I sent off Lena and Carlos this morning after a 2 days visit to my house. Though I was very busy and didn�t tour them around during the day, at night we had a blast eating, DRINKING and talking. I wont get into details of their trip and will let Lena fill you in on what they did.

My mom is scheduled to come to Artsakh for a visit in the next couple of days and since I resolved my transportation problems, I will go and pick her up from Yerevan.

After my last long of the sad story of my car and it�s retirement, I learned the next morning that my neighbor who is a commander at one of the military bases here in Martuni had sent in his Mercedes Benz automobile in for service to Stepanagert as I had made mention to him a couple of months ago that I was interested in purchasing it. He sent the car in for service the same day that I got the bad news about my car without knowing that I was in desperate need of a car ASAP.

So the car came back from Stepanagert on Saturday night at the same time when Lena called me to tell me that she and Carlos had arrived in Stepanagert. It was dinnertime so I told them to wait an hour and I would join them and took the Benz out for a nice long drive.

I have to tell you that for the last 4 years I have been driving around older Soviet made cars and really had forgotten how nice it is to drive a car that has comfort. I was in heaven and for the first time in a long time and really enjoyed the drive to Stepanagert (the old Benz does a great job of hiding potholes).

So back to my car and my winning the car lottery (as one of my neighbors put it).

My car is a 1988 Mercedes 500SEL, has leather everything, automatic transmission, moon-roof, new tires, nice ride and I don�t know what else your suppose to say to describe a car but I think you get the idea.

The one problem my car had was that 6 months ago it was sent to Yerevan to have some major work done on it and while it was there, the passport for the car was stolen. My neighbor who sold me the car did not report the loss until last week and the process is that you have to wait for 3 months so the report can be investigated and then they issue a new passport for the car. So being in that condition, my driving was restricted to Artsakh, as I know all the traffic cops and even if I was driving a stolen car, they would not stop me, but in Yerevan, I�m sure I would get dry mouth from talking my way out of getting my car impounded and though it is fun to do that, it can at times be not so fun.

So I was ready to wait for 3 month, but on Monday I decided to call the chief of all the traffic police in Artsakh who is originally from Martuni and years back made it a point to meet me and then told me that if there was anything I needed, to call. So on Monday I called and he told me to come in after 3 PM and talk to the people who take care of licensing to see if they could at least give me a temporary document so I could pay the yearly registration and drive to Yerevan to pick up my mom.

I called the commander and told him what I was up to and he told me to go see some guy named Gourgen as he is the one investigating the lost passport.

At 4 PM I dropped in to see Gourgen. I told him that I spoke with the chief and he asked me in a somewhat defensive tone �what does he have to do with this!!?� I told him that he really didn�t have anything to do with this and I just called him to ask what the process was since I know him and he referred me to see Gourgen.

Gourgen changed his tone and after giving him my family history and what I was doing here (I�m in the stone business), he told me to go see our chief of traffic police in Martuni to pay the registration, get a letter of some kind and then come see him and he will give me the temporary document I need to go to Yerevan.

This morning after sending off Lena and Carlos and sleeping for a couple hours, I went to see our chief of police and found out that he had gone to Stepanagert for some meeting. I called Gourgen and he told me not to worry, that our chief would be back soon and he has talked to him about what he needs to do. He said that he would wait for me and not to worry, that we would finish this process today so I could go to Yerevan in the morning.

I went to my factory to work with our engineer, welder and workers who are automating our equipment so we can increase our output by 500%. At the same time as they worked, I installed an alarm on my new car, one that I had purchased a couple of years back for my Fiat, but never go around to installing it.

I finished the installation and then drove to the police station to find that the chief of traffic police had not yet come back. I asked when he is due in and they said they had talked to him a couple of hours before and he should have been back already. I asked them to radio to him to see where he was. They did and he was out of radio range so they radioed Stepanagert who found him and learned that he was still in Stepanagert. The policeman that was relaying the information told me that it would have to wait until tomorrow.

I called Gourgen again, who I told that our chief was still in Stepanagert and asked him if we could do all the papers there? He agreed and told me to come right away.

In the meantime, the commander was suppose to get me his passport so we could write a request for Gourgen to do all the papers, but he had gone off to a meeting in Hadrut this morning and left his cell phone with his wife as their son was sick. So by the time I was able to contact the commander on his cell phone, I found he had taken his son to the hospital in Stepanagert and told me he would personally go see Gourgen to write the request before 5:30 PM.

