YEREVAN. - Ancient Armenians, in all likelihood, were celebrating New Year in spring, ethnographer Lilit Simonyan told the reporter of Armenian News-NEWS.am.

According to her, that was because spring symbolizes the rebirth of nature.

Talking about the possible connection between the spring New Year and the vernal equinox she said Armenians were likely not to have a certain day for celebrating New Year.

“Solstice is not a phase of the Moon which is visible to the naked eye, it would have been necessary to calculate that day and for that special studies would be needed. More likely, in the people’s mind New Year was connected to a certain natural phenomenon.”

Commenting on young Armenian pagans who have recently started to celebrate New Year in spring Lilith Simonyan said they can hardly be called pagans.

“It is just a trend having political background, nothing more,” she said.