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Teenagers in Armenia


Harut

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i've moved from Armenia 2.5 years ago and i really want to know what's the life of teenagers like in Armenia?

i want to know what kind of music they listen to? what kind of dresses they prefer? what believes they have? and so on.......

 

i have couple of friends on net. but they go on internet so rarly that we don't have the chance to exchange much info.

 

thanx for your contribution.

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I was in Armenia last year & people dressed 10000 times better than in US.

Teenagers listened to every kind of music. They listened to whatever we listen in US.

Russian music was also very popular.

Many teenagers also listened to Jazz (most of them living in the center of Yerevan), since a lot of the cafes in Yerevan have live jazz bands.

Yerevan's life is 100000 times better & interesting than it's in US.

I think that the difference betwen US & Armenia is that in US poeple live for $$$$$ & in Aremnia people live for their souls.

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I have found that most of the people who come from Europe/Latin America/Middle East/Western Africa/Armenia are having this same feeling.

 

Unless you are immersed in your work, life in the US is indeed boring. There is no passion for life, but just passion for making money.

 

However, the US provides the fastest venue for learning and professional growth.

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i agree with Anna.

when i was in Armenia i had much more intresting life. every single minute of my life was full of something.

here i get bored. in those two years that i have been in US, i didn't do anything that could be remembered.

 

back to the topic.

do you know if they are happy with their lives? do they enjoy the life in Armenia?

because i want to move back to Armenia. as soon as i finish the college i'm going back.

at least i dream so.

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Everyone has his / her definition for exciting. I believe life in US is extremely exciting, especially in huge metropolises like New York, San Francisco and Los Angeles. Armenia is a fairly small country and life is monotonous at times. You can go to Sevan and Tsaxkadzor only so many times. The cafés and bars are really nice but they are just average by Western standards. In US or Europe there are variety of activities that you can be preoccupied with. In Southern California there are a lot of art galleries for art lovers in West Los Angeles / Westwood area, one can go to Getty’s in Westwood or Norton Simon museum in Pasadena or LACMA to get familiarized with the greatest artworks. If one is into outdoors rollerblading in the beach is one of the greatest activities. Occasional catching of NHL or NBA games is also very exciting at glamorous Staples Center (especially when Kings are winning). For people who like ice-skating there are a few ice-skating rinks. Nightlife is booming in LA especially along the Sunset Strip (Good Bar, Sky Bar, Dublins, etc). If one is into concerts there a lot of world class musicians visiting Los Angeles (I got tickets to U2 concert in Anaheim Pond ) Or if one is tired of Los Angeles he/she can drive to San Francisco, Santa Barbara or to Las Vegas for the weekend. The bottom line is it’s up to a person to make his / her life exciting. If one has his / her career straightened out it’s easy to make it exciting. Overall you will never get bored in Southern California.
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quote:
Originally posted by alpha:
Everyone has his / her definition for exciting.



Alpha,

If your definition of exciting life was a reply to my last entry, I have to mention that by "life is exciting in Armenia" I ment the amount of daily nervous breakdowns you get while living in Armenia.
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Interesting posts and observations. But this is what it comes down to. LA (in my opinion) is one of the worst places to live, ever !!! Like Berj mentioned if we count how many times per day we come so close to having a nervous breakdown - it would be scary. Life in LA is hectic, it's stressful, it's way too fast paced and it's not as gratifying (emotionally). This is my experience at least. Yes, all the things and places mentioned by alpha are true and do exist and almost anybody can endulge in that sort of "excitement." But there is something soooooo essential that Armenia has and LA (along with many other places) lacks. I don't know it's name. Sometimes I call it "hogu xaghaghutyun" sometimes I call it "aprelu taghand." In Armenia, people work to live ... here we live to work. People there are in much much worse conditions than any armenian living in the states. But the tired and stressed out facial expressions we are so used to seeing here, you don't find in Armenia. These people are blessed with the ability to find joy in the simplest things and to live much happier lives than us (I am not talking about material happiness). The sad part is, we used to be like that too ... what happened?

 

One thing Erevan will never be is "monotonous." There is something new happening in that city every single day. The city is full of life and change...

 

And alpha, it's not the quality of the cafes and the bars or the size of the city ... it's the emotions - the true genuine emotions - that engulf you when you do very simple things in Erevan. Like when you drink a cup of coffee with Tamara ice-cream at the Kaskad Cafe and watch how the city wakes up every morning. Now that I call EXCITING (to say the least) ...

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Sulamita jan, I can't really comment on your post because I have not been back to Armenia for the last 21 years(i am going back early this summer), however I like to make few corrections.

 

People in Armenia work to live, you are correct about that, but to live they have to work 23.5 hours a day. I always argue with people who say that there is too much pressure in LA. The pressure that we feel is the pressure that we have created on our selves. You know what, if you want to work 8-5 and come home and not think about anything else, you can do that. You just have to live your life a little more moderately. Don't drive the newest car, rent a modest home and so on.

 

And in terms of "hogu xaghaghutyun" or "aprelu taghand" as you mentioned, you will not believe how well I have mastered both.

