here in armenia. anthony: how many were lost during this? richard: most estimates, historically, put it around 1.5 million. anthony: that s a lot of people. richard: especially a lot of people when we look at the per capita. when we look at the impact this had. anthony: so, what happened? in the early 20th century, what was historically western armenia was under the control of the ottoman empire, present-day turkey. justifying their actions by the widely held sentiment that christian-armenians would align themselves with a hostile and also christian russia, then undergoing its second revolution of threatening their borders, the turks rounded up armenian intellectuals and summarily executed them. military and police units were dispatched to the countryside to drive out armenians from their villages. they hanged local leaders in the town squares, burned churches, destroyed manuscripts, then marched anyone left towards the
sha la la la la la sha la la la la sha la la la la la la anthony: armenia is a small, landlocked christian nation surrounded by mostly non-christian neighbors. azerbaijan over there, iran down there, and turkey right there. turkey, and relations with turkey, and the armenian people s terrible history with that country being the central and defining issue of armenian identity. and a present-day political reality 103 years after what just about anyone would call
anthony: you sound wistful about the old days. are things better now or worse? [ speaking non-english ] anthony: when armenia was swallowed up by the soviet union in 1922, it became the armenian soviet socialist republic. with that came purges and paranoia, but also a rapid industrialization, the evidence of which is still seen today in the abandoned factories and workers blocs of another time. and a soviet mentality, and sizable russian presence still hang over the country like a dead weight. no matter how you felt about soviet rule, the transition was a rough one.
our kid was growing up, so we told our friends we re going to move, we need him to go to armenian school, so they said, “you re going to armenia?” we said, “no, glendale, california.” but eventually we did move here, 12 years ago. marie lou: living in glendale and keeping, always saying, you have to keep your identity was strange. and every time coming up with stories for the kids, you have to love your country, you re armenian, you have to speak armenian. pegor: whereas once you re here, you just forget all about that and it s more about being a good person, having ambitions, all of that. and the armenian-ness part, you can let that happen naturally. anthony: apricot vodka is a good way to start a meal. gayanes is a local favorite, a restaurant operating out of what was once a private home. something of a throwback to
Transcripts for CNN Anthony Bourdain Parts Unknown 20240604 05:25:30 archive.org - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from archive.org Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.