Opaque Bubbles and Life in Armenia
We all live in bubbles, don’t we? No matter who we are, where we are, we have our own circle of friends, family, community, work or school, maybe a club of this or an association of that. We create an immediate society around us, which forms part of society taken more broadly. I guess problems arise when the immediate circle becomes impervious – a more rigid, opaque bubble, divorced from broader society.
Living in Yerevan, I am very conscious of the bubble in which I find myself. It is often Diasporan, English-speaking, shared with people with disposable income. Not exclusively so, but more often than not that is the case. Spending free time in cafés and shopping malls, it is not hard to pretend to be in some other part of the world. Even though I find this to be expected – and, in fact, I am happy to note this kind of development in the country – I also find it bothersome to sense that I am at a remove from broader society in Armenia.
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