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It is one of the most ancient countries of the former Soviet Union. Everything is preserved very carefully, with love for their work.
Explore Armenia's history, post-Soviet challenges, Karabakh conflict, and resilience 30 years after USSR collapse.
Ask about this video. Answers come from its transcript only — with the timestamp, so you can check them.
Generated from the transcript and can be wrong — check the timestamp.
Key Takeaways
- Armenia’s rich history contrasts with its current economic and social difficulties.
- The 1988 earthquake was a pivotal event causing long-term devastation and poverty.
- The Karabakh conflict remains a central and unresolved issue affecting national sentiment and politics.
- Political changes like the Velvet Revolution show active civic engagement despite ongoing challenges.
- Post-Soviet Armenia struggles with industrial decline, population loss, and infrastructure deficits.
What the video covers
- Armenia is one of the oldest countries of the former Soviet Union with rich cultural and historical heritage.
- The video explores Armenia’s transition after the USSR collapse, highlighting economic decline and population challenges.
- Gyumri, the second largest city, suffered a devastating earthquake in 1988 that destroyed much of its industrial base.
- The Karabakh conflict has deeply affected Armenia politically and socially, influencing its post-Soviet trajectory.
- Despite hardships, Armenia maintains strong spiritual and cultural ties, with a proud national identity.
- The Velvet Revolution in Gyumri led to political change, but recent elections showed unexpected public support for the ruling party.
- The video covers Armenia’s geography, demographics, and lack of natural resources, emphasizing mountainous terrain and rural population.
- Post-earthquake recovery was slow, with many factories closed and poverty rates high, especially in affected regions.
- The video also touches on Armenia’s Soviet industrial past and current economic struggles including unemployment and low GDP.
- Interviews with locals reveal ongoing challenges like lack of pensions, infrastructure issues, and political instability.
Chapters
- 00:00Introduction to Armenia and its Soviet legacy
- 04:03Exploring Yerevan: culture and travel tips
- 07:48The 1988 Gyumri Earthquake and its aftermath
- 12:03Life challenges: pensions, infrastructure, and poverty
- 20:26Urban architecture and social changes
- 28:47Armenia’s industrial past and economic decline
- 35:48Political history: Velvet Revolution and recent elections
- 42:00The Karabakh conflict and its impact on Armenia
Full Transcript — Download SRT & Markdown
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A republic, which is located at the crossroads of routes from Asia to Europe. The structure of the Soviet Union did not imply that people from below would decide how and where they wanted to live.
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To bring your son and say, "Be like this person," or vice versa: "Don't be like this person." A country of cognac, mountains, and temples.
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Mandelstam lived here for six months and wrote such odes to Armenia. It is very close to many Russians spiritually, culturally, and historically.
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Today I will show you Armenia. Each year we have lived brings a lot of happiness and joy to our people.
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This year marks 30 years since the collapse of the Soviet Union. Hello, Vesti is on the air. The USSR no longer exists.
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One country turned into 15 different states, each of which went its own way. The tendency of the dismemberment of the country prevailed.
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In honor of this date, I decided to see what led the former republics to secede from the Union.
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How they have lived these 30 years and what they want today. The channel has already released a large video about the reasons for the collapse of the USSR, and now we will take a closer look at each country separately.
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Armenia is the smallest country of the Union. It accounted for only a tenth of a percent of the entire territory of the USSR.
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At the same time, the republic played an important industrial and transit role for the entire Soviet space.
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Now from the former industrial power of the country there is no trace left. Armenia is consistently included in the top anti-ratings in terms of GDP, industry, and population decline in the entire post-Soviet space.
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We decided to see how a small but very proud republic lives 30 years after the collapse of the Soviet Union.
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In the meantime, leave your likes, subscribe to the channel, and write comments so that this video about Armenia will be watched by as many people as possible.
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I am now in Gyumri, the second largest city in Armenia. And behind my back is a monument to the national hero - Vardan Mamikonyan, who in the 5th century raised a revolt against the Iranian Sassanid dynasty and defended the right of the people to profess Christianity.
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This place very much conveys the spirit of this country: its ancient character, its temperament, and its faith.
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But recently, this area has been remarkable for one more reason: it is here that the "Velvet Revolution" began in Armenia 2.5 years ago.
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The protests led to a change in government and political course. It seemed that Nikol Pashinyan, who came to power, could not justify the hopes placed on him.
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A political crisis arose in the country again, and early parliamentary elections were scheduled. True, their result was unexpected not only for the world but also for the Armenians themselves.
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Despite the defeat in the Karabakh war, Pashinyan's party won a convincing victory - they got 50% of the votes.
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And suddenly it turned out that neither political scientists, nor sociologists, nor any other experts have any real idea of what is going on in the minds of Armenians.
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This country has gone through a lot over the past 30 years. Perhaps there are even too many serious shocks.
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And today we will see how Armenia has changed after the collapse of the Union, and what is happening now in this small but very interesting republic.
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Aviasales made travel arrangements shorter with a new section, which is called "Shorter." You just need to open the application and enter the city you are interested in in the search.
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For example, Yerevan. You will see a selection of the best places according to Aviasales and local residents.
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You will learn where to live, what to do, and what to see in Yerevan.
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Download the Aviasales app to get to know the city in absentia. The link is already in the description for this video.
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What is Armenia? This is 30 thousand square kilometers, where three million people live. Yes, it's about like two Novosibirsks, only 55 times larger in area. There are very few traditional resources like oil, gas, or agricultural land, and a lot of mountains.
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And in the villages, almost as many people live as in cities. The history of this country is lost somewhere in the mists of time, and these people were probably the most ancient among all the peoples of the USSR.
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But as often happens, the ancient and proud people do not live very well.
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Water, electricity - do you have everything?
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There is electricity, no water.
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And what is your pension now?
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Nothing. Small salaries, small GDP, smoldering conflict in Karabakh, and political instability.
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Paradoxically, the Karabakh conflict was both the cause and the result of the collapse of the Soviet Union.
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How did it happen? Or maybe it has always been this way? Armenia has become an industrialized republic - this is thanks to the Soviet regime.
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To answer these questions, we drove around the country. What amazes you while driving from Yerevan is poverty and devastation everywhere.
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We visited two main cities - Gyumri and Yerevan.
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Did you survive the earthquake here?
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Oh, I saw everything here, my children, it was horror, it was scary.
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And we talked with dozens of Armenians. The story does not end, does not stick together.
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But first things first. Gyumri. Yerevan. Gyumri. Gyumri is one of the oldest cities in the republic.
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It was not only the cradle of modern protests but also the capital of industry of the Armenian SSR.
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In Leninakan - so the city was called in Soviet times, several dozen large factories and plants worked: it is also the largest meat processing plant in the country and a huge textile mill, which was second only to the Ivanovo workshop.
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Yes, in that very Ivanovo, which was considered the center of the textile industry of the USSR.
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Young specialists from all over the Union were sent to Gyumri, and the city really flourished and breathed.
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Now there is no trace of the former industrial greatness. Modern Gyumri is a city of homeless people, devastation, and depression.
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And the reason for this lies not even in the collapse of the USSR, but in a terrible earthquake that completely destroyed the city on December 7, 1988.
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Hundreds of thousands have suffered, dozens of businesses, hundreds of houses, and thousands of kilometers of roads turned into dust overnight, and nearly half a million people lost their homes.
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Most of them were in Leninakan, since it was here that cardboard high-rise buildings were actively built to provide housing for a thriving industrial city.
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December 7, 1988 became a black date in modern, and maybe in the whole history of Armenia.
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In half a minute, a powerful earthquake destroyed the northwestern part of the country. The epicenters of 10-point tremors fell on Leninakan and Spitak.
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These cities were almost completely destroyed. The number of victims of the disaster has not yet been accurately calculated - there were from 25 to 150 thousand people.
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Half a million more people were left homeless, and dozens of villages simply disappeared from the face of the earth.
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The region which was the most affected by the earthquake still has the highest poverty rate in Armenia.
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Almost all factories that operated before the disaster are now closed.
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Before the earthquake there were 26 or 27 large factories.
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This is only in one city. And Leninakan expanded every year; 300 thousand people lived in Leninakan, now 120 thousand are left.
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Immediately after the earthquake, the whole world helped Armenia: hundreds of rescuers worked here, humanitarian aid was sent from everywhere, and the Soviet authorities promised to rebuild the city as soon as possible.
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Because of this optimism, the population was in no hurry to leave their native land.
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After the earthquake, right in Gyumri, we had a feeling that we would build it together very quickly then, because there was the Soviet Union.
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And I remember that almost no one left the city after the earthquake. Everyone.
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Leninakan-Gyumri is a border town, there is still a base. Thousands of soldiers serve here. And the first aid that came to us in order to rescue, to work and not to let thousands of people die, these were exactly Soviet soldiers.
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But, of course, not only the monument reminds of the tragedy. Many residents of the city live as if the earthquake happened here recently.
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- How are you doing? - Bad. - Bad? - Yeah. - Tell us. - We live very bad. We cannot do anything for 28 thousand of pension.
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No firewood to buy, no stove, no pipes - nothing. The state looks at it and thinks - "they are second class." They do not help their own people, and they do not help us.
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- And since what year have you been living in this house? - I’ll tell you... it was a long, long, long time ago. I already forgot.
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- Is it after the earthquake? - Yes, after the earthquake. I have two strokes, a hernia of the spine.
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- Did you survive the earthquake here? - Oh, I saw everything here, it was so scary.
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I would not wish my enemy to see and experience this. - Did you have an apartment? - Yes, we had an apartment. I have two daughters and a son.
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But now they temporarily live in an apartment, because it is impossible, everything... - And you stayed after the earthquake in this ... - I stayed for my grandchildren, they gave me this, social one... I said: "I'm not alone"
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- And that's how you live here? - I do not live, I survive, I exist.
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- It is leaking here. - You built it all yourself, is it some kind of trailer, or what is it?
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- They bought it. What was given free of charge - but it’s all leaky.
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I put the basin here. I can’t put it anywhere else. So that's how it is. Here we eat, there is no table, no chairs, I threw everything into the stove, burned it.
