Country of Dust is a narrative podcast whose mission is to tell, “the stories of life in a changing Armenia. We are Armenia’s first narrative podcast.”
Rising Like a Phoenix is an episode from their second season. In it, Gigi Aries is a drag queen, and she and her friends have been busy. A few years ago, you couldn’t see drag anywhere, but now there are monthly shows with lines around the block. There’s still a huge divide between what you can do at these underground events, and what is acceptable on the streets of Yerevan. But Gigi believes that drag can change Armenia.
Listen to the episode on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, their website, everywhere you stream your podcasts, or scroll down and listen right now!
Country of Dust launched in 2020 and is produced by Nyree Abrahamian, Jeremy Dalmas, and Gohar Khachatryan.
Our show’s name comes from the poem, “Փոշի Ազգ” (“The Country of Dust”) by Vahan Tekeyan. Tekeyan wrote the poem in the aftermath of the Armenian Genocide, but when we came across it a few years ago, it felt like it could have been written for us, today. The poem ends on a hopeful note:
Դիզուէ. փոշին լոկ այդպէս պիտի նորէն քար ըլլայ…
“Accumulate. Dust consolidates into stone.”
About Country of Dust
