History UsefulNotes / Armenia

Ottoman rule was a relief to the Armenians at first; the region had been completely devastated by several invasions within decades of one another. Christians in the empire were second class citizens and more heavily taxed, but the Armenians made due by mostly becoming merchants. Eastern Armenia changed hands a few times over the centuries between Persia, Russia, and the Ottomans, until Armenia was partitioned again between Russia and Turkey after the Russo-Turkish War, ultimately causing the Eastern-Western split in the Armenian language still present today. The Ottoman Armenians then fell under suspicion during the latter half of the 19th century, as the Ottoman Empire lost territory in Greece and the Balkans, and the remaining Christians in the empire became a scapegoat of sorts, resulting in sporadic government-condoned massacres of the Armenians, particularly in the 1890's. This finally came to a head during UsefulNotes/WorldWarI under the Young Turks, and the matter of the Armenian Genocide that was to follow is still a very contentious one - few western observers doubt that there was a major humanitarian disaster in the area in 1915, precipitated by Turkish troops against the Ottoman Empire's Christian population, most of whom were put on death marches into the Syrian desert, when not massacred on the spot, killing over a million Armenians. And the common opinion of genocide scholars, in the face of overwhelming proof through contemporary photographic and eyewitness accounts, is that it falls under the definition of a genocide. The Young Turk government had delusions of creating a "racially pure" Pan-Turkish state stretching from Istanbul to Turkmenistan, something that the Armenians, Greeks and Assyrians stood in the way of, as well as of course Russia, who ended up defeating the Ottomans badly in the war and preventing the completion of the genocide.

->''An old Armenian is on his deathbed. "Listen closely children," he says. They lean in, ears straining. "Above all else, treasure the Jews." "Why the Jews, father?" they ask. "Because once they've been dealt with, we'll be next!" he says.''

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* Actor Creator/AndySerkis (originally Serkisian), who played [[SerkisFolk Gollum]] in ''Film/LordOfTheRings''.

-->--'''Russian joke'''

* Isabel Bayrakdarian, Armenian-Canadian opera singer who performed on the soundtrack of Film/TheLordOfTheRings trilogy and also sings traditional opera and Armenian folk music.

Tucked away in the Caucasus mountains, in that little clutch of former UsefulNotes/{{Soviet|RussiaUkraineAndSoOn}} republics where UsefulNotes/{{Russia}} meets UsefulNotes/{{Turkey}}, is the Eurasian country of Armenia ('''Armenian:''' Հայաստան Hayastan), officially known as the Republic of Armenia ('''Armenian:''' Հայաստանի Հանրապետություն Hayastani Hanrapetutyun). Though the current republic formed after the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991, it's not a new country by any means - the first Kingdom of Armenia goes back to 331 BC, and was the first country to officially adopt Christianity, in 301 AD. It also used to be ''much'' bigger than it is now, most of its former historical lands now being part of Turkey (this includes Mt. Ararat, which while considered a national symbol of Armenia and actually visible from the capital Yerevan, is rather awkwardly located over the border in Turkey).

* Principal Seymour Skinner from TheSimpsons, born Armin Tamzarian.

