kakachik77

Coon's work is not only outdated but absolutely scientifically FALSE. Just pay attention when he worked on, around the same time when Fascism was ruling Europe. This guy basically sat in his office in some East Coast American University, looked at some random pictures and THEORIZED. If anything he wrote or said was anything close to truth then the modern anthropology would still heavily rely on it. Instead, the only people who heavily rely on his literature are white supremacists. If any race (if such thing exists of course) is genetically superior it's blacks, they have enough melanin to withstand sun rays, fight it better than the mutated white skin that gets skin cancer much much sooner. It's not what you're genetically made up of that make you Armenian, it's knowing your history, the struggles, culture etc. All Armenians are mixed, but that should be taken as a compliment, we have diverse stronger genes (there is a reason why cousins should not marry).

Kara-Bagh MEANS "Black Garden" combination of two Turkish words. Don't tell me you've never heard Armenians use the word "Bagh" to describe their garden. My conclusion - stop overanalyzing people!

My grandpa calls it "The Museum of Stolen Goods", at least one person found the right name for it.

Gamavor she looks just like me

agree, get rid of that stupid British flag -the pirates were sponsored by the BRITISH THRONE to steal the gold from the Spanish ships coming back from the Americas. They are the biggest crooks, they just happen to have the power to "adjust" history to make themselves look better. -another theory exists that the only reason the Brits got to industrialization was because of the money pouring in from the SLAVE trade in the Americas - the most demoralized act in the history of the world- just ask the Black Americans who are "i am so happy" getting what they deserve back through the present day welfare system (think of so many years of free slave work that went in to build British-American wealth). So many thing you guys YET do not comprehend about the world, Armenians are highly respected and yes "envied" in LA.

Lev7 you rule! You just forgot to mention that most women in Armenia have become prostitutes to Turks and Persians to feed their families...and where is the Armenian Benevolent Union and the likes I ask.....sitting here and criticizing the poverty striken people.

EXACTLY Fixed quote = ExtraHye

What about Armos? Nobody wants to do a study on us

I saw this movie at the San Francisco International Film Fest back in April. Of course, it was heart-warming since hearing the Armenian language on an American big theater screen is quite unique for me. The film was made by an Iraqi Kurd, neither by an Armenian nor a Yesidi Kurd of Armenia, so it's made by an "outsider" if you know what I mean. The actors are mostly Armenian. The film is not about Armenians, or the Armenian culture, so if you're hearing about the Armenian culture the first time ever in your life and try to understand what/how/who/how long - none of these questions can be answered. I was somewhat mad after the movie - I felt the director somehow exploited the Armenian culture to make a movie about Kurds, there was no mentioning that Armenians are Christians and Kurds are not but they still get along fine to juxtopose with the Turkish treatment of Kurds. The only reality in the movie were the economic conditions in current Armenia, I was intrigued to see that an "outsider" could comprehend the every day reality in Armenia, the little nuances etc. Of course, the movie has an artistic value most of which it seemed like came from Emir Kusturica's influence on the director. I just wish these kinds of projects were undertaken by Armenians themselves, there is so much still undiscovered beauty in the Armenian culture/spirit and of course landscape.

Hello again, so I checked the turkish word for 'sheep' and it's 'koyun', so most probably it does have some Caucasian roots as opposed to Turkish, as mentioned in the posting above. But again as I wrote before in uzbek language it's 'ochxar'. Yet again, I discovered one more interesting things, in Sanskrit (the old Indian language) the word for 'sheep' is 'GA' very similar to the Armenian 'GAR'. I can only theorize that GAR is the original Armenian word and "vochxar" has been used in colloquial Armenian by the shepperds who herded their sheep in the mountains of Caucasus along with the other tribal groups and ended up borrowing the word. I think 'vochxar' has officially entered the language sometimes much later than GAR.

Stormig, very interesting observation. "vochkxar" actually either has turkish or farsi roots. I was flying to Armenia last summer and there was a Uzbek guy sitting next to me who told me that "vochkxar" in uzbek (which i believe is a turkic language) is "ochxar", so here it goes... also, isn't it "gar" in armenian and "garnuk" for the little one

wow, all Armenians in LA are street thugs...that was new...vast vast generalizations in your comments, I guess when these street thugs are sending remittances to mother Armenia they are actually kind of lovable after all...

good comment Gamavor, but I would be much happier if Hovannian or any of these guys would donate some money or start a project to renovate the crumbling Soviet style apartment complexes that people still live in Armenia with the awful smells coming from the non-collected garbage cans, broken or dangerously hanging elevators. Anybody who knows Armenia will recognize what I am talking about. I think this will cost much less and will add a communal value as well as an aesthetic one to the city since 99% of these buildings look awful from outside as well.

