Lions Led By Donkeys Podcast - *PREVIEW* History of Armenia 43: Eventful Times

Episode Date: July 23, 2025

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It's been an eventful month. So we decided, instead of doing a history episode, we would do something of a news roundup because a lot, not only has a lot happened, but some of it kind of breached into general news consumption, which does not happen often in Armenia. For an Armenian related topic to the news, normally we need to be fucking invaded. This is like, even then, even then, you know, it's not always a must. You have to scroll a bit.

But, you know, you have the prime minister offering to show the head of the church's dick. We have a coup. We have the head of the electric company being arrested while simultaneously the government saying they want to nationalize the electrical grid. And then the same guy wanted to start a political party, the US wanting to take over the southern border and turn it over to a fucking private security company. We got a lot of shit.

Yeah, there's a lot of shit going on. But the fun part is when you say like, Oh, a lot was also happening in Armenia. And my point being, no, a lot is always happening in Armenia. I mean, not quite interesting. That would be interesting to the international audience, let's just say, but a lot is always happening in Armenia. I mean, a lot is always happening. So I called my mom, I was like, so what's going on? How is everybody reacting to this?

She's like, to what exactly? Am I well, you know, like to the coup and like, you know, all these things. And she's like, oh yeah, you know, whatever. Like nobody cares. Nobody is even taking this seriously. And truly like you could see how just like in a 24 hour news cycle, it's kind of became about something else. So how say it is like, we're going to talk about this because it is important.

It is interesting and it is ridiculous I almost forgot one Armenia also wanting to ban Russian television. Oh that has been going over. Oh Honey, I know it's not the first time they've talked about it But it seems with everything else going on they might actually do it But also we could roll a dice of what the government's going to do. Yeah but Russia also interestingly somehow the car so the import of the liquid gas has been kind of disturbed and because of that the prices have already gone up. I'm sure it's a complete mystery you know some part somewhere back in Russia has broken yeah I'm sure it's a complete mystery. You know, some part, somewhere back in Russia has broken.

I'm sure it's for very legitimate reasons. But all of this is happening in Georgia, which is currently acting like a proxy government of Russia practically, because all of these cargo is being stopped in Georgia. Yep. Just like what happened when France was importing military vehicles to Armenia, they mysteriously were also stuck in Georgia. Exactly. Hundreds of cargoes sitting there right now. Lots of cars. For people who don't know, pretty much all of Armenia's cars come through Georgia. For obvious reasons, can't come through Iran even before current events. Also makes no sense. If we're talking about exporting Georgia's border with Russia,

Armenia does not, it's as simple as that. Yeah, well, and Georgia has a port. You know, like things get exported in that direction because some people don't know we have literally no relations with Turkey. Nothing can be exported in that direction. And even before the current events that happen in Iran, Armenia has to see the same sanctions

everybody else does. So also the eastern border is Azerbaijan, another country we do zero trade with. So everything has to go north. Yes, but also Armenia's main partner. And honestly, throughout the last few years, it has only the trade only intensified with Russia is Russia. So it would make absolutely no sense for that cargo to go to like, I don't know, the Turkey to Iran, then to Russia. Like the more sense it makes is through Georgia and everybody knows this and currently because of

the issues in Georgia and Georgian government being effectively free and fair and democratic. Exactly all of those things definitely. We might go back to Georgia one day, okay? Yes, you know, definitely, you know, and things like this are happening. But what I was going to say is, so like just in a very short amount of time, you know, like a week or, you know, let's just say 10 days to be safe.

So we have this issue when flowers from Armenia cannot be exported to Russia, even though like just like I don't know two weeks ago, they doing the same thing that they do with the dairy and said no, it's no With brandy and all of these things before the thing that they always says like oh suddenly it's a health risk So we can import like this is an important note to make here because Russia being Armenia's main, main import export partner. By several folds of it compared to anyone else. Yes, exactly.