!! Armenia provides examples of:
* AnthropomorphicPersonification: Mother Armenia (Mayr Hayastan), embodies the country and specifically symbolizes a defender. She's probably rooted in the goddess Anahit or [[WarGod Nane]]. Her sword-wielding statue dominates Yerevan's skyline and faces the Turkish border, not-so-coincidentally.
* {{Archenemy}}: Armenia's bad blood with Azerbaijan is legendary for many reasons that won't be discussed here. However, do take note that the enmity only extends to the current Republic of Azerbaijan; Armenians and Azeris have been coexisting peacefully in neighboring Iran's Azerbaijan Region for centuries.
** There's also bad blood with Turkey due to the Armenian Genocide, which the latter's government blatantly refuses to recognize to this day.
** Not to mention Pakistan, which [[DisproportionateRetribution flat-out refuses to recognize Armenia as a country]] in support of Azerbaijan. ''Even when Azerbaijan itself actually recognizes Armenia.''
* ButtMonkey: There's a reason that not a few people have compared the Armenians' fate throughout history as being similar to the Jews, which should tell you what you need to know about its history, down to the genocide part.
* DefeatMeansFriendship: It's relationship with Iran, strangely, started out like this.
* TheDeterminator: After how many empires have conquered the place over the past two thousand years it's a wonder an Armenian identity still exists at all. Resisting being converted away from Christianity and maintaining their own language and alphabet probably helped.
* DyingTown: Sadly, there are a lot of these outside of Yerevan. Towns devastated by the 1988 earthquake in the north have it the worst, although most of the buildings have been rebuilt. Other towns that were big tourist spots in Soviet times like Dilijan have seen business dry up since independence. And villages along the border with Azerbaijan have shrunk due to the dangers posed by ceasefire violations. People from small villages across the country are leaving in large numbers to the cities, or worse, to Russia or the US.
* {{Egopolis}}: Under the reign of Tigran the Great there were four cities named Tigranakert after him; the biggest and former capital of the Armenian Empire is now the Turkish city of [[IstanbulNotConstantinople Diyarbakir]], another is now in Nagorno-Karabakh. Tigran wasn't the only king to do this either; King Artashes I founded Artashat, a city which still exists, and King Vagharsh I renamed the town of Vardgesavan into Vagharshapat (now commonly called Etchmiadzin, though officially the city is still Vagharshapat).
** This occasionally happened when foreigners ruled Armenia as well; for example see the saga of Gyumri's name changes below.
* TheEiffelTowerEffect: No, you can't see Mt. Ararat from everywhere in the country, like thousands of paintings and photographs suggest. It has to be a clear day to be able to see it from Yerevan. On those clear days though, it almost ''is'' played straight.
* GermansLoveDavidHasselhoff: Since independence, and after the power shortage in the 1990's, American culture has caught on a lot. ''WesternAnimation/SpongebobSquarepants'' and ''WesternAnimation/DespicableMe'' are enormously popular with the kids, as is ''WesternAnimation/TomAndJerry'' due to it not needing to be translated. As for music, Music/SystemOfADown is of course well-liked, as is Music/KanyeWest after his 2015 visit to the country.
* GhibliHills: Armenia is a high country overall (Yerevan is one of the highest capital cities in the world; it is definitely the highest in Europe) and mountains and forests dot the landscape, providing for some nice SceneryPorn (Mount Ararat has sometimes been compared to [[Literature/TheHobbit Erebor]]).
* GratuitousEnglish: A good way for an English speaker to learn what sounds each letter of the Armenian alphabet makes is to just walk around Yerevan and look at how they spell English words with Armenian letters on most of their signs. English has become nearly as prevalent as Russian (see below), though not so much outside of Yerevan.
* GratuitousRussian: Being part of the Soviet Union had the somewhat unfortunate effect of mixing the Eastern Armenian dialect with so many Russian words that an Armenian speaker and a Russian speaker could probably still understand a lot of what the other is saying (and it would be rare for an Armenian not to speak Russian as well). Many Armenians from the Republic of Armenia won't even realize they're using Russian words until they encounter a Western Armenian speaker from the diaspora who points it out to them.
** Street signs will often be in both Russian and Armenian, if not English as well. Several television stations also broadcast in Russian, and most of the movies shown in the country are Russian dubs.
* OlderThanTheyThink: The Armenian language has a ''huge'' amount of Persian/Persian-like vocabulary. Those aren't modern borrowings; most of them dated back to hundreds–no, ''thousands'' of years ago, back when Armenia was a part of the Achaemenids and Sassanids, and probably even older than that. They are so long ingrained that most Armenians don't see them as foreign borrowings anymore (unlike Russian), and this fact is actually the reason why for so many years linguists classified the language as Iranian until they realized just how even more different Armenian is. It's almost the same deal with the Ossetians of Russia, except that their language ''is'' Iranian.
** In general, Armenian-Iranian relations are this. Both regions/countries have been in each other's cultural spheres seemingly forever. Case in point: Armenians call their homeland ''Hayastan'' – -stan being the ubiquitous Persian suffix to denote a country.
** As noted in the description, Armenia is a ''very old'' country. It predated many advanced civilizations that currently exist around it; only neighboring Iran/Persia is close to it in its ancientness. It also holds the distinction as the oldest country in the world to adopt Christianity as a state religion, which it did in 301 AD, almost 80 years before the Roman Empire did in 380 AD (and loooong before any of the modern states that rose from the ashes of that empire did the same).
* OverlyLongName: Armenian surnames can get ''pretty'' long.
* PleaseSelectNewCityName: After the Soviets took charge many city names were changed. The names were changed back once Armenia gained independence.
** Gyumri, Armenia's second-largest city, is a good example. It's name was changed from Gyumri to Alexandropol under Tsarist Russian rule in 1837, then to Leninakan in 1924 under Soviet rule, only to revert back to Gyumri in 1991 with Armenia's independence.
* ProudMerchantRace: Especially in the Middle Ages when the Armenians of New Julfa in Iran operated a vast trade network stretching from Europe to the Philippines. Before the genocide this was the main reason the diaspora spread out so far, and part of the reason for their resentment within the Ottoman Empire, due to being a prosperous minority people.
* RacialRemnant: In Turkey, mainly in UsefulNotes/{{Istanbul}}. Population numbers vary depending on whether or not you count crypto-Armenians who are either unaware of or are keeping their identities secret. Sadly, a lot of this has to do with Armenian women who were taken as concubines during the genocide and forced to convert to Islam and change their names. The mayor of the mostly-Kurdish city of Diyarbakir came out as an Armenian while in office, so current political climates have made this safer.
** Even before the genocide, you can find substantial communities of Armenians all the way down to UsefulNotes/{{Jerusalem}}. In fact, Jerusalem's Old City was divided into the Jewish Quarter, the Christian Quarter, the Muslim Quarter, and the ''Armenian'' Quarter. However, because of [[UsefulNotes/ArabIsraeliConflict the current unpleasantness]] that envelops that city, the population is rapidly shrinking and is under the threat of extinction in just a few decades.
* RegionalRiff: The duduk, an ancient ancestor of the oboe, playing something by Komitas Vardapet. That, or the aggressive kochari music, with heavy drums and the high-pitched zurna horn.
* SinsOfOurFathers: Armenian-Turkish relations are very hostile in large part because every Turkish government has refused to recognize the Armenian Genocide committed by Turkey's predecessor, the Ottoman Empire, during World War 1. Armenia is hardly in a position to press the issue militarily or economically, and the position of many Turks boil down to either MyCountryRightOrWrong or believing that Armenia is invoking this trope.
* SmartPeoplePlayChess: It's something of a national pastime. This trope is why learning to play chess was made a requirement in Armenian schools. Naturally natives of the country have gone on to do very well in world chess tournaments, even winning several.
* StatusQuoIsGod: Ever since the Nagorno-Karabakh War pretty much ended in a stalemate. It's mainly kept that way by the more powerful countries in the region, and the fact that neither country wants to concede anything.
** And in ancient times, the Kingdom of Armenia was the catalyst that kept the peace between Rome and Persia, seeing as how if one of these empires annexed Armenia it'd mean total war between the two. The treaty that allowed Persia and Rome to agree on Armenia's king was one thing that kept them playing nice for a couple centuries.
* VelvetRevolution: Occurred in April/May 2018, a bloodless revolution forced Prime Minister Serge Sargsyan to resign after less than a week in office. Protesters blocked streets for ten full days, holding dances and barbecues. They were eventually joined by police officers and soldiers from the military. Sargsyan resigned as Prime Minister, and protest leader Nikol Pashinyan took his place a couple weeks later, after parliament very reluctantly elected him.
* VerbalTic: Adding "Che?" at the end of every sentence, for a lot of Armenian speakers.
** Calling everyone "aziz" in the northern Lori province (local slang, almost like "dude" in English but gender-neutral).
* VestigialEmpire: The ancient Armenian state was much, much larger than the small country y'see in the world map today. At its utmost point, it encompassed a substantial part of present-day Eastern Turkey and overlapped with Kurdistan and Azerbaijan (the region, not the country). It also had two distinct subdivisions: Eastern (the present-day republic) and Western (Eastern Anatolia). The genocide was a huge blow because of how its extent destroyed an entire culture (Western Armenian speakers are currently moribund).
* WouldBeRudeToSayGenocide: Acknowledging the Armenian genocide is a criminal offence in Turkey, and it is still widely denied. This has led to a rather nice piece of BlackComedy in Armenia and Russia:
-->'''Q''': How you make Turkish coffee?
-->'''A''': You grind up a bunch of Armenian coffee beans, and then lie about it for a hundred years.

