Tbilisi’s Armenian Community Celebrates Christmas
ita engAlmost two weeks after Christmas was celebrated elsewhere in the world, and a day before Georgia celebrated Orthodox Christmas, Tbilisi’s ethnic Armenian community celebrated its own on 6 January this year.
According to the census in 2014, some 53,000 ethnic Armenians reside in the Georgian capital while some 168,000 ethnic Armenians make up Georgia’s second largest ethnic minority, not including those residing in the breakaway region of Abkhazia.
From cultural icons such as the 18th century poet and musicians Sayat Nova, real name Harutyun Sayatyan, to the internationally renowned film director Sergei Parajanaov, both were born in Tbilisi as was Soviet-era classical composer and conductor Aram Khachaturyan.
Georgian Prime Minister Irakli Garibashvili congratulated those citizens of ethnic Armenian background as well as the citizens of Armenia, the country’s southern most neighbour, referring to both as the “brotherly Armenian people.” Georgian President Salome Zourabichvili also wished the Armenian Apostolic Church and its congregation “Peace, health, and welfare.” Other officials in Tbilisi did the same.
Photos: Ethnic Armenians celebrate Christmas on 6 January 2024 at one of the Apostolic Churches, St. Etchmiadzin, in Tbilisi.
Text and Photos by Onnik James Krikorian
