No cracking on the metro

Today I took the metro and while sitting on a bench waiting for the metro to show up, a man in his early fifties came and sat by me, joined a minute later by a younger man.

As we waited, the men were talking and looking over a register, discussing what was written in it.

At some point, a couple of boys of maybe 15 or 16 walk by us eating something that looked and sounded to be sunflower seeds.

Before the boys were out of earshot, the older man called out to the boys saying in a very genital yet mature tone, “Dear boy, cracking [sunflower-seeds] is not allowed” (dugha jan, chi gareli chukheh).

The boy turned to the man and with a respectful tone told him he was not eating sunflower seeds, but chestnuts and was not littering, but keeping the shells.

Witnessing this very civilized encounter between young and old gave me a very warm feeling and made me think that there really is hope that Armenia does have the potential to once again have a civil society.