Showing posts with label Armenia. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Armenia. Show all posts

April 7 - Motherhood and Beauty Day in Armenia

Posted on April 7, 2022

This is an update of my post published on April 7, 2011:




I read that Armenia has an entire month of holidays honoring women. March 8 celebrates all women, and April 7 honors mothers. The month in between is unofficially a time to continue the celebration of women.


The typical Mother's Day activities of pampering Mom, giving her cards and flowers and chocolates and gifts, occur in Armenia on this day. But it is an actual public holiday, too, and the president of the country gives a speech honoring the day alongside public tributes and programs.

Armenia is a landlocked nation with an ancient heritage. It was taken over by a variety of empires and countries—the latest of which was the Soviet Union—and Armenians as a people have unfortunately experienced war, loss of homeland, and genocide.

Read about Armenia here. 

Try Armenian food! Recipes can be found here. 

Here is an Armenian American woman we can all honor: Carla Garapedian. Her documentaries bravely tackle important topics.

  
And Cher is another Armenian American - a singer, actor, and philanthropist. She's talented and inspiring!


Vittoria Aganoor was an important Armenian Italian poet in the 1800s.

Sian Seerpoohi was a Welsh Armenian who moved to New Zealand and became the first female Chief Justice in that nation. (Her married name became Dame Sian Seerpoohi Elias.)


Did you notice that the four women I mentioned all have Armenian roots but were born and lived in other nations? Well, the history of being taken over and of genocide resulted in a diaspora - the scattering of a people all over the world. But women who live in Armenia are accomplished, too - and look at the wonderful scenery they get to enjoy in their ancient homeland: 






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May 28 - National Day in Armenia

Posted on May 28, 2020

The history of Armenia is long, and much of it is sad; I've written about its independence from the Soviet Union and the super-tragic 1915 genocide in earlier posts. 

Today's patriotic holiday commemorates the start up of the First Armenian Republic in 1918. It's sometimes called Republic Day, and it's sometimes called Day of Restoration - because that first republic restored self-rule to Armenia after about 600 years of foreign control!

The usual celebrations - a parade, visits to a memorial, fireworks, concerts, torchlit marches, parties - are unlikely to happen in 2020 because of the global pandemic. 

But we can take the opportunity afforded by this holiday to celebrate all things Armenian:

Mmmm, Armenian food! I grew up with weekly trips to an Armenian market near me to get flatbread and really delicious string cheese. Other Armenians dishes include Boerags, delicate filo dough squares filled with cheeses and fried; Manti, teeny "boats" made out of dough and stuffed with meat and spices; and Topik, chickpea dumplings filled with minced onions, blackcurrants, pine nuts, tahini, cinnamon, sugar, salt, and allspice. Yummmmmmmm.


Armenia is sometimes called "Land of Churches"; this nation has around 4,000 monasteries and churches. Since Armenia has the distinction of being the first nation-state to adopt Christianity as its official religion, in the early 300s, many of the churches are very old, and some are ruins. 



Gorgeous scenery abounds in this land of mountains. (The nation is 10th in the world for average elevation and about 86% of the nation is mountains - a higher percentage, even, than Switzerland or Nepal.) 




Armenia has a monument to its alphabet!




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January 28 - Army Day in Armenia

Posted on January 28, 2019

This public holiday in Armenia celebrates the anniversary of the establishment of its national army in 1992.

Location of Armenia, above and below in red.
Note that it's so small that, on the world map above,
it is also encircled.

Like so many other nations that had been swallowed up by the USSR (Soviet Russia), Armenia became independent again in 1991. I say "again" because Armenia had had centuries of cycling between independence and absorption into an empire or larger nation. And some of this "absorption" was terribly violent; during and after World War I, the Ottoman Empire carried out a genocide on Armenians, and many Armenian people fled to other nations to escape the killing. The surprising result is that there are supposed to be a lot more Armenians living all over the world than there are Armenians living in Armenia!

Even though it is located in West Asia, not Europe, Armenia is part of the Council of Europe; it's also a member of the United Nations and of several Eurasian economic and security organizations. Hopefully these international structures will keep it secure and independent!

Here are some surprising things about Armenia:
There is a monument to the Armenian alphabet, located near the grave of Mesrop Mashtots, who invented it around 405 C.E.


I love Armenian bread - yum! - but I never knew that the traditional Armenian bread oven was a cylinder, and that bread dough was squashed onto one of the sides (and then, after it's baked, retrieved in some mysterious way??? I mean, how???)! 


There are a lot of public water fountains in Armenia. These spots are popular for the normal reason - to get a drink or to refill a water bottle - but also as a meeting place or even dating location! The water often comes from a mountain spring and is said to be really delicious.



And here are some just plain old flat-out gorgeous things in Armenia:










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