Underground Books

Carlos Ruiz Zafón's "A Shadow of the Wind" starts off with an enchanting description of a "cemetery of lost books" under a bustling Barcelona. Yerevan's streets don't exactly offer magical libraries, but they do have many small businesses in underground thoroughfares. One of these underground passageways is home to thousands of books in Armenian, Russian, English, French, Italian, and German.



During the day the crowded book market echoes with sellers trying to lure you to their side of isle. With me, they mostly hold up English books. Interestingly, at night, the book sellers cover their dictionaries and novels with blue tarp and go home.



It's a bit disconcerting to see the books out in the open ready to be picked up by the rare book robber, but it's also tremendously refreshing to be exposed to a society that trusts in his fellow man (at least his fellow Armenian man).