Armenia first became an independent Kingdom after Rome defeated the Selucid Empire, leading a former Selucid general from Armenia, Artashes I, to declare himself king. Though technically ruled over by a king, throughout ancient and medieval times Armenia would be more or less controlled by powerful noble families called ''nakharars'' that governed their own provinces and had their own armies, with a social system somewhat similar to feudalism, and also akin to the clans of Scotland. The king could be simply the head of the most powerful of these families. Armenia's influence grew to its zenith under the reign of Tigran the Great from 95-55 BC, when the Armenian Empire stretched from the Caspian Sea to Israel. This wasn't to last long however, due to Roman and Parthian-Persian invasions gradually chipping the empire down. Armenia became a buffer kingdom between Rome and Persia for centuries [[note]] in fact, for many years Persia would choose the candidate for the King of Armenia, and the king would travel to Rome to gain approval and be crowned, until eventually the title became hereditary; this system was agreed to by the nakharars [[/note]]. During this time Armenia's King Trdat III converted to Christianity (the traditional date given is 301 AD, though it may have been as late as 314), and made Christianity the official religion, becoming the first country to do so. The move would strengthen ties with Rome but alienate it from Persia, which had been taken over by the rival Sassanid dynasty. After Armenia was partitioned between Rome and Persia, in the year 451 a war was fought against the ruling Persians who were trying to convert Armenia to UsefulNotes/{{Zoroastrianism}}, and though Armenia was on the losing side initially, their guerrilla tactics paid off eventually and they were allowed to keep their new religion. Around this time, the Armenian alphabet was created by Mesrob Mashtots, initially for the purpose of translating Literature/TheBible into Armenian. One could argue this move ended up preserving Armenian identity over the centuries more than anything else.