Anileve, great avatar I also do agree with you, shy guys most of the time end up being more interesting.

Azat, today in Armenia you can get washer/dryer and microwave from a store called ZigZag (this is in case you want to move back

Armenians NEVER believed in Soviet/Russian propaganda and actually nobody did for that matter. Have you heard of 1937 assasinations of Armenian intellectuals, or 1965 civil rights movement (I think Shirak was one of the main organizers) where Armenians were finally let to commemorate the Armenian Genocide? What you are writing here is what you heard from the Western propagandists against the people in USSR. Armenians were lining up in front of embassies to be re-united with their relatives that were spread across the globe because of the Genocide, not to move to US to enjoy hamburgers.

Gamavor, I know I live in this hell. This thread sucks by the way... it shows how ignorant are we (Armenians) of each other, it's about us against them and no healthy argument can spring from it.

Perhaps few things seem like true lies however Monopoly is just a board game and it exists in all parts of the world along with Armenia. I am not sure why do you find that so unbelievable. Whoever said that was not lying, I did also play Monopoly in Armenia when I was a kid. Perhaps you won't believe that Rubik's cube exists in Armenia as well????????????? *** Fixed the quote

Agree. And please people stop juxtaposing Armenians and Chechens. Armenians were the civilized culture conquered and dominated by parasite Ottomans. Chechens were a nomadic bunch again taken over by Russians who educated and tried to enlighten them (why do they have russian sounding last names - because before they did not even have last names, they were herding sheep in the mountains and now they want to kill innocent children to achieve independence). And please don't forget that if Russians were not in Caucasus our little Armenia would probably don't even survive.

Nonesense! Bosnians are converted Serbs perhaps Croats, basically Slavs. There are converted (of course by force) Armenians in Turkey but that's all.

RAB-IZ - Rabochoye iskustvo aka working class art

Twilight, firstly I am not trying to argue with you rather have an intellectual argument and if you restrain from that then you're one of the Armenians contributing to the so called "Armenian intellectual and cultural mediocrity" I should admit that I don't completely understand exactly what direction you are leaning when talking about this intellectual backlag. What you feel is your opinion and the reason for your feelings can be that you are primarily surrounded by immigrant Armenians who're not interested in intellectual pursuits or no Armenians for that matter. If you're referring to the lack of Armenian scholars discussing philosophy/existentialism then I'll say don't compare to some Western European culture because the Armenian experience is very different (I hope I don't have to explain how). In the former Soviet Union Armenians were the second after Russian Jews with Ph.D.s and Armenia was regarded as Soviet Sillicon Valley. And lastly, mediocrity is present in every culture - think of cheesy Hollywood movies in the American culture that make millions over just one weekend. At the same time the American economists/scientists sweep most Nobel prizes every year. So Americans mediocre or no? Your so called "fears" are nothing new, every nationality has that insecurity within, as well as every individual, after all too much pride is mere stupidity. Read Peter Balakians "Black Dog of Fate", he discusses some Armenian intellectuals from Polis who escaped to New York, I was surprised since I did not know that one of Anais Nin's best friends was an Armenian woman (his aunt). Perhaps if Turks gave us a little more chance...

Your argument is still very weak. Not sure what you're trying to prove, but we are a small nation hence you cannot expect a horde of cultural production springing up every year. Having said that, what have Slovaks, Lithuanians or Estonians produced that's worth turning head? Armenians are a diasporan nation, thus what is being produced outside of Armenia need to be accepted as Armenian cultural production. In the sphere of arts, we have produced Atom Egoyan. Well before Armenians got to know him through Ararat, Egoyan had already conquered the world of high class cinema. http://www.filmref.com/directors/directors.html when I checked this website I saw 2 world class Armenian directors listed (Egoyan, Paradjanov). I did not see Bulgarian, Georgian or any other ethnic group that outnumbers Armenians in fact. Arshil Gorky single-handedly started an art movement in America called Abstract Expressionism. Not a cultural production? Perhaps you will write back and say well what has been done yesterday or last year - my answer is that things happen slowly and again from a small nation like ours it's unrealistic to expect cultural gems every other day

we have produced a lot as a small nation, just the mere resilience of the Armenian nation to survive throughout centuries is quite unique. Perhaps the fact that we have never been conquerors, did not want to kill and rape other nations makes you feel small, not sure.