I'm not Armenian, but I have been there a lot and speak the language, and I just want to ask or suggest that those guys were probably not Armenian. Probably Russian, or some other former USSR ethnicity. (Indeed, you heard them speaking Russian.) They could have been Armenian (lots of Armenians speak Russian), but probably not. In general, Armenia's got one of the lowest violent crime rates anywhere in the world, and I would feel totally comfortable letting my daughters (when they're grown) travel alone around Armenia.