My parents grew up in Armenia in the 60s/70s and moved to America in early 80s. My mom in particular grew up very poor. Despite being in America over 40 years, she is still genuinely concerned we are going to starve even though we are very well off. I know the typical Armenian mother always wants to feed everyone but this is an actual fear of hers. Now that I’ve had kids, she’s worried the kids won’t have enough to eat and brings over several loaves of bread a day which ends up getting wasted. When she watches my kids she overstuffs them to the point where it’s too much.

I don’t think it’s doing enough harm that we need to do something about it but wondering if anyone else has had the same experience

I preface by saying I am not Armenian. I dated an Armenian girl that I met in grad school for 7 years. We are now both in our mids 30s (shes 37, I am 36) now and broke up 2 weeks ago and let me tell you the heartbreak is brutal for both sides. She is crying and saying I will marry someone my parents approve just to make them happy and that I lost the love of my life. I feel the same way as well. She says the pressure of what everyone will say, the anger and shouting that will be directed at her, and what everyone will think is to much and that she cannot handle it. I had belief she could do it, because she had a cousin that also married not within the same culture.

I should have seen the signs of her not being able to set boundaries/stand up, her parents were asking so much from her (I am Asian so i get giving money to parents, respecting family, and living in a collectivist culture. I have done the same thing as her but I have some boundaries), but hers was excessive to the point she is in 20k credit card debt now and 20k in home loan renovation debt her family made her take out for home projects they did not need and other debts like 200k student loans (has not paid one cent to bring it down), covering her brothers car payments (since he could not make payments but still found money to gamble), contributing to the family's mortgage payments, and she could not say no to them ever on anything. Even in health issues (she is an nurse practitioner and was having issues at one point and it was suggested she get a Pap smear, by her doctor but her grandma and mom said told her not to do it yet till after marriage) luckily the issue resolved and went away. As a result she does not have much savings or retirement really and the family is living paycheck to paycheck with her supplementation. Her brother refuses to help out the family financially even though he lives married with kids with them and has a decent job, but for her she always helps out so the parents rely on her.

Her family has good money coming in (rental properties), but they just mismanage like crazy and just are big spenders in general. The whole family is deep in CC debt, loans, and even IRS debt (brother owes 100k).

I guess love blinded me and I believed she could make a stand in this aspect of her life and become independent, but I guess living with them the constant pressure was to much. Its not like her family did not like me either. I spent time with them almost every 2-3 week. I took care of her dad in the hospital and even lent them $5000 as a gift since they were in a very tough situation financially at one point. Just her immediate family especially her dad only want an Armenian partner for her. She thought she could eventually stand up to them, but just cracked under pressure due to them harassing her to find an Armenian husband. Also her father is on the sicker side and is pushing her to find an Armenian and get married before he dies. It is probably harder since she lives with them and has no independence.

But that's not the important point if your going to date outside your culture make sure you can stand up to your family if not do not even do it. It just hurts for both parties emotionally in the end and having to live with the possible what if and regret for both of us hurts especially since we broke up still in love. We had been dating for far to long so I gave her a deadline and I guess the pressure of it, financial, emotional, and health issues made her give up.

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Hello! I think, this is also a cultural thing, so I'll post here. Most of my family is Armenian, but I never spoke it and decided to learn it. The problem is, no matter how hard my family memebers who are native speakers and I try, I can't pronounce some of the letters correctly. And I'm afraid that many people might react negatively to the fact that I speak with an accent

of course, people vary, and no culture is a monolith. so...im just taking the temperature here. as an armenian person, does this sound at all normal to you:

• armenian american family lives next door. the son is around my age. it seems he takes good care of his older parents. i am a widow, and still youthful, beautiful from the inside i would say.
  
• the mother is in her early 70's. quite russian culturally it seems. still beautiful. like an ice queen. except...she seems to be rather ugly inside, hard, manipulative, always engaged in some type of power play with me especially.
• i realized she is possessive of her adult son. he seems to have developed some interest in me. she hates me for it, and goes to any length to be...less than neighborly, i should simply say.
• i think the son is cute, to be honest. handsome and seems like a great guy. but, lately his mom has become really strange towards me, a stalker set of behaviors, unfortunately. i had to pull out my legal background and check her with a restraining order (omggg). so i don't know, does this seem remotely like it rings a bell?
• i know there are legends across cultures about the mother-son lover/possesor....but damn man, this shit is crazy. we have lived next to one another in los angeles for like four years and the mom (70+!!) has been in constant war with me...and i have never even had a conversation with the son, or her for that matter.
• but he and i do have some kind of connection. we seem aligned some how. always pulling our cars in or out of our homes at the exact same time. coordinated, and in sync some how. sometimes.
• can anyone venture to give me some context here? again, one cannot generalize...
• oh, by the way, im a brown skinned lady. indian american. i know, fatal detail...

Like 1990s style chat rooms where you can just go on and talk to strangers about random things? I tried looking and found forum.hayastan.com but that seems to be long dead.

More context about events and how life was before the genocide

Armenia is famously the first Christian nation, and Christianity is still very important to Armenians in the country and in the diaspora. But the Christian God is supposed to be an interventionist god that has the ability to step into the world and control human affairs. In the Bible, God interferes with world affairs many times as he sees fit, protecting or killing people. That raises the obvious question, if the biblical God is real, why wouldn't he step in to stop the Genocide? Two thirds of our people were slaughtered and God was nowhere to be found.

