All About Armenia
Bryan Zanisnik’s “Silk Monument” features archival images to honor the contributions of Syrian and Armenian migrants who worked in New Jersey silk mills. In the early 20th century, at the height of the silk manufacturing boom in the United States, hundreds of Armenian and Syrian weavers migrated to the town of Summit, New Jersey, to …
Priceless manuscripts have survived a long and precarious journey to bear witness to Armenia’s rich cultural legacy. Now digitalization and new exhibition halls at the Matenadaran ensure that the “birth certificates” of our nation defy time and space. The Mesrop Mashtots Institute of Ancient Manuscripts, generally known as the Matenadaran, is a museum, a research institute, …
As Chef Carrie Nahabedian’s mother ushered her out the door to her flight to D.C. for the Folklife Festival, this was her advice to the Michelin-starred chef. Armed with her grandmother’s rolling stick, Nahabedian blew into the Hatsatoun prep kitchen along with the end of a storm on our opening day, ready to demonstrate her grandmother’s …
Project SAVE Armenian Photograph Archives acts as the steward of Armenian heritage by collecting, documenting, and preserving photographs and the stories they tell. Our work honors Armenian identity and shares that legacy. This selection of Project SAVE images features Armenian artisans, their education, craft, and artistry. The photos illustrate that formal training was available to …
BOSTON — Noted writer, editor and political activist Arpiar Arpiarian wrote in his 1898 obituary of the artist Bedros Srabian, whose works had already begun to be lost, that “…what survives only is the memory in the hearts of friends who loved him, a memory inscribed in a newspaper article, until the day when these friends …
GARDEN CITY, NY (Armenian Church of the Holy Martyrs, Bayside) – Last October, Isabelle Sirounian, a sophomore at Garden City High School, submitted a sketched drawing of her great-grandmother to the Parent Teacher Association (PTA) Reflections Contest. The theme of the contest was “I Matter Because…” Feeling the emotions from the war at that time …
The cultural genocide actively being waged by Turkey and Azerbaijan is a component of the physical genocide of the Armenian people, intended to obliterate any vestiges of their existence on their ancestral lands, which they have inhabited for centuries. According to a report by the Armenian Patriarchate in Istanbul, before World War I, there were …
SIMI VALLEY, Calif. – The Ronald Reagan Library has digitized the archive materials of the Presidential Library and uploaded them to the YouTube channel of the institution. A search can locate President Reagan’s references to Armenia on quite a few occasions and his engagement with Armenian Church leaders and community members. As a governor of California between 1966 and …
Navigate through secluded buildings that once housed some of the brightest scholars of the Middle Ages I’m sitting in my living room, peering down through a virtual reality headset into a dirt pit in Khor Virap where legend says St. Gregory the Illuminator was held for 15 years before curing his captor, King Trdat, of an ailment and convincing him to convert to …
Painstaking imaging of cultural heritage sites worldwide has the potential to usher in a new era of participatory preservation efforts Armenia’s medieval monastery at Noravank, nestled amid the craggy slopes of the country’s mountainous terrain, is a striking exemplar of Armenian architectural tradition. Elegant geometrical symmetries abound in its places of worship, and the ancient …
Armenia’s folk remedies and botanical traditions are getting a new look There is something remarkable about the communities that line the former Silk Road. Bound together by a shared natural environment, there is a reservoir of knowledge here, safeguarded and passed down from one generation to the next. In some parts of the world, you …
King Arsames I of Sophene (Ծոփք) was an Armenian vassal king during the Seleucids. He was descended from the Orontid dynasty who had ruled Armenia as satraps both under the Persians, and later under Alexander the Great, and then his Hellenistic successors. As the Seleucids grew weaker, His father Samos (275-255 BC) had proclaimed himself …
Residents lived in Old Khndzoresk up until the 1950s In a rural corner of southeastern Armenia, livestock walk in and out of rooms carved into the cliffside, grazing among the ancient rock-hewn homes of Old Khndzoresk, a multi-level village built into the volcanic rocks. Archaeological evidence suggests habitation of the excavated caves goes back over a …
These 240-gallon clay karases, crucial to the early development of winemaking, once held enormous value Karine Vann is a freelance writer based in Brooklyn and a storytelling contributor to My Armenia, where she writes about Armenia’s rich natural and cultural heritage. The enormous 240-gallon clay vessel, or karas, was nestled snugly in the corner of Asli Saghatelyan’s maran (storage …
Scout Tufankjian spent a month in post-war Artsakh to witness the controversial ceasefire that would involve the removal of lands from the sovereignty of the Republic of Artsakh. Photographer Scout Tufankjian was glued to her screens like Armenians around the world following news of developments in Artsakh. After the ceasefire was announced, she decided to …
In 1240 CE, an Armenian prince by the name of Hasan Jalal Dawla attended the consecration of the Church of St. John the Baptist (in Armenian, Surb Hovhannes Mkrtich) within the monastic complex of Gandzasar (an Armenian name meaning “mountain of treasure”). The event was held on the Feast of the Transfiguration (Vardavar) and, according to …
Sourp Yerrortutyun (Holy Trinity) Armenian Church in Malatya hosted the first religious service in 106 years. The church is located in the neighborhood where assassinated Armenian journalist Hrant Dink had grown up. Closed since 1915, the Church was opened to worship on August 28. Sahak Mashalyan, the Armenian Patriarch in Turkey and Grigoriyos Melki Urek, …
Directed and produced by Abdolqader Khaledi, ‘Balora’ has won the special jury award in the short documentary section at the 7th edition of the Armenian festival. ‘Kal Fatemeh’ by Mehdi Zamanpour Kiasari, also won an award at the Apricot Tree Ujan International Documentary Film Festival. Kal Fatemeh is about a woman who lives on her own farm away …