Many people did it before us and many more are yet to repatriate to Armenia in the near future. We've been flooded with cheering messages after this video from the local Government media agency today. Thank you all for your warm and heartfelt messages.

Now if I may, let me try to be inspirational for those of you thinking about it, and it's really mind-blowing to see how many are on the verge of moving, the past 3 weeks alone I can count 15 people... well, let me make this straight: nowadays I don't think moving to Armenia requires much guts anymore, it's the opposite, as parents you'll quickly realize the pros & cons, and it's actually a no-brainer:

For desert?

 

 

Check, check and check.

 

This checklist is my young vision of living in Armenia without even completing one calendar year. No, Armenia is far from being perfect, we still have a lot of soviet mentality among people, out-of-the-box thinking issues, reliability, protocol stuff, garbage, recycling etc... so my vision is obviously biased by a lot of emotions and is surely arguable. However you see it, a one-way ticket is never a definite no-return, you could give it a year try and head back to better horizons later but the experience you'll gain here and at the same time the vision you can bring back make it a great win-win deal.

Need a job, where to start? Polish your linkedin page and see what openings are available. Making $2k is great, 3k is a lot, 5k and more is elitist; but most importantly I don't see how your boss can't assign you with greater responsibilities: keep your foreign salary, live here and build a branch for your company into the fields you are strong (IT development team, marketing team, customer support center, telemarketing sales-force...).

Have a startup, where to start? Polish your suitcase, just come check it out, I can provide you with the full starter-set we went through.

Regardless if you are born in Armenia and moved overseas recently, after your study, when you were a little kid, or generations ago keeping ties with Armenia is rationally interesting.

From our side it took us 100 years to realize that we could realize this dream, our great grand parents from Turkey, Russia, Greece, Nakhitchevan and Iran would have been so proud to see our kiddos enjoying their life in their homeland some 5 generations later. Come and write history with us, Armenia is - on its very own scale - in its prime-time, this country needs half a million people like us, which is less than 10% of Armenians from the diaspora, then we'll probably have some people starting to setup venture capital funds where 9 out of 10 investments fall apart but the 10th one is a unicorn-size return.

To my friends from other horizons: Armenian patriotism understandably won't resonate as much but just take a trip, business or vacation, come visit us anytime, I'm looking very much forward to showing you this jewel deep down in the Caucasian mountains.

Mihran Papazian
Banner photo: #MherVahaknPhoto