Before the Kingdom of Armenia arose the area of eastern Anatolia and the Caucasus was dominated by the Kingdom of Urartu (roughly 858 to 585 BC), where many historians believe the Armenian nationality had its genesis. Folk history denotes that the Armenians are descended from a legendary hero known as Hayk, who led the Armenian people out of Mesopotamia and was a grandson of Noah, though this aspect of the legend is likely a case of ancient Armenian mythology being HijackedByJesus [[note]] Moses Khorenatsi, the first Armenian historian, was a Christian; thus his viewpoints were painted by his religious beliefs. He would often take the oral history of remaining pagan Armenians (still around when he was writing in the 400's AD) and put a Christian spin on them. [[/note]]. Earliest references to the area as "Armenia" come from the annals of King Darius in the 500's B.C., so it is likely that the ethnic group had been perhaps one of the several under Urartian rule. But scholars can't agree on whether or not Armenians were indigenous to the area or had migrated from the west. In any case, people have been living in the area for quite some time, as [[http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2010/06/100609-worlds-oldest-leather-shoe-armenia-science/ the world's oldest shoe]] found in a cave in Armenia can attest to.

Armenia continued to fall under the rule of almost anyone building an empire for the next thousand years or so with only brief moments of independence in between; of note being the Bagratuni Kingdom between 885 and 1045, which came about after the Arabs relinquished control of the area in hopes of appeasing the Armenians and gaining an ally against the [[UsefulNotes/ByzantineEmpire Eastern Roman Empire]]. The kingdom however was destined to fall due to the Armenian nakharar families [[FeudingFamilies not liking one another very much]], and splitting their land off into independent kingdoms, which one by one would then be conquered by the Eastern Romans. The Romans didn't have the means to defend Armenia once they had it again, paving the way for the Seljuk Turk invasions. The next two hundred years were chaotic for Greater Armenia, as it was then invaded by the Mongolians, Georgia, [[UsefulNotes/TimurTheLame Tamerlane's]] forces, only to finally fall under Ottoman Turkish rule for the majority of the last millennium (its location, between the Black and Caspian seas, makes it a hot commodity for empire builders, unfortunately for the Armenians themselves).

