More from Culture Smart - Tidbits

A phenomenon of some supermarkets (such as the one I usually go to!) is the retail “hoverers” who shadow you up and down the aisles (I am glad I read about this so I knew to expect it!). Although they are there to help you find what you want, their presence can be distracting to those accustomed to shopping without assistance. In the mom-and-pop grocery stores, there is usually a woman assigned to each specific area of the store – the bread, the cheese, etc. She won’t help you with an item from outside her area – so you have to go to several areas, get served, and pay each time. For produce, there are the big markets, the shukas (sounds like souk, the Arabic word). I go to a little produce store near where I live – right now, the strawberries are coming in, and might be the best I have ever had!

As for the Vernissage – this open-air market was originally a place where local artists could show their work to the general public. The French word vernissage (varnishing) is used to mean a private display before the opening of an art exhibition. When crowds gathered to view the paintings, local merchants saw an opportunity to sell their own wares. It now sells both everyday items and books, both new and used (mostly to the local market), and tourist-oriented items. Bargaining is the order of the day, and once again I am honing my skills.

Have I talked about dress? People here are very fashionable, though they may wear designer knockoffs rather than actual labels. It seems everyone wears black. And the women wear high heels – even in the snow, even with many steps to negotiate. With all the emphasis on appearance, gyms are still not very popular. People walk everywhere to stay fit! And most people do seem fit, though I have seen plenty of non-trim people as well. And where do all of these people go? In the summer, the cafes. The book says that 65 percent of Armenian men smoke – that seems about right. I am glad that Millennium Challenge Account-Armenia is a non-smoking workplace! (And, I just found out, it has air-conditioning).

Young people in Yerevan often find work in civil service or for an NGO. Older Armenians hark back to Soviet life, when there were jobs available for almost everyone. People in rural areas want to go to Yerevan to work; the other options are government jobs for the fortunate and small-scale agriculture for the rest. Many long to leave the country and find work elsewhere. Young men between the ages of 18 and 26 must give two years of military service – if you are enrolled in a university you are exempt, so many men stay in school until they are 27 and no longer eligible. This exemption may go away as the country attempts to draft young men born in the early 1990s, a period of sharp decline in the birthrate and massive emigration. Not mentioned in the book, but discussed, is the ability to buy one’s way out of military service. Some of the TEFL volunteers also talk about the students buying grades, a common practice. I hope I haven’t written something I shouldn’t have! As for sports – chess is a national pastime, and backgammon (nardi) is common here. Soccer is popular, and individual sports include weightlifting, wrestling and boxing.

Some lavash notes (also known as why I have no recipe for it). It is made with water, flour and salt. It is different from and much thinner than the lavash sold in western countries. It takes a lot of time and effort to prepare, and is almost always made by hand. The dough is rolled out flat and cooked against the hot walls of a traditional lavash oven (similar to a tandoor oven). The length of the lavash must be between 24 and 28 inches and the width 12 to 15 inches. Anything can be rolled in lavash and called a meal; at the buffets I’ve been to, I usually roll up salty cheese and greens. In Gyumri, Judy, Barbara and I were transfixed as we passed a lavash bakery and watched the master at work.

Family names – yes, they almost all end in –ian or –yan. But they can begin with a variety of names, indicating geographic origin, occupation, father’s first name (many of which are biblical), aristocracy or another trait. Interestingly, names that indicate the occupation of an ancestor were often given by tax collectors, who had to identify people for tax purposes. Since the collectors may have been Turks, Persians or Arabs, the names often have roots in languages other than Armenian, and can differ between eastern and western Armenians, as the eastern names have their roots in Persian, Georgian or Russian, while the western ones may have theirs in Turkish, Arabic or Greek.