 

I should add two things in support of everyone else. Life is VERY hard the first few years that you come to USA. Very hard. And you cannot participate in all the good things because of financial situations. I have been there.

 

Also as I was writing this reply, I realized that this thread is about "Teenagers in America". I would say that life for teenagers sucks in America. Because they most likely have to work and they have school and all the crap that goes on here. In Armenian, most teenagers have the freedom to enjoy life(as they should) while they are in school.

 

[ April 27, 2001: Message edited by: Azat ]

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quote:
Originally posted by Azat:
Life is VERY hard the first few years that you come to USA. Very hard. And you cannot participate in all the good things because of financial situations. I have been there.




Well I have been in the states for 14 years ... so it's not the "stranger-in-a-new-place" syndrom that I am experiencing. This is what I see around me and this is what I live. And the funny thing is, this stressful lifestyle is unique to LA. Even people living couple of hundred miles away from LA, like San Jose or San Francisco ... can't understand how we live in this fast-paced environment.

Life in LA is a freeway ... if you stop for a second you get rear-ended.

I don't completely agree with the statement: "The pressure that we feel is the pressure that we have created on our selves." Why does this not happen in other places? I have relatives in other states and Canadian cities. They don't even want to hear of moving to LA. And it's not about driving the latest car model or owning a home. The pressure I feel in LA is not only job related. Sometimes I feel like it's injected into the air molecules.

That's all for now
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quote:
Originally posted by Azat:
Sulamita, I am sorry I had misspelled your name in my previous messages. I have corrected it everywhere I found.

Sorry. This proves that I am a bonehead.
Azat



You really did not have to but thanx anyhow. And you are NOT a bonehead ... just a little absent minded like all of us - LA resident
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  • 5 months later...

those of you who have been in Armenia lately or live there, can you please update this topic a little; tell us about the life in Armenia, about the new things happening, etc..

i think a lot of changes took place lately, especially in 2001, because of 1700 anyversery.

 

but please don't limit yourselves to teenagers only. since i moved out from that category already(i hope), i would like to hear more about young adults.

 

thanks.

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quote:
Originally posted by Harut:
those of you who have been in Armenia lately or live there, can you please update this topic a little; tell us about the life in Armenia, about the new things happening, etc..
i think a lot of changes took place lately, especially in 2001, because of 1700 anyversery.

but please don't limit yourselves to teenagers only. since i moved out from that category already(i hope), i would like to hear more about young adults.

thanks.




Harut jan,
I was in Armenia 3 months ago and I have to say that life in Armenia for a tourist is most exciting. I was staying in city center on Mashdots street and enjoyed the city and actually the whole country so much. This was my first visit in 21 years, but I plan to go back next June I loved it so much.

Sulamita had mentioned that life was just different in Armenia and I had dismissed that, but I have to say that she is 100% right.
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Armenia has changed a lot in the last couple of years, and I wouldn’t say towards better. You might see many restaurants and cafes and a lot of changes on the streets. There are more tourists in the center of the city than natives. However the country is decaying slowly, but surely. It is living through moral collapse. The number of prostitutes is probably greater in Yerevan that in Los Angeles, and they are in every corner. It’s so funny you can see drugstore, whorehouse (bardak), church next to each other in practically every corner (by the way there is some logical connection to this three). By the way every criminal with connections to state apparatus (xoroshi goxakan) now has a church build next to his house (tsaxik Rubo in Davitashen, Dodi Gago in Sevan highway on the way out of Yerevan, and the list goes on and on) I think the number of churches is an indication of the following statement, “we couldn’t make it in this lifetime so we hope things are better in afterlife” The center of city is full of strip clubs. If you have been in Tijuana it reminds a lot of Revolution Avenue in TJ. The smart and capable ones want to leave Armenia. The people are very confused and earning a living is extremely difficult. Trust me if US embassy wanted they can empty Armenia in a month (by granting tourist visas). Economic hardship is one thing, but moral decay is just shocking to me. It’s my city and I love it dearly, but seeing it in this dreadful condition is just heart breaking. But you know what, foreigners won’t notice those changes, and only the ones to whom that city is so dear can silently weep and remember the glorious days of “Gisherayin Yerevan”.
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Alpha,

 

I thing most of the problems in Armenia are due to the demoralization of the population in the result of whatever developments.

 

I estimate that it has occurred after the cessation of the hostilities with Azerbaijan. Some of it was to be expected, some was artificially created.

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Alpha,

It is not as bad a you make it out to be. True moral is very low especially out of Yerevan, people are unemployed everywhenre. One feals embaressed asking people what they do for a living because everyone seems not to have a job, but the deal with prostitutes and strip clubs and all that is not that bad. It is NOTHING compare to TJ.

 

Also, there are not that many tourists in Armenia at a given time. The state had issued 9700 visas in the first 6 months of 2001. I posted that article in the news section a while back.

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Life is what you make out of it. (Nice start! LOL!)

In my early teenage years, I lived in a town (city, and a capital, at that!) which most people in that country have described as boring, monotonous, whatever.

