In the end, “Conan in Armenia” is more than just comedy abroad. It’s a story of friendship and empathy set in a country that gets very little exposure on American television. As “Armenpress” reports, Liz Ohanesian wrote about the aforementioned in pastemagazine.com, when commenting on Conan O’Brien’s and his assistant Sona Movsesian’s visit to Armenia.
“Like Sona, I’m of Armenian descent, but have never traveled to the country and call Los Angeles home. For those of us who share this heritage, Armenia is a destination, maybe not to live, but definitely to visit. It is a physical homeland for a people who were nearly wiped off the earth during the 1915 Genocide,” Liz Ohanesian writes, telling that “Conan in Armenia” essentially tells two, intertwined stories. There’s the story of Conan, who is entering both a culture and a place that is foreign to him, and the story of Sona, who has grown up with the culture, but hasn’t been to the place of its origins.
“Near the end of the episode, Conan and Sona visit the Armenian Genocide memorial. Conan briefly explains the Genocide, which happened a century ago, before the camera follows Sona through the memorial. Sona tears up as she shares the story of her grandparents and finds the name of her family’s home village carved in stone. This segment is crucial for contextualizing the trip. It explains why there is a diaspora, and why a trip to Armenia is something of a pilgrimage for ethnic Armenians across the globe,” Liz Ohanesian writes.