Ottoman rule was a relief to the Armenians at first; the region had been completely devastated by invasions within decades of one another from the Seljuk Turks, Mongols, and the forces of Tamerlane. Christians in the empire were second class citizens and more heavily taxed, but the Armenians made due by mostly becoming merchants. Eastern Armenia changed hands a few times over the centuries between Persia, Russia, and the Ottomans, until Armenia was partitioned again between Russia and Turkey after the Russo-Turkish War, ultimately causing the Eastern-Western split in the Armenian language still present today. The Ottoman Armenians then fell under suspicion during the latter half of the 19th century, as the Ottoman Empire lost territory in Greece and the Balkans, and the remaining Christians in the empire became a scapegoat of sorts, resulting in sporadic government-condoned massacres of the Armenians, particularly in the 1890's. This finally came to a head during UsefulNotes/WorldWarI under the Young Turks, and the matter of the Armenian Genocide that was to follow is still a very contentious one - few western observers doubt that there was a major humanitarian disaster in the area in 1915, precipitated by Turkish troops against the Ottoman Empire's Christian population, most of whom were put on death marches into the Syrian desert, when not massacred on the spot, killing over a million Armenians. And the common opinion of genocide scholars, in the face of overwhelming proof through contemporary photographic and eyewitness accounts, is that it falls under the definition of a genocide. The Young Turk government had delusions of creating a "racially pure" Pan-Turkish state stretching from Istanbul to Turkmenistan, something that the Armenians, Greeks and Assyrians stood in the way of, as well as of course Russia, who ended up defeating the Ottomans badly in the war and preventing the completion of the genocide.

Within Armenia, [[CaptainObvious Armenians make up an overwhelming majority of the population]]. The biggest minority group in the country is the Yazidis, a nomadic people with a unique religion, and similarly to the Armenians themselves, have often been targets of discrimination in the Middle East. In 2014 Armenians stood in solidarity with Yazidis in condemning the Islamic State's attempted genocide against the Yazidis in Iraq. But the demographics in Armenia are in continual flux. While emigration is still a problem for the country and has been since independence, since the start of Syria's Civil War, members of Syria's very old Armenian diaspora community have been fleeing to Armenia in droves.

Getting back to history, shortly before the end of UsefulNotes/WorldWarI Armenia would become independent for a brief period, thanks to the Russian and Ottoman empires collapsing. You see, just before the Russian Empire fell, Russia had ([[OverlyLongGag as usual]]) [[CurbStompBattle soundly beaten]] Turkey and retaken most of the historically Armenian territories, and when Armenia became independent it had inherited these territories. In Russia's absence from the war the Armenians were used as an UnwittingPawn by the allies toward the end of UsefulNotes/WorldWarI, with England promising them military aid and more territory if they prevented the Turkish advance into Baku and allowed them to use their territory as a springboard into Russia during the Russian Civil War, only to go back on its promise once the war was over to focus on more strategically important territories. Such betrayals were par the course for most countries Britain had backed in the Middle East during the war. As a result of the allies' neglect, the country was quickly weakened by wars with its neighbors and though it put up a valiant effort not to be reconquered by Turkey, Armenia was eventually assimilated into the Soviet Union after only two years--contested lands were surrendered to Turkey, another in a long series of government concessions throughout the western USSR made out of a fear of an escalating invasion of the USSR by European states, the USA and Japan, and the belief that a worldwide revolution would make the losses irrelevant or that the lands would at least improve relations with Turkey. Not all Armenians took Soviet occupation laying down; the Armenian Revolutionary Federation, headed by Garegin Nzhdeh, led a successful rebellion in 1921 after the Soviets threatened to make Armenia's Zangezur region (modern Syunik) a part of the Azerbaijani SSR, forming the very short-lived Republic of Mountainous Armenia, and even capturing Yerevan for 42 days before being pushed back by the Soviets. The Red Army then pushed into Zangezur and quelled the rebellion, ensuring their surrender by promising to keep Zangezur a part of the Armenian SSR, as it remains today. In the aftermath, however, Artsakh, or Nagorno-Karabakh, was put under Azeri control, something that would come back to haunt everyone involved decades later.

* Dita Von Teese is of Armenian descent. (No word on whether her original name was "Vonteesian".)

* Arlene Francis, actress and ''What's My Line?'' regular guest, of Armenian descent. Her father was an Armenian immigrant.

* Ross Bagdasarian (Sr and Jr), creators of [[Franchise/AlvinAndTheChipmunks ''The Chipmunks'']], of Armenian descent.

