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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;Troodon, post: 362508, member: 4626&quot;]It was still a persistant stereotype during Impreial Russia that French was a more civilized and cultured language than Russian... Russian was fine for day to day business but anything official or educated should be conducted in French.&nbsp; Some poets and authors tried to fight that convention from time to time but it held pretty much until the Soviet Revolution.</p><p><br /></p><p>Probably as good an explanation as any though few Armenians had any more desire to be ruled by the Russians than by the Ottomans or anyone else.&nbsp; They wouldn&#039;t regain independence again until the Soviet Union broke up.&nbsp; So it seems odd that they&#039;d bother to uphold the convention... Russian made sense in a way, as there were many Russian speaking people in or near Armenia at the time, but I&#039;m not sure why they&#039;d bother with the French unless it was just for the sake of European visitors or a preference by the banknote company.&nbsp; Maybe they wanted to appear cultured to the Russians and upheld the convention for that reason, I guess that&#039;s possible.&nbsp; Could just be possible that next to Armenian and Russian, French would be the next most unbderstood language in the region (though by that rationale Turkish would make as much sense, if not for justified political reasons not to want to have Turkish on their bills of course.)&nbsp; Anyone know for sure?[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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