Alagez by Osip Mandelstam. Short summary

5 seconds

The narrator drives through the tracts and pastures of Transcaucasia near the extinct volcano Alaghez. He stops at the village of Byurakan, where he meets the locals and visits the tomb of a Kurdish giant.

1 minute

The narrator rides in the saddle through tracts, «nomads» and pastures near the extinct volcano Alaghez, which is located in Transcaucasia. In Erivan, the volcano was right in front of his eyes. Every day he saw its snow cap melting in warm weather.

In the hotel room where he lived, a specimen of black volcanic glass, forgotten by some expedition, lay on the windowsill. The ascent to Alages is not particularly tiring, even though it is 14,000 feet high. The volcanic lava here is encased in «earthen tummies that you ride like butter.»

When the narrator looked at Alaghez from the window of the Erivan hotel, it seemed to him to be a monolithic ridge. In fact, the volcano was a folded system.

The author arrives at the village of Burakan, whose inhabitants were hunting chickens. He meets the locals, acquires an unusual clay saltcellar, and goes to the tomb of the Kurdish giant.