Armenian Georgian Relations

[Doctor]

Re: Armenian Georgian Relations

I think you need a good doctor. Do we have doctors in this forum?

Yes Sir. I'm here.

[gegev]

Re: Armenian Georgian Relations

excellent so i have question.. i know that mxitar gosh is from ganja, and many other notable armneian people so i have interest ganja is armenian city? and constantin armenopulos was armenian nationality?

I think you need a good doctor. Do we have doctors in this forum?

[georgia]

Re: Armenian Georgian Relations

and so is xash....but when it comes to xachapuri there's a georgian variant and an armenian variant. In center of yerevan actually, there's a Georgia xachapuri place, very delicious

excellent so i have question.. i know that mxitar gosh is from ganja, and many other notable armneian people so i have interest ganja is armenian city? and constantin armenopulos was armenian nationality?

[gegev]

Re: Armenian Georgian Relations

and so is xash....but when it comes to xachapuri there's a georgian variant and an armenian variant. In center of yerevan actually, there's a Georgia xachapuri place, very delicious

This Mos is an expert in everything. Good for you.

[Mos]

Re: Armenian Georgian Relations

xachapuri and sacivi are amrenian foods yes? mdaa

and so is xash....but when it comes to xachapuri there's a georgian variant and an armenian variant. In center of yerevan actually, there's a Georgia xachapuri place, very delicious

[georgia]

Re: Armenian Georgian Relations

Who says tone is a 'georgian firepit'? By all accounts it is Armenian or at least native to the Caucasus region.

xachapuri and sacivi are amrenian foods yes? mdaa

[Armanen]

Re: Armenian Georgian Relations

Who says tone is a 'georgian firepit'? By all accounts it is Armenian or at least native to the Caucasus region.

[gegev]

Re: Armenian Georgian Relations

Armenia, Georgia: Baking Bread, Building Understanding
http://www.eurasianet.org/sites/eura...y/012111_2.jpg
January 21, 2011 - 9:44am, by Marianna Grigoryan

They may differ sharply at times over language origins, territory, churches, viticulture and more, but, at last, Georgia and Armenia have found one point on which they can agree -- a passion for puri, as traditional Georgian, clay-baked bread is known in Yerevan.
....
http://www.eurasianet.org/node/62745

Nice subject Federate!

The matter is on what subject we concentrate our attention. There are hundreds of occasions during the course of history that we collaborated with Georgians successfully. But some people may alienate us radically, using today’s Armenia's weak points.

Do you imagine what will happen if the war against Iran starts. Who will be target #1 for Iranians, if US attacks Iran? Iran wouldn’t attack Azeri or Turkey immediately, because jointly they are strong enough and they are Muslim countries. So they will attack another US fore post in Caucasus as a revenge.

Who can convince them to stop or ease the attack in this region– Armenia together with Russia!

World is dynamic, geopolitical situation may change and the good neighbors always will be treated appropriately during their tough times.

[KanadaHye]

Re: Armenian Georgian Relations

Can't they just google a recipe for Georgian Puri bread instead of migrating someone from Georgia to make it? I mean it's bread... not rocket science

[Federate]

Re: Armenian Georgian Relations

Armenia, Georgia: Baking Bread, Building Understanding
http://www.eurasianet.org/sites/eura...y/012111_2.jpg
January 21, 2011 - 9:44am, by Marianna Grigoryan

They may differ sharply at times over language origins, territory, churches, viticulture and more, but, at last, Georgia and Armenia have found one point on which they can agree -- a passion for puri, as traditional Georgian, clay-baked bread is known in Yerevan.

It is, however, no passing inclination. And Georgian bakers appear to be taking note. Attracted by high salaries, many bakers are beginning to migrate to Armenia to share their puri [pronounced “poo-ree”] know-how.

In the West, where international foods easily mix and mingle, this development might seem less than revolutionary. But in the Caucasus, where national food boundaries are often as jealously guarded as geographical boundaries, the phenomenon suggests a potential for change – one loaf of puri (the general Georgian word for bread) at a time.