The turnover is in billions. So Russia being so important for the Armenian economy and holding all of the levers, effectively all of them, pretty much, can do things that Russia is doing, which is honestly, that's nothing like that. He's not. You could just turn the gas off if they want it. Yeah. Like they could just plunge Armenia into darkness. Guys, if you do know this, the gas company in Armenia is Gazprom Armenia, which is a

subsidiary of Gazprom Russia, which is, you know, like the state, yeah, exactly. Which is like the state, you know, national gas company in Russia. So like effectively all of the infrastructure and important things, not all of them, but majority of them, very important ones, one way or the other, are related to Russia. That's speaking of shitty utilities, maybe we should talk about the electrical asshole. Yes, of course we will get to Russia. That's speaking of shitty utilities, maybe we should talk about the electrical asshole. Yes, of course.

We will get to that. I don't want to just get to it just right now because it's kind of very interesting how he comes in the picture. He's an oligarch, right? Yeah, he is an oligarch, but what happens? So this whole like skirmish happens between the Armenian church and the government, which is, to be honest, nothing necessarily very new. It's been going on for years to the point that affected my immigration to some extent

because of like a beef between the church and the government. The church would not put that people that are baptized were ethnically Armenian on their baptismal certificates, which is how most Western immigrants to Armenia who are Armenian prove our ethnicity because we don't get documents from any other body of government that say what our ethnicity is. For example, people in Lebanon do, people in Russia do, people in some other places do. But us in North America, Western Europe, we don't. So a lot of people get baptized in Armenia. That makes sense, right? But the church in Armenia refuses to do it because the government asked them to. And so this has been

going on for years. I mean, it's just like, there's a lot of petty stuff here and there that has been going on with the church and with the government. However, not at any point you could have guessed that it is going to get to this level necessarily, because it seemed that as unaware as Pashinyan was that kind of he's making church more popular, the church more popular than it was before. But at the same time, he still understood the gravity of the situation around the church, you know, the pool it has, political, in diaspora and otherwise. Culturally at home as well.

Culturally. So it was kind of treading a little bit lightly in comparison to what we're going to be introduced now. Because a lot of petty stuff, like for example, on the day of Christmas, the old Catholicos gargling the second is giving a speech. Well this year, the prime ministeros, Gargian II is giving a speech. Well, this year, the prime minister decides that's not happening. Oh, you didn't put him on TV. They didn't put him on TV.

And I remember if I remember correctly, last year on Christmas, was it the year before that? It was the year before that. They just closed the Holy Mother's Seat down and said it was under construction. Yeah. Just to spite the government. Yeah, that was just like, honestly, I'm not sure what happened there because we just went there and we were like, okay, everybody was confused. Nobody knew what was going on, but it was closed.

The only day it was supposed to be open, it was closed down. It was the church definitely giving the government the finger because everybody knows people go there on Christmas. Well, yeah. And again, there has been a little bit here, you know, a little bit of kind of spicy language here, a little bit of spicy language there. So trying to sort of get on each other's nerves and whatnot. Yeah. However, all of these got serious after this deal came about, like the delimitation and demarcation with Azerbaijan.

So how it came to be something much more serious and much more direct than it was before. It was like before the head of the church and the prime minister weren't directly insulting one another. Well, the prime minister was. He always kind of directly insulted because he's an asshole. A little bit here and there. The head of the church kind of, he's too busy counting all those cars until now. The thing is Pashinyan, of course, losing the war, you know, and everything that came with it and after it is losing trust of the people and legitimacy. And of course-

One re-election after the war though. Well, I mean, but how many turned up to those elections? Who were the opposition? All of these things mattered and how the ratings, the rankings have dropped since then, that also matters. The only reason he's still in power, and I'm reiterating this, is because of his opposition. So moving from that point on, now there's always a need in Armenia for something new, some new movement, a new face, somebody who is not involved with former authorities to

be able to actually lead the public. And this is what happens in 2024, when Armenia and Azerbaijan start discussing the delimitation and demarcation. And the head, Bishop Bagrat Galistanian, who is a bishop of the Tavush diocese, which is located in the region of Tavush in Armenia. The region you are very familiar with. The region, yeah, my dad's side of the family, some of them are from. But again, so here's this very well-liked guy, he has a good reputation over there.

And of course, during this delimitation and demarcation process, some of those villages that used to be Azerbaijani villages, or it's kind of, you know, we have two of yours, you have one of ours, it's this kind of situation. know, we have two of yours, you have one of ours, it's this kind of situation. But already you have over three decades, people living in this kind of mixed territories or territories that do not belong on the paper to, let's say, Armenia. But now they want to decide, you know, who gets what.