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Here you are, here. Is this called life? We exist. - Do you watch Russian channels, right? - I like it, yes, although I understand Armenian. And what I don't understand, they translate for me.
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- How do you feel about Russia? You have a military base here. - It’s great.
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That's very interesting, a woman just lives in some kind of weird trailer, the toilet is a hole in the yard, there’s some terrible poverty, while she sits in her trailer all day watching Russian channels, and the main problem that worries her is that Zelensky is wrong
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and some kind of nightmare and horror is happening in Ukraine. - My mother is from Saratov, my father is from Poltava, so what? For example, I am against the Ukrainians, I am ashamed to say that my father is Ukrainian, ashamed.
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Because they are fools. Well, that Zelensky is a fa***t. I am ashamed. And sometimes I walk in the city because I know I understand Armenian, I hear their conversations, they say: "Fa***t".
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This Russian propaganda, even here, fouls the brains of people. And, living in such miserable conditions, she never ceases to think how bad everything is in Ukraine.
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This woman lives, by the way, literally a few steps from a very unusual object of Soviet modernism.
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We have now arrived on the outskirts of Gyumri, there is simply an incredibly beautiful rusty fountain.
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- What is it? - This is one of the very rare monuments of Soviet modernism.
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The city of Gyumri, or rather, Leninakan in Soviet times, developed very rapidly, everything was very good, until this earthquake happened, imagine, there were five-story houses in this place, - It was all built up, was it a residential area? - It was a residential area.
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- Was it some kind of square? - It was not just a square, it was a large square.
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In Soviet times, they came up with an interesting trick: so that the outskirts and quarters do not turn into sleeping areas, in which there is nothing interesting, namely in Leninakan on the very border of the city, a branch of the Polytechnic Institute was built in our city.
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And thus this educational institution brought life into city, people, thousands of students became to come.
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- These are the ruins? - Yes, these are the saddest ruins. Well, people live here, this is a sleeping area, It was necessary to give them a place for public recreation.
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And one of the greatest, I'm not afraid of this word, architects of Armenia Arthur Tarkhanyan built this park and the famous black fountain.
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Unfortunately, it did not work for long - about 3 or 4 years from 1984 to 1988.
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And the earthquake destroyed all communications, and since then it has stood like such an abandonment.
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- Listen, how was it not taken away for scrap in 33 years? - I don’t know, it’s probably too massive, too big, and it was impossible to approach it.
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I don’t know, I won’t tell. There is also such a thing: since people lived, for the most part, in temporary houses on the site of their destroyed houses, they, let's say, also had a good attitude towards their area, towards their quarter.
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- That is, they even appreciated this abandoned fountain? - They did, because it was a shard from the past.
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Now it is a grandiose structure, and at that time it was a reminder from the good past years of Soviet life.
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In general, in the ruined part of the city, we will meet mostly elderly people.
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All of them unanimously say that it was better under the USSR. Sometimes it is very laconic, but very eloquent.
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- And what is your pension now? - No-***-thing. - You mean... - Only 51 AMD.
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- Yeah, is it somewhere around 100? - Dollars? - Well, about $100. - $100, yes.
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- Can one live on this pension here? - Now it is not the Soviet Union to live normally in retirement.
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- I was a bulldozer driver, worked as an apprentice, everything was fine with me.
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If there was the Soviet Union, he would receive 160 rubles in pension. You can calculate how much you can buy now for $100 and for 160 rubles back then.
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- That is, would he live well? - Well, yes, he would be such a wealthy pensioner.
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- There is only enough money for cigarettes. - Will you celebrate 30 years of independence of Armenia?
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- I will not translate it, I will not translate the silence. We are now on the very outskirts of the city, and here are some huts, fences made of scrap metal, there are no roads, nothing, but there used to be life here,
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there was a fairly developed area here - the remnants of a contact network tell us about it.
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Here, apparently, trolleybuses were running, and there remained fastenings, suspensions for trolleybus contact wires. But there is nothing else around, everything is overgrown, there are ruins and this is the very outskirts of the city.
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They live here, pay attention, there are names on the doors instead of numbers. Abrahamyan. Here, of course, everything is already overgrown with cobwebs.
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Here people have simply closed their apartments and left them. People still live in many of these houses.
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Although it would be more correct to say, they survive. - Do you live here? - Yes. - We thought it was an abandoned house.
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- This house. - And how many people live in this entrance? - Three. - Three families, right? - Yes.
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- Is there water, electricity - do you have everything? - There is electricity, but no water.
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- There is no water, but has there been no water for a long time? - For how many years?
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- Long ago, since the earthquake. - That is, after the earthquake, there has been no water in this house?
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- After the earthquake there was. But not now. - But when did the water stop running?
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- 30 years ago, I guess. - With the collapse of the Soviet Union? - Yes. - And you have been living here for 30 years without water?
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- Yes. - And what about heating? - There’s no central heating. - That is, you have stoves, right? - Yes.
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In recent years, the city has begun to being rebuild a little. New quarters appear here and there.
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At the same time, the old part of Gyumri is developing, where tourists are attracted to.
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There are a lot of interesting objects here, and the city certainly has a tourist potential.
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- Chairs, tools, mirrors, these signs: "You are served by a master ***" - this is all preserved very carefully, with love for their work.
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And this is one of the city's special features. Everyone tries to get here, especially the elderly to get a haircut, shave - it is a must for people.
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- Very cool, yes. - To the right we have a police building - this is a great example of how urban activism is bearing fruit.
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- So. - A few years ago, when the building was supposed to be built, initially, they wanted some modern design: the police building would be completely glass, completely transparent.
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- Like the Georgians have. - Right. But such architecture would not suit the atmosphere of the old city at all, and city activists, city dwellers rebelled and they did not even allow the number of storeys to change.
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And now the building is finished with red and black tufa. - But is this an old building? - This is a new building, but it’s semi-antique.
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This balcony is a very iconic place. Here the film was shot by Albert Mkrtchyan, Frunzik Mkrtchyan's brother.
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And one of the episodes of the film "Tango of Our Childhood" was filmed here.
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A cult place for all Armenians, it is sewn into the cultural code. - By the way, who are you? - I, for your information, sow the reasonable, the kind, the eternal.
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- I do not understand, what are you sowing? And must it be done in my house?
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- Unfortunately, as I always say, this building now belongs to the Ministry of Culture, it was taken from the city and given to the central republican authorities.
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Like a shameful stain, it gets only destroyed with time, and it is hardly possible to save it.
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There is also a Russian military base in Gyumri. The Russian military base is a very important part of the city, for many reasons: first, of course, the security that is ensured throughout Armenia, military bases have a very large economic impact, indeed, very large.
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They rent houses, since everything is very cheap and tasty in Armenia, a lot of people eat in some cafes, in some establishments, they spend money in the city, because, in comparison with the Armenian salaries, the salary is several times higher, and you can ignore these expenses.
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Many live in families, not alone. And this also leaves an imprint on the economic map of the city.
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If it were not for the occasional tragic cases, I would even say, like the case of Permyakov...
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According to the investigation, on January 12 of this year, Permyakov fled from the Russian military base in Gyumri, and with a weapon he went to the city, where in one of the houses he shot 6 members of the Avetisyan family from a machine gun.
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He also tried to stab a six-month-old baby with a bayonet who died in hospital a week later.
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If not for this, no one would say a bad word. - Did the attitude change somehow after the Permyakov case? Were there any protests? - Yes, well, of course, there were protests for a whole month.
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And our citizens almost destroyed the Russian consulate, which is in Gyumri, but due to the fact that he was quickly caught, there was a very prompt court, he was sentenced, it seems, to life imprisonment, and over time the people also calmed down,
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they realized that this was a single case, and not politics related. And after this incident, they also took some appropriate measures at their base and drew conclusions.
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And after that I don't remember any bad experiences or anything like that. - I saw Soviet rides! - Aah, why? - Why did you see this?
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- So, we found old rides. - No, don't go there. They do not work.
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- But this is also a dear place for me. - Swings! - Boats! - I was a cashier-administrator in this park for a whole year.
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- Yes, right here. - Oh, this is an old Soviet park. - That's it, let's swing Ilya.
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- But it does not meet any requirements... - Security requirements, yes, Ilya! - Yes.
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- We won’t show mercy to Ilya. - I remember these boats, it's... - So, well, stop, it will fall now. - It will not fall.
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But when I worked here as a cashier administrator, one dude fell from a height, broke his arms and ribs, and an ambulance was called.
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- Listen, yes, I remember these boats very well. - Here is the "Sun", it is "Hurricane" or "Whirlwind", this is what these spinning roundabouts were called. It doesn't work now, that's it.
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Now, to fill the refrigerator with food, you don't have to go out and go to the store, you can order products through a special service and will be delivered within a day.
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The situation is similar with the purchase of clothes, books, furniture and household appliances. And with the PIK-broker service, you can profitably buy, sell or exchange an old apartment for a new one.
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Previously, real estate transactions were associated with wasted time, effort and money. But the PIK-broker service has all processes digitized, and the site has an intuitive design in which it is difficult to get confused.
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For example, here you can sell an apartment at market price in just 7 days.
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You just need to fill out a form on the website and come to the office once to sign the documents.
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By the way, you can get a free appraisal of an apartment by entering its parameters directly on the website.
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Since the company buys apartments for itself and for its own money, realtors and intermediaries are not involved in the transaction.
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That is, you do not have to waste time on paperwork and pay a commission to a third party.
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And the specialists of the PIK-broker service will conduct the transaction themselves. Now the company has a special offer for those who want to sell an apartment: PIK-broker will increase its appraised value upon redemption by 3%.
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If you want to sell your old apartment in order to buy a new one, then the "Trade-in" service will suit you: "PIK-broker" will buy your property at the market price, and in return they will offer another one with a discount of up to 5% or a mortgage at a subsidized rate of 4.8%.
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You can choose a new apartment both among new buildings, and from the catalog "PIK-broker" for secondary housing.
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And for those who do not want to sell, but are looking for a dream apartment, the "PIK-broker" service will find a suitable option among the real estate owned by the company.
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There is a catalog on the PIK Broker website where you can set the search parameters for the desired apartment, and sign up for viewing the options you like at a time convenient for you.
