Press Trust of India
April 18 2010

Armenian descendants reduced to just 200

STAFF WRITER 12:32 HRS IST
Amitava Das

Kolkata, Apr 18 (PTI) From a once robust 40,000 at the time of
Independence, the number of Armenian descendants in India has
nosedived to barely 200 now, most of them having migrated to the west.

The majority of them now live in Kolkata, Mumbai, New Delhi and
Bangalore, the manager and pastor of Armenians in India, Father Khoren
Hovhannisyan, told PTI.

Kolkata, which once had the largest concentration of the community,
now hosts only 152 of them, which indicates the rapid dilution of the
city’s once-famous cosmopolitan profile.

They had once been an important constituent of the city’s business
community, mainly present in the manufacturing sector. Now they have
joined the tribe of professionals in a great way.

The present generation of Armenians in India practises mixed marriages
and are very tenuously linked to Armenia, their motherland,
Hovhannisyan said.

-descendants-reduced-to-just-200