“When they invited me to work in Armenia, it was a very unusual idea for me,” commented 34-year-old Bakari Bodaveli, a Tbilisi baker who moved to Yerevan about eight months ago. He stretches dough out on a shovel and leans into a 1.5-meter-deep, circular tone [pronounced “ton-AY”], a clay Georgian bread oven, to apply the dough along its walls. “I had never been here and couldn’t imagine [the life here]. Now, I’m getting used to everything.”

That includes the language. Customers and deliverymen cry out “Barev, Bakari!” (“Hello, Bakari!”), as Bodaveli removes the long, pointed loaves of bread – known in Georgian as shotis puri -- from the oven and places them to cool on the slatted wooden shelves typical of Georgian bakeries.

The restaurant that invited Bodaveli rented an apartment in downtown Yerevan for the baker and pays him roughly about $1,000 per month for working 14-hours a day -- unheard-of riches compared with the lari-equivalent of $20-$24 per day Bodaveli said he earned in Tbilisi. “Here they pay me so much that I can even save money, which I couldn’t afford to do in Georgia,” he said.

Baking bread within Georgia is as much an art as baguettes are within France. Not to be approximated. And not to be wrapped in cellophane or dosed with preservatives, dyes or what one puri baker loosely terms “vitamins.”

That lack of preservatives means that puri has a short shelf life – less than a day -- but most Georgians see daily trips to the neighborhood tone as no time burden. Within Georgian culture, bread is “an object of reverence,” wrote Gastronomica Editor Darra Goldstein, a culinary researcher, in her landmark 1993 study on Georgian cuisine, The Georgian Feast.

That reverence for puri now appears to have traveled to Yerevan.

“When you look at puri, it seems to call to you," enthused 59-year-old shop assistant Anush Poghosian, who works at a Georgian bakery in Yerevan. Poghosian claimed that, to keep up with demand, some 30 bakeries now sell purportedly Georgian bread (for about 200-230 drams or 55-64 cents per loaf) in the Yerevan district, Arabkir, where she works.

The Yerevan city government does not make distinctions for business registrations by Georgian bakeries, but estimates that “several times” the official number of 30 puri bakeries opened in the Armenian capital last year. “The number of Georgian bakeries has increased continuously . . . It is really noticeable,” commented Armen Sargsyan, head of the city government’s trade and services department.

Shoppers say that the salt used in Georgian bread explains part of its appeal, by contrast with the saltless taste of Armenian lavash, or flatbread, and other varieties. It is usually bought straight out of the oven, adding warmth to the appeal as well.

“The only bread we buy is puri,” said one woman buying Georgian bread from a tiny shop near a central market in Yerevan. “Of course, our lavash is also very popular and tasty, but my children prefer puri.”

To many Armenians, more accustomed to seeing people leaving Armenia for work than moving there, the phenomenon is also a source of pride.

For the Georgian government, though, the question might be whether the puri Armenian shoppers are buying is the real thing.

In a bid to crackdown on rampant post-Soviet imitations of Georgian khachapuri, a tangy, cheese-filled pastry, the Georgian Ministry of Agriculture last year moved to adopt the European Union’s Traditional Specialty Guaranteed trademark protection system, which would introduce internationally recognized certifications for Georgian food items, based on their ingredients and preparation techniques.

The Ministry did not respond to questions from EurasiaNet.org about Armenia’s puri popularity craze in time for publication.

Meanwhile, one roaming puri baker from Tbilisi – last posting: Kyiv – says he is happy to go wherever puri’s popularity takes him.

“It was difficult to find a job in Georgia, and I’m happy here, “ said Misha Markosian, a 30-year-old Georgian-Armenian who bakes puri for a shop near Yerevan’s Barekamutiun subway station. “I . . earn money to support my family, and my customers appreciate my work.”

Whether in Tbilisi or Yerevan, little more is required for job satisfaction than that, puri bakers say.
Editor's note:
Marianna Grigoryan is a freelance reporter in Yerevan and the editor-in-chief of MediaLab.am.

http://www.eurasianet.org/node/62745