On May 19 the community of Pontic Greeks of Armenia commemorates the Pontic Greek genocide and on May 21, the community invited Armen Khachikyan, an historian, to talk about the Pontic Greek genocide at the “Educational and cultural center on national minorities of the Prime Ministers’s staff” in Yerevan.
Pontic Greeks are historically from the Pontus area, a region on the southern coast of the Black Sea, located in modern-day eastern Black Sea Region of Turkey. In the 18th century around 300 Greeks moved to Armenia’s Marneuli and Alaverdi areas to work in the copper mines. A large majority of those workers settled close to Alaverdi and founded the village of Madan. However, with the collapse of Soviet Union, many moved to Greece and it is estimated that now, less than 1000 Pontic Greek live in Armenia.
