HistorySpecial Reports
Venezuela’s forgotten Armenian community
Political turmoil, socioeconomic woes, massive emigration, and high crime rates have lately dominated media coverage of Venezuela. But beyond recent headlines about the country’s political earthquake, a potential recalibration of its alignment with Russia, and speculation over the retraction of its recognition of Abkhazia and South Ossetia lies a far lesser-known but no less intriguing story: Venezuela’s small but vibrant and entrepreneurial Armenian community. Numerically modest compared to
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Interesting article. As someone who has studied the community from a distance, it seems that there is confusion in the statement that there was a “pre-crisis network of up to 50,000 families of Armenian origin nationwide,” reduced since 2013 to “roughly one-third … leaving approximately 15,000 families in the country.” This would assume that there was up to 200,000 Venezuelan Armenians (family of four), reduced to 60,000 nowadays. Neither figure is credible. A community of 50,000 families with one church and one single organization historically recorded? The published estimates of 3,000 to 6,000 are much more reliable.
Hi. You’re right. There has been a mistake. Maximum I believe we were total 1,500-2,000 families.
Great article. Just wanted to include that my grandfather Krikor Gazarian was the promoter of getting a land or property for an Armenian church in Caracas. With this initiative my grandad, my family and other influence families started and concluded this idea during mid 60s.
Then my dad Arakel Gazarian with a group of other families and the support of all the community they rebuilt (mid 80s) using the same original land where the Armenian Venezuelan community started on 1967, the project and construction of the actual church and Centro Armenio.