The resulting Syrian-Armenian restaurants have taken Yerevan by storm, providing an uptick in spice and complexity with a mix of Syrian classics and Western Armenian dishes. I ate in three. The first and most obscure was a tiny lunch spot called Halepi Chasher. (That spelling might be inexact; the sign and the menu were only in Armenian script, but it means “Dishes from Aleppo.” The restaurant is tricky to find even by address, because it’s not on a street: this is its approximate location.)

Many dishes sounded familiar when the waitress read them aloud: falafel, for example, and fattoush, a traditional Levantine salad. But mante did not. Luckily, I went for it, and it turned out to be a devastatingly delicious soup of broth, tomato and sour cream studded with crispy, tiny boat-shaped meat dumplings. I later ate with Armenian friends-of-friends at Derian Kebab, a far livelier spot with an English menu and glorious meats. My final night in Yerevan I went alone to a higher-end place called Anteb. (All these meals were cheap; “higher end” means I spent about 4,850 dram, about $10.)

Image Soldiers march at the Tsitsernakaberd Memorial, dedicated to those killed in the Armenian genocide of 1915. Credit... Seth Kugel for The New York Times

I had to be told that Anteb referred to Gaziantep, Turkey: and that the city had been a center of the Ottoman Armenian population. My mind started whirring. I had been to Gaziantep four years ago on a mundane but wonderful mission to write about pistachios. I had never even considered that the conservative Muslim city had once been largely Armenian Christian. I still think about that trip often; now I will think about it more.

Soviet Armenia

More than drab Soviet architecture and a corny amusement park in Victory Park, it was a curious museum that brought Soviet-era Armenia into sharp relief — a museum about a filmmaker whose exhibitions had little to do with film. The Sergei Parajanov Museum celebrates the Armenian director whose best-known work is “The Color of Pomegranates,” released in 1969 and well-received around the world. (Obviously, I hadn’t heard of it.)

His life span (1924 to 1990) mirrors, almost precisely, the existence of the Soviet Union (1922 to 1991), and his successes and struggles — ably explained by an English-speaking guide for 2,500 dram — seemed intimately associated with it. An Armenian born in Georgia and trained in Ukraine, his filmmaking was regularly disrupted by the Soviet government and authorities eventually imprisoned him from 1974 to 1977 for his work and outspokenness, though the official charges included homosexuality and trafficking of artwork..

Our guide explained that Parajanov channeled creativity that was stifled in his films toward his collages, which he made out of just about anything from hairpins to dolls to ladies hats to religious items. If you value creativity and mold-breaking over technique, you’ll like this place. Parajanov even used nails and foil yogurt caps to make portraits of his fellow inmates in prison, and they’re darn good.