ArmenPress
April 21 2004

ARMENIANS FROM TURKMENISTAN MOVE TO KYRGYZSTAN

BISHKEK, APRIL 21, ARMENPRESS: Armenian ambassador to Kyrgyzstan,
Eduard Khurshudian, told Armenpress that the Armenian community in
this former Soviet republic numbers some 3,000 people, formed mainly
during the Soviet times. He said also Armenian Muslims, known also as
Hamshen Armenians, count some 1,500 people.
Hamshen Armenians have no contacts with other Armenians. According
to ambassador, a lot of work is to be done to win them over as
different forces, including also the Turkish community are trying to
gain its support.
The Armenian community, which is mainly concentrated in the
capital Bishkek, runs its cultural center, a Sunday school. Among
community members are several successful businessmen, but no
Armenians are involved in local executive bodies. The ambassador says
many Armenians from neighboring Turkmenistan move to Kyrgyzstan,
which provides more freedom to ethnic minorities.
Hamshen Armenians, a little-known group of Armenian origin living
along the Black Sea in Turkey and Abkhazia in Georgia, number several
hundred thousand worldwide. The Armenian community is largely unaware
of this group to whom they are related ethnically and whose language,
called Homshetsma by its speakers, is closely related to standard
Western Armenian.
The Hamshen probably derive their name from a village of the same
name in Northeastern Turkey, near Rize, which seems to have been
itself derived from an Armenian prince Haman Amatuni who came there
with migrants from the Ayrarat district in the eighth century A.D.
They were forced to convert to Islam from the 16th century down to
the 1915 Genocide.
Yet, although the language has been mostly de-Christianized, the
Hamshen still observe the Armenian Christian New Year (celebrated on
the day of Epiphany), the Armenian Christian feast of Vartivar, and
the language retains the Armenian Christian word for God, Asdvadz.
Some of them privately acknowledge their Armenian identity or
roots, but publicly few will do so. Others consider themselves to be
Turks. There are important political factors at play in Turkey which
would discourage the Hamshen from openly professing their Armenian
origins.