Armenians

Core values & worldview

Ask Armenians who they are and many will start with deep time: one of the oldest peoples still living in their ancestral land, the first nation to make Christianity its state religion, the inventors of their own alphabet.^•

Survival and continuity. Armenians have lived under Persians, Romans, Arabs, Byzantines, Mongols, Ottomans, Safavids and Russians, and spent most of the past thousand years without a state. What kept them together was the church, the language, the family and the community.^•

Family. The extended family is the centre of life. Grandparents often help raise children, adult children may live with parents until marriage, and cousins are like siblings. Godparents (knkahayr, and the wedding sponsor kavor) are honoured lifelong ties.^•

Hospitality and the table. A guest is honoured; refusing food is hard work. Long meals with many dishes and a series of toasts, led by a tamada or the head of the family, are how Armenians celebrate, mourn and make friends.

Church and nation. The Armenian Apostolic Church is less a matter of personal piety for many Armenians than of belonging: churches are where they baptise, marry and bury, light thin candles in sand trays and remember the nation’s story.^•

Education and achievement. Armenians often take pride in their scientists, chess players (chess is a compulsory school subject in Armenia), musicians and entrepreneurs, and families invest heavily in their children’s education.^•

Longing. Armenians have a word, karot, for a deep longing for someone or something absent. Ararat across the border, villages in Anatolia, Karabakh: much Armenian art and song is about places that cannot be reached.^•

Daily life & customs

Armenian surnames usually end in -yan or -ian, meaning “of” or “descended from”; Petrosyan is “of Petros”. It is one of the easiest ways to spot Armenians anywhere in the world.^•

Food is central. Every gathering has lavash, cheese, fresh herbs eaten by the handful, tolma, pickles, and in summer khorovats, chunks of grilled pork or lamb. Armenian coffee is brewed thick in a small pot; backgammon (nardi) is played fast and loud in courtyards. Armenia also has an old wine tradition and a famous brandy, and toasting is an art.^•

The church calendar marks the year. Armenians celebrate Christmas together with Epiphany on 6 January, an ancient custom; the Armenian Patriarchate of Jerusalem keeps 19 January by the old calendar. Easter brings dyed eggs and egg-tapping contests; Vardanants honours the heroes of Avarayr; in summer, Vardavar is a day of water fights. At some churches, families still offer matagh, an animal sacrifice whose meat is shared with the poor.^•

24 April is Genocide Remembrance Day. In Yerevan, people of all ages walk up the hill to the Tsitsernakaberd memorial carrying flowers, and lay them around the eternal flame until it is circled by a wall of carnations and tulips. Diaspora communities march in Los Angeles, Paris and Beirut.^•

Weddings are big, with dancing in circles and lines, and family is everything at funerals too: mourners return on the seventh and fortieth days and on anniversaries. Armenians also love to talk about who in the world is secretly Armenian, from Kardashians to chess champions; take it as affection, not vanity.

Wounds & sensitivities

The genocide and its denial. The Armenian Genocide is the deepest wound. Most Armenians know a great-grandparent’s story of survival, sometimes of a child hidden or adopted into a Turkish or Kurdish family. Calling it “the events of 1915”, “relocation” or a “tragedy on all sides” hurts, and denial is felt as a continuation of the crime. Recognition by other countries is celebrated; the US formally recognised it in 2021.^•

Karabakh. The loss of Artsakh in 2020–23, with thousands of young soldiers dead and an entire population uprooted, is recent and raw. Some Armenians blame Prime Minister Pashinyan, others the old regime, Russia, or the West’s indifference; many feel abandoned by everyone. Families of the dead and missing are still grieving.^•

Turkey and Azerbaijan. Feelings towards Turkey are complicated by denial and by its support for Azerbaijan, but many Armenians distinguish between states and people, and some have Turkish friends. Feelings towards Azerbaijan, after two wars and mutual pogroms, are much harder; Azerbaijanis carry their own grievances from the 1990s, including Khojaly and their own displacement. Don’t ask an Armenian to “see the other side” in a first conversation.^•

Emigration. Since independence hundreds of thousands have left Armenia for Russia, Europe and America in search of work, and many villages are half-empty. Remittances keep many families going. The sense that the homeland is shrinking is a real worry.^•

Smallness. Armenians are sensitive to being treated as a pawn of great powers, or as “part of Russia”. They are a distinct, ancient nation, and want to be seen that way.

Modern attitudes

A country rethinking its place. For decades Armenia relied on Russia for security, gas and trade, and Russia keeps a military base in Gyumri. After 2020–23, many Armenians feel Russia failed them, and the government has moved closer to Europe and the United States while trying not to break with Moscow; others, including many older Armenians, still see Russia as the only real protector.^•

Peace or capitulation? Pashinyan argues that only peace with Azerbaijan and normal relations with Turkey can secure Armenia’s future, and in 2025 the two countries initialled a peace agreement. Opponents call it surrender. In the 2026 elections his party won a majority, but the country remains deeply polarised.^•

Church and state. In 2025 the government and the leadership of the Apostolic Church fell into open conflict: Pashinyan called for the Catholicos to step down, and senior clergy were arrested on charges including plotting a coup, which the church calls politically motivated. For many Armenians, who see the church as the nation’s backbone, this is painful whichever side they take.^•