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In addition, "PIK-broker" will select a favorable mortgage rate from a partner bank and will help with paperwork for a positive loan position.
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The company will do all this free of charge and within 7 days. If you live in Moscow and the Moscow region and want to buy, sell or exchange an apartment, then go to the site of the "PIK-broker" service, the link is already in the description for this video.
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We arrived in Gyumri from Erevan. What we saw while driving on the only road between two cities very accurately reflects the state of all modern Armenia.
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Poverty, devastation and Soviet artifacts. Armenia is somewhat similar to Cuba in terms of the car industry.
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Some antique cars are driving along the streets here: for example, this famous Soviet PAZ-672.
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In the Soviet Union, they were released until the end of the 80s. And they used them in the villages, in the villages, they were some kind of duty officers.
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But with the collapse of the Soviet Union, Armenia finds itself in a certain isolation, there is no money, poverty, and for the needs, for the transportation of passengers, they begin to use everything they find.
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Most surprisingly, they are still in use today. Some of them are used as voyages, run in cities, some as long distance, some carry tourists.
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But there are an unusually large number of them. In Russia, they somehow disappeared. And here, in Armenia, there is a lot of antique Soviet technology, and it is on the move.
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By the way, these PAZ-672 buses were called "globes" in the Soviet Union because of their round shape.
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But not only Soviet automotive industry remains here. Soviet houses, department stores and factories, abandoned and empty ones, stretch along the entire route, recalling the past.
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Yerevan. Maralik. Maralik. Maralik is one of the villages on the highway from Yerevan to Gyumri.
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Two large cities, no normal road. And what is striking, while you are driving from Yerevan - there is about 150 km - there is colossal poverty and devastation.
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The side of the road is littered with some kind of rusty rubbish: old cars that nobody cleans up, these are abandoned factories, some kind of workshops, abandoned houses with broken windows, well, here, in this case, a department store.
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If we go further, there will be more and more abandoned buildings. Well, the poverty of today's Armenia is very well seen in cars.
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There are practically no good expensive cars, If you can still see expensive foreign cars in Yerevan, then in the regions it is mainly Soviet junk which is not at all clear how it drives.
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Well, or modern cars: there are many “gazelles”, many VAZs, these are more or less modern, but basically, it is Soviet junk.
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There's a truck, well, as I said, you don't have to go far here. Yerevan.
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But the capital of Armenia compares favorably with the whole country. Yerevan is one of the oldest cities in the world.
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It is believed to have been founded in 782 BC, But folk legends go even further and connect the foundation of the city to Noah - direct descendant of Adam, who built the ark and was saved from the Flood.
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So, Noah allegedly exclaimed: "Erevats", which means "it appeared", when he saw the top of Small Ararat sticking out from under the water.
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The city itself has never, in fact, grown to any more or less serious scale.
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Pre-revolutionary Erivan had the typical appearance of a poor provincial eastern city for that time - narrow crooked streets, low-rise chaotic buildings, clay houses.
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In the Soviet era, the city was rebuilt, and despite its old age, now it only reminds us of the Soviet era.
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Yerevan is sometimes called the "pink city". Why? Because of the pink tufa Tufa is generally the main stone in Armenia.
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Temples, palaces are built from it, ordinary buildings are faced with it, residential buildings - in general, it is everywhere here, it is of different colors, and its palette is incredibly rich: there are dark, pink, some kind of purple stones.
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It looks, in fact, amazing. Here it is used instead of facing bricks. Tufa is light, porous, and all stones are slightly different.
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The main feature of the tufa is that it is pleasant to be next to it, it is pleasant to contact with it, because it is a very lively, textured stone.
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If we look at the buildings, almost all of them in Yerevan are faced with tufa.
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It may be pink, beige, but nevertheless natural stones look very expensive and very beautiful.
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The authorities invited Alexander Tamanyan from Leningrad to play the role of the chief architect, and it was he who largely determined the modern appearance of the city.
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The layout of the central part of Yerevan is made according to the European model: there’s a ring surrounding the center, and a grid of streets within it.
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He also came up with two main architectural dominants of the center - the monumental Republic Square and the Freedom Square with the Opera and Ballet House.
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One of the main assets of Armenia is, of course, architecture. The architecture here is very strong - there has always been a strong architectural school in Armenia.
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Both in Stalin's times, and in the days of the late Soviet Union. Now, of course, there are many problems, but if we are talking specifically about the Soviet alley, about Soviet Yerevan, it is an unusually beautiful city.
Speaker A
And here several factors came together: firstly, the local building material, pink tufa, which makes even the simplest building very elegant and rich, and, secondly, indeed, there are strong architects here, it so happened that they worked here, they had the opportunity to create.
Speaker A
And we see the result on the streets of Yerevan. Through the use of local building materials, they moved away from typical projects, because if you look at other Soviet cities, please note that there are typical cinemas, typical theaters,
Speaker A
typical office buildings - everything was about the same. But in Armenia even Stalinist architecture was very special.
Speaker A
You will not see this anywhere in the post-Soviet space. And, of course, one cannot but pay attention to these stunning residential buildings, to the decor and these balconies that they make here.
Speaker A
Unfortunately, yes, they start to change, build on, build up, they break down the windows, but where it has been preserved, it is incredibly beautiful.
Speaker A
Most of Armenia has been built up with modernist architecture since the 60s. And Yerevan occupies a special place in this sense.
Speaker A
There are a lot of outstanding examples here. This is the old terminal of Zvartnots airport, the building of the former cinema "Russia", summer hall of the cinema "Moscow", and, of course, the metro station "Republic Square" and "Yeritasardakan".
Speaker A
The Yerevan Metro was opened in March 1981. The system here is relatively small: only one line and 10 stations.
Speaker A
Several more lines and several new stations are currently being designed, but all this is being done very slowly, unfortunately, there is not enough money for the development of the metro.
Speaker A
And we are now near the station "Republic Square". In my opinion, this is the most beautiful station.
Speaker A
The most beautiful lobby of the Yerevan metro. This is such a giant flower. It is located below ground level.
Speaker A
And walking on top of the square, you can observe a beautiful fountain. Unfortunately, no matter how many times I have been in Yerevan, I have never seen this beautiful fountain work, but it’s a pity, because when it functions,
Speaker A
if you look at the old Soviet pictures, it looks fantastic. If we talk about the Soviet legacy, or rather, about Soviet symbols, they have been preserved here.
Speaker A
It cannot be said that it is preserved as good as, for example, in Kyrgyzstan, but definitely much better than in Georgia.
Speaker A
Although there were anti-Soviet sentiments before and immediately after gaining independence, of course. We are at the Republic Square.
Speaker A
And I'm standing on the lawn, and you can ask: "Well, what's wrong with that?" Well, except that I trample the lawn.
Speaker A
What if I tell you that the square used to be called differently? I think that many have guessed how.
Speaker A
Because in Soviet times, here, against the background of Ararat, towered a seven-meter Lenin. He held a roll of newspapers in one hand, while the other pointed ahead - apparently, to a brighter future.
Speaker A
Only here in the bright future there was no Lenin. Because in 1991 when Armenia declared its independence, the Soviet symbol suddenly aroused the anger and discontent of the population.
Speaker A
And the authorities decided to demolish the monument. The leader of the world proletariat was first beheaded, and then his “body” was removed from the pedestal.
Speaker A
At the same time, the pedestal itself still stood on the square for several years.
Speaker A
If Lenin, despite his obvious artistic value, just had to leave Yerevan, they wanted to find some new use for the pedestal.
Speaker A
The entire monument was created by the famous sculptor Sergei Merkurov, who at one time studied with Rodin himself.
Speaker A
The intelligentsia opposed the demolition, and even the mayor himself admitted that he hesitated for some time.
Speaker A
But even such a demonstrative destruction of the Soviet symbol did not satisfy the people who gathered there: people were ready to tear the hated monument to pieces.
Speaker A
One young Armenian even wanted to urinate on the defeated Lenin. As he explained to the police: for the crippled fate of his father.
Speaker A
Such popular anger resulted in a kind of ritual: people started throwing stones at the monument.
Speaker A
When the carriage with the defeated Lenin moved through the square filled with people, people began to throw small coins into the receding monument.
Speaker A
It was the only pebble substitute that everyone had in their pocket. So the symbol of the passing era was carried on the last journey.
Speaker A
Since then, the figure of Lenin has been lying in the courtyard of the National Art Gallery.
Speaker A
And its head is in some warehouse. Apparently waiting in the wings. And the lawn on which I am standing reminds of the quickly passing people's love and the inexorableness of time.
Speaker A
This is what one of the participants in those events, journalist Mark Grigoryan, recalls. - Do you know how it was? Bak then the Yerevan City Council had just been formed.
Speaker A
First and only city council during independence. And there was a problem: what to do with Lenin.
Speaker A
Now independence has come, the communist government no longer exists, something needs to be done.
Speaker A
The mayor of the city did not want to take responsibility for this monument. And then he sent this case to the Commission on Culture, in which I was a deputy and a member of this commission back then.
Speaker A
We discussed it for a long time and decided to demolish it. Well, not demolish, but dismantle. It was first raised like this above the pedestal, then they neatly laid on such a large platform and drove off.
Speaker A
And the city authorities were very afraid at that moment that there might be some kind of rallies.
Speaker A
But it all turned from such a serious story into a farce. Because people began to throw pennies at Lenin.
Speaker A
- I read, at first they began to throw stones, and when the stones ran out, they began to throw coins. - No-no-no, they threw coins.
Speaker A
- But this has created such a very unusual and strange symbolism. Because coins are usually thrown into the city fountain, in hope of returning.
Speaker A
- Well, look, they've done it, and now the monument will be restored, though in the courtyard of the museum.
Speaker A
- Yes, but maybe they said goodbye to him in this way? - May be. - Yes.
Speaker A
At the same time, the townspeople had very conflicting moods about the pedestal on which the monument stood.
Speaker A
- I remember that half of Yerevan was probably against it. - Yeah. It is a pity, of course, that we did not come up with what exactly should have been done with this.
Speaker A
The architects were Natalia Paremuzova and Levon Vartanov, husband and wife. This means a lot for Yerevan - we used this pedestal in parades for several years.
