The ignoble savage in urban Yerevan

ABSTRACT

This article focuses on a recent development in the Armenian capital, Yerevan, described by its urban population as a ruralization process. I explore what it means to call something or someone ‘rural’ or ‘urban’, and I compare the social category of ‘rural people’ with the social category of the (old) urban intelligentsia. This includes an analysis and reconsideration of the traditional ‘nature–culture dichotomy’ and its meaning for the architecture and urban planning of Yerevan. It also interrogates the classification of people into newcomers from the countryside, urban dwellers, new elites, and young men called rabiz.