Lady Gaga... Unzipped

Few days ago I bought NME magazine with Lady Gaga on cover. No need to guess the front page headline... Lady Gaga Unzipped :))) Could not resist it. Don’t judge :)

Yerevan diaries: Flight menu, ‘public health’ paper, mysterious Armenian in-flight-travel-non-magazines

I liked seeing three-language (English-Georgian-Armenian) menu on a BMI flight to London. This might not be something new, and may be available on other foreign flights too, but for me it was the first time to be able to read an on-flight menu in Armenian on a foreign aircraft flying to Yerevan. I have to admit, that although translation was done OK, if I were to read only Armenian version of the menu, I would have been confused as to quite a few important ingredients on offer as we do not normally use those Armenian equivalents in our every-day conversation. So this was a learning experience too :)
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They distributed a ‘public health’ paper on board. I knew that it was related to swine flu, but almost no one including flight attendants could provide any clarifications as to what that paper was about, they just mentioned that this is for “public health”, and asked people to sign. It was very poorly constructed one-page document, which did not even ask if anyone has any symptoms or so. They simply ask for contact numbers so that Department of Health in Armenia will contact passengers in case they determine a case. No wonder, many did not fill it in, and upon arrival no one asked me to hand the paper in. Only accidentally someone noticed a paper I was holding, when passing a passport control, and was surprised that no one upstairs collected it. So much about ‘strict’ swine flu prevention measures at Yerevan airport.
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Although I’ve heard from others, including friends, that (contrary to my experiences) Armenian magazines are available on BMI flights, I could not see any this time too. No sign of In-flight or other magazines telling passengers about Armenia, travel guides etc. If they were there, they were very well hidden indeed...

James Russell’s commentary on Charents homoerotic poetry and more

... We are lucky that never before published homoerotic poetry by Armenia’s cultural icon Yeghishe Charents did not reach Soviet style 'Charents specialists', and thanks to James Russell and some others we now have Charents unzipped. (For more background info, read Yeghishe Charents unzipped – nation’s favourite gay poet)

There were stormy discussions in Armenian literary circles following a publication by Inknagir magazine of gay-themed poems by Charents. In response to this ‘controversy’, with the kind permission of the author, I posted on Unzipped: Gay Armenia a copy of James Russell’s letter to the readers of Inknagir magazine. James Russell is a professor of Armenian Studies at Harvard University. He is the author of number of Armenia related works, covering history, religion and literature. He has a special interest in the great Armenian poet Yeghishe Charents.

Read it here.

Yeghishe Charents unzipped – nation’s favourite gay Armenian poet

One of the greatest, most prominent, nation’s favourite Armenian poet… These are only few of epithets widely used to describe Yeghishe Charents.

Armenians are proud of their famous representatives. They are proud of Parajanov, they are proud of Charents...

Still, only minority is aware of Parajanov’s sexuality. Even less people, very few in fact, are aware that their favourite poet is gay. It’s not ordinary Armenians’ fault. They simply do not know. It’s a classic example of hypocrisy of those in literary circles or so who for decades shut out this fact from his biography. Luckily, we have taboo breaking literary Inqnagir magazine (editor Violet Grigoryan), and we have taboo breaking journalists/writers like Vahan Ishkhanyan, who never shy away from tackling ‘difficult’ subjects, minority issues, alternative scene. I would also add here Armeniapedia which was the first Armenian online publication to post a list of famous LGBT Armenians.

Vahan Ishkhanyan is working with ArmeniaNow. Recently he started blogging on Tert.am. I recommend his blog (in Armenian).

In his latest entry, Vahan Ishkhanyan writes about hypocrisy in Armenian literary circles and gay Charents posting an extract from never before published in Armenia gay-themed poem by Yeghishe Charents. Full story with gay-themed poems by Charents are available in Inqnagir literary magazine (5th edition). It’s not available online yet, but you may get its printed copy.

*For more details - Unzipped: Gay Armenia

**Portrait of Yeghishe Charents by Martiros Saryan