I got to Stepanagert and on the way in, stopped at one of the police checkpoints to have them radio our chief of traffic police to come join Gourgen and I to do the papers. He instructed me to go see Gourgen and if he was needed to call him.

I went up to see Gourgen who is not part of the traffic police, but works with the ministry of internal affairs and deals with drivers licenses and license plates. He also has the same rank as the head of all traffic police in Artsakh and I guess that explains why he was defensive about me seeing the other chief since he does not answer to him.

Gourgen and I talked a bit about my work (the stone business) as he had his workers write a request from me of some kind and do some other paperwork. He said that we have to change the license plates and write some other request and so on. I really was not understanding what all the papers were since most of them were in Russian.

Then he had his assistant leave the room and close the door. He told me that it was late and to save me time so I didn�t have to go to the bank tomorrow, I could pay for all the registration fees to him and he would send someone to the bank tomorrow to deposit the money. I told him that I�m happy to hear he could do that for me as I really wont have time tomorrow. He asked me what size my engine is and I didn�t know what to answer. He determined that the engine was 125 horse power and for that I would have to pay 50,000 dram, but since it is an old car and 50,000 dram is just too much money, he will cut it in half. The license plates are 12,000 dram, the registration was something like 6,000 dram and the new passport is 12,000 dram, but he is going to give me 50% off on that too, just because he likes me. Then he called in some other guy who I think was suppose to check the car over to see if it was in safe driving condition or something and his fee was 28,000 dram. So in all, I paid $100 (which was 56,000) plus whatever the balance was in drams and the additional 28,000 dram to that other guy.

So I paid out everything and Gourgen asked me what license numbers I would like, as he had boxes full of them. I said I�m not a child and good looking numbers don�t mean anything to me so whatever he thinks would suit my car will be fine with me. He went to the back room and I could hear the sound of him shuffling tin and then Gourgen came out with my new license plates, which I wont tell you the number, but are so typical of what these mafia people always put on their cars. Lots of zeros and so on. I bet these are those special plates that all the traffic cops are instructed not to stop because the drive is some friend of someone important.

Gourgen sent me out to take off the old license plates of my car and put on his new chosen plates. I went out and barrowed some tools from the guy that was suppose to check my car that I paid 28,000 dram to (maybe the 28k was for rental of tools?). I put on the license plates and went back to Gourgen�s office. Gourgen then called down to the Stepanagert traffic police to have them write me up a 2002 sticker for my car. They said something and he said something like �I don�t care of you need a report from Martuni, write it anyway!!!�.

One of Gourgen�s assistance walks in to the office, had me sign some paper which was written in Russian and then hands Gourgen a passport. Gourgen signs and stamps it in 3 places and hands it to me and congratulates me on being the new registered owner of a new car. I asked him about the waiting for 3 months and so on and he said �why should we wait for 3 months, the people at the top told me to help you out and get this done quick.�

I told Gourgen that after I get my citizenship I�m going to need to apply for a drivers license and asked him if the test was in Russian or Armenian? He said for me it can be in any language I wanted. He said to get my citizenship first and he will take care of my Armenian drivers license. I think he made some mention of how I could turn in my California drivers license and he would issue me an Armenian one in its place.

Gourgen then had me follow him down to the Stepanagert police station, where they had ready my 2002 sticker. Gourgen added my new license plate number which he had memorized, handed me the sticker and sent me on my way.

With me was someone from Martuni who said you know they have a saying here that for very few people, �problem chee ga� (meaning �there are no problems�) and for the majority of the people �variant chee ga� (meaning �there is no chance�). So I guess I�m part of the few people today.

Not to drag out this log, but some of you are asking what did that 500SEL set Ara back. Well to answer that question, I went to visit Vartkes and Alice Anivian, who are from San Fransisco and own the milk factory in Stepanagert. I showed Alice my car and asked her how much she thinks I paid. She looked it over a bit and I asked her again. She said hang on, I�m not done. Looking it over and over and over and then saying that she would guess I paid $10,000 for it. I told her that maybe $10,000 was a fair price but I only paid 20% of that and of that 20% I paid half of it now and the other half is due next month.

Life here no longer seems to be like a roller coaster ride and is more like balloon ride with unlimited helium. If you haven�t figured it out, I�m really having fun now.

Well I have to get going, I have bed sheets to wash and the house to clean up a bit before leaving for Yerevan to get mom.