Welcome to the fourth episode of a very exciting project, in which I, your host Christopher Crowson, a participant of the Birthright Armenia program, am conducting interviews with my fellow Birthright Armenia volunteers. In these interviews, I hope to get our listeners acquainted with the Gyumri volunteers, see what they are doing here in Armenia and see what kind of insights they can offer us into life in Gyumri and Armenia today.

In today’s episode we are joined by the one and only Benjamin Hairabedian! Benjamin, who comes from Argentina’s second city Cordoba, talks about his love for Armenia’s second city Gyumri. Having grown up away from the Armenian community in Cordoba and thus feeling detached from a part of his ancestry, Benjamin decided to pack his bags and make the 13,000-kilometre-long journey to Armenia.  

In this episode, in which Benjamin gives us some really profound responses, we talk about the incredible story of how his great-grandparents made their way from Western Armenia to Argentina, how his connection to Armenia has grown thanks to the Birthright program, how he fell in love with the city of Gyumri and how he has gone from speaking no Armenian at all to speaking the language confidently in a matter of months. Benjamin, I cannot thank you enough for coming to speak to us!