Speaker A
It is a pity that nothing is left of this beautiful granite. - Why was it eventually demolished? - To be honest, I can't say.
Speaker A
We can clarify, probably, it was associated with something wrong. With those times. Probably, they didn’t want Yerevan residents to have such memories.
Speaker A
There were some contests, something was needed for this place. We even thought of building a church there or some monuments, or some kind of cross - like, the first country to adopt Christianity, But in the end, what you see now is the lawn.
Speaker A
And now you’ll see something exclusive! We managed to find the decapitated Lenin himself. He quietly lies in the courtyard just a few hundred meters away from the square.
Speaker A
And as you can see, the newspapers have already been stolen from his hand. There is no head and no newspapers, but other than that everything is fine, in the yard, literally a few hundred meters from where he stood.
Speaker A
So far, no one has attempted to vandalize the leader himself. Probably, people still pay tribute to this creation and its creator Sergei Merkurov.
Speaker A
We, of course, could not ignore the house-museum of the sculptor. Gyumri. House-Museum of S. D. Merkurov.
Speaker A
- In this room, we decided to present the phrase: "De mortuis aut bene, aut nihil nisi verum" - "Of the dead, say nothing but good" But, unfortunately, this part "nothing but good" is not mentioned anywhere.
Speaker A
Well, "good or nothing" is nonsense, you have to say something. The truth! And it is sometimes also, of course, not too desirable or bitter.
Speaker A
Here we present the death masks taken by Merkurov from the faces of the communist leaders of the Soviet period: Lenin, Sverdlov, Chizhevsky, Ordzhonikidze are people about whom the truth must be told.
Speaker A
The bitter truth. Both for them and for our country. But they demolished it all.
Speaker A
And the monument is the most innocent creation of human hands. You can be doused with paint, you can be spat on, you can be blown up.
Speaker A
But for some reason in Rome there is a monument to Nero and Mussolini. And we demolished ours.
Speaker A
But we could leave it be, and bring our sons to it, and say: "Be like this person", or vice versa "Don't be like this person." The story does not break off or stick together.
Speaker A
Well, if you demolished the monument, and what has changed? Yerevan. Kond. But behind Soviet architecture and natural beauty, as is often the case in the CIS countries, there is a very sad picture, poverty, lack of the most basic amenities, dirt, and further down the list.
Speaker A
The Spitak earthquake did not affect Yerevan. But right in the center of the city there is an area that seems to have been bombed by someone.
Speaker A
This is Kond - the most depressing region of the capital of Armenia and, perhaps, the entire Caucasus.
Speaker A
This is perhaps the only place in the city where the imprint of pre-Soviet Yerevan has been preserved.
Speaker A
For centuries, Armenians, Persians and Turks lived together here. But the authorities are not determined to preserve and restore this historical heritage.
Speaker A
They are going to demolish the area and build high-rise buildings in its place. Yes, high-rise buildings are likely to appear here.
Speaker A
Moreover, the Yerevan authorities have a similar experience: if you look at the center, in the center, multi-storey, apartment buildings have long been built, and all this appears on the site of low-rise pre-revolutionary buildings.
Speaker A
In the center, the loss of historic buildings is especially well seen, because there were really nice buildings there, here from the point of view of architecture, probably, there is no value, but here the value is the environment, because, well, really, this is the last corner of the old Yerevan,
Speaker A
with such narrow streets, in places reminiscent of the medieval cities of the east. When you are here, it seems that you are in such a poor medieval eastern city.
Speaker A
Look how beautiful it is here - you will definitely not see this in the center.
Speaker A
A narrow street, and above there’s this green canopy of grapes. Unbelievably beautiful. Well, here you can clearly see how Yerevan is changing.
Speaker A
All these buildings were built in the 2000s, in the 2010s. When people got some money they started buying a lot of apartments, and began to demolish the center and build these faceless multi-storey buildings.
Speaker A
Friends, I really love coffee, and I enjoy it very much. At some point I started to have difficulty traveling, because it's hard to find a good coffee shop on the road.
Speaker A
But then people came up with the idea of making drip packs. What is a drip pack? This is... ta da-a-ah.
Speaker A
This is just a miracle invention. I'm hooked on this, and every morning... I have half a suitcase of these drip packs.
Speaker A
The first thing I do is go, get up, even in a hotel when you have a capsule coffee machine, whatever, I still brew myself a drip pack.
Speaker A
I started experimenting with different drip packs, I found something that I like, and then I thought: if I'm such a big coffee lover, who begins every day with it, and I have the opportunity, indeed, to find great beans, to fry it well,
Speaker A
and make my own drip packs to drink and enjoy coffee. No sooner said than done. Ta da-a-ah.
Speaker A
Friends, in my hands I am holding amazing, incredible, luxurious drip packs with coffee. The brand is called "1984".
Speaker A
Why 1984? First, this is the year of my birth, and secondly, what is the best way to describe what is happening with us today?
Speaker A
There are three varieties: Honduras, Ethiopia and Colombia. Ethiopia. We even write what tastes there are: red berries, grapefruit, flowers.
Speaker A
Colombia. Apple, milk chocolate, jasmine tea. Or Honduras. Green apple, milk chocolate, almonds. So far, we only sell individually in sachets.
Speaker A
And so far you can only buy it in my food delivery "Varlamov.Eats" through "Yandex.Food".
Speaker A
Unfortunately, this can be done only in Moscow at the moment. This is because it’s the first batch, there are very few of them.
Speaker A
If you are in Moscow, you can use Varlamov.Eats now and order all three sachets, or whichever you like best.
Speaker A
Brew it, try it, and I'm sure you'll get hooked on it too. In general, friends, this is the beginning of my coffee story.
Speaker A
And now I'll brew it and show you how cool and convenient it is. Here, friends, we have a cup of amazing, aromatic, freshly brewed coffee in our hands.
Speaker A
Amazing. Just awesome. In general, friends, if you want to try great coffee, pay attention to the drip packs, I remind you that you can buy them on Yandex.Food, enter: "Varlamov.Eats" - this is my delivery service, and order, the courier will deliver and it works practically throughout the whole Moscow.
Speaker A
Yerevan is the capital of Armenia, the largest city and economic center of the country.
Speaker A
More than a third of the total population of the country lives in it, it is 1,1 million people.
Speaker A
The capital accounts for almost half of Armenia's total industrial contribution and it is natural that the standard of living here is very different from the rest of the country.
Speaker A
But even taking this into account, the numbers are not that very rosy. The average salary in the city is about 150-200 thousand drams.
Speaker A
This is less than 27 thousand rubles. The average pension in the city is 45 thousand drams, that is, about 7 thousand rubles.
Speaker A
Basically, the city has a developed food industry, beverages, tobacco products and metals. These industries account for almost 80% of all production.
Speaker A
At the same time, despite the fact that the industry remains one of the most promising and successful sectors in the Armenian economy, its role in the overall structure is paradoxically declining.
Speaker A
Over the past years, the weight of industry in the economy has decreased by almost 1.7 times.
Speaker A
In Soviet times, the Armenian industry felt very comfortable. - Until 1957 nothing was produced in Armenia.
Speaker A
And then in 10 years, when the economic council appeared - this was during the time of Khrushchev, industry in Armenia has increased 22 times in 10 years.
Speaker A
And it was already in the early 70s that Armenia was a full member of the Union, of course, it was small, but taking into account the saturation throughout the territory, one of the industrially developed republics.
Speaker A
We were trusted to produce electronics - it was produced by Belarus and Armenia. We were trusted to produce diesel generators, we were monopolists in the Soviet Union.
Speaker A
Electrical engineering: there was an electrical equipment plant, a lamp plant, cable and an electric motor plant.
Speaker A
Electric motors. And there was a serious share in the production of electric motors. True, sometimes they planted some stupid production, for example, the production of Er-AZ minibuses, which no one needed.
Speaker A
There were such stupid projects, but in general, Armenia had become an industrialized republic back then.
Speaker A
This is thanks to the Soviet regime. During the years of Soviet power, 362 large industrial enterprises were built in Armenia, 20 large and medium-sized power plants.
Speaker A
In terms of electricity production per capita, the country has overtaken Italy, not to mention neighboring Turkey and Iran.
Speaker A
The industry of the republic was a complex of various industries, among which the leading place was occupied by non-ferrous metallurgy, chemical industry and diversified mechanical engineering.
Speaker A
In addition, the country has widely developed textile, construction and agricultural industries. Now only fragments of the former greatness remain: no more than 50 large industrial enterprises.
Speaker A
The main role in the country is played by the service sector, which accounts for almost 55% of GDP.
Speaker A
According to the National Statistical Committee, the indicator of economic activity in Armenia fell by 7.5% last year.
Speaker A
During the same period, exports decreased by 3.9% and industrial production by 1%. In Armenia's foreign trade, exports have been inferior to imports for years, and the trade deficit is only growing.
Speaker A
Now it has reached 30% of GDP. As a result, the country's external debt in 2020 approached 60% of GDP.
Speaker A
But not everything is as bad as it sounds. At least when compared with the neighbors.
Speaker A
- As far as the economy of Georgia, 8 million tourists, we have 1.5. But at the same time, GDP per capita is the same in Georgia and in Armenia.
Speaker A
Be it Armenia, be it Azerbaijan, where there is a huge amount of oil. 2000 to 2010 GDP per capita in Armenia was higher than in Georgia.
Speaker A
If there had not been the last war, very bad one, I would say that Armenia very skillfully used that potential, which has accumulated under the Soviet Union.
Speaker A
During the trip, we met many people and everyone was asked the same question - when was life better, under the USSR or now?
Speaker A
I think that many will easily guess which answer prevails. In 2016, an American research nongovernmental organization "Pew Research Center" conducted a public opinion poll among the residents of Armenia.
Speaker A
The study found that 8 out of 10 people are negative about the collapse of the Soviet Union.
Speaker A
Moreover, the share of young people who agree with this assessment amounted to a record for the post-Soviet space 74%.
Speaker A
But this is the mood of the people. Experts are more cautious in their conclusions.
Speaker A
- It is qualitatively difficult to compare things that are completely different structurally. Life was much better throughout the Soviet Union.
Speaker A
But now all countries are overcoming this milestone. We live now, how we lived back then, I think.