Young Armenia. Yerevan has a lively tech sector, cafés and arts scene, and the Velvet Revolution of 2018 showed a younger generation ready to demand change. At the same time, Armenian society remains fairly traditional on family, gender roles and sexuality, especially outside the capital.^•

The diaspora’s role. Diaspora Armenians fund schools, churches and charities in Armenia, lobby for genocide recognition and sometimes move “back” to a homeland their families never lived in. Relations are warm but not always easy: diaspora Armenians may romanticise the homeland, and locals may feel lectured by people who don’t live with the consequences.^•

Not all Armenians are the same

Homeland and diaspora. Armenians often distinguish Hayastantsi (from Armenia) from spyurkahay (diaspora Armenians), and the diaspora itself is varied: Lebanese and Syrian Armenians with their tight-knit schools and parties, Iranian Armenians, Russian Armenians who may speak little Armenian, and Armenian-Americans and French Armenians who are third- or fourth-generation.^•

Eastern and Western Armenian. The two standard languages are mutually understandable with effort, but differ in pronunciation, vocabulary and spelling (Armenia uses a Soviet-era reformed spelling; most of the diaspora keeps the classical one). Western Armenian, the language of the Ottoman Armenians, is listed by UNESCO as endangered.^•

Faith. Most Armenians belong to the Apostolic Church, but there are Armenian Catholics and Armenian Evangelicals, especially in the diaspora, and many secular Armenians. In Turkey there are also Hemshin, Muslim people of Armenian origin, and an unknown number of “hidden Armenians”, descendants of children and women absorbed into Muslim families in 1915.^•

Karabakh Armenians. The Armenians of Karabakh have their own dialect and a strong regional identity; since 2023 most live in Armenia as refugees, with their own grief and sometimes friction with their hosts.^•

Politics. Some Armenians support Pashinyan’s peace-first course; others back opposition figures tied to the pre-2018 leadership or the church; diaspora parties such as the Armenian Revolutionary Federation (Dashnaks) have long been more nationalist than many in Armenia.^•

Meeting someone

Conversation starters

• Where their family is from. Many diaspora Armenians know the name of an ancestral town in Anatolia, Musa Dagh, Van, Kharpert, Marash, and may love to talk about it, even if the story is sad.
• Food. Ask about their grandmother’s tolma or the best khorovats, and settle in.
• The alphabet and language. Ask them to write your name in Armenian letters; most will be delighted.
• Music and art. Komitas, the duduk, Aznavour, System of a Down, Parajanov’s films.
• Armenia itself. Ask what to see: Garni temple, Geghard and Tatev monasteries, Lake Sevan, the view of Ararat.

Topics to approach carefully

• 1915. Use the word “genocide” if you are discussing it; don’t present it as a “debate” or ask whether it “really” was one. Let them decide how much of their family’s story to share.^•
  • "They Can Live in the Desert but Nowhere Else": A History of the Armenian Genocide — Ronald Grigor Suny, Princeton University Press (2015)
  • Resolution on the Armenian Genocide — International Association of Genocide Scholars (1997)
• Karabakh / Artsakh. Many Armenians lost friends or family, or their homes. Ask open questions and listen. The names themselves are political: Armenians say Artsakh and Stepanakert; Azerbaijanis say Karabakh and Khankendi.^•
  • Armenia and Azerbaijan: Anatomy of a Rivalry — Laurence Broers, Edinburgh University Press (2019)
• Pashinyan, Russia and the church. These divide families. Don’t assume someone’s politics from their age or where they live.
• Turkey and Azerbaijan. Don’t compare Armenians to Turks or Azerbaijanis, or remark on how similar the food is, as a first move; some will laugh, others won’t.

Common misconceptions

• “Armenians are Russian” or “Armenia is in the Middle East / Europe.” Armenians are a distinct people with their own language and church; Armenia sits in the South Caucasus, between Europe and the Middle East, and many Armenians feel connected to both.^•
  • Armenia — Encyclopaedia Britannica
• “Armenians are Orthodox like the Russians and Greeks.” The Armenian Apostolic Church is Oriental Orthodox, separate from both Eastern Orthodoxy and Rome since the 6th century.^•
  • The Armenians — A. E. Redgate, Blackwell (1998)
• “The genocide is disputed by historians.” Most historians and genocide scholars agree it was genocide; it is disputed mainly by the Turkish state.^•
  • "They Can Live in the Desert but Nowhere Else": A History of the Armenian Genocide — Ronald Grigor Suny, Princeton University Press (2015)
  • Resolution on the Armenian Genocide — International Association of Genocide Scholars (1997)
• “Armenian is related to Persian or Greek.” It is Indo-European, but forms its own branch of the family.^•
  • The History of Armenia: From the Origins to the Present — Simon Payaslian, Palgrave Macmillan (2007)
• “All Armenians are rich” or “all Armenians are in business.” The diaspora’s success stories are visible, but Armenia is a middle-income country where many families depend on relatives abroad.^•
  • The History of Armenia: From the Origins to the Present — Simon Payaslian, Palgrave Macmillan (2007)