Armenian Propaganda

In Yerevan, at around midnight, I’m walking my dog and smoking a cigarette.

A voice calls out from the dark: “Hey friend. Do you smoke?”

I hold up my hand with the cigarette, “Yeah.”

“Come smoke with us.”

Turns out they meant weed. I do partake, and we chat for a minute, until the dog starts pulling on the leash and I say we should go. They wish me and Leo good night, and their tact, the lack of insistence to keep hanging touches me as much as the initial offer.

It’s a bunch of guys from the block, all Armenian. We don’t know each other, but I’ve seen them on the corner, and they must have seen me around.

“You know the four-eyes that lives over there?”

“Oh yeah, I do, actually.”

“We’re his friends. You live here, you’re a good person, so that makes you our friend too.”

We’ll do this three times before I leave Yerevan: I take a quick puff, we exchange a few phrases, they pet the dog, we wish each other good luck.

The third time, I ask after having a drag, why they think Armenians are so kind. I’m sentimental not only because strangers are getting me high — strangers have also given me and my wife free tickets to theater plays — but also because I know I’ll be leaving soon, and I’m already starting to miss my neighbors, shopkeepers, and passerby.

One of the guys answers in Armenian and asks another one to translate.

“Strong people, he says. You have to be strong to be kind.”

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