Peace Corps. Armenian Familiarization Course

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Armenian

Familiarization Course

Table of Contents

Introduction

Introduction 1

Lesson 1

Geography and People 23

Lesson 2

Living and Working 38

Lesson 3

Days of the Week, Numbers, and Ages 52

Lesson 4

Daily Activities 63

Lesson 5

Meeting the Family 84

Lesson 6

Around Town 96

Lesson 7

Shopping 106

Lesson 8

Eating Out 119

Lesson 9

Holidays Customs and Cultural Traditions 130

Lesson 10

Around the House 145

Lesson 11

Weather and Seasons 157

Lesson 12

Personal Appearance 171

Lesson 13

Transportation 186

Lesson 14

Travel 198

Lesson 15

At School 216

Lesson 16

Recreation and Leisure 230

Lesson 17

Health and Human Body 243

Lesson 18

Political and International Events 256

Lesson 19

The Military 268

Lesson 20

In the Hospital 282

Armenian Familiarization Course

Introduction to Armenia

Map of Armenia

Flag of Armenia

GEOGRAPHY

Armenia is in the southern Caucasus in between Asia and Europe, and is neighbors with Georgia on

the northern border, Azerbaijan on the east, Iran on the south and Turkey on the west. The capital of

Armenia is Yerevan.

Yerevan, Capital of Armenia

Many buildings in Yerevan and other main cities Gyoumri, Vanadzor and Abovian are built of pink

stone (tuffa) that is native to Armenia. As a result of this, Yerevan has been called the city of “pink

stone.”

Yerevan Independence Square Gyoumri Central Square

The total area of Armenia covers 11,506 sq mi (29,800 sq. km) and is divided between 11 regions:

Yerevan, Shirak, Lori, Vayots Dzor, Aragatsotn, Syunik, Kotayk, Ararat, Gegharkunik, Armavir,

Tavush. Most of the cities and towns are located along the river valleys in the north and west.

CLIMATE

The climate of Armenia is continental. The winters are dry and cold while the summers are hot and

dusty. The temperatures in Armenia depend on elevation. On the Armenian Plateau the mean

midwinter temperature is 0° C (32° F) and the mean midsummer temperature exceeds 25° C (55° F).

Average precipitation ranges from 10 inches (250 millimeter) per year in the lower Aras River

valley to 32 inches (800 millimeters) at the highest altitudes.

TERRAIN

Armenia is a mountainous country, a land of rugged mountains, extinct volcanoes and fast flowing

rivers and few forests. Many peaks in the country exceed 10,000 ft (3,048). The land rises to 4,095

metres (13,435 ft) above sea-level at Mount Aragats, and no point is below 400 metres (1,312 ft)

above sea level.

Mount Ararat is regarded by the Armenians as a symbol of their land (although

today is not physically in its territory). The main rivers in the country are Araks, Hrazdan, and Aras.

The primary lake in the country is Lake Sevan which is the habitat of the Armenian trout ishkhan.

Mount Ararat Lake Sevan

POPULATION

The population of Armenia in 2006 was estimated around 3,215,800 and is the second most densely

populated of the former Soviet republics. It was estimated that seventy percent of the population

lives in urban area. The capital city, Yerevan, was also the largest with a population of 1,281,000.

Other urban centers include Gyumri (206,600) and Vanadzor (170,200). The population in Armenia

is comprised of ninety three percent Armenians, and seven percent Kurds, Ukrainians and

Russians.The level of literacy is ninety nine percent.

Before independence and the transition to a market economy, Armenia was a remarkably equitable

society. Based on numbers as of 2004, the Armenian population falls into three major groups in

terms of poverty: extremely poor 7.2%, poor 39.0% and non-poor 53.8%

There has been a problem of population decline due to elevated levels of emigration following the

break-up of the USSR. The rates of emigration and population decline, however, have decreased

drastically in the recent years, and a moderate influx of Armenians returning to Armenia has been

observed.

Armenia has a very large Diaspora (8 million by some estimates, exceeding the 3 million population

of Armenia itself), with communities existing across the globe, including France, Russia, Iran,

Lebanon, and America. Approximately 120,000 Armenians now live in the disputed Nagorno-

Karabakh region. The main cause of migration of Armenians was the Armenian Genocide at the end

of the nineteenth and beginning of the twentieth centuries. At the end of the twentieth century, a

considerable number of Armenians left the country for economic reasons, to find employment

elsewhere.

Yerevan Street Opera Building

GOVERNMENT

The Armenian government's stated aim is to build a Western-style parliamentary democracy as the

basis of its form of government.

The politics of Armenia take place in a framework of a

presidential representative democratic

republic, whereby the President is the head of government, and of a pluriform multi-party system.

The Prime Minster is appointed by the President. Voting age in Armenia is 18 years, the same time

when people are issued their Armenian passport.

