Tonight my fiancé and I decided to go out for dinner and went to the Eastern Cuisine on Gomidas.

After a nice meal and being overcharged for the Fatush salad, which the price on the menu was 500 drams, but they charged us 700 dram (not a big deal and since I was not in the mood I didn’t say anything), we went for a walk.

Right next door to Eastern Cuisine is a restaurant called something like Golden Star. Outside of their entrance was a woman who had a child under the age of 5 in her arms and she was begging to the customers for bread for her and her 3 orphaned children.

One of the customers came out and gave to her some bread as we were walking by her. After we passed her two older children who were watching her mother beg, I heard some commotion and turned to see some larger man wearing a black shirt strike the woman and pushed her towards the street.

I turned back to see what he was going to do next and I guess since he noticed us watching and didn’t further physically touch her, but they did exchange a few words before he went back inside the restaurant and she continued to beg.

So here is a sample of the real condition of Armenia today and what one can expect to see outside a fancy restaurant.