BOSTON — Armenian history, unfortunately, is filled with much turmoil. The current news out of Artsakh is the latest episode in Armenian history where a devastating defeat must be endured.
A new podcast, “Country of Dust,” is taking the hard news and presenting it in a narrative format.
Nyree Abrahamian, the co-host and producer of “Dust,” in an interview last week from Yerevan said, “The idea came about right in the aftermath of the Artsakh war. Among friends we were talking about different things we could do, what we felt needed to be out in the world.”
She and the fellow producers, Jeremy Dalmas, Gabrielle Kaprielian and Gohar Khachatryan, all met through Birthright Armenia. All, except for Khachatryan, were diasporan volunteers in Armenia; Khachatryan was a longtime staffer at Birthright’s Armenia offices.
“We were having a conversation and Gabrielle came up with the idea of starting a podcast to share some of the stories coming out of the war and post-war period,” Abrahamian said.
“We all felt this need for a certain type and quality of stories to be out there. Especially during the war and the direct aftermath there were news stories that covered basic facts, like which lands were given up and how many losses. But when I would speak to my friends in the diaspora who were really concerned about what was going on here. They wanted to know what people’s lives were like. Human stories,” Abrahamian said.