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A Crash Course in Armenian History: The New York Times

In an extended article published by the  New York Times Seth Kugel tells about the two days he spent in Yerevan, Armenia.  

Everything I did and everywhere I went seemed suffused with the past; my trip turned, unexpectedly and unintentionally, into a crash course in Armenian history. I ate and made friends and drank beer and listened to music, and didn’t spend much doing it.

But what I’ll remember most is not what happened during my trip, but what had happened before. Perhaps that was inevitable in a region that has seen so much dramatic and often tragic turmoil over the centuries.

Before my two-week trip to Georgia and Armenia, I could tell you very little about the past of this landlocked Caucasus nation a quarter the size of Pennsylvania. I didn’t even know Yerevan was the capital; when I memorized every sovereign nation’s capital as a kid, the city was still part of the Armenian Soviet Socialist Republic.

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