...

Once again, thank you very much for the reply!

Cheers!

You're welcome.
Alternative and Indie Rock is very possible but forget about Noise and Experimental music. I haven't even met one person all these years who's deeply into Noise music... Even the well known ones (Sonic Youth, Merzbow and Einstürzende Neubauten) are not known here at all, let alone the underground ones...

Yes there are art exhibitions and workshops here.

Yes you can,  (There's an American coffee shop here for instance whose owner is an American) and if you set up something really unique it'll probably be very profitable. (Besides the native people, tourists love trying out unique things and setting up a decent Coffee Shop in the central part of the city and advertising it very well can help you get a lot of customers)
I only don't know how it is to get the work done, I'm not sure if there's a lot to be done with the paper work.
Just one thing - don't trust anybody for registering your business for you, registering a company here costs less than $100, I have seen foreigners who have been charged around $1000 (by the company-registration agencies) only for registering their company, so if you're going to do anything just do it yourself and don't pay anybody or any firm to do it for you - if you see people don't understand English when it comes to official work just hire a translator and get the work done. By the way, everybody here knows good Russian too so that can help as well.

Don't hesitate to write if you've got any other questions.

Chin-chin.

P.S: Have a look at Georgia too, probably it'll be a good choice to consider too. There are far more tourists there and I believe it's a more developed country compared to Armenia.

Yeah, thanks for the tips!
Good call on Georgia. I have heard so as well.
I am planning to go around several countries before I settle down in one place. But for some odd reasons,,, Armenia just seems to be the place haha but we'll see.
Thanks again and message me your email if it's not too much to ask.
I owe you a drink i believe.
Have a good one!

That's right, you should see it for yourself to see if it complies with the standards you're looking for.
Haha no you don't, I just wanted to help and I'm glad if I could really be of any help.

All the best.

P.S: I cannot send you a message, there seems to be an unexpected error.