Araxie Vann

Araxie Vann was born in Yerevan in the Soviet Union and immigrated to the United States with her family in 1973, settling in Lynn, Mass. She received a B.A. in Russian Language and Economics from Mount Holyoke College and an M.A. in Russian Language and Literature from Norwich University. Her original goal was to teach Russian. However, in 1980 she moved to Washington DC to work at the Voice of America’s Armenian Service as an international radio broadcaster, covering international news in the Armenian language, where she eventually became Service Chief. After retiring, she hopes to return to her original goal of teaching the languages of her native country, Armenian and Russian. She feels that the knowledge of foreign languages resolves many problems and breaks down the barriers between countries. In particular, she wants to teach the Russian language, because she feels that superpower countries like the US and Russia have a lot more in common than they realize, and that knowledge of Russian will lead to better understanding and build mutually beneficial conditions for world peace.