retiredmartin

June 2026. Gyumri. Armenia.

Stepping outside the Alexandrapol Palace at 8pm you see the length of the rebuilt main square up to St Saviours Church,

but our thoughts are only on Untappd check-ins and healthy food,

so it’s good that the Untappd options include an upmarket fish restaurant, kebab shop, and doughnut cafe.

Ponchik-Monchik has a downstairs straight out of Nando’s and an upstairs reminiscemnt of that Havana bar where Matt practised his moody pose a decade ago.

Actually, the downstairs looks nothing like Nando’s. But there were families, and a table of women drinking chilled Armenian wine, and a group of men opposite who chose one of their number to walk across and ask “Are all of you ladies married ?“.

Mrs RM, who has an understanding of these matters, drew that conclusion anyway, and it seemed apparent who was funding the wine.

So we took the table in between, and admired the huge plates of fluffy doughnuts opposite while necking the local Gyumri beer.

I mean, there were other things on the menu,

but the wondrous house specialty seemed closer in nature to choux pastry or an eclair, empty in the middle bar a dollop of caramel, so actually virtually calorie-free.

Three doughnuts, 30p each, two beers at £1.60, service charge of 12% * , just over a fiver all in.

This might be a messy trip, but it should be cheap.

*_{On a couple of occasions places seemed to take the loose change as an additional tip on top of the service charge, to make Americans feel at home.}