Ararat-73 and “Apricot Socialism”

2026-02-12 - 09:36

Listen to the AI generated audio article. Your browser does not support the audio element. Ararat-73: When Football Forged Armenian Pride A Russian-made film titled “Golden Double” is arriving in Armenian cinemas. The film dramatizes FC Ararat Yerevan’s legendary 1973 season. It is an interesting choice of topic, given the current state of Russian-Armenian relations. Many Armenians feel betrayed by Russia, so this film may seem like a last-minute attempt at soft power. However, production of the film began long ago, and the film was most likely conceived as an homage to the legendary team rather than soft power. Whatever the case, it’s worth remembering what “Ararat-73” was and what made it famous. Ararart-73 holds such importance for Armenians that in October 2016, a bronze monument to the team was unveiled — life-sized statues of the squad cradling a replica USSR Champions Cup. It isn’t the only memorial to Ararat-73. There is another one in the village of Agarak in Aragatsotn and even a bestselling book released in 2023, called Ararat-73: The Golden Age of Armenian Football, by Suren Baghdasaryan, a former TV and radio commentator who covered most of the legendary team’s matches in 1973. The book includes detailed match reports, player interviews and memoirs from FC Ararat Yerevan’s glory days. Its success was followed by a book from Georgian historian Davit Jishkariani on Dinamo Tbilisi, the club that played much the same role for Soviet Georgia as Ararat played for Soviet Armenia. Another perspective comes from Arsen Kakosyan’s The Night After Football: A Supporter’s Diary, first published in Russian in 1974 and reissued in Armenian in 2023, capturing the fervor from the stands. Why honor an almost 50-year-old football squad with bronze statues and books? Why does Ararat-73 loom so large in the Armenian psyche? To understand this, we need to understand the context in which Ararat played: late Soviet Armenia, a period some scholars have called “Apricot Socialism”. Armenia had no national team then, it was still a Soviet republic, not an independent state. Yet Ararat’s double victory ignited a fire that burns decades later. Ararat became more than a club: it was a rallying cry for national identity. And as the collapse of the USSR brought difficult times, Ararat-73 also became a memory of the relatively comfortable life under late socialism. Ararat Yerevan: The Poster Child of “Apricot Socialism” The Ararat-73 phenomenon emerged from the convergence of sport, Armenian national sentiment and Soviet policy. The connection between sport, especially football, and national identity is well established. As scholar Eric Hobsbawm observed, sport is a “uniquely effective medium” in which “the imagined community of millions seems more real as a team of eleven named people.” In imperial and multi-ethnic states like the USSR, football carried even greater weight. There is still no consensus on what the Soviet Union ultimately was: an oppressive colonial empire or a voluntary association of nations pursuing a shared socialist project. The truth likely lies somewhere in between. Scholars such as Vahakn Dadrian, Ronald Suny and Razmik Panossian have examined the relationship between Soviet nationalities policy and Armenian identity. What emerged was what some describe as a “Second Republic” — not an independent state, but a political entity with many of its attributes. Particularly in