Historical Facts About Armenia

Armenia officially the Republic of Armenia is a sovereign state in the South Caucasus region of Eurasia. Historically located in Armenian Highland in Western Asia, it is now bordered by Turkey to the west, Georgia to the north, the de facto independent Republic of Artsakh (Nagorno-Karabakh) and Azerbaijan to the east, and Iran and the Azerbaijani exclave of Nakhichevan to the south.

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History

Armenia lies in the highlands surrounding the mountains of Ararat.  There are evidences of an early civilisation in Armenia in the Bronze Age and earlier, dating to about 4000 BC. According to the story of Hayk, the legendary founder of Armenia, around 2107 BC Hayk fought against Belus, the Babylonian God of War to establish the very first Armenian state.  Later evidences about Armenians and about Armenian Kingdom date back to the very ancient times. Already in 860 BC we know about the Kingdom of Van (URARTU) which was one of the most powerful states of the ancient world.

In the 1st century BC the Kingdom of Armenia reached its height enlarging its territory to about 300 000 km² under Tigranes the Great.

Armenia became the first state in the world to adopt Christianity as its official religion in 301 AD. It was 12 years before the Edict fo Milan with which Roman Empire declares the Christianity as an acceptable religion and later on already as the officilal state religion. In 405 AD Mesrop Mashtots created Armenian alphabet which is a unique alphabet belonging to Hindo – European language family. The ancient Armenian kingdom was split between the Byzantine and Sassanid empires around the early 5th century. Later in the 7^th cen. Armenia was invaded by the Arabs. Under the Bagratuni dynasty, the Armenian Kingdom was restored in the 9th century. Declining due to the wars against the Byzantines, the kingdom fell in 1045 and Armenia was soon after invaded by the Seljuk Turks. An Armenian principality and later on already a kingdom Cilician Armenia was located on the coast of the Mediterranean Sea between the 11th and 14th centuries. It was the last Armenian Kingdom as later on for about 7 long centauries Armenia was completely split by Ottoman Empire, Persia and by Russian Empire.

Between the 16th century and 19th century, the traditional Armenian homeland composed of Eastern Armenia and Western Armenia came under the rule of the Ottoman and successive Persian empires, repeatedly ruled by either of the two over the centuries.

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Wilsonian Armenia (Map) refers to the boundary configuration of the First Republic of Armenia in the Treaty of Sèvres, as drawn by U.S. President Woodrow Wilson’s Department of State. The Treaty of Sèvres was a peace treaty that had been drafted and signed between the Western Allied Powers and the defeated government of the Ottoman Empire in August 1920. The treaty was never signed by the United States of America. The treaty was signed but never ratified by the Ottoman Empire.

By the 19th century, Eastern Armenia had been conquered by the Russian Empire, while most of the western parts of the traditional Armenian homeland remained under Ottoman rule. During World War I, Armenians living in their ancestral lands in the Ottoman Empire were systematically exterminated. More than 1,5 million Armenians were killed in 1915 in the Armenian Genocide officially organised by the leaders of turkish government. In 1918, after the Russian Revolution, all non-Russian countries declared their independence from the Russian empire, leading to the establishment of the First Republic of Armenia. By 1920, the state was incorporated into the Transcaucasian Socialist Federative Soviet Republic, and in 1922 became a founding member of the Soviet Union. In 1936, the Transcaucasian state was dissolved, transforming its constituent states, including the Armenian Soviet Socialist Republic, into full Union republics. The modern Republic of Armenia became independent in 1991 during the dissolution of the Soviet Union.

Yerevan

Yerevan is the capital and largest city of Armenia, and one of the world’s oldest continuously inhabited cities. The history of Yerevan dates back to the 8th century BC, with the founding of the fortress of Erebuni in 782 BC by king Argishti I at the western extreme of the Ararat plain. Yerevan is 29 years older than Rome and celebrated its 2800 anniversary in 2018. Yerevan has been the capital of Armenia since the independence of the First Republic in 1918. When Armenia became a republic of the Soviet Union, Yerevan remained as capital and accommodated all the political and diplomatic institutions in the republic. In 1991 with the independence of Armenia, Yerevan continued with its status as the political and cultural centre of the country, being home to all the national institutions: the Government house, the Parliament, ministries, the presidential palace, the constitutional court, judicial bodies and other public organizations.

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Situated along the Hrazdan River, Yerevan is the administrative, cultural, and industrial center of the country. Yerevan has an average height of 990 m (3,248.03 ft), with a minimum of 865 m (2,837.93 ft) and a maximum of 1,390 m (4,560.37 ft) above sea level.  The general plan of Yerevan was designed by the architect Aleksander Tamanyan. The location of Yerevan itself, is an inspiring factor for the foreigners to visit the city in order to enjoy the view of the biblical mount of Ararat, as the city lies on the feet of the mountain forming the shape of a Roman amphitheatre. Yerevan is home to a large number of museums, art galleries and libraries. Being among the top 10 safest countries in the world, Yerevan has an extensive nightlife scene with a variety ofnightclubs,live venues, pedestrian zones, street cafes, jazz cafes, tea houses, casinos, pubs, karaoke clubs and restaurants.

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