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• Beauty Business: Nose and breast plastic surgeries gain popularity in Armenia

It's well known that Middle Eastern people sport the biggest noses - yet they have the smallest coffee cups. And it's a fact that Jewish people have the biggest noses of all the ethnic groups (because the air is free). Armenian women who have surgery for big noses are going to look like scarecrows when they reach the age of 30, because plastic surgery cannot adjust to skin growth and that i...

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According to Armen Hovhannisyan, Head of the Plastic Surgery Department at Erebuni Medical Center, the main factors for the increased number of plastic surgeries are the improved living conditions and trust towards plastic surgeons.

“The desire to be more beautiful has always existed: the demand rises in the whole world, including Armenia. However, the desire to be beautiful often becomes extreme,” says Hovhannisyan, who also chairs the Plastic Surgeons Association in Armenia.

“Young pretty girls come with photos of Jennifer Lopes and Pamela Anderson in their hands, and want to have similar features. We explain to them that it is not correct to do that. Any surgery, be it on the face or breast, should be performed taking into account body proportions so that harmony is kept,” Hovhannisyan adds.

The number of breast surgeries, too, has increased in Armenia – whereas in 2005 there was only one case of such surgery, then in 2009 the number exceeded 100.

Ashot Zargaryan, a plastic and aesthetic surgeon at Nairi Medical Center, who has been trained in the best foreign clinics, says that breast surgery is safe and cannot result in breast cancer if the body has no inclinations for it.

Breast surgery in Nairi Medical Center with the best implants, meeting international quality standards, costs $2,500, which is five-ten times less expensive than in foreign countries. An esthetic nose surgery costs $700-$1,000 in Armenia.

According to the doctor, plastic surgeries may have complications and grave consequences. (According to the RA Statistical Service, two people died after a nose surgery in the past two years.)

“Any surgery may have complications, and a patient must be informed about all possible consequences and complications,” says Karen Danielyan, Head of the Department of Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery and Microsurgery at Kanaker-Zeytun Medical Center. Since 2003, he has been holding ‘The Most Armenian Nose’ contest, where the winner gets a chance to undergo a free nose surgery, the holder of the second place gets a 50-percent discount, and other participants – a 25-percent discount.