Everyone wants to be an Azat Mard

In late August of 2025, I found a place to nomad for a while in Armenia, in its capital city, Yerevan. An edge-country with civilizational depth… a living argument for resilience… exactly the kind of place the Nomadic Parkinson’s Dispatch was built to notice.

In Armenia, there is a popularly advertised undercurrent that has gained traction in the past few years. If you get around town in Yerevan for any length of time, you begin to notice men and women wearing shirts, hats, hoodies, tattoos, and other accoutrements that proclaim “Azat Mard”. It was on posters, ads, and local magazine articles that talked about different individuals being “the original Azat Mard”. It was fairly ubiquitous if you kept your eyes open for any period of time.

Everyone wants to be an Azat Mard - especially anyone trying to remain free inside real constraints.

Azat Mard means “free man” or “free person,” and it is not hard to imagine why Armenians are making this term a dominant brush stroke of their modern zeitgeist. The Caucasus region has been at a particularly dynamic geographic crossroads for most of human history and has been in the crosshairs of invaders, kings, dictators, and warlords almost continually. Even part of the Silk Road traversed Armenia.

Consider even now the neighborhood they live in: Turkey massacred and later genocided Armenians in waves of violence, including the Hamidian massacres of 1894-1896 and the Armenian genocide of 1915-1916, with the broader destruction and displacement of Armenians throughout Anatolia continuing into the early 1920s. Azerbaijan, immediately to the east, has had an active border dispute with Armenia for decades, which has resulted in the loss of many soldiers on both sides- still a very fresh wound. Iran, to the south, as Persia, used to possess them in ancient times; that has become a strange bedfellow, especially since Persia was converted by the sword to Islam. Armenia remained steadfastly the first state to adopt Christianity, traditionally dated to 301 CE. Georgia, to the north, hasn’t bothered them, but Russia sure as hell did when Stalin brought them into the clutches of the Soviets. But then again, Joseph Stalin was Georgian.

Assyrians, Achaemenid Persians, Seleucids, Byzantines, Sassanian Persians, Arab caliphates, Seljuk Turks, Mongols, Ottomans, and Russians… all wanted to have themselves some Armenia. As it turns out, I wanted my own piece of Armenia too, intellectually, you know what I mean…

There’s just something about saying you’re a free person, no matter where you go. It’s baked into the American zeitgeist too, and as a nomad, it’s an ethos I can certainly appreciate. Everyone wants to be an Azat Mard - especially anyone trying to remain free inside real constraints. For me, this wasn’t just travel; it was a field test of how much freedom a person with Parkinson’s can still preserve.

People frequently ask me, “Why Armenia?” That is a fair question because it’s a little off the beaten path when it comes to travel spots. Chiefly, I’m not interested in an all-inclusive vacation somewhere. I want to go to interesting and unique places that aren’t Disney-fied, overly commercialized, crawling with tourists, or reeking of a Sandals-resort type of departure from reality. I want to see places that are emerging from the margins of a timeless but unforgotten book. Armenia is a place like that.

Armenia makes it easy for American slow travelers these days: Show up with a passport and you’re good for 180 days per year. Furthermore, I was able to reset my timeline with a couple trips to Georgia, however this may not be something to count on. I acquired a few Armenian language skills while I was there, which helped; however, I ran into many people who were eager or semi-capable of speaking English. Also, the prices are cheap compared to most American cities, by far. The food is fantastic, with plenty of great fresh produce… my only complaint was the price of fish in such a landlocked country. Lastly, it really helped that I had an American friend who lives there part of the year who helped me become familiar with where to get things, and how to generally operate in their culture- this cannot be understated!

I mentioned it previously, but Armenia became “officially” Christian in 301 CE (traditionally, some say 314 CE), making it widely regarded as the first state to adopt Christianity. Their language is prehistoric, an independent branch of the Indo-European family, with no living sister language. It’s not a sub-branch of Greek, Slavic, Iranian, or Germanic. That said, Armenian has seen significant contact influence, including Iranian influence, while still remaining its own distinct branch.

In my earlier dispatch, “Rethinking Travel, after Diagnosis” I listed several of the things that require forethought and management prior to doing slow travel with Parkinson’s. They were:

• Distance and time away from your neurologist, motion disorder specialist, or care team.

• Being away from your gym or workout group or location.

• Concern that your sleep hygiene will be compromised.

• Your prescription drug supplier.

• Support network concerns.

As Parkinson’s combatants, the above list represents a few things that nearly all of us, in time, will become more dependent upon. And, as I mentioned in that prior travel dispatch, these items are the primary limiting factors to manage in a slow-travel/nomadic lifestyle, not counting any non-Parkinson’s travel limitations you may individually have, of course. These are the things that, if not managed carefully, may limit or constrain any prolonged, slow-travel Azat Marding that you may want to do.

I carefully considered the possibility of remaining in Armenia longer, but I ran into at least one of the above variables limiting a more prolonged stay. Anyone traveling with Parkinson’s or any other sensitive health condition will need to consider these components and how significantly each one affects their individual condition. For me, I had most of these items sufficiently covered except for one: the prescription drug supplier (THIS topic alone warrants its own separate dispatch and will be forthcoming soon).

That being said, I successfully captured my own piece of Armenia, intellectually and artistically anyways, and I was ready to move on to another canvas. I was able to be my own Azat Mard in Armenia, doing the slow-travel routine for seven months. But logistically, I needed to depart. Seven months was a strong showing, and I was able to create a very decent equilibrium as a nomad, fitness devotee, and dispatch writer.

Everyone wants to be an Azat Mard, especially those of us fighting daily with the Leviathan. The good news is that we have more agency than most of us admit! If you exercise aggressively and fight this holistically with diet and sleep, it’s not absurd to consider the slow-travel routine if you are relatively early in your progression AND IF you find ways to fulfill those variables I listed above, if even for a few months. This is how we hold back the Leviathan and continue to live life to the fullest.

This is the Nomadic Parkinson’s Dispatch.