07-Dec,2009

No of Post: 0

What happens when two Scottish people meet somewhere in Armenia? Yes, you are right, just like when two Armenians meet anywhere in the world, they always keep their traditions and celebrate their national holidays keeping bright the memory of their motherland in their minds. We have a few Scottish living in Armenia, mainly in Yerevan who decided to celebrate St. Andrew’s day for the first time in our country this year.

On the 30th of November all Scottish worldwide celebrate the feast day of Saint Andrew or simply St. Andrew’s Day. Saint Andrew is the patron saint of Scotland and the Day is celebrated as Scotland’s official national day. Not that long ago in 2006, the Scottish Parliament designated St. Andrew’s Day an official bank holiday. Although Saint Andrew is mainly linked with Scotland, he is also the patron saint of Greece, Romania, Russia and some other European countries. According to the Church of Scotland St. Andrew is believed to have been responsible for spreading the tenets of the Christian religion through Asia Minor and Greece. He was put to death by the Romans in Patras, Southern Greece, on a diagonal cross. The diagonal shape of the cross is the basis for the Cross of St. Andrew which appears on the Scottish flag today.

Scotts had a real blast celebrating St. Andrew’s Day in Yerevan this year. The celebrations were organized by the great help of ABC members (Armenian British Connect) at the house of Mr. Charles Masraff the owner of “Top Table” the first buffet in Yerevan. He had invited many Armenian guests who were interested to see what St. Andrew’s Day would be like. Envoy couldn’t miss this wonderful opportunity of discovering more about a different culture so we also had our representatives at the celebrations. The guests of the event were nicely surprised when they discovered that the programme included a 4 course dinner with plenty of wine/whisky, quiz, Ceilidh (Scottish dance) disco and much more fun throughout the evening. Everything was so interesting and well organized that we couldn’t help writing a blog about this. So if you plan to be in Yerevan next year at the end of November make sure you don’t miss the celebrations of St. Andrew’s Day!
For more photos and info go to Envoy’s page on Facebook
http://www.facebook.com/pages/Yerevan-Armenia/Envoy-Hostel/40551132184?ref=ts 

OR check out ABC’s website http://www.abconnect.am