My first trip to Armenia
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Where are you from?
Well, I was born in Sydney 🇦🇺 and I live in London 🇬🇧.
My parents are Armenian 🇦🇲 (but were born in Iran 🇮🇷).
…is your family in Sydney?
My Mum lives there, but
my brother lives in Hong Kong 🇭🇰 (previously he lived in China 🇨🇳 / Korea 🇰🇷). Some of my relatives live in the US 🇺🇸.
Ooooooo…kaaaaayyy….
Quite last minute, I decided to book a trip to Yerevan, Armenia. I’m ashamed to say I’ve usually not spoken a lot about my Armenian background. Mostly because during my school years, sometimes there’d been a lack of knowledge or open-mindedness about it from others. Comments like “where the hell is that?”. I found it hard to push back on this. I internalised this feeling rather than questioning that sort of reaction.
Jump to 2018. I don’t know how long I’ll stay in London for. Yerevan is a lot closer to London than to Sydney. I had been avoiding this trip for a long time. I really needed a holiday so YOLO, I booked a week-long holiday in Yerevan, flights via Moscow. And I’m so glad I did. I got to understand my background a bit more and it renewed my sense of what travel is all about. I started to take more interest in where I’m from.
Two weeks before I left, my mum told me that she had done some research and discovered we have relatives in Armenia, connected to my grandma. I thought, no way! An 18 year old cousin of sorts, her brother and their parents.
My trip to Armenia was an eye-opening experience. I was expecting to feel something in my veins by being there, like connecting with my roots. I didn’t feel that, but that’s not to say it wasn’t a great trip! It’s just that I haven’t grown up in the culture, so of course it was different for me.
Before I discuss the trip, some questions people have asked me about Armenia
Where is Armenia?
Between Georgia, Turkey, Iran, Azerbaijan.
What’s the dominant religion?
Christianity (94.8% of the population, according to Wikipedia).
Can you speak Armenian?
Yes. I speak a dialect that is Iranian-Armenian, which is different to Armenian-Armenian (if that makes sense). I can read and write very slowly provided it is handwritten and I can refer to online help (Armenian has 36 letters in the alphabet, a lot of letters remind me of French and German, so there’s more for me to differentiate between and I get some characters mixed up). Typography is harder for me to read — from my point of view the letters seem really different from handwriting.
Getting to know the family and the first few days
The first day my brain hurt so much because it was so hard to speak Armenian with my relatives. Usually if I speak it with my family, I mix in English words all the time. Sometimes some farsi words I know too. We struggled through some conversation. But we connected immediately.
They were kind enough to meet me at the airport. It’s this kind of generosity and warm-heartedness I was really looking forward to seeing on this trip. We learned a bit about each other and laughed. I had to constantly clarify what they were saying, but apparently my comprehension and speaking was much better towards the end of the week.
The day after I arrived, my cousin and I went to Vardavar (“Vartavar”), the annual water festival where you soak each other all day. There’s water guns, hoses, buckets. People stand in fountains and use the water to play. It’s serious business, it’s not just a little bit of child’s play it’s like I LITERALLY CAN’T BREATHE, PLS STAHP GOOBY
Hospitality
People were really friendly. I walked into a wine restaurant to ask if they knew where a particular wine shop was. The owner explained it was on the other side of town and offered to drive my cousin and I there. Some of you might be thinking right now, STRANGER DANGER. I had a moment of this reaction too. But this is in line with what Armenia is known for, a lot of hospitality and I am somewhat familiar with this with Armenians I’ve met elsewhere.
The tour
I went on the Essential Armenia tour with Envoy, the hostel I stayed at in the second half of the week. What an incredible day. I wish I did at least one other tour. And our guide Angela was a great storyteller and lovely person.
The Armenian Genocide museum
The Armenian Genocide museum was terribly sad, filled with horrific stories. I feel a bit disappointed that I’ve not spoken much about the Armenian Genocide. In contrast, I’ve spoken many times more and been to museums and memorials about WWII and the Holocaust.
I’ve always feared that I’d come across as only caring about the Armenian Genocide because it related to my heritage but it is undeniably sad and tragic. It prompted me to think about what else is happening under our noses right now. How do we fight? I know the little action I take is not enough.
