Hayk Hovakimyan launches Armenian language course for English speakers

The Velvet Revolution brought Hayk Hovakimyan back to Armenia.

Hovakimyan, who was born in Yerevan and moved with his family to Moscow when he was seven years old, had long felt disillusioned with the lack of progress in Armenia. He had been working in Russian media for seven years when the Velvet Revolution ignited political change and, for Hovakimyan, unprecedented hope.

“When there was a revolution, I decided our nation is ready to make some changes, and I want to be a part of it,” Hovakimyan said in an interview with the Armenian Weekly.

Hovakimyan traveled to his city of birth and founded Tumanyan.Online, an Armenian language learning platform for Russian speakers. He launched the website in collaboration with Aida Markosyan, who created the Armenian language textbook Krunk Hayastani. Hovakimyan returned to Russia, and two months later on September 29, 2018, he moved to Yerevan for good. He soon launched Repat Riarch, a YouTube vlog to share his experience of moving to Armenia with Russian-speaking Armenians. Now, four years later, he is expanding Tumanyan.Online to offer Armenian language instruction to English speakers.

For Hovakimyan, the purpose of these kinds of projects is to engage Armenians living in the diaspora with issues that face their homeland and, hopefully, encourage them to repatriate. Hovakimyan believes the knowledge and expertise of the diaspora can be pivotal to resolving the grave problems that face the country. Yet prior to the momentous decision to repatriate, initiatives like Tumanyan.Online and Repat Riarch establish a connection between Armenia and diasporans, which, once forged, diasporans can “choose what they will do with it.”

“The main goal is to persuade people in the diaspora that they should take responsibility for their country and move back to Armenia,” Hovakimyan said. “Even if they can’t move to Armenia, they should have some part of their focus on Armenian projects and on things that are going on in our country.”

The Armenian language was the connector between Hovakimyan and Armenia while he was growing up in Russia. His parents raised him to cherish his Armenian heritage, teaching him Armenian history and forbidding him from speaking Russian at home. They constantly reiterated to him that their presence in Russia was temporary.

Just as knowledge of the Armenian language maintained the tie between Hovakimyan and his homeland, Hovakimyan hopes that Armenian language schools directed at the diaspora can serve as the foundation for the cultivation of Armenian identity and a personal connection with Armenia.

“Assimilation is the biggest threat for our diaspora. We have more people in the diaspora than in Armenia,” Hovakimyan said. “I don’t want to lose these people from the Armenian world. The key way to keep them is to deliver them knowledge of the Armenian language. If you know the Armenian language, you somehow identify yourself with Armenia. This is the basis on which you can construct other things and an engagement with Armenia.”

Hovakimyan is now expanding Tumanyan.Online to offer online Armenian language courses for English speakers. He interviewed hundreds of Armenian language teachers before finding Mary Hakobyan, who has taught Armenian for more than 13 years. Hakobyan had developed a “practical and understandable” Armenian language textbook, which Hovakimyan believes is key for forming a methodology to teach Armenian as a foreign language.

“A lot of times, students learn Armenian and think it’s very hard. They give up, and they don’t come back. This is very dangerous,” Hovakimyan said.

The courses progress from “simple to hard” to keep students engaged and motivated as they practice their skills. Each session includes interactive games, such as fill in the blanks, matching and practical jokes, inspired by popular language-learning apps like Duolingo.

Tumanyan.Online has taught a total of 3,000 students since its founding four years ago and currently has 300 students. One-hour class sessions take place on Zoom with a teacher and a group of up to five students. While most of those students are adults over the age of 25, Tumanyan.Online also offers courses for children. Prospective students can take a trial lesson for $1.

Initiatives like Tumanyan.Online and Repat Riarch take on an added significance in light of the ongoing conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan and the current threats facing the Republic of Armenia. While Hovakimyan has decided to commit himself to the fields of education and media, diasporans can contribute their knowledge in many ways, Hovakimyan believes.

“We should engage as many people in the diaspora as we can to things going on in our country,” he says. “If we fail in this, we will lose our country.”

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Lillian Avedian

Lillian Avedian is the assistant editor of the Armenian Weekly. She reports on international women's rights, South Caucasus politics, and diasporic identity. Her writing has also been published in the Los Angeles Review of Books, Democracy in Exile, and Girls on Key Press. She holds master's degrees in journalism and Near Eastern studies from New York University.