The Armenian Government has three branches:

a) The Executive Branch that has the chief of state (the president), the head of government (the

prime minister), and a cabinet (the Council of Ministers appointed by the Prime Minister).

b) The Legislative Branch: unicameral National Assembly or Parliament or Azgayin Jhoghov. This

has 131 seats and members serve four year terms. The

unicameral parliament (also called the

National Assembly) is controlled by a coalition of three political parties: the conservative

Republican party, the

Armenian Revolutionary Federation, and the Country of Law party. The main

opposition is composed of several smaller parties joined in the

Justice Block.

c) The Judicial Branch (Supreme Court, Constitutional Court)

The Government has Ministries that deal with different areas of Armenian life (e.g. Ministry of

Healthcare of Armenia,

Ministry of Trade and Economic Development of Armenia, etc).

Executive power is exercised by the government. Legislative power is vested in both the

government and parliament.

History

Early

Armenia lies in the highlands surrounding the Biblical mountains of

Ararat, upon which, as

tradition states,

Noah's Ark came to rest after the flood (Genesis 8:4). Archeological digs continue

to add evidence to the already existing evidence that Armenia and the

Armenian Highlands were

among the earliest sites of human civilization. From

4,000 BC to 1,000 BC, tools and trinkets of

copper, bronze and iron were commonly produced in Armenia and traded in neighboring lands

where those metals were less abundant. Actually, in this early period of ancient Armenia's history,

several states flourished on its territory, including

Aratta (3rd millennium BC), Hayasa-Azzi (15th -

12th cc BC),

Nairi (12th - 9th cc BC), and the Kingdom of Urartu (9th - 6th cc BC), each

participating in the ethnogenesis of the Armenian people.

Yerevan, the modern capital of Armenia,

was founded in

782 BC by the Urartian king, Argishti I, although the Urartan language is not in the

same language family as Armenian.

Around

600 BC, the Kingdom of Armenia was established. It reached its height between 95 - 66 BC,

and became one of the most powerful kingdoms of its time. Throughout its history, the kingdom of

Armenia enjoyed periods of independence intermittent with periods of autonomy subject to

contemporary empires. Armenia's strategic location between two continents has subjected it to

invasions by many peoples, including the

Assyrians, Greeks, Romans, Byzantines, Arabs, Mongols,

Persians, Ottoman Turks. In 301, Armenia became the first country in the world to adopt

Christianity as its official state religion.

After the fall of the Armenian kingdom in 428, most of Armenia was incorporated within the

Sassanid Empire (Persia). However, following an

Armenian rebellion in 451, Christian Armenians

maintained their religions freedom, while Armenia gained autonomy and the right to be ruled by an

Armenian marzpan (a class of military commander) unlike other territories of the empire where the

marzpan was a Persian. Around 630 the Persian influence was destroyed by the Arab Caliphate and

Armenia emerged as an autonomous principality within the Arabic Empire. This reunited Armenian

lands, previously taken by the Byzantine Empire, and a principality that was ruled by the Prince of

Armenia, and recognized by the Caliph and the Byzantine Emperor. The Principality of Armenia

lasted till

884, when it regained its independence from the weakened Arabic Empire.

St. Gregory the Illuminator's influence

led to the adoption of Christianity in

Armenia in the year 301. He is the

patron saint of the Armenian

Apostolic Church

Medieval

In this period, the Armenian Kingdom reemerged and lasted till 1045. The Kingdom united several

independent kingdoms and principalities that still recognized the supremacy of the Bagradit

Armenian Kingdom. In 1045, the Byzantine Empire conquered Bagratid Armenia. Soon, the other

Armenian states fell under Byzantine control as well. The Byzantine rule was short lived, as in 1071

Seljuk Turks defeated the Byzantines and conquered Armenia at the Battle of Manzikert,

establishing the Seljuk Empire. To escape death or servitude Gagik II, King of Ani, and an

Armenian named Roupen, with some of his countrymen, went into the gorges of the Taurus

Mountains and then into Tarsus of Cilicia. Here the Byzantine governor of the place gave them

shelter where the Armenian Kingdom of Cilicia was eventually established

The Seljuk Empire soon started to collapse. In the early 1100’s, Armenian princes of the Zakarid

noble family established a semi-independent Armenian principality in Northern and Eastern

Armenia, known as Zakarid Armenia.

In the 1230's, Mongol

Ilkhanate conquered the Zakaryan Principality, as well as the rest of Armenia.

The Mongolian invasions were soon followed by those of other Central Asian tribes, which

continued from the 1200's till the 1400's. After incessant invasions, each bringing destruction to the

country, Armenia in time became weakened. In the 1500s, the

Ottoman Empire and Safavid Persia

divided Armenia among themselves. The

Russian Empire later incorporated Eastern Armenia

(consisting of the

Erivan and Karabakh khanates within Persia) in 1813 and 1828.

Modern

As the empire began to collapse, the

Young Turks overthrew the government of Sultan Hamid.

Armenians living in the empire hoped that the Young Turk revolution would change their second-

class status. However, with onslaught of

World War I and the Ottoman Empire's assault on the

Russian Empire, the new government began to look on the Armenians with distrust and suspicion.

This was due to the fact that the Russian army contained a contingent of Armenian troops. On

April

, 1915, Armenian intellectuals were arrested by Ottoman authorities and eventually a large

proportion of Armenians living in

Anatolia perished as a result of the Armenian Genocide. Most

estimates for the number of Armenians killed range from

650,000 to 1.5 million.