Armenia continued to fall under the rule of almost anyone building an empire for the next thousand years or so with only brief moments of independence in between; of note being the Bagratuni Kingdom between 885 and 1045, which came about after the Arabs relinquished control of the area in hopes of appeasing the Armenians and gaining an ally against the [[UsefulNotes/ByzantineEmpire Eastern Roman Empire]]. The kingdom however was destined to fall due to the Armenian nakharar families [[FeudingFamilies not liking one another very much]], and splitting their land off into independent kingdoms, which one by one would then be conquered by the Eastern Romans. The Romans didn't have the means to defend Armenia once they had it again, paving the way for the Seljuk Turk invasions. The next two hundred years were chaotic for Greater Armenia, as it was then invaded by the Mongolians, Georgia, Tamerlane's forces, only to finally fall under Ottoman Turkish rule for the majority of the last millennium (its location, between the Black and Caspian seas, makes it a hot commodity for empire builders, unfortunately for the Armenians themselves).

* DyingTown: Sadly, there are a lot of these outside of Yerevan. Towns devastated by the 1988 earthquake in the north have it the worst, although most of the buildings have been rebuilt. Other towns that were big tourist spots in Soviet times like Dilijan have seen business dry up since independence. People from small villages across the country are leaving in large numbers to the cities, or worse, to Russia or the US.

* [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Aznavour Charles Aznavour]] (Shahnourh Varinag Aznavourian), singer, actor and songwriter of the French-Armenian diaspora.

* Anastas Mikoyan, Soviet politician considered to have been the second most powerful man in the USSR under Khrushchev. Brother of the above, he briefly served as Soviet head of government (chair of the presidium, a.k.a. president) and outlasted his political partner. This Mikoyan was also one of the very few people Stalin might have considered friends [[note]]It is said they used to get drunk together and complain about all the Russians they were surrounded with. Mikoyan's love of and insistence on providing quality ice cream probably helped too.[[/note]], and was also responsible for commissioning ''The Book of Tasty and Healthy Food'', a cookbook/propaganda tract that reflected what Soviet food in the mid-20th century would have looked like had Soviet policies actually been capable of providing the ingredients to make traditional Russian cuisine. (Its readers were not fooled, but they bought it anyway.) Russian-American food writer Anya von Bremzen has noted that the now-ubiquitous ''kotlety'', first introduced in Mikoyan's book, were essentially the broke Russian prole's version of an American hamburger.

* ZeroPercentApprovalRating: Serge Sargsyan is the most unpopular president in the modern republic's short history, as is his government in general, who are accused of being corrupt oligarchs that embezzle money from the rest of the country. The dissent came to a fever pitch in the summer of 2016 when a revolutionary group called Sasna Dzerer took over a police station in Yerevan, protesting against rumors that the government was going to cede parts of Artsakh to Azerbaijan and demanding the president's resignation, holding police officers hostage for nearly two weeks until being forced to surrender. The incident had the effect of ruining what little popularity the president may still have had at home and in the diaspora. Needless to say, when Sargsyan promoted himself to Prime Minister in 2018 with a shady constitutional referendum with almost zero input from the citizens of Armenia, in effect giving himself a third presidential term, the people were not amused, with protests erupting across the country demanding his resignation. The protests were ultimately successful, and he was replaced by Opposition leader Nikol Pashinyan.
** The first president of the modern republic, Levon Der Petrosyan, was forced to resign in 1998 after advocating a land-for-peace settlement of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, which goes to show just how unpopular the idea was and still is in Armenia.

Tucked away in the Caucasus mountains, in that little clutch of former Soviet Republics where Russia meets Turkey, is Armenia ('''Armenian:''' Հայաստան Hayastan), officially known as the Republic of Armenia ('''Armenian:''' Հայաստանի Հանրապետություն Hayastani Hanrapetutyun), a Eastern European/Western Asian country. Though the current republic formed after the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991, it's not a new country by any means - the first Kingdom of Armenia goes back to 331 BC, and was the first country to officially adopt Christianity, in 301 AD. It also used to be ''much'' bigger than it is now, most of its former historical lands now being part of Turkey (this includes Mt. Ararat, which while considered a national symbol of Armenia and actually visible from the capital Yerevan, is rather awkwardly located over the border in Turkey).

