Ethnic minorities in Armenia
However, due to hostilities with neighboring Azerbaijan over the disputed region of Nagorno-Karabakh virtually all Azeris emigrated from Armenia.
[7] Additionally since independence, several other ethnic groups have emigrated especially Russians (who decreased from 51,555 persons in 1989[6] to 14,660 in 2001[2]), Ukrainians (8,341 in 1989[6] to 1,633 in 2001[2]), Armeno-Tat[citation needed], Greeks (4,650 in 1989[6] to 1,176 in 2001[2]), and Belarusians (1,061 in 1989[6] to 160 in 2001[8]).
Ethnic minorities include Russians, Assyrians, Ukrainians, Kurds, Greeks, Georgians, and Belarusians.
Most Azerbaijanis fled the country as a result of the First Nagorno-Karabakh War and the ongoing conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan.
[19] The Yazidis, are an officially registered ethnic religion who live in the west of Armenia and are adherents of Yazidism.
There are a number of Russian-language publications in the Republic, including the dailies "Golos Armenii", "Novoye Vremia" and "Respublika Armenia" and the weekly "Delovoi Expres".
The first mass-immigration of Russians into Armenia occurred about 1840 when thousands of heterodox Spiritual Christians in central Russia and Novorossiya, and other non-Orthodox tribes were resettled in this newly conquered territory.
"By ordering this migration in 1830, Nicholas I attempted at once to cleanse Russian Orthodoxy of heresies and to populate the newly annexed lands with ethnic Slavs who would shoulder the burden of imperial construction.
[22] The largest group today are a family of new religious movements that converted to the Dukh-i-zhiznik faiths which were imported from Los Angeles, California, USA, in the 1930s after delivery of a controversial religious text: Kniga solntse, dukh i zhin' (Book of the Sun, Spirit and Life).
About two-thirds of the book is instructions and rituals written by a presbyter prophet Maksim Rudomyotkin from the current village of Fioletovo while he was incarcerated at a monastery in the mid-1800s.
Dukh-i-zhizniki are descendants of converted Pryguny, Maksimisty, Sionisty, Noviy israeli, some Molokane, a few Armenians, Popovtsy, and other ecstatic religious tribes that resettled from Russia in the 1800s.
Since perestroika at least 40 have migrated to join Dukh-i-zhizniki in America and Australia to enhance dying congregations with Russian-speakers.
The Molokans (Russian: Молока́не) were among the first to arrive and their label is commonly used by the non-Molokan tribes to hide their heretic (sectarian) faiths.
[24] Most of the sectarians from Russia were originally heterodox, rejected the Trinity as outlined by the Nicene Creed, disobeyed Orthodox fasts, military service, adhered to Old Testament kosherlike dietary laws and avoid do not eat pork, shellfish, or other unclean foods.
The origin of the Ukrainians in Armenia goes back to the mid 19th century after the migration to Transcaucasia “the Cossacks from Minor Russia” to seal the Empire’s Southern borders.
It is believed this was the main language of Caucasian Albania, which stretched from south Dagestan to current day Azerbaijan.
