“No Service for US Citizens”

This is a protest action by the owner of this central Yerevan kiosk. “No Service for US Citizens” says the notice on the kiosk.

Tert.am quotes him as saying that this is to protest US embassy’s routine rejections of visas to Armenian citizens. This action is not directed against US citizens per se, he continues, but rather the US embassy officer who can simply say: «... You will leave and won’t come back». That's all. “A presumption of guilt” here without any justifications or explanations provided. And there is nothing you can do about it...

A very familiar story for many Armenian citizens who dealt with the US embassy in Yerevan.

A Girl's War: An Armenian-Azeri Love Story (theatre play)

Long before Artush and Zaur, there was this fascinating (based on description) award winning theatre play by Armenian-American playwright Joyce Van Dyke. This is a taboo breaking heterosexual love story between Armenian and Azerbaijani against the backdrop of Karabakh war. I wish I could see the play. May be they could submit it for the annual HayFest international theatre festival in Yerevan which is known for alternative, thought-provoking plays (to be held on 1-10 October this year).

For details - Unzipped: Gay Armenia

Letter to the Ombudsman: Armenian opposition challenges constitutionality of declaring state of emergency on 1 March 2008

Armenian opposition challenges constitutionality of declaring state of emergency on 1 March 2008, referring to the “irrefutable evidence” of using army to settle internal political crisis, in breach of Armenia’s Constitution. In a letter to the human rights Ombudsman, released over the last hour or so, opposition Armenian National Congress calls Armenian Ombudsman to take the case to the Constitutional Court of Armenia and challenge the constitutionality of the presidential decree.

Letter to the Ombudsman in full (in Armenian) is provided in the comments section below.

Yerevan-2 for Tbilisi?

Burjanadze Calls on Senior Officials to Defect from Saakashvili
Civil.ge

Nino Burjanadze, former parliamentary speaker and leader of Democratic Movement–United Georgia party, called on senior political officials “to distance yourselves from the criminal government.”

“Your resignations would contribute to peaceful and safe completion of the current processes,” she said in a statement on February 19, referring to her calls for President Saakashvili’s resignation and holding of early presidential elections.

She also called on the public sector workers not to obey “dirty orders” of the authorities and instead to continue serving “only people and not the odd ambitions of President Saakashvili.”

“We believe that all the professionals and patriots should remain in the service of Georgia, irrespective of their political preferences. Only those civil servants should be held accountable who were involved in the criminal activities,” Burjanadze said.

On February 17 Burjanadze called on the opposition parties to “consolidate” and jointly pressure President Saakashvili to resign through protest rallies.

Prime Minister of Armenia Tigran Sargsyan writes…

I must confess, other than glancing, I did not have time to read prime minister’s articles, but what a titles, eh?

The End of the State
How to make a revolution happen?!
Challenges of the 21st century

They are available on government’s website:
http://www.gov.am/en/articles

“If we want to build a bright future we must learn to dream!!!” – says Tigran Sargsyan as a conclusion to his article “Challenges of the 21st century”. I am all dreams, prime minister!

Yerevan, block 16

"Perestroika era abandoned plot"

Block 16
Yerevan, Armenia

A visually dramatic part of the city, where construction of a housing block was stopped during perestroika after it turned out that the quality of material being used was very poor.

*source: Abitare - international design magazine

PACE: Armenian authorities should fully respect the principle of freedom of assembly

Last year, in June, to 'justify' banning opposition rallies in Liberty sq, Armenian authorities set up the 'amusement park', or 'children's park', there. Someone(s) is lacking originality and imagination, and it's time for a déjà vu. Yerevan municipality refused to authorise the rally in central Yerevan (outside the Matenadaran institute of ancient manuscripts) citing already planned 'little Matenadarantsi', a 'children's event', there. They went further banning the rally on Northern avenue too.

They also said there’s an “expert conclusion” stating the rally on Northern Avenue might “endanger the health and security of the people due to ongoing construction works there. (Now that one’s funny - I haven’t seen any traces of construction there for months!)

To complete this picture, below is a statement issued today by infamous Prescott & Colombier of PACE.

Strasbourg, 17.02.2009 - John Prescott and Georges Colombier , co-rapporteurs on Armenia 's monitoring for the Parliamenatry Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE), expressed their concern about the refusal of the authorities to allow the Armenian National Congress (HAK) to organise a peaceful rally in Central Yerevan on 1 March 2009. They stressed that the Assembly has on several occasions called upon the authorities to fully respect the principle of freedom of assembly in Armenia and not to place undue restrictions, especially with regard to the requested venues, upon peaceful rallies organised by the opposition. In their view , the possibility for all political forces to organise peaceful rallies is an essential component of democracy and therefore call upon the authorities to allow such peaceful rallies to take place unimpeded in the requested venues. (PACE)

"Be Free": My respects to Armenian pop star Shprot!!

Why?

Read my post on Unzipped: Gay Armenia

*photo - via 168 Zham

Poor choice of song for Inga and Anush Arshakyan to represent Armenia in Eurovision 2009

For details - Unzipped: Gay Armenia

Naked men in downtown Yerevan… to mark Valentine’s day

To mark Valentine’s day, Brabion Flora Service in Yerevan initiated an unprecedented PR action. They announced that all men who will be at their flora salon at 2 pm local time in swimwear or underwear only, will get a free bouquet. The organisers expected 1 or 2 men to turn up, but there were 10 or so there.

