Monday, July 14, 2014

Up with Geography: Armenia

Country Name:
Armenia

Capital:
Yerevan

Continent:
Asia

Maps:
Asian continent. Armenia shaded darker,
with an arrow pointing to it.

A closer look at Armenia & its neighbors.

Neighbors:
Georgia, Azerbaijan, Iran, Turkey

Water Borders:
None

Total Area(added March 2015)
11,484 square miles

Five Largest Cities:
Yerevan, Gyumri, Vanadzor, Vargharshapat, Hrazdan

Famous Geographical Point:
Lake Sevan

Famous Person:
Alexander Arutiunian, composer

Book Set In/About:
Family of Shadows by Garin K. Hovannisian

A history of Armenia, told through the lens of three generations of Hovannisian's Armenian-American family.

Movie Set In/About:
"We and Our Mountains (Meq enq, mer sarere)" (1969), directed by Henrik Malyan

As best as I can tell, this is a comedy about four shepherds who eat a neighbor's sheep and try to come to an agreement with him for payment but are thwarted by a young, eager police officer who wants to press criminal charges.

Headline of the Day:
"Armenia's President Honors by His Presence 'Book' Movie Premiere" in the Armenian News Agency.

2 comments:

Patricia said...

I severely doubted that Azerbaijan was on both sides of Armenia like that, but furrowed brow looking at several maps on the internet shows me that there's a weird little bit of Azerbaijan hanging out on the south side. What's up with that?

My first boss out of college was of Armenian descent. When she told me that I smiled and nodded because I had not idea where it was. But the Armenian genocide is depicted in great detail in a part of "Middlesex" by Jeffrey Eugenides, so that gave me some context, albeit several years later. Although maybe it wasn't that book? The Wikipedia summary isn't clear.

I just opened five, no six! windows to research because of this post.

balyien said...

When I was researching this post, I saw some stuff about a "contested" area, and sort of assumed that it was referring to that small sliver of Azerbaijan on the southwest side of Armenia. However, I don't know for sure and should really do some more research.

I LOVE that this post opened up so much research for you! That's awesome.

One of my favorite customers at my last job is Armenian & started a school there to teach kids how to work with computers. Before this project, that's about the only thing I knew about Armenia, besides the genocide.