After a semester in Armenia, Peter and Susie Toumanoff are back home in Hancock to tell their story.
Peter, a retired professor of economics at Marquette University, was named a Fulbright Scholar to teach in the Armenian capital Yerevan.
“The students were smart,” he said. “They asked good questions; they understood English really well.”
The two lived in Yerevan from February to May 2016, and traveled throughout the region to historical sites in Armenia as well as Georgia and Turkey.
He taught Econometrics and gave individual lectures.
Toumanoff’s talk at the Hancock Town Library covered Armenian history dating back to 860 B.C., and even further, with references to the Book of Genesis.
He spoke deeply about how his family history ties into the nation’s, citing his paternal grandparents’ memoirs.
They fled the region when Toumanoff’s father was only four years old, entering the United States through Ellis Island. His grandfather came to own a turkey farm in Hancock, which is the land he lives on to this day.
When in Armenia, he experienced the full spectrum of local culture.
They lived near an opera house (which was featured on The Amazing Race) and took in the fine arts there.
They also rode along rugged roads and crumbling infrastructure, knowing not to take certain routes that may be guarded by enemy snipers.
He really does want others to visit Armenia, but cannot help but remember what he was told as a kid, to finish his dinner because of the “starving children in Armenia.”
“This is what they’re talking about,” he said he remembers thinking. “The orphans, the starvation, the poverty.”
Brandon Latham can be reached at 924-7172, ext 228.