Armenia

Republic of Armenia
Country
Continent:	Europe/Asia
Capital:	Yerevan
National Language:	Armenian
Government:	Semi-presidential republic
Status in OTL:	Active

The Republic of Armenia (Հայաստանի Հանրապետություն, Hayastani Hanrapetut’yun, [hɑjɑstɑˈni hɑnɾɑpɛtuˈtʰjun]), is a landlocked mountainous country in the Caucasus region of Eurasia. Situated at the juncture of Western Asia and Eastern Europe, it is bordered by Turkey to the west, Georgia to the north, the de facto independent Nagorno-Karabakh Republic and Azerbaijan to the east, and Iran and the Azerbaijani exclave of Nakhchivan to the south.

A former republic of the Soviet Union (and a territory of the Russian Empire before that), Armenia is a unitary, multiparty, democratic nation-state with an ancient and historic cultural heritage. The Kingdom of Armenia was the first state to adopt Christianity as its religion in the early years of the 4th century (the traditional date is 301).

Literary Note

In most of Harry Turtledove's works, Armenia is a Soviet and/or Russian possession, and so rarely plays a direct role in any given story.

Armenia in "The Castle of the Sparrowhawk"

Sir John Mandeville incorrectly reported that the Castle of the Sparrowhawk was in Armenia. It was in fact in Faerie, although an Armenian prince, Rupen of Etchmiadzin, undertook the Castle's ordeal. To Mandeville's original readers in England and France, Armenia and Faerie may have seemed interchangeably exotic.

Armenia in Crosstime Traffic

In the home timeline, Armenia was not a member of the European Union.

The ongoing conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan for control of the Nagorno-Karabakh region was tragically resolved when an unknown extremist group launched a tailored form of Ebola into the area, wiping out all human life in Nagorno-Karabakh and in considerable adjacent areas of Azerbaijan, making them permanently uninhabitable and strictly quarantined.

The identity of the perpetrators remained unknown, as they were assumed to have themselves perished by the disease which they unleashed. For many decades afterwards, Armenians and Azeris continued to bitterly accuse each other of responsibility for the Nagorno-Karabakh Disaster.

Armenia in The Gladiator

In an alternate where the Soviet Union won the Cold War, Armenia remained a Soviet Socialist Republic in the late 21st century. Crosstime Traffic employee Eduardo Caruso cited Armenia and its currency, the dram, in part to demonstrate to Annarita Crosetti and Gianfranco Mazzilli that in Caruso's world, there was no more Soviet Union.

Armenia in "The Emperor's Return"

Armenia was the Soviet Union's launchpad for its invasion of Turkey in June 2003.

See Also

• Armenians
• Vaspurakan, a culture in the Videssos Series whose history is broadly based on Armenia.