One of the things that touched me was how people from other countries tried to help. That international publications tried to shed light on what was happening.
The pictures below are more of media and information that I found interesting and don’t give a good spectrum of the museum content.
A recent (peaceful) revolution — the ‘Velvet Revolution’
When I arrived my cousin told me about a recent revolution, where people filled the streets to protest against the Prime Minister, Serzh Sargsyan. In 2014 he had publicly announced he would never be nominated again for Presidency or the Prime Minister position. But that promise was broken. My understanding is that there was falsifications and corruption on his part and the Republic of Armenia had lost trust and wanted leadership.
The protests were led by Nikol Pashinyan. It was successful and completely peaceful. It was pretty inspiring that the desired outcome was achieved with peaceful protest.
Further info:
Armenian Velvet Revolution YouTube documentary
yThe Significance of Armenia’s ‘April Revolution’ (The Nation)
How Armenian’s revolution has been different (The Economist)
Around 16,000 rally in Armenia against the new PM (The Telegraph UK)
Culture clash
I was preparing myself for learning much more about Armenian culture. I have seen some of it but obviously didn’t know everything. One thing to keep in mind: things are changing in Armenia. People are starting to challenge these cultural traditions.
Things that I learned / surprised me:
- Yerevan felt a lot more European than I expected!
- If you’re out with someone older than you, it’s kind of culturally expected that they will pay the bill (and they want to as a form of hospitality and care)
- If you’re a woman, men / a man with you will pay. I guess this only applies if you’re not married and you’re out with friends. I met a young woman who said she personally was challenging this with men around her and she thinks this tradition is changing
- 8 out of 11 million Armenians are abroad!
Things others learned about me / surprised them:
- I don’t wear fancy things — I guess I was also used to London fashion where you wear trainers everywhere. You’re going to be walking a hell of a lot so gotta stay comfy. I don’t wear jewellery much. I am a pretty basic dresser to be honest, even Seinfeld looks dressed up compared to me
- I’m 28 and not married (what!)
- I’ve done a lot of travel (that’s a huge privilege)
- I live on my own and none of my family or relatives live in London.
- “Isn’t that depressing?” (asked in a kind way) “No, I absolutely love it!” - I would take food home from a restaurant to give to a homeless person. I guess I’ve struggled with this with some western cultures too. It’s seen as poor taste to take food home. I don’t really care though. Tell a homeless, hungry person you were too embarrassed to take food away. What do you think their reaction would be? I guess I’m not the kind of person who is a HUGE fan of rules, traditions and social norms — particularly if they don’t make logical sense
- A pint costs five pounds (converted to dram it was a bit shocking, but hey you can’t compare like-for-like costs across two different economies without taking into account earnings etc.)
At the end of the day though, these differences are where we learn and build empathy. This is how we challenge our own traditions. As my cousin said, everyone’s just used to what they’ve grown up in. And I was so grateful that my relatives were curious and open-minded. We had good conversations making comparisons about differences.
Musings on the way ‘home’ to London
In Yerevan airport I rang my brother who had just landed at Hong Kong, where he was moving to from China. I thought how funny, we’re all on different timezones. I missed him so much. He is one of the only people in the world who understands my experience. We grew up in the same area, we both went to the same Armenian Saturday school, we both live overseas. We speak the same kind of Armenian. I don’t think I can relate to my experience with Armenian culture as he has.
Musings on the way home, continued…
- Cultural identity seems to be such a fluid / relative thing. In Australia, people ask me where I’m from despite being born in Australia. In Armenia people know I’m not from Armenia. In the UK people refer to me as Australian. Two different people have even made reference to me being practically British or English — which is so far from reality, but an interesting acceptance of my place there. In Britain there aren’t further questions like “yeah but where are you from” when I say I’m Australian. I guess that’s because the ‘next’ place I’m from is Australia. But in Australia people want to know more about heritage once it’s established you’re Australian
- I want to push my travelling to places that are more different. When I met people on this trip, the French person I met was working in Iran. The Londoners and New Yorkers were also going to nearby places like Georgia and Azerbaijan. It made me realise that I could push myself a lot more
- There’s no place like home. And you can define home in many ways :)