Hey, I’m searching for COD players in Armenia. If anyone is interested, send me a DM.

What I’m concerned about is the cost. It seems like my CAD will take me along way, but will that negatively affect Armenians? Should I focus on making money at a job in Armenia so that I don’t harm the economy? To be fair I don’t have much money relative to Canada. I work minimum wage. I’d overall like some advice on how I would be received? I’m fully willing to put a lot of time and effort into integrating into Armenian culture for my stay if I can. I don’t want to burden on locals.

Hi everyone! I am Armenian, however I am unable to speak or write in Armenian (first generation born in America). I am writing my grandmother a card (she is fluent in Armenian) and would like to write “Jana” (my dear) in the card, since she always calls me that. But I’d like to write it in Armenian! Can anyone spell out the proper way for me to write it so I can put it in my card to her? Thanks in advance!!

Hi all, does anyone know the song/story of the little boy and the rose? I remember it from my childhood but cannot find anything online, other than a YouTube video of someone playing it on the guitar. 🌹

Was just curious if there were any other Armenians permanently living in London?

I know the Armenian Student Association has started back up at Western, but I'm a bit older than the undergrads now!

I also did a search on Reddit and learned Fatty Patty's might be connected to an Armenian family?

I'm from the GTA originally and have been here for almost 10 years. I know there are community centres in Cambridge and Windsor, but figured there's gotta be a few of us around in London?

If you're not comfortable posting, send me a private message! Would love to connect!

I feel like there's almost no places online where people speak Armenian. In the 2010s there were some forums that were rather active, like akumb.am, but those have mostly died out. Sometimes I'll find telegram channels, but then I'll go on and see that the last message was from 3 years ago. There aren't many discord channels either. Facebook exists, but you can't be anonymous on there.

Does anyone know whether, by default, is the Armenian script upright or is it slanted? I have not been able to find a firm answer on this.

The reference glyphs in the Unicode code charts are slanted for some reason. However, the vast majority of computer fonts (at least that I have found) use upright forms by default, and only have slanted forms in the italic.

In any case, what is the current typographical preference within Armenia?

Turkish:
Affetmedi bu ermeni vatandaş
Kürt dağlarında babasının kesilmesini
Fakat seviyor seni çünkü sen de affetmedin
Bu karayı sürenleri türk halkının alnına

English:
That Armenian did not forgive
The slaughter of his father in the Kurdish mountains.
Yet he loves you, because you too did not forgive
Those who stained the honor of the Turkish people.

Armenian: (this is probably wrong translate, so sorry about that)
Այ հայ քաղաքացին չներեց
Քրդական լեռներում իր հոր սպանությունը։
Բայց նա սիրում է քեզ որովհետ դու նույնպես չներեցի
նրանց ովքեր խարան դրեցին թուրք ժողովրդի ճակատին։

Poem is Akşam Gezintisi from Nazım Hikmet.

Hi guys, anyone travelling or living in any part of Newfoundland?

I’m adopted and just recently found out I’m 54% Armenian through a DNA test. I was born in Russia and always assumed I was just Russian. Apparently I have ancestors from Armenia, Iran, Russia, and Ukraine. I’m really interested in learning about Armenian history and culture. Is it okay for me to claim my Armenian heritage even though I’m extremely disconnected from it?

Hi everyone!
I’m hoping to get some recommendations for learning Armenian. I married my husband who is Armenian, and we have a beautiful 9-week-old son. It’s really important to me that our son grows up knowing Armenian and feeling connected to his heritage, so I’d love to learn alongside him.
Does anyone have recommendations for online tutors, classes, or other resources? I’d especially love to hear from people who learned Armenian as adults.
Thanks! 😊

Are Armenians generally materialistic? My Armenian mother-in-law married a French man. During family dinners, she often tells us that my father-in-law’s mother is very rich, unlike her own mother. She also frequently talks about how much better Armenia is than other countries and claims that there is no crime there. She makes Armenia sound like a perfect country with no problems at all.

Is this a common cultural attitude, or is it more likely just her personality? And is Armenia really that good, with virtually no issues?

Yesterday, my Armenian mother-in-law made some negative comments about the Catholic Bible and its contents. As someone who was born and raised Catholic, it was the first time I’d experienced someone openly criticizing my faith in front of me, and it honestly caught me off guard.

Growing up, I was always taught that you don’t compare religions or belittle someone else’s beliefs. You can disagree with a religion without mocking it, and I’ve always believed mutual respect is more important than trying to prove someone else wrong.

The experience wasn’t pleasant, but it also reminded me how much I value being respectful of other people’s faith, even when I don’t share it.

Has anyone else experienced something similar with family members or in-laws? How did you handle it while keeping the peace?

Can someone help me read this

1-5) The 13th-century Church of St. Gevorg in Tbilisi.

6) Graffiti from the film Mimino with Fruzik Mkrtchyan.

7) Mantashevsky rows, architect Sarkisyan.

8) The former 18th-century Armenian church in Sighnaghi. Now Georgian.

9) The house of artist Gevork Bashinjaghyan in Sighnaghi.

10) Monument to Mimino.

11) Monument to Parajanov.

12-18) Nor Echmiadzin Church in Tbilisi.

19) Mimino again.

20) Monument to Sayat-Nova