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31. From Diamonds to Diplomacy: Vartan Oskanian, Armenia’s Minister of Foreign Affairs (Yerevan) by Rainer Hermann is a book available to read on EtoBox.

What is 31. From Diamonds to Diplomacy: Vartan Oskanian, Armenia’s Minister of Foreign Affairs (Yerevan) about?

Vartan Voskanian, as his name originally was, could be a rich man in the Diaspora, as are his relatives. He could trade in diamonds in Los Angeles and live up to his surname, since the Armenian word voski means nothing less than "gold." By his name Vartan Oskanian already reveals two facts: that his family engaged in trading precious metals at some time, and that the Oskanians originally come from West Armenia, where names derive from one's occupation. In East Armenia, they come from the personal name of a family.Today, most of Vartan Oskanian's relatives live in the United States, and many are engaged in the gold and diamond trade. When Vartan Oskanian also left for the U.S.A. in 1981, he eliminated the V from his surname so as to make it easier to pronounce. Unwittingly he moved away from the his ancestors' trade. Since the early 1990s he no longer deals in precious metals but in high diplomacy. Right after independence, he returned straight to Yerevan in 1992. Step by step he rose in the Foreign Ministry until, in 1998, he exchanged his U.S. passport for the Armenian, and was finally named Foreign Minister.Armenia could hardly have found anyone more suited to the task, for Oskan

Author

Rainer Hermann

Publisher

Berghahn Books

Published

2022

Language

EN