Summary
Part 1: The transformations of the Social Culture in the Soviet and Post-Soviet Yerevan
Aghasi Z. Tadevosyan
As the capital city of the Soviet republic, Yerevan has acquired and performed some important functions. Among the imperative functions, the first was the transformation of the Armenian national culture to the Soviet Armenian one, the second was the integration of the Armenians with the Soviet Union, and the third, blocking the western bits and pieces by the Soviet Armenian national culture. In accomplishment of especially the latter task, an active role was given to close male groups in the neighborhoods. Due to the formation of open youth and intellectual social groups in the center of Yerevan, this uni-dimensional feature of urban culture was partially broken in 1970-1980s. Today, the realization of new functions of Yerevan is incomplete and the social culture of the post-soviet period is searching for and changing the discourses, related to the spatial organization of the city. Although this process is resisted by the close groups of nowadays, especially some oligarchic groups, who deem the public space of the city as an exclusively business environment, it steadily progresses due to the new open youth environments.