YEREVAN. – Ethnographer Rafik Nahapetyan says when celebrating the New Year, Armenians need to take into account that they will be in the one-week fasting period for the Armenian Christmas (January 6), and therefore they should not seek to have extravagant dishes on their New Year tables.

Nahapetyan noted that in the past, the New Year among Armenians was a holiday of nationwide rejoicing, and the New Year tables were rich, but without unnecessary luxury.

As per the ethnographer, both the New Year and several national holidays were twisted out of context after the Armenian Genocide and under the ex-Soviet rule.

In Rafik Nahapetyan’s words, the present-day obsession of “flooding” the New Year tables with various dishes is a novelty of the recent decades.

The ethnographer added that there is some tension these days when celebrating the New Year because the wealthy welcome it in with opulence, whereas the poor borrow money to celebrate it.

Rafik Nahapetyan concluded that the New Year has turned from a ritual to cleanse souls and bodies into a made-up race of lavishness

Source: news.am