Armenia - Inexplicable Երևան

OK, we want to apologize for that St. Kitts station. That was awful. Let's forget that ever happened and continue our journey around the world via radio waves and visit Armenia!

squeezed on in there in midst of the crazy.

Located in those politically boiling Caucuses, Armenia is a small nation of only a little over 3 million. They've got a HUGE and very vocal diaspora of about 8 million folks who've contributed a lot to modern culture. From color TV and the first cloned mammal to moon rovers and plastic surgery, including astrophysics, economics, x-rays, artificial intelligence, the Kardashians, chess masters, and so much more. There's so much that has come from the populace and descendants of such a tiny country!

 armenia's representatives to the world...

Armenia was the first nation to officially adopt Christianity as their state religion, decades before Constantine did his thing with the Roman empire and the conversion of the masses. The Romans did rule Armenia for a while there and were only one in a long string of other empires to do so. Other empires who held Armenia under their thumb: Assyria, Greece, Rome, Byzantine, Arabia, the Mongols, Persians, Ottomans, and most recently Russians.

 

armenians trading with mongols before things (inevitably) take a turn for the worse.

That diaspora we mentioned earlier is the result of encroachment by those empires. The two biggest diasporas were the most recent. The Armenians lost so much of their land to the Ottoman empire around WWI that the modern state ended up being about a sixth of its previous size. There was a nasty genocide of around a million people starting in 1915, before Mustafa Kemal Ataturk founded the modern state of Turkey.

yup, we've totally talked about this guy before, except we liked him the last time around.

The Armenian genocide was the first modern genocide and is the second most studied mass killing after the Holocaust. It's a major friction point between Armenia and Turkey. Turkey refuses to acknowledge that it occurred and gets pissed off when other nations officially recognize that it happened. The powerful Armenian diaspora lobbies the governments of the countries that they live in to recognize its occurrence. Boy does Turkey get PISSED when that happens. America is getting really, really close to acknowledging it, and Turkey is none too happy.

 get it? it's a mad turkey? ha ha.. hum. uhhhh, it's a pun.

That diaspora has a lot of sway and is integral to understanding modern Armenia. Unfortunately, we've got a lot of shit to do and can't dive into it much further. We hate that cop out, but it's true.

Briefly, we're in the capital and largest city in Armenia, Yerevan (Երևան). The city was founded in 782 BC and have been going strong for 3000 years. Sure puts American's oldest continuously inhabited city of St Augustine to shame; they're only 446 years old!

We sincerely hope you enjoy the tunes and make sure to try the apricots while you're there!

 

Radio Aurora

Get ready for some hardcore American and EuroPop - Listen Here!

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