Speaker A
Even a little better now, well, this is the last 5-6 years, we have bypassed this level.
Speaker A
The Baltic states, and especially Central Asia, live better than in the USSR. Ukraine and Moldova live much worse.
Speaker A
But I said "Central Asia" - there you need to exclude Tajikistan, they live worse.
Speaker A
And, in general, Georgia and Armenia live worse than in USSR, or slightly at this level.
Speaker A
And Azerbaijan lives a little better. I just know the numbers. You see, Armenia was the 8th republic in terms of living standards.
Speaker A
Out of 15 it was in the 8th place. now it is the 9th out of these 15 states.
Speaker A
Now let’s talk numbers. The unemployment rate in the country is 16%. At the same time, poverty rate is very high - 26%.
Speaker A
By the way, this is the official data. The World Bank generally gives an estimate of 51%.
Speaker A
Which, in general, fits into the picture I saw. The average salary is at $379.
Speaker A
In fact, the figure is quite high. But it should be borne in mind that a third of the country's population lives in relatively wealthy Yerevan.
Speaker A
Pensions in Armenia are small - about $ 90. But this is slightly higher than in neighboring Georgia.
Speaker A
The indicators of GDP per capita in both countries are almost in parity. It is clear that with such indicators, Armenia is one of the poorest countries in the post-Soviet space.
Speaker A
Political scientists, economists and experts of all stripes cited dozens of reasons for this economic decline.
Speaker A
But I get the feeling that the main barrier to the country's development is the war in Karabakh, one of the cornerstones of the entire Armenian nation.
Speaker A
A conflict that has been draining strength, money, resources and human lives from the country for decades.
Speaker A
The territorial issue that has become truly sacred for the whole of Armenia. Last year's war, or rather even its consequences, showed that the Armenian society in fact no longer wants to fight.
Speaker A
According to polls, less than a third of Armenians want to reclaim territory. This is the lowest figure in a decade.
Speaker A
And the fact that Pashinyan still enjoys tremendous support from the population is also very eloquent.
Speaker A
Nagorno-Karabakh is a smoldering fire that can flare up at any time. But now, it seems, few people are ready to throw firewood there.
Speaker A
The roots of this conflict are deeply rooted in history. And to understand how painful this is for the Armenians, we will try to understand how it all started.
Speaker A
Who was the first on this land? Each country will give its own answer, and I can only trace the history of the transition of Karabakh from one people to the other.
Speaker A
In the 4th century BC. the territory of Nagorno-Karabakh was part of great Armenia. Then Persia got it, after which the land was under Arab rule.
Speaker A
In the 18-19 centuries, this territory was part of the Karabakh Khanate, which in 1805 entered the Russian Empire.
Speaker A
During the revolution, Karabakh several times became the arena of clashes between Armenians and Azerbaijanis, but the Central Committee of the CPSU decided the issue in favor of Azerbaijan.
Speaker A
At the same time, the territories, where most of them were occupied by Armenians, transformed into an autonomous region of Nagorno-Karabakh.
Speaker A
Why was this decision made? - After all, as it was, the Bolsheviks came in the 20s, they drew the borders.
Speaker A
They had very little to do with the will of people who lived there. Anywhere - from Crimea to Samarkand, from Narva to Karabakh, they drew these boundaries regardless of those who disagreed.
Speaker A
The Soviet Union, apparently, if we talk about its leadership, did not understand that a time may come when these borders would become real.
Speaker A
I think that Gorbachev did not understand this either. That is, when perestroika began, it would immediately come to the fact that those conflicts that were suppressed, that existed latently, they would burst out anywhere - from Kyrgyzstan to Moldova.
Speaker A
Under Soviet rule, any national conflicts would be either harshly and quickly suppressed, or hushed up.
Speaker A
Obviously, some part of the Armenians was unhappy with the fact that in fact the region was under the control of Azerbaijan.
Speaker A
But it rarely came to open hostility and clashes. Direct manifestation of national enmity, hatred, and so on was generally prohibited.
Speaker A
There were complaints about the quality of education, in the sense of language, for example, in Baku, if I am not mistaken, there was only one Armenian school by the 80s.
Speaker A
There were no theaters, there were no higher educational institutions, and so on. In the countryside, there were complaints about this kind of thing.
Speaker A
In general, it was more or less similar to other republics of the Soviet Union with a different ethnic population, that is, there were some complaints.
Speaker A
Of course, there was what is called a "glass ceiling": career growth for representatives of a non-titular nation was not the same, as for representatives of the titular nation, on the contrary, it was even more difficult.
Speaker A
But people did not live as they do now, they lived in the same cities, there was an Azerbaijani population in Armenia, there was an Armenian population in Azerbaijan, People talked, interacted and were neighbors.
Speaker A
But during the period of perestroika and glasnost, interethnic conflicts began to creep out. It was already unrealistic to hide the disputes between Armenians and Azerbaijanis.
Speaker A
The movement of local Armenians for unification with Armenia caused a wave of discontent in Azerbaijan.
Speaker A
Clashes between representatives of the two communities very soon resulted in the flight of the Azerbaijani population from the Armenian SSR and Karabakh.
Speaker A
National pogroms began to be organized in both republics. Armenians were killed in Azerbaijan, Azerbaijanis - in Armenia.
Speaker A
The most famous episode was the clashes on ethnic grounds in the Azerbaijani city of Sumgait in February 1988.
Speaker A
But this pogrom was far from the only one, on both sides. By the way, that conflict made Armenia the most mono-ethnic country of the former USSR.
Speaker A
Even under the Soviet Union, with all its internationality, 90% of the population of Armenia were Armenians.
Speaker A
And after the Azerbaijanis left the country, the titular nation in Armenia was 98%. This mono-ethnic percentage is more than in Japan, but less than in North Korea.
Speaker A
Paradoxically, the Karabakh conflict was both the cause and the result of the collapse syndrome of the Soviet Union.
Speaker A
That is, when this matter began to soften, when there was publicity, yes, it was assumed that if people were given the opportunity to speak, then they will talk about what seems right to people in the Central Committee.
Speaker A
And when people were given the opportunity to talk, they started talking about what they wanted to talk about.
Speaker A
And, in particular in Karabakh, they said: "Why do we, Armenians, should live in Azerbaijan, we do not want to!" In this sense, perestroika has led to the fact that the Karabakh conflict broke out.
Speaker A
The structure of the Soviet Union did not imply that people from below will decide how and where they wanted to live.
Speaker A
Therefore, the authorities reacted in the way they reacted, and the Karabakh conflict, and then other conflicts that broke out, they have already begun to work against this system, against the Soviet Union.
Speaker A
Thus, the Soviet Union collapsed. Therefore, I would say so: both the Soviet Union influenced the fact that the Karabakh conflict arose, and the Karabakh conflict that arose was tearing the fabric of the Soviet Union from within.
Speaker A
In 1991, with the collapse of the Union, the struggle for Karabakh entered a new round, since the parties were able to use the weapons left behind by the army.
Speaker A
In 1992-1993 there were especially fierce battles. During the conflict, the total number of victims on both sides was 30 thousand people, more than a million became refugees.
Speaker A
The Armenian community proclaimed the Nagorno-Karabakh Republic in 1991. It remains an unrecognized entity. Baku considers this territory to be occupied.
Speaker A
Yerevan does not officially recognize the independence of the NKR, but calls himself the guarantor of its security, and the budget and the army of the republic are closely connected with Armenia.
Speaker A
The most serious clashes occurred in April 2016, as a result, dozens of soldiers from both sides were killed.
Speaker A
The fighting lasted four days and stopped when representatives of the general staffs of the two countries agreed on a ceasefire in Moscow.
Speaker A
Every family has a brother, a son, a father, a grandfather who died in this war.
Speaker A
There are memories of the bombings, there are memories of deportations among people, and very fresh ones at that.
Speaker A
The conflict broke out again in the fall of 2020, when the Second Karabakh War began.
Speaker A
The fighting began on September 27. Of course, both sides blamed each other for the attack.
Speaker A
In a month and a half, Azerbaijan was able to conquer a significant part of Karabakh, including the strategically important city of Shusha.
Speaker A
On November 9, Azerbaijanis shot down a Russian helicopter, which was flying in the combat zone over the Armenian territory.
Speaker A
And already on November 10, President of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev and Prime Minister of Armenia Nikol Pashinyan together with Vladimir Putin published a ceasefire statement.
Speaker A
Russian and Turkish peacekeepers entered Karabakh. Armenia had to admit the loss of almost half of the NKR territory.
Speaker A
This caused massive protests in the country against Nikol Pashinyan, and Armenian refugees began to leave Karabakh en masse.
Speaker A
We managed to talk to one of the families, who was forced to leave after the outbreak of the war last fall.
Speaker A
- We have a relative born in 90s, there was the first war back then, He doesn’t have an arm.
Speaker A
One brother died, and he is one-armed, well, something like this. He drove the car. He brought his mother, wife and father here.
Speaker A
- There’s nobody, nothing in Nagorno-Karabakh, but in general in our region... - Hadrut region.
Speaker A
- There is nothing in the Hadrut region. - There is no one left. The authorities, even the current authorities, began to adopt such a policy, which inevitably led to war.
Speaker A
We tried to balance, to leave somehow. Not to leave Russia, but to slightly reduce its influence.
Speaker A
Many geopolitical factors were not taken into account. Most importantly, they, using their huge rating, he really was a popular example, he could not immediately solve this problem, but on the contrary he began to... - How could it be solved?
Speaker A
- To give back all these territories surrounded by Karabakh, which, according to Madrid principles, will have to be returned sooner or later, and then occupy the border of Nagorno-Karabakh with the peacekeepers, Republic of Artsakh, and to continue this process in line with the Madrid principles.
Speaker A
- Do you think Azerbaijan would agree to this? - Yes! Because if Armenia agreed, all this world community, all presidents from Putin to Trump or Biden, he would have no choice but to agree, the whole problem was for both countries to agree,
Speaker A
if at least one of them said "I agree" and would turn to Azerbaijan - like it or not, they will have to agree.
Speaker A
There would have been no choice, we would not have left them a choice. - Would the Armenian society accept it? - If it had been prepared, properly prepared, then, of course, yes.
