About Armenia
Location
Armenia is located in southwestern Asia. It is boarded by Azerbaijan to the east, Iran to the south, Turkey to the west, and Georgia to the north.
From the 7th to the 11th century, in addition to many military leaders and diplomats, Armenians provided three powerful imperial dynasties: the Heraclians, the Isaurians, and the Macedonians. Heraclius, founder of the Heraclian dynasty (610-717), Leo III (the Isaurian), founder of the Isaurian dynasty (717-867), and Basil I (the Macedonian), founder of the Macedonian dynasty (867-1081), were all Armenians.
Even the usurpers of this period—Romanus I Lecapenus (919-944), Nicephorus Phocas (963-969), and John Tzimisces (969-976)—were Armenians. The so-called Macedonian dynasty—also known as the Sword dynasty, because generals instead of emperors mostly ruled—was in point of fact Armenian. Basil I (the Macedonian), founder of the dynasty, was the descendent of an Armenian family whose home was in Macedonia.
Basil’s many achievements have been praised by the two “most cultivated and learned of all Emperors” (Gregoire), his son and successor Leo VI (the Wise) and his grandson Constantine VII Porphyrogenitus, in a biography that is famous. We read here that Basil was a man of herculean strength with a talent for taming unruly horses and that he could trace his descent to the first great Armenian royal dynasty, the Arsacids or Arshakunis—which may explain why, upon ascending the imperial throne Basil adopted the Arshakuni emblem, the double-headed eagle that was later adopted by the Russian czars and a number of other European dynasties.
Basil I
https://www.facebook.com/107823815239306/photos/a.122872470401107/164141699607517
TimeZone
Armenia Time (AMT) is the timezone used in Armenia, it is four hours ahead of UTC at UTC +04:00. They do not utilize Daylight saving time.
The Gov’t issued a decree that canceled the observance of the Daylight saving time or known as Armenia Summer Time.
Religion
Armenia has a strong cultural connection with the Armenian Apostolic Church. They were the first country in the world to adopt Christianity.
Language
- Armenian Language
- It is the first language in Armenia. It belongs to an independent branch of the Indo-European language family and uses a unique 36-letter alphabet but in the 20th century, it contains 39 letters.
- Common Foreign Language that Armenians speak
- Russian – is the most common language in Armenia.
- English – many Armenian studies English after the independence in 1991 and still growing year after year. But English is still far behind Russian in terms of knowledge among Armenians.
- Other Languages (According to the Armenian Census in 2011).
- French
- 10,106 people who speak French as a second language.
- 10,056 of the speakers are ethnic Armenians
- German
- 6,342 people who speak German as a second language
- 6,210 of the speakers are ethnic Armenians
- Italian
- 4,396 speakers of Persian
- 4,352 of the speakers are ethnic Armenians
- Spanish
- 29,430 people speak other languages as a second language
- 25,899 of the speakers are ethnic Armenians
- Azerbaijani
- Many Armenian speak Azerbaijani as their second language, it started when the country welcomed the 370,000 Armenian Refugees from Azerbaijan, including the former Nagorno Karabakh Autonomous Oblast during the Nagorno Karabakh War, which lasted from 1988–1994.
- The other minority languages are Kurdish, Russian, Assyrian, Ukrainian, and Greek.
- French