YEREVAN — U.S. reality TV star Kim Kardashian received a rapturous welcome in her ancestors' homeland, Armenia, on a visit that could draw attention to the 100th anniversary of mass killings of Armenians in 1915.
Hundreds of fans greeted Kardashian, her rapper husband Kanye West, their child North West and Kardashian's sister Khloe Kardashian in the capital Yerevan on Wednesday night.
"Armenia we are here!!!!! We are so grateful to be here & start this journey of a lifetime! Thank you to everyone who greeted us!" Kardashian wrote on her Instagram account.
"I can't wait to explore our country and have some yummy food!" added the star of the reality show "Keeping Up With the Kardashians."
The famous sisters met with Armenia's prime minister:
Kardashian has made no mention of the mass killings of Armenians by Ottoman soldiers in World War One but some fans hoped the visit would put the spotlight on anniversary events on April 24. Some Western historians and some foreign parliaments call the mass killings genocide.
"On Facebook and other social media, there are maybe tens of millions of people, not Armenians (who follow her)," said a middle-aged man, who did not give his name, outside Kardashian's hotel in Yerevan.
"If they get informed about genocide, what and who we are, what happened to us, I think it will have a positive impact anyway," he said.
Muslim Turkey accepts many Christian Armenians died in partisan fighting beginning in 1915 but denies that up to 1.5 million were killed and that it amounted to genocide.
