TED Community » Ani Latoyan

More About Me

I'm passionate about

Marketing, Teaching, Dancing, Horse Riding, Walking, Communicating with people, Designing, Travelling, Movie watching

People don't know that I'm good at

drawing, dancing, teaching

Comments

• TEDCred score: +30.00 TEDCred reflects your contribution to the TED community.

• A reply on Conversation: What is the most popular festival/carnival in your town or country ?

  Oct 22 2011: Armenians have lots of festivals which are very interesting. I'd also like to tell you about The Trndez (Candlemas Day): Celebration of Love and Kindness. Trndez is a celebration around “fire” and the worship of “fire” date back to Armenia’s pre-Christian culture. It happens to be the Armenian version of Valentine’s Day in the North American tradition. It was dedicated to the heathen God Myhr or Tyr. Tyr was the God of science and arts in heathen Armenia. He was symbolizing everything spiritual. Myhr was symbolizing also KINDNESS and LOVE.
  Today it is a festival of purification in the Armenian Apostolic Church and Armenian Catholic Churches, celebrated 40 days after Jesus's birth. The two churches celebrate this on different days, the 14th (with celebrations on the eve of the 14th) and the 2nd of February.
  It happened so that in ancient Armenian villages (as the families were having many children) every home had either new married or engaged one. They all joined together and picked the wood then the priest of the village burned the big fire in the centre of the village,
  As a rule they made a fire in the new engaged girls’ yard, and her mother-in-low and father-in-low visited their future bride bringing roasted grins of wheat, porridge made from the flour, sweets, scarf and ornaments. According to the ancient Armenian’s rule the engaged man had no right to see his future wife during the period that they were engaged but in the holiday- Candlemas Day officially son-in-low visited to see her for the first time. In this holiday, the new married man or the new engaged man’s responsibility was to gather wood and make a fire. After this ceremony the new married couples were turning round the fire, it was supposed that the fire will bring fructification and will set free from the evil.

• A reply on Conversation: What is the most popular festival/carnival in your town or country ?

  Oct 21 2011: Frans Kellner, by this comment I should reply Rafi Amin. May be because of technical problems my comment appeared here. But I'll repeat with pleasure, because Vardavar is on of my favorite festival.
  
  During Vardavar people of all ages (no matter the age, gender, or public position) drench each other with water. The word "vardavar" has two interpretations based on which of two pagan goddesses were worshipped: Astgheek or Anaheet. 1. Astgheek (the Armenian equivalent of Greece's Aphrodite) was the goddess of love and beauty. Since "vard" means "rose" in Armenian, a correlation was made between this holiday and Astgheek. According to legend, her beloved Vahagn (another Armenian pagan god) was once injured in a struggle with evil. She rushed barefoot to his aid. On the way, she hurt her feet while treading over the roses and her blood turned them red. This is how red roses came into being: the flower of love was born. She had her temple, where young and old alike would go on pilgrimage to praise her, sing songs, and offer bouquets of flowers and other gifts.2. Anaheet was the goddess of "purity, kindness, nurturing, temperance, fertility, wealth, and fullness". She was identified with water, as a cleansing and purifying agent. In the ancient Hittite language "ooard" meant "water" and "ar" "to wash". These were related to Anaheet's celebration. The essence of the rituals is splashing with water. On that day, water is considered to be curative and powerful. It is used to divine and foretell the future. It was superstitiously believed to be a means of driving away evil. The accompanying traditional songs, dances, and games were supplications to the gods to give water to the dry earth. People would present roses to each other and loving couples would set pigeons free. If the pigeon flew over the young girl's roof three times then it was an omen that the man would marry the girl in the fall.
  So, we celebrate Vardavar on 98th day (14 weeks) after Easter.
  Hope you would like

• A comment on Conversation: What is the most popular festival/carnival in your town or country ?

  Oct 21 2011: Sure, Armenians celebrate Vardavar on 98th day (14 weeks) after Easter. This year it was celebrated on 31 July, 2011.
• +1

  A comment on Conversation: What is the most popular festival/carnival in your town or country ?

  Oct 21 2011: One of the most favorite and funny festival that all Armenians love is Vardavar, during which people of all ages (no matter the age, gender, or public position) drench each other with water.
  
  The word "vardavar" has two interpretations based on which of two pagan goddesses were worshipped: Astgheek or Anaheet. Astgheek (the Armenian equivalent of Greece's Aphrodite) was the goddess of love and beauty. Since "vard" means "rose" in Armenian, a correlation was made between this holiday and Astgheek. According to legend, her beloved Vahagn (another Armenian pagan god) was once injured in a struggle with evil. She rushed barefoot to his aid. On the way, she hurt her feet while treading over the roses and her blood turned them red. This is how red roses came into being: the flower of love was born. She had her temple, where young and old alike would go on pilgrimage to praise her, sing songs, and offer bouquets of flowers and other gifts.
  
  On the other hand, Anaheet was the goddess of "purity, kindness, nurturing, temperance, fertility, wealth, and fullness". She was identified with water, as a cleansing and purifying agent. In the ancient Hittite language "ooard" meant "water" and "ar" "to wash". These were related to Anaheet's celebration.
  The essence of the rituals is splashing with water. On that day, water is considered to be curative and powerful. It is used to divine and foretell the future. It was superstitiously believed to be a means of driving away evil. The accompanying traditional songs, dances, and games were supplications to the gods to give water to the dry earth. People would present roses to each other and loving couples would set pigeons free. If the pigeon flew over the young girl's roof three times then it was an omen that the man would marry the girl in the fall.

• A comment on Conversation: What do young people learn from playing?

  Oct 21 2011: I think for everyone playing is having fun. and learning is a long, sometimes boring posses. As a teacher I almost always use games during my lessons for involving all the class into the learning possess, during that time they learn more than the time we do ordinary lessons, Games really help us to learn more useful information. So when we join these 2 possesses, i.e. learning and playing games, we have the biggest result we want to have.
• +1

  A comment on Conversation: If you could teach the world 1 valuable thing you learned, what would it be and why?

  Aug 12 2011: If I could teach the world one thing, it exactly would be "Toleration". Being tolerant help us to reach our goals without hurting other people feelings.
  One of the important principles of civil society is to be tolerant towards individuals, groups, religious, which gives us the chance to recognize the respect for other people's physical appearance, behavior, orientations.
  The more democratic society is, the more is developed toleration as characteristic feature in it.
• +2

  A comment on Conversation: What book would you recommend to your fellow TEDsters?

  Jun 29 2011: 5 books, 5 great authors, 5 different and amazing topics. Hope you'll like them, I liked them a lot:
  
  1. Khaled Hosseini - The Kite Runner
  2. Sue Monk Kidd - The Secret Life of Bees
  3. Somerset Maugham - The Moon and Sixpence
  4. Oscar Wilde - The Picture of Dorian Gray
  5. William Makepeace Thackeray - Vanity Fair