The paper is devoted to the history of Armenian student world in St. Petersburg on the edge of the 19th-20th centuries. The research focuses on facts from the biographies of young people from Armenian families who originally lived in the capital or arrived in St. Petersburg for higher education. The life path, the origin, the fact of maintaining family ties, the motivation for coming to the capital and the choice of a specialty, participation in public, revolutionary and national activities are the markers with which the article analyzes the peculiarities of the identity of some representatives of Armenian youth. The main sources for the paper are the personal files of the Armenian students of higher educational institutions of St. Petersburg, most of which were introduced for the first time into scientific circulation.