I don't really know if my misery those years (you know - that age) could be blamed on the city and whatever... But I am not the less for it, really. (Just, I haven't been able to mold into Ankara.) Whether stressed or plain lazy, the people around you are who matter - and they can't all be bad, now, can they? That's what I am thinking about this L.A. - Yerevan - wherever else business. Forget it, man. There are billions of people who live outside these places and yet are gems. Of course, one may yearn for another life/life-style (like I sometimes wish I could just beat it out of here and live in the countryside [with an internet connection, of course ])... You are what you eat/develop yourself to be... Jazz concerts and ice-skating can all be accessed at one point in someone's life - make the minutes count (even if it is just vegetating [author's current state])!

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Some good points raised by people, me being a Yerevantsi , it is very close to my heart despite the fact that I havnt seen it in 9 years, but hopefully I will be visiting sometime in August, September 2002.

 

As for moral degredation, it is currently occuring in almost every corner of the globe, in some places faster than others.

 

And the difference in teenage life here (Sydney) and Yerevan. Unfortunatelly I have had not the luck to experience my teenagehood in Yerevan. The bottom line is, the majority of teenagers here are NOT happy and this is telling in the youth suicide rate being one of the highest in the developed world, something which I dont think even exists in Armenia.

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quote:
Originally posted by Azat:



Harut jan,
I was in Armenia 3 months ago and I have to say that life in Armenia for a tourist is most exciting. I was staying in city center on Mashdots street and enjoyed the city and actually the whole country so much. This was my first visit in 21 years, but I plan to go back next June I loved it so much.

Sulamita had mentioned that life was just different in Armenia and I had dismissed that, but I have to say that she is 100% right.



Azat jan, amboghchovin kez haskanum em.

jishtn asats, before i didn't believe what you and alpha said at the beginning. but now i almost fully understand it. life here in CA can really be very exciting (but unfortunately i don't enjoy it yet).

but you can't compare it to Armenian's life. they are two different concepts.

before moving here , i thought that life in Armenia and in US are on the same path, only US being ahead. but now i see that they each have their own things that the other one lacks.
they are two different roads each with its exitements.

ps, i still consider Armenia's life to be the better one.
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quote:
Originally posted by alpha:
Armenia has changed a lot in the last couple of years, and I wouldn’t say towards better. You might see many restaurants and cafes and a lot of changes on the streets. There are more tourists in the center of the city than natives. However the country is decaying slowly, but surely. It is living through moral collapse. The number of prostitutes is probably greater in Yerevan that in Los Angeles, and they are in every corner. It’s so funny you can see drugstore, whorehouse (bardak), church next to each other in practically every corner (by the way there is some logical connection to this three). By the way every criminal with connections to state apparatus (xoroshi goxakan) now has a church build next to his house (tsaxik Rubo in Davitashen, Dodi Gago in Sevan highway on the way out of Yerevan, and the list goes on and on) I think the number of churches is an indication of the following statement, “we couldn’t make it in this lifetime so we hope things are better in afterlife” The center of city is full of strip clubs. If you have been in Tijuana it reminds a lot of Revolution Avenue in TJ. The smart and capable ones want to leave Armenia. The people are very confused and earning a living is extremely difficult. Trust me if US embassy wanted they can empty Armenia in a month (by granting tourist visas). Economic hardship is one thing, but moral decay is just shocking to me. It’s my city and I love it dearly, but seeing it in this dreadful condition is just heart breaking. But you know what, foreigners won’t notice those changes, and only the ones to whom that city is so dear can silently weep and remember the glorious days of “Gisherayin Yerevan”.


inchpes asum en : "azatutyun@ mardun alcoholi pes arpetsnum e".

isk ayd amen@ miangamits trvats azatutyan hetevanknern en.

husov em joghovurd@ shut khelki kga, yev amen inch ir hunov ksharjvi.
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  • 2 years later...
Armenia has changed a lot in the last couple of years, and I wouldn’t say towards better. You might see many restaurants and cafes and a lot of changes on the streets. There are more tourists in the center of the city than natives. However the country is decaying slowly, but surely. It is living through moral collapse. The number of prostitutes is probably greater in Yerevan that in Los Angeles, and they are in every corner. It’s so funny you can see drugstore, whorehouse (bardak), church next to each other in practically every corner (by the way there is some logical connection to this three). By the way every criminal with connections to state apparatus (xoroshi goxakan) now has a church build next to his house (tsaxik Rubo in Davitashen, Dodi Gago in Sevan highway on the way out of Yerevan, and the list goes on and on) I think the number of churches is an indication of the following statement, “we couldn’t make it in this lifetime so we hope things are better in afterlife” images/smiles/converted/smile.gif The center of city is full of strip clubs. If you have been in Tijuana it reminds a lot of Revolution Avenue in TJ. The smart and capable ones want to leave Armenia. The people are very confused and earning a living is extremely difficult. Trust me if US embassy wanted they can empty Armenia in a month (by granting tourist visas). Economic hardship is one thing, but moral decay is just shocking to me. It’s my city and I love it dearly, but seeing it in this dreadful condition is just heart breaking. But you know what, foreigners won’t notice those changes, and only the ones to whom that city is so dear can silently weep and remember the glorious days of “Gisherayin Yerevan”.

ah so true hehe

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