Re. Armenian armorers.
The majority of them worked as jewelers, Papov being the ultimate example. Blades were mainly produced by Daghestani and Tiflis masters and sold to workshops.
There are some clearly Armenian blades with Armenian inscriptions, but they are often over-embellished with almost kitschy inlays and koft decorations and personally I do not like them. Pure IMHO.
Exceptions: we do not know for certain whether Eliarov was Georgian or Armenian or whether Purunsuzov or Master Khachatur made their own blades. They worked relatively early in the 19 century, and most of the splendid kindjals and shashkas available to us date much later, when the entire field was captured by large and medium sized workshops mass producing generic products with rather faceless appearance . The role of bladed weapons in warfare plummeted at that time and they became part of a wardrobe, status symbols and souvenirs.
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