The Armenian Woman, Then and Now

Lost in Yerevan one day, I happened across a table tennis club. After taking this photo, the coach of the club came out and somewhat aggressively asked me what I was doing. But he soon warmed up a lot, and told me that his daughter-in-law lives in Moscow and is the under-23 table tennis champion of Russia, and his daughter lives in Baltimore and also does something ping pong-related. He invited me in to check out the facility, but I was already late for an interview. I tried to come back afterwards and he wasn't there.

This was in Shushi, which is now populated mainly by Armenian refugees from Baku. Someone used some sort of advertising sign as part of the scrap metal renovation of their balcony:

This is a sign in front of a pharmacy in Yerevan:

And this is outside a bridal salon in Yerevan. She seems to be topless, which I thought was an odd method of advertising wedding gowns. She also does not appear to be Armenian, so presumably this is imported from somewhere else where this is also thought to be attractive to future brides.

 

Comments

[Patriot]

Just quick question. Why in the categories you have included "Nagorny Karabakh" but not "Abkhazia" & "South Ossetia"? Are you pro Armenian and don't keep your Journalist impartiality?

Plus you also mention "Shushi" instead of "Shusha" etc. I hope you won't be allowed to enter to Azerbaijan due to your trip to "Nagorny Karabakh" via Armenia without getting permission from the Azeri authorities unless you cheated and did not get your passport to be stamped when you entered to Nagorny Karabakh.

[Josh]

You know, when I got to Armenia I started talking about "Shusha" and was corrected by everyone, they said I should say "Shushi."

The point is, I'm never going to please everybody. And my choice of one spelling or another is not due to any bias or pro-anyone agenda, but a complex mix of factors including what is used locally, ease of pronunciation for a gringo, whichever one I happen to remember at the moment and pure whim.

One Abkhaz reader from Turkey asked me nicely to use "Sukhum" rather than "Sukhumi" for the capital of Abkhazia. I explained that as it was "Sukhumi" in Russian and that's what everyone speaks there, I used that. I was also asked to use "Tskhinval" in South Ossetia rather than "Tskhinvali." But people in both places tended to put the "i" on the end, maybe because they understood those were the internationally used names.

As to why I have a Nagorno Karabakh category and not Abkhazia and South Ossetia, it's because I had a certain number of categories already set up and I don't like adding new ones. The separatist territories in Georgia didn't seem to require any new categories, but NK seemed to pose different problems: calling it either Armenia (which is is de facto) or Azerbaijan (which it is de jure) seemed very unsatisfactory, but of course, calling Nagorno Karabakh was too...

So, I'm adding Abkhazia and South Ossetia categories. As for spelling, I'm never going to make everyone happy, so you'll have to live with whatever I haphazardly choose.

And as for hoping I don't get into Azerbaijan: too bad, I got my visa and I'm on my way. And I expect to enjoy it, like it or not!

[R]

I would have thought the girl in front of the pharmacy looks Russian and the one in the bridal picture looks Armenian. Fetching in both cases!

As far as names go, the Armenian name for Karabagh is "Artsakh". Nagorno Karabagh is a combination of the Russian word for Mountainous with the Persian\Turkic word for Black Garden.

Anyway have fun in Azərbaycan ... oops Azerbaijan.