Speaker A
After such a heavy defeat, the whole country is still in shock. But I did not notice any revanchist sentiments in society.
Speaker A
This is evidenced by the results of polls and the results of the last parliamentary elections.
Speaker A
Pashinyan, whom many blame for the defeat, received unconditional support from the population. - The economic situation is such that people think "maybe we will live well at least a little?" Something like this. I am sure that people are not ready for war, they do not want it.
Speaker A
No one would say "let's send our sons to win it back, and let them die, but Shushi will be ours", at least I don’t feel all this, but I can’t speak for the whole country.
Speaker A
Yerevan. Chamber Theater. War is rarely limited to direct combat. This happened in Armenia as well.
Speaker A
The country faced consequences that did not stem from the conflict. From 1992 to 1995, almost the entire country plunged into darkness, cold and hunger.
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This time is also called: "The Dark Years". Bread was given on ration cards, electricity was supplied once a day for an hour.
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In one of the coldest winters, heating was simply absent. And this did not happen for economic or political reasons, but exclusively because of the war in Nagorno-Karabakh.
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Then Armenia found itself in a blockade: the transit of gas from Azerbaijan was blocked, Turkey closed its borders from the south, and communication with Russia through Georgia was impossible due to the conflict in Abkhazia and South Ossetia.
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The most basic products and goods stopped arriving in the country. Including flour, matches and even energy sources.
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Today they prefer not to remember this time once again. But I cannot ignore these tragic years.
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The situation was aggravated by the abnormally cold winter of 1992-1993. For several months the temperature was at minus 25 degrees.
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In unheated apartments, water froze in flower vases and buckets, and in buildings, water pipes and sewerage were frozen.
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Residents of Yerevan high-rise buildings with torches heated frozen sewer pipes, so that their contents do not break into apartments.
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To somehow cope with the cold, the Armenians burned the woods. On the corner wall of the Yerevan Chamber Theater there is an unusual monument dedicated to the trees that saved the inhabitants of Armenia in the late 20th century, the tree is entirely made by hand
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of the artistic director of the theater Ara Yernjakyan from various iron parts. When in 1994 we were supposed to open after a big tour, renovation and a big pause for the next season in the theater, there was an idea to put a monument to trees at the end,
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which, having burnt, saved us all from cold winters. I understand that it is handicraft, but the idea arose on the eve of the opening, so, there was no time to find an artist, sculptor, so I remembered that I can weld something.
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The spectators have already entered the performance when this tree has been welded. Since January 1992, daily “blackouts” of electricity began in Armenia.
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At first, it was turned off for a couple of hours, then this interval began to increase.
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As a result, by November it was officially announced: electricity will be supplied to the apartments for only 1 hour a day.
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Each microdistrict had its own set hour. The Armenians lived with this for more than two years.
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- Light could be turned on, for example, at 6 in the morning for two hours, could be turned on during the day, could be at night.
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And nobody knew! It happened all of a sudden. Eerie shouts of "hurray", women would run after some buckets.
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After all, washing was another problem that was difficult to solve. And washing with two hands was, in general, a huge generosity.
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They washed like that: after warming water in a kettle, you pour a little water on your hand, you hold a kettle with one hand, a mug or whatever, and with the other hand you wash yourself.
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Then there was another innovation: the so-called “stolen light”. The unshaven fitter-neighbor was like a god for this whole neighborhood, because the phrase "let there be light" he uttered and turned it on.
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Stolen light means that they took it from some tram and trolleybus lines, I don't know, in general, I can't say for sure now, but this, I say, it was already closer to 1994.
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When the idea has already begun to work. I think that if only, God forbid, two years, we would come up with something like a perpetuum mobile or something.
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- Hunger, war, siege... The fact is that Armenia entered independence and war at the same time.
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And no electricity, no food, lack of roads to the outside world - Georgia had its own war, Abkhaz one, and it was very difficult to travel through Georgia too, to put it mildly, gas pipelines exploded, there was no electricity,
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there is a nuclear power plant in Armenia, it was closed after the Chernobyl accident and as a result of the demands of environmentalists too.
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And it was a nightmare. Along with a severe energy crisis, the problem of bread also arose.
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Grain was delivered to Armenia intermittently, bread cards were introduced - 200 grams per day per person.
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Despite the cards, there was still not enough bread, I had to stand in lines at the shops for days.
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- Imagine a situation when there is no light, when you are walking in the city center at night, in absolute, pitch darkness, imagine that I had a stove in my kitchen, and without this stove, we would just... it would be even colder!
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Also, because in my bedroom the water in the glass froze at night. I woke up in the morning and there was ice. Like this.
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Then the victory in the Karabakh war was gained at such a price. - There were fogs, there were all extreme conditions at once.
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There were still some scary fogs - when nothing was visible for 3 meters. And I managed to get lost in Yerevan.
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I stood in my hometown and did not know where to go. Well, it was 2 o'clock in the morning, people would knock on someone’s door.
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That is, it came to such insanity. When you travel around the country and communicate with residents, you never cease to be amazed at how cheerful these people are.
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Both in cities and in villages, everyone is friendly, open and ready to break into a smile at any second.
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In the international index of happiness, Armenia has risen by as much as 30 positions this year.
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And this, despite the war, economic difficulties and a rather harsh historical legacy. It is the heritage that the memorial complex behind my back reminds us of.
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This is Tsitsernakaberd - a place dedicated to memory and sorrow, a place dedicated to the Armenian genocide in the Ottoman Empire in 1915.
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The very term "genocide" is very sensitive. Azerbaijan and Turkey refuse to recognize it, however, specifying that there were still mass killings of Armenians.
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The question of the number of victims is also controversial. Estimates range from a few hundred thousand to 2 million victims.
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Even if we take average figures, these are terrible, colossal losses. The tragedy, of course, was not limited to human lives.
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Hundreds of thousands of Armenians were deported from their homes, monuments and churches exploded, Armenian quarters were destroyed, and cemeteries turned into cornfields.
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The scale of the disaster was so great that it is hard to believe that this was not a pre-planned campaign to exterminate the Armenians.
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However, opinions on this matter differ, as well as against the term "genocide" not only Turkey and Azerbaijan speak about it, but also some foreign historians and specialists.
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Be that as it may, this tragedy left a deep scar in the history of the Armenian people, and even now it is one of the main and sensitive issues for any Armenian.
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The Ottoman Empire was home to about one and a half million Armenians. At the end of the 19th century, they even created political organizations, who sought to obtain more autonomy.
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In 1908, the Young Turks seized power in the Ottoman Empire. And in 1915, the political movement "The Committee of Union and Progress" founded by them began to destroy the Armenian population in eastern Anatolia.
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Thus, the authorities wanted to strengthen the Muslim Turkish domination in the region. Although the term "genocide" did not appear until 1944, most scholars agree that the massacres of Armenians meet the definition of genocide.
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The Armenian Genocide was recognized by the Council of Europe, the European Parliament, UN Sub-Commission on Prevention of Discrimination and Protection of Minorities, as well as several dozen countries, including Russia.
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At the same time, the genocide is denied by Turkey and Azerbaijan, which is even reflected in the official historiography of these countries.
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The aftermath of the genocide still has a huge impact both on the domestic and foreign policy of Armenia.
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This tragedy also directly influenced the emergence of the phenomenon of the vast Armenian diaspora around the world.
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Genocide and war in Karabakh are two main triggers for the Armenian people. And of course, politicians try to use them.
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It was on the wave of such sentiments that the first president, Levon Ter-Petrosyan, came to power.
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In the late eighties, he was a member of the "Karabakh" committee and was one of the leaders of the Armenian National Movement.
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In December 1988, together with other members of the committee, Ter-Petrosyan was arrested. But already in May 1989, under public pressure, he was released.
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However, gaining the cherished independence did not bring happiness to the country. Armenia faces the need to transition to a market economy in the context of hyperinflation and unemployment of a huge number of the population.
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The situation was aggravated by the Karabakh conflict and the economic blockade. The collapse of the economy inevitably led to a political crisis and the election of Robert Kocharian to the presidency.
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He, like the next President Serzh Sargsyan, were prominent representatives of this clan. Although, under the leadership of the country by these politicians Armenia began to actively get out of the economic legacy of the first post-Soviet decade, numerous corruption scandals were also associated with them.
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They were also found guilty of authoritarianism and usurpation of power. After years of such a regime, all this led to the "Velvet Revolution".
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Protests have begun in Gyumri, and there are reasons for that. - The city was very uninteresting neither for businessmen, nor for investors, nor even for the central authorities, and this created a very good oppositional ground.
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It was clear that this factor should be used. What the young people came up with, the team surrounding Pashinyan - hiking from Gyumri, the old city, to Yerevan, on the way they gathered people, somehow it was widely reported, the Facebook era began in our country:
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when all social life moved to Facebook. And these young people have mastered this instrument perfectly, the authorities still clung to television, radio, and such classic media.
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And now, as they say, you see the result. For 14 days, Pashinyan and his supporters passed through the cities of Spitak, Dilijan, Sevan and Hrazdan, encouraging citizens to actively participate in political processes.
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On April 11, Pashinyan's party members lit up flares during the meeting of the National Assembly and called on citizens to join the protests.
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Then the protesters headed towards the Place de France blocking traffic at the intersection of Mashtots and Baghramyan avenues.
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The next day, protesters in Yerevan broke into the building of the Public Radio of Armenia and demanded to go on the air.
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During this time, various groups of protesters briefly blocked streets throughout the city. Over the next two days, protesters in different parts of the city continued actions of civil disobedience and blocked the streets.
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Several hundred thousand people took part in the protests. As a result of the clashes, Pashinyan himself was wounded.
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On April 17, Sargsyan was elected by the parliament to the post of Prime Minister, after which Pashinyan announced the beginning of the "velvet" revolution.
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Along with his associates, he blocked most of the buildings in the city center, in which government departments are located, including the Central Bank, the Prosecutor General's Office and a number of ministries.
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On May 8, in early elections, Pashinyan was approved for the post of prime minister.