See also: UsefulNotes/RepublicOfArtsakh, UsefulNotes/ArmosWithArmor

The country was plagued with government corruption for many years; a side effect in many post-Soviet countries. However, the Armenian people have begun to stand up to it. In the 2010's alone there were protests nearly every year starting with a peaceful protest against rising bus fares in 2014, followed by the "Electric Yerevan" protests against rising electricity prices. In 2016 protests broke out after a nationalist group known as Sasna Dzerer (Daredevils of Sassoun) took over a police station and held officers hostage while demanding President Sargsyan resign; these ended with the arrests of the group. The most unprecedented protest occurred in 2018; President Serge Sargsyan oversaw constitutional amendments which transferred most of the President's powers to the Prime Minister, and shortly after his final term as President became the Prime Minister. The people, tired of government corruption which had caused a large class gap and rampant emigration from the country, revolted; but peacefully. From April to May 2018 protesters blocked streets for ten full days, holding dances and barbecues, filling the streets of Yerevan and Armenia's smaller cities. It was called a VelvetRevolution in the media. This gave the government two choices: violently put an end to the protests and incite an even worse reaction from their own people and look much worse internationally than they already did, or give in to their demands. Sargsyan resigned as Prime Minister, and protest leader Nikol Pashinyan took his place a couple weeks later, after parliament very reluctantly elected him.

There was a brief moment in 2009 in which it looked like Turkey and Armenia ''might'' reconcile, with the signing of Protocols that would open their border, but as it turns out Turkey soon began attaching preconditions that included Armenia dropping the genocide issue and forfeiting Nagorno-Karabakh, so the Protocols went into limbo, which for several years conveniently allowed Turkey to threaten to pull out of them at the slightest hint that a country (most notably the US) was thinking about recognizing the Armenian Genocide. Most countries stopped buying the excuse as the years passed, until finally in February 2015, President Sarkisian of Armenia withdrew the protocols from Parliament, citing Turkey's inactivity and unreasonable preconditions.

* ZeroPercentApprovalRating: Serge Sargsyan is the most unpopular president in the modern republic's short history, as is his government in general, who are accused of being corrupt oligarchs that embezzle money from the rest of the country. The dissent came to a fever pitch in the summer of 2016 when a revolutionary group called Sasna Dzerer took over a police station in Yerevan, protesting against rumors that the government was going to cede parts of Artsakh to Azerbaijan and demanding the president's resignation, holding police officers hostage for nearly two weeks until being forced to surrender. The incident had the effect of ruining what little popularity the president may still have had at home and in the diaspora. Needless to say, when Sargsyan promoted himself to Prime Minister in 2018 with a shady constitutional referendum with almost zero input from the citizens of Armenia, in effect giving himself a third presidential term, the people were not amused, with protests erupting across the country demanding his resignation. The protests were ultimately successful, and he was replaced by Opposition leader Nikol Pashinian.

* VelvetRevolution: Occurred in April/May 2018. Then-president Serge Sargsyan oversaw constitutional amendments which transferred most of the President's powers to the Prime Minister, and shortly after his final term as President became the Prime Minister. The people, tired of government corruption which had caused a large class gap and rampant emigration from the country, revolted; but peacefully. From April to May 2018 protesters blocked streets for ten full days, holding dances and barbecues. It was called a Velvet Revolution in the media. This gave the government two choices: violently put an end to the protests and incite an even worse reaction from their own people and look much worse internationally than they already did, or give in to their demands. Sargsyan resigned as Prime Minister, and protest leader Nikol Pashinian took his place a couple weeks later, after parliament very reluctantly elected him.

* ZeroPercentApprovalRating: Serge Sargsyan is the most unpopular president in the modern republic's short history, as is his government in general, who are accused of being corrupt oligarchs that embezzle money from the rest of the country. The dissent came to a fever pitch in the summer of 2016 when a revolutionary group called Sasna Dzerer took over a police station in Yerevan, protesting against rumors that the government was going to cede parts of Artsakh to Azerbaijan and demanding the president's resignation, holding police officers hostage for nearly two weeks until being forced to surrender. The incident had the effect of ruining what little popularity the president may still have had at home and in the diaspora. Needless to say, when Sargsyan promoted himself to Prime Minister in 2018 with a shady constitutional referendum with almost zero input from the citizens of Armenia, in effect giving himself a third presidential term, the people were not amused, with protests erupting across the country demanding his resignation.

** Gyumri, Armenia's second-largest city, is a good example. It's name was changed from Gyumri to Alexandropol under Tsarist Russian rule in 1837, then to Leninakan in 1924 under Soviet rule, only to revert back to Gyumri in 1991 with Armenia's independence.