Although the Russian army succeeded in gaining most of Ottoman Armenia during World War I,

their gains were lost with the Russian Revolution of 1917. At this time, Russian-controlled Eastern

Armenia, Georgia, and Azerbaijan attempted to become bound together in the Trans Caucasian

Democratic Federative Republic. This federation, however, only lasted from February to May 1918,

when all three parties decided to dissolve it. The United States contributed a significant amount of

aid to the Armenians during the Armenia Genocide.

Armenian Genocide Memorial Day, April 24 A poster for the American Committee for

Relief in the Near East vowing that they

(the Armenians) “shall not perish.”

As a result, Eastern Armenia became independent as the

Democratic Republic of Armenia (DRA)

May 28. Unfortunately, the DRA's short-lived independence was fraught with war, territorial

disputes, a mass influx of refugees from Ottoman Armenia, spreading disease, and starvation.

In 1920, Armenia and Turkey engaged in the Turkish-Armenian War that ended with the Treaty of

Alexandropol, in which the Armenians surrendered the bulk of their weapons and land to the Turks.

Simultaneously, the Red Army, established Soviet rule in Armenia in December of 1920. In 1922,

the country was incorporated into the Soviet Union as part of the short-lived Transcaucasian SFSR

along with Georgia and Azerbaijan. The Treaty of Alexandropol was then suspended by the Treaty

of Kars, between Turkey and the Soviet Union. In it, Turkey ceded the province of Ajar to the

Soviet Union in return for sovereignty over the territories of Kars, Ardahan, and Igdir. Because the

Armenians did not have a say in the treaty, Armenia, to this day, does not recognize the treaty as

legitimate.

The TSFR existed from 1922 to 1936, when it was divided up into three separate entities (Armenian

SSR, Azerbaijan SSR and Georgian SSR). Armenians enjoyed a period of relative stability under

Soviet rule. They received medicine, food and other provisions from Moscow, and communist rule

provided to be a soothing balm in contrast to the turbulent final years of the Ottoman Empire.

Independence

In the Gorbachev era of the 1980s, tension developed between Armenia and Azerbaijan over the

region of Nagorno-Karabakh. In the same decade, Soviet Armenia suffered the devastating 1988

Leninakan Earthquake. In 1991, the Soviet Union broke apart and Armenia re-established its

independence. Unfortunately, the early years of Armenia’s independence were marred by the

continued confrontation with Azerbaijan over Nagorno-Karabakh. A Russian-brokered cease-fire

was put in place in 1994. Since then, Armenia and her neighbor have held peace talks, mediated by

the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (or OSCE).

FOREIGN RELATIONS

Armenia is a member of more than 45 different international organizations including the United

Nations, the Council of Europe, the Commonwealth of Independent States, the Organization for

Security and Cooperation in Europe

, NATO's Partnership for Peace, the North Atlantic Cooperation

Council

, the International Monetary Fund, and the International Bank for Reconstruction and

Development

and the World Trade Organization. It is also an observer member of the Eurasian

Economic Community

, La Francophonie, and the Non-Aligned Movement.

On December 25, 1991 the U.S. recognized the independence of Armenia and opened an Embassy

in Yerevan in February 1992. Since then, the U.S. has assisted and sponsored many operations in

the country in its transition from totalitarianism and command economy to democracy and market

economy. Since 1992, the US provided Armenia nearly $1.5 billion in humanitarian and technical

assistance, played a leading role in the Minsk Group to encourage a peaceful, negotiated resolution

to the conflict over the Nagorno-Karabakh region. USAID, Peace Corps, Departments of State,

Agriculture, Treasury, Defense, Commerce, sponsored various assistance projects in Armenia.

Specific USAID programs focus on the development of a private sector and small and medium-size

enterprises.

The U.S. has been working closely with international financial institutions (e.g. International

Monetary Fund, World Bank, etc) to help Armenia in its transition to a free-market economy, on

programs that provided housing and economic reactivation for victims of the 1988 earthquake. The

U.S. Department of Agriculture Marketing Assistance Project (MAP) has been providing advisory

services and support to private farmers in all Armenian provinces, facilitating the formation of

farmer associations and marketing initiatives etc. The U.S. Department of Agriculture's (USDA) has

been providing training to Armenian agriculturists.

As conditions in Armenia have improved, U.S. assistance programs have moved away from

humanitarian goals to longer-term development ones. Specific US programs have been targeted at

promoting elections that meet international standards, strengthening political parties, and promoting

the establishment of an independent judiciary and independent media, including local non-

governmental organizations (NGO) capacity building, and so on. State Department and USAID

educational exchange programs provided exchange programs in the U.S. for Armenian lawyers,

judges, political party members, business people, government officials, NGO activists, journalists,

and others. USAID has funded international and domestic groups to monitor national elections, to

educate voters and to strengthen the role of an array of civic organizations in the democratic process.

Currently, approximately 70 U.S.-owned firms do business in Armenia (e.g. Procter & Gamble,

M&M-Mars, Xerox, Dell, etc).