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What has happened in Armenia since then? - However, if we are talking about Gyumri, it is gratifying that the new authorities did not stop all those programs, which were implemented in our country, even by power before them, during the time of Serzh Sargsyan:
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reconstruction, improvement of streets and development of tourism potential. It all continued, but stopped due to the coronavirus and the war.
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But now, somehow, the movement in this direction has begun again. Yerevan. The political situation in the country from an unsophisticated Russian perspective may seem very democratic.
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There are more or less fair elections, a multi-party system, good positions in the Corruption Perceptions Index.
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Yes, the defeat in Karabakh led to a political crisis, but the last elections showed that the people no longer want shocks and, in spite of everything, they trust Pashinyan.
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You can have rallies here, there are no repressive laws. But, of course, Armenian democracy also has its drawbacks.
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- The way we have built the executive branch. There is still a lot to work on.
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Moreover, in the current state, for example, the legislature power depends on the executive one, which should not be.
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- Yeah, what's going on with the police? Do people trust the police? - People trusted the police in 2018, now, I think, they trust much less.
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- Again, are Georgians proud of their police reform? - Yes, you know, we were also promised such a reform.
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- I haven’t noticed it yet. - By the way, I was very surprised, because your police officers look somehow strange.
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They sit in cars, smoke, spit, they look like some kind of punks. - Yes. - They do not wear uniform at all: someone has a trouser leg pulled up, someone has this cap on one side, One officer is in such glasses, the other in the other ones - like underage punks, who put on a uniform, and it looks very strange.
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- Of course. - And it's in the city center. This, in theory, should be some kind of elite unit that guards the government building.
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- So here’s the illustration of what I’m talking about. As long as the police are idly wandering around the government building like this, I won’t trust it.
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Yerevan. Dilijan. Dilijan. Despite the almost permanent political instability and military action, Armenia is very good at preserving its cultural and natural heritage.
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The people who were one of the first in the world to adopt Christianity, live in the land of mountains, lakes and temples.
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That is why we went to the largest Caucasian lake Sivan. However, on the way, we simply could not miss one of the most magical places in the country.
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The wonderful city of Dilijan. Yes, the one where the best water in the world flows from the tap.
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Well, after San Francisco, of course. - Valiko Jan, in Dilijan you open a simple tap, the water ranks second best in the world!
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- And the first one is in Yerevan, right? - No, in San Francisco. Formally, this place is called a city.
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But here you have a complete feeling that you are in some magical isolated world.
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Well, in general, it is: Dilijan was given the status of a national park, and from all sides the city is surrounded by the Dilijan reserve.
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But even in such a place, there is a decline, desolation and the Soviet vibe.
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In the center of Dilijan there is a monument to the 50th anniversary of Soviet Armenia.
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Such a bundle of white arrows is typical Soviet modernism, nothing special, They did not demolish the monument, did not rename it, but no one cares for it.
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All around there is just a road to private houses. The stairs that led to this monument are overgrown with weeds.
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There are bottles, rubbish everywhere. Such is the fate of the 50th anniversary of Soviet Armenia.
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Now the road signs are covered with reflective paint and drivers can see them well in the dark.
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And before, when there was no reflective paint, the signs were volumetric with internal illumination.
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And the signs themselves were made of glass. They practically did not survive, for obvious reasons - they were all dismantled, thrown out, stolen by some collectors, I don't know, but in Armenia you can find such signs, there are no signs themselves, but even these backdrops remained
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even lamps that illuminated this sign. This is the building of the railway station in Dilijan, now it is abandoned, trains do not run here.
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There is an interesting history with railways in Armenia. in 2008 they were taken by Russian Railways, they were transferred to the management of Russian Railways, and since 2008, Russian Railways has not launched a single new branch, and did nothing despite the promises.
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From Dilijan, in theory, trains could go to Yerevan, but, again, Russian Railways considered it economically inexpedient.
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It is too expensive to maintain the road. There are rails, there is even a contact network, although then almost all of it was removed and handed over for scrap.
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The station is still abandoned in Dilijan. The last train here was said to run in 2012.
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Although the passenger traffic stopped back in the 90s. Until 2012, there was at least some kind of freight traffic, but since then the trains have stopped running.
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By the way, earlier Dilijan was a point of communication between Armenia and other Transcaucasian countries.
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In the 70s, they began to build an eight-kilometer railway tunnel here, which, in particular, was to greatly shorten the path from Yerevan to Baku.
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But the tunnel was completed only in the mid-80s, when the Armenian-Azerbaijani relations have already begun to boil.
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After the Karabakh conflict, the border was closed and they almost stopped using the tunnel.
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For some time, freight trains ran through it inside Armenia, but since 2012 it has been completely abandoned.
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Many representatives of the creative elite of Armenia live in Dilijan. One of the oldest monasteries in Armenia is also located here.
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This is the Haghartsin monastery built in the 11th century. Well, not the whole monastery, of course.
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In the 11th century, the Surb Grigor church with an octagonal drum was built, and the main building is the Church of Surb Astvatsatsin, that is, the Mother of God, it was built at the end of the 13th century.
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The contrast with the city, with politics, with the war is especially acute here. The faith and traditions of the Armenian people, perhaps, help them to cope with all the difficulties that befell them.
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But if everything is pretty clear with the historical heritage of religion then its current state is not so unambiguous.
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- For many Armenians at all times, as long as the Armenian people can remember, and in the history of the USSR, the attitude towards the Armenian Church, towards Christianity was something very dear to them, it is what unites all Armenians.
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Christianity is one of the most important components of the Armenian national identity. Armenia was the first of the existing states to adopt this religion in the year 301.
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Now more than 92% of the country's population call themselves Christians, but only 45% of residents devote time to daily prayers, less than 10% go to church at least once a week.
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In fact, religion in Armenia is becoming more and more a tradition and a certain ritual, in the system of recognizing "friends among strangers." - In my experience, when I visit Armenian churches, there are a lot of young people.
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If you go to some cathedral in the city, in Yerevan, here is the Cathedral of St. Gregory the Illuminator, in the center of Yerevan, well, 30-40%, sometimes even half of the parishioners are young people, guys who are from 16-17 to 25-30 years old.
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Young guys, they are all present at the service. This, it seems to me, is a good indicator that says, that, indeed, the attitude of young people towards the church, towards religion, towards Christianity is generally positive, for the Armenian Christianity in the format of the Armenian Apostolic Church
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it is an integral part of national self-awareness and identity. In addition, the Armenians have claims against the Armenian Apostolic Church.
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After Nikol Pashinyan came to power, a campaign was launched in Armenia under the slogan "New Armenia - New Patriarch".
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Believers and priests took part in the initiative, dissatisfied with the head of the church, Catholicos of All Armenians Garegin II.
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They demanded the "resignation" of the Catholicos, accused him of the fact that in almost 20 years of his ministry, the patriarch turned the church into a business, He recruited his relatives into God's house, as well as all sorts of polygamists,
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immoral businessmen and other dubious personalities. All this leads to the fact that the authorities support the church less and less and try to distance themselves from it.
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Religion, temples and traditions of the country are inextricably intertwined with the natural landscape of Armenia.
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Mountain beauty is like a continuation or, if you like, the beginning of the people.
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And, of course, we could not help but visit one of the most beautiful places in Armenia.
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Let's go to Sevan at early dawn And we will stand, listening to the words of the elements.
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Oh how beautiful the land is, look love it, this dry land. We will approach Sevan in the evening And we will stand by the waves, heeding their call.
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Look how good the land is now Love it, your native land. The native land of Armenians is really beautiful and majestic.
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The Soviet poet Rasul Gamzatov managed to convey this mood. Sevan has inspired poets to write or artists for centuries.
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This is an ancient relict lake. The largest in the Caucasus and one of the largest in the world.
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According to legend, fertile gardens, irrigated by spring water, once bloomed in this place, the key was small, but the water pressure was strong, therefore, the hole from which the water gushed was covered with a large stone.
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One day, as the legend says, a frivolous beauty took a jug of water and forgot to close the spring, going home to sleep, all night water gushed from the spring in a powerful stream, flooding the neighborhood and flooding houses.
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Finally, one of the old men exclaimed: "Let the one who did this turn to stone!" The girl jumped out to the porch of her house and immediately turned to stone.
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And the incoming water formed a lake with a stone island, towering over Sevan. But scientists, of course, explain it more prosaically: about 250 thousand years ago, the eruption of the giant ridge volcanoes dammed the valley of the ancient river, and the “cauldron” formed in its place,
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it began to fill with melt water from glaciers and river water. This place was and remains significant for the whole of Armenia.
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And that's why. The coastline of Sevan is very picturesque. These are forest slopes and white bare stone cliffs, and even mountain steppes, turning into alpine meadows.
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The area around the lake is a protected area of the National Park. On the shore of the lake there is one of the most stunning architectural sites in the country.
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Behind me there is the House of Soviet Writers. In Soviet times, it was a very important and elite place.
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It was impossible to get here - one could do it only having a pass.
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The Soviet intelligentsia and the elite rested here. The entrance here was ordered to mere mortals.
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The Writers' House itself, this is the hotel building, it was built in 1932, which is interesting, the architects who designed and built it, were repressed in 1937, exiled to Siberia and they could return to their homeland only after 20 years.
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But the House of Soviet Writers is interesting not for its main building, but for this unusual building-dining room.
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She comes out of the rock with such a console, and a very beautiful building rests on one column.
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The building of the dining room was built in 1964, and it was designed by the same architect, who built the main building of the House of Soviet Writers in 1932.
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Now access is free here, the building is falling apart. In recent years, architects and city defenders have been sounding the alarm, because it is, indeed, in a semi-emergency state, nobody wants to invest in it.
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Some restaurants, guest houses, everything else have already been built around here. And nobody cares about the cult Soviet Rest House.
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I will say it again, this is one of the most famous buildings of Soviet modernism, which has survived to this day.
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Of course, it needs to be preserved, investments must be attracted here, but so far this has not happened.
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I managed to get into the house itself. And there we met the poet Anush.
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- Who else of famous people were here? - A lot of Armenians. - Well, not only Armenians. - Mandelstam lived here for 6 months and wrote such odes to Armenia!
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- When the Soviet Union was, all writers vacationed here. There were a lot of writers, everyone was vacationing here, they said: "This is the pearl of the Earth!" - not Armenia, not the Union.
