Skip to main content

Eurasianet

Main Menu

  • Regions
  • Topics
  • Media
  • About
  • Search
  • Newsletter
  • русский
  • Support us
X

Caucasus

Armenia
Azerbaijan
Georgia

Central Asia

Kazakhstan
Kyrgyzstan
Tajikistan
Turkmenistan
Uzbekistan

Conflict Zones

Abkhazia
Nagorno Karabakh
South Ossetia

Eastern Europe

Belarus
Moldova
Russia
The Baltics
Ukraine

Eurasian Fringe

Afghanistan
China
EU
Iran
Mongolia
Turkey
United Kingdom
United States
X

Environment

Economy

Politics

Kazakhstan's Bloody January 2022
Kyrgyzstan 2020 unrest

Security

Society

American diplomats in Central Asia
Arts and Culture
Coronavirus
Student spotlight
X

Visual Stories

Podcast
Video

Blogs

Tamada Tales
The Bug Pit

Podcasts

EurasiaChat
Expert Opinions
The Central Asianist
X
You can search using keywords to narrow down the list.

Where Have All the Armenians Gone?

Giorgi Lomsadze Jul 22, 2011

Gone to the West, everyone with brains; gone to Russia, everyone with brawn, believes one prominent Armenian intellectual. (Apologies to Peter, Paul and Mary.) 

But many others are not going anywhere at all, rejoined President Serzh Sargsyan at a July 20 cabinet meeting. While expressing concern about migration rates, Sargsyan also called for a cautious interpretation of the data. Predictions of a mass exodus only provide grit for the enemy’s (read, Azerbaijan's) mill, he said.

“[S]ome say 45,000 people have left Armenia [this year], but had someone taken the trouble to look at this rate on a monthly or quarterly basis, he would clearly see that in October-November period of this year… 40,000 of those who left will come back,” the president said.

Where international data is concerned, though, the numbers don't look pretty. The Central Intelligence Agency’s 2011 migration ranking puts Armenia in 186th place out of 202 countries with a net migration rate of - 3.76 per 1,000 people. That's far worse than Azerbaijan (-1.14), but a tad better than Georgia (-4.06).

The United Nations gives a similarly stark long-term view; an estimated 700,000 to 1.3 million people emigrated from Armenia between 1991 and 2009, it says.

For a country with a population of just 3.2 million, those numbers spell trouble. To keep the population in place, some critics advise that the government put reforms in place for a stronger rule of law and a healthier economy.

The president himself, though, advises keeping an eye on the effect such debates about migration will have on Azerbaijan. “[The Azerbaijani authorities] keep saying publicly that they will wait for Armenia’s depopulation and then they will solve their problems [dispute over Nagorno-Karabakh enclave] with us,” said Sargsyan. He called the notion "interesting" and "a little funny."

For her part, Diaspora Minister Granush Akopian offered this simple hope --  that one day, Armenia's migrants to Russia, the bulk of the outflow, "absolutely" will come home again.

Giorgi Lomsadze is a journalist based in Tbilisi, and author of Tamada Tales.

Sign up for Eurasianet's free weekly newsletter. Support Eurasianet: Help keep our journalism open to all, and influenced by none.

Popular

Armenia scrambles to accommodate uprooted Karabakhis
Fin DePencier, Katia Galati
Kyrgyzstan: MPs give president power to overturn court rulings on moral grounds
Ayzirek Imanaliyeva
Nagorno-Karabakh Republic disbands as Azerbaijan arrests its ex-officials
Heydar Isayev

Eurasianet

  • About
  • Team
  • Contribute
  • Republishing
  • Privacy Policy
  • Corrections
  • Contact
Eurasianet © 2023