Armenian Culture

General information about Armenia

The culture of Armenia is very rich. The architecture of churches, often decorated with amazing stone carving elements, is one of the most notable forms of art. The 7th century was the high point of religious and church architecture, although in general the decoration of Armenian churches is more modest than, for example, Russian churches.

Armenia is rich in numerous cross-stones. Khachkars - stone steles with a carved image of a cross, are installed everywhere in Armenia, there are several thousand of them, and each khachkar is distinguished by its unique pattern.

Composer Aram Khachaturian and sculptor Khoren Ter-Arutyan are great names, widely known all over the world.

Traditional Armenian music is similar to Middle Eastern music in sound. Even today beautiful folk music is a part of everyday life in the country.

Armenian literature is rich in proverbs, fairy tales and folk legends, and the writers of the twentieth century made a great contribution to the development of this cultural trend. Khachatur Abovyan is considered to be the founder of modern Armenian literature.

If we classify the territory and peoples of the Caucasus by language groups, the three main ones are as follows: Caucasian, Indo-European and Turkic.

The Armenian language is a representative of the Indo-European group, and Armenians are the largest group of people in the Caucasus who speak one of the Indo-European languages. This language family is believed to have originated in western Turkey, spreading westward into Europe and eastward as far as India by 1000 BC.

Armenians adopted Christianity in early antiquity (301 AD) (the oldest churches were built in the 4th century), the head of the Armenian Church lives in Echmiadzin.