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Even though the Armenian heritage is great, as I said, only three million people live in the country.
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At the same time, about 10-12 million Armenians live in the world. Most of them make up the Armenian Diaspora or Diaspora - communities of Armenians living outside the territory of Armenia.
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Yerevan. It is difficult to say the exact number of the Armenian diaspora. But we think it's somewhere between 7-8 million people.
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We are talking about Armenians who identify themselves as Armenians. Basically, they live on the territory of the Russian Federation, in the United States, in France, in Ukraine, and also in South America, Canada, Europe.
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And in many countries of the former Soviet Union. There are many outstanding and world-famous personalities among the diaspora.
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And now I don't even mean Kim Kardashian. For example, did you know that one of the creators of the "Modern" vaccine is an Armenian?
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- At the moment, Armenians are proud of Nubar Afeyan. He created the vaccine "Moderna".
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He not only created it, it is his company. - So, wait, did the Armenian make the coronavirus vaccine? His company. - Yes, "Moderna".
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- Do you get vaccinated with it? - No, I can't, because there is no "Moderna" in Armenia, so when I was in the United States a month ago, I wanted to be vaccinated.
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- Wait, an Armenian made the vaccine, and he did not give it to Armenia? - Hmm, that’s a good question.
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- They always left, not only in difficult times, apparently, this is such a characteristic feature of the Armenians.
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Recently, a friend of mine wrote very accurately on Facebook, that we find it easier to live abroad and it is easier to fulfil the potential among people of other nationalities, than among our own - this is also, probably, some kind of interesting national peculiarity of the Armenians.
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We are such strange people. Indeed, a huge amount of very famous Armenians took place abroad.
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Maybe we survive in resistance, in difficult conditions. Because I, too, in general, climbed very hard.
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Well, actually, it wasn't my choice, it was my mother's choice, I moved to Russia in 1993, right after graduation, she was just sure that I could achieve more this way.
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And in general, in her own way, she turned out to be right, because I am absolutely sure that if I had not moved to Moscow, I would never have written my books.
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After moving to Moscow, I actually did a lot of things. My first job was at the exchange office of the Intouriste hotel.
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It was, you know, a very interesting experience. Because I dived straight deep into Moscow, which I did not even await, because I was a girl from a rather patriarchal republic.
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And here there were "Intourist", "Intergirls", all the cases, Kobzon was alive, Yuri Nikolaev, there was the first casino.
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Therefore, it was a powerful and wonderful life lesson. And I remember, I watched Moscow of those years for 5-6 years from the exchanger window, I had the feeling that I was watching a movie.
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I didn't have the feeling that I was in this reality. Maybe it was some kind of psychological protection.
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Russia is perhaps the main point of attraction for the Armenian diaspora and labor migrants.
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In some years, the share of remittances of such migrants from Russia to the republic accounted for 15 to 20% of Armenia's GDP.
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Moscow plays an important role in the life of Armenia, and it is not only investments and military bases.
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In 2008, Yerevan handed over to Russian Railways the management of all the country's railways.
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- Well, I can't say how effective it is, it somehow works. There are probably 1-2 such subjects that constantly receive money and subsidies from the budget.
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Russian Railways receives Armenian budget money. It is unlikely that anyone else could make the operation of these roads profitable.
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Because we are connected only to Georgia. We have no transit to Russia. Transshipment in Batumi or Anaklia, in other ports, we have no continuation to Iran and so on.
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Yerevan. Yerevan railway station. All cooperation that has been going on for more than 10 years is associated with various scandals: the subsidiary of Russian Railways does not pay taxes to the Armenian budget, there are some problems with bonuses, appointments,
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they happen according to some ethnic principle. And this is not to mention the fact that Russian Railways simply does not fulfill its obligations.
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Negotiations are underway now, it is not clear what to do in this situation. The Armenians thought that now the Russians would come and do everything for them, and the Russians came and did nothing or did nothing to the extent that the Armenians expected of them.
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A year ago, our Ministry of Transport generally announced that it might withdraw from this agreement.
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and will leave all these railways to the Armenians, let them develop them further. It is noteworthy that during all this time the Russian company has not commissioned a single railway section.
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This point is often used by the opposition. But in 2018, when, against the background of searches in the Armenian daughter of Russian Railways Russia began to think about withdrawing from the agreement, the voices of critics suddenly fell silent.
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The problem is that in case of termination of the contract about 3,000 employees will face the issue of mass layoffs, or the threat of a significant reduction in wages.
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And besides, in case of premature termination of the contract for the management of the railway system, Armenia will practically be without rolling stock, since it was completely acquired by a Russian company.
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Conversations that it is easy to find other investors, do not have real ground under them.
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The Armenian railway network is dead-end, transit through the country is practically zero. Russian Railways' control over the Armenian railway is, in fact, the lesser of two evils.
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A story about Armenia would be incomplete without one of the main symbols of the country - cognac.
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Unfortunately, I was not able to get to the Ararat plant. For some unknown reason, the Armenians really do not want for me to film and show their export gem.
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Armenians began to produce cognac in 1887. And they still produce it. This was especially important in Soviet times, because Armenian cognac was a brand.
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It was probably the best cognac in the Soviet Union, people loved it very much.
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And good Armenian brandy could solve arguments in Soviet times. This is the Yerevan Brandy Factory, it was built in 1953.
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But, again, if you go to the museum, they will say that "the production and the whole history of our cognacs it has been going on since 1887, but this particular building was built after the war.
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Many legends are also associated with Armenian cognac. They say that Winston Churchill, Agatha Christie and even Frank Sinatra were allegedly very fond of drinking it.
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True, there is no documentary evidence of this. So believe it or not. Churchill's biographers say that he drank Hine, but the Armenians believe that Churchill adored Armenian cognac.
Speaker A
Nevertheless, Armenian cognac is a well-known brand, it is known and loved in many countries of the world.
Speaker A
This, one might say, is part of the culture of Armenia, an important part. Cognac has been produced in Armenia since 1887. This alcoholic drink gained fame thanks to the entrepreneur Nikolai Shustov, who developed the cognac industry in late imperial times.
Speaker A
After the revolution, all Shustov's property was nationalized, and the cognac factory was renamed into the “Ararat” trust.
Speaker A
In the 50s, the world famous Yerevan Brandy Factory or YBC was founded. Cognac produced by YBC is supplied to 25 countries of the world.
Speaker A
The plant's trademarks are registered in 47 countries. Under the USSR, the YBC had a monopoly on the production of all cognac in the country.
Speaker A
After the collapse of the Union, the YBC monopoly went away, and now more than 20 brandy factories operate throughout Armenia.
Speaker A
But cognac is an alcohol with a protected geographic name, it is named after a city in France.
Speaker A
Therefore, in an amicable way, it is impossible to call Armenian cognac "cognac" - the European Union is very angry at this.
Speaker A
The Armenian government went to different tricks - in 2010 they even announced the renaming of the Armenian brandy to "Arbun".
Speaker A
From the Armenian verb "harbel" - "to get drunk". But it didn't quite help. In 2020, Yerevan agreed with the European Union on the so-called financial aid.
Speaker A
This aid meant that Europe would pay Armenia 3 million euros. But on condition that the Armenians stop calling their cognac this way.
Speaker A
And now all products will be called “Armenian brandy”. Agree, a rather small price for such a valuable symbol.
Speaker A
Well, what cognac can be without a good snack? Everything is fine with this in Armenia too.
Speaker A
Armenian cuisine is diverse and unusual. Just imagine: a fun feast, the table is bursting with dishes, and then they bring you this.
Speaker A
- Bull's head is baked in a large oven, please. Here it is, the whole thing.
Speaker A
And I won't be lying if I say that people come to our city , to try this dish.
Speaker A
These are such interesting, extraordinary tastes. This is kallá, which is a baked bull's head.
Speaker A
Initially, this dish was considered the food of the Armenian poor. But now it has become a real gastronomic hit in Gyumri.
Speaker A
Everything is eaten: the tongue, brains and even eyes. The head looks creepy, but you still ask for the extra.
Speaker A
The traditional cuisine of Armenia has dozens and even hundreds of dishes. The famous soup Khash, dolma, gata and, of course, Armenian barbecue.
Speaker A
But any meal will be incomplete without the main and irreplaceable product, lavash. It is eaten in a wide variety of variations.
Speaker A
- We laid out pita bread and cheese in layers in this bowl, we have onions fried in ghee, it smells divine.
Speaker A
- The more, the tastier. - Naturally. We are preparing for ourselves, let’s not spare.
Speaker A
Now some boiling water. And let’s close it. We close it for 5 minutes. I am sure that everything will turn out fine and very tasty.
Speaker A
It took 5 minutes. And now everything is mixed. Lavash is saturated with butter, with the taste of fried onions, cheese, which is already melted.
Speaker A
And if we feel, as they say, that everything is already good, soft, we serve it.
Speaker A
If not, then you can add a drop of the onion. It smells awesome. Please come to the table.
Speaker A
Panahash is ready. The pandemic, a lost war in Karabakh, the economic crisis - this is just a small part of the difficulties that the Armenian people are living with right now.
Speaker A
An ancient, once very wealthy country 30 years after the collapse of the Soviet Union turned into a kind of depressive state.
Speaker A
As a legacy, Armenia received only an ineffective system of state administration, which still hinders the development of the country.
Speaker A
The first years Armenia had to survive, then rely on Russia. But now the country is essentially facing an important choice: how to develop further.
Speaker A
The issues that were posed to the new state in 1991 have not yet been resolved.
Speaker A
The hopes for democracy and economic prosperity did not materialize, and the elite still curry favor with Russia, while trying to balance between Moscow and the European Union.
Speaker A
On the other hand, the new generation is filled with optimism and determination. In part, this explains the political instability of recent years.
Speaker A
Society is looking for new answers to already rather old questions. And I have every reason to believe that it will find them.
Speaker A
And in the vastness of the post-Soviet space there will be one happy state more.
Topics:ArmeniaSoviet Unionpost-Soviet statesKarabakh conflictGyumri earthquakeVelvet RevolutionArmenian economyArmenian historyindustrial declinepolitical instability