This is unprecedented since it’s not every day you could see naked Armenian men in downtown Yerevan. In fact, this is the first time that something like this is organised in Armenia. Well done to all those brave Armenian men who did not care what others would say and did what they wanted to do. Well done to organisers too. That’s what I call Valentine’s day in Yerevan ;)

*For more details, read A1+ story here (in Armenian)
**photos – Photolur, via A1+

“Being religious” is getting out of hand in Georgia

In Armenia, this trend is still more at the level of “showing off”: building ‘private’ churches, references to God and bible… In Georgia, this trend evolved into something much more serious and worrisome, to the dangerously bizarre extent.

Below are selected lines from the EurasiaNet report Georgia: Faith Is The Fashion, As Church Influence Soars:

Nearly two decades after the collapse of the Soviet Union, the Georgian Orthodox Church has become one of the most prominent actors in Georgia’s social and political life. […]

The church’s rising influence is also reflected in polls. In 2003, 38.6 percent of 1,000 respondents in a survey conducted for Tbilisi’s International Center on Conflict and Resolution named the patriarchy as Georgia’s most trustworthy institution. By 2008, the number had jumped to 86.6 percent. […]

"Let’s say [it] openly: Today it is unthinkable to ignore a personal request from the patriarch, Ilia II, because his authority is tremendous." […]

Meanwhile, on the streets of Tbilisi, public expressions of faith are becoming ever more commonplace. Pedestrians and drivers alike routinely stop in front of churches -- or within sight of a church -- to cross themselves. Small shops selling icons and religious paraphernalia are multiplying rapidly. A clerk at one such shop in central Tbilisi estimated that some 100-150 customers now visit her store each day.

"To be faithful . . . has become fashionable," concluded sociologist Nijaradze. "It has become the social norm."

“Artush and Zaur” – gay love story between Armenian and Azerbaijani published in Baku

Alekper Aliyev, editor-in-chief of kultura.az, has published, as he put it, his “most scandalous” novel “Artush and Zaur” in Baku. It’s a gay love story between an Azeri and Armenian, a sort of partial deconstruction of "Ali and Nino" (a heterosexual love story of Azeri Ali and Georgian Nino) having instead Azeri and Armenian male lovers against the backdrop of the emerging Karabakh conflict.

For details - see Unzipped: Gay Armenia

Charles Aznavour: “I am a free man and cannot lose my freedom for an honorary post”

UPDATE (12 February 2009): No longer a "free man", 'changed his mind', accepted... (see comments section below)

Says Charles Aznavour: “I am a free man. I was proposed by the president of Armenia a position of the Ambassador to Geneva, and I was absolutely flattered. That day I went to bed happy, but when I woke up I realised that if accepted I would lose my freedom. If I did not like any decision of the Armenian government, I would feel bad. I cannot lose my freedom for an honorary post.”

Interview with El Pais (via RFE/RL)

The rise of Russia's neo-nazi

Luke Harding of San Francisco Sentinel details the rise of Russia's neo-nazi movement, providing (among others) a chilling account of the murder of ethnic Armenian by one of those groups in Moscow.


By LUKE HARDING

San Francisco Sentinel

It was 9.10pm and Karen Abramian was returning home to his flat in southwest Moscow. Abramian had been visiting his parents in a nearby tower block. His journey back took five minutes - past a series of grey high-rise buildings soaring into Moscow’s packed skyline and a children’s playground, and up a modest flight of steps. As he punched in the entrance code, two young men, one wearing a baseball cap and one a bandana, approached him from behind. And then they stabbed him. They stabbed him again - methodically slashing his head, neck, back and stomach. Abramian pleaded with his attackers. “Don’t do this. Please take my money,” he begged them. His assailants - two slight, boyish, almost nerdish figures - ignored him, stabbing him 56 times. At this moment, Abramian’s wife Marta peered out of their ninth-floor apartment window and spotted two boys beating a dark shape lying on the ground. The couple’s 14-year-old son Georgy, who had been playing nearby, found his father in the entrance, bleeding profusely. Georgy took off his T-shirt (it was April, still winter in Russia, and bitterly cold), wrapped it around his father and ran upstairs. Abramian was conscious when Georgy came back with a blanket and pillow. Georgy wrapped his father in it and they waited in the gloom for an ambulance. Abramian told his son simply: “They were skinheads.” Four hours later, in the early hours of 17 April 2007, Abramian was dead. Doctors had been unable to stem the colossal loss of blood.

The names of Abramian’s killers are Artur Ryno and Pavel Skachevsky, both 17. Their motive for murdering Abramian, the 46-year-old boss of a Moscow insurance company, was ideological. As they saw it, Abramian’s violent death was part of a national liberation movement - an ambitious, quasi-mystical struggle to get rid of Russia’s foreigners, in which they played the role of hero-warriors. The boys had picked Abramian because he was an ethnic Armenian. But his murder was an act of random racist violence: Ryno and Skachevsky spotted him on the street and decided impulsively to kill him. They were apprehended by a neighbour who witnessed the attack and ran after them. They insouciantly escaped on the number 26 tram, but the neighbour, a former investigator, flagged down a passing police Lada and gave chase. Police officers halted the tram and arrested both boys. Ryno and Skachevsky had turned their blood-soaked overcoats inside out; their victim, however, had managed to grab one of them by the arm, leaving behind a bloody print. They made no attempt to disguise their crime; on the contrary, they were proud of it. In their rucksack, detectives discovered 10in knives. In custody, investigators asked Ryno and Skachevsky whether they had committed other murders. To their surprise, the teenagers said they had. In a period of nine months, from August 2006 to April 2007, when they stabbed Abramian, they had killed 20 people and attacked at least 12 others, who had survived. Initially, the police were highly sceptical, assuming that the boys were delusional. Gradually, however, investigators began to confirm Ryno and Skachevsky’s fantastic claims. Prosecutors established that the diminutive pair had indeed killed 20 people.

Ryno and Skachevsky are among the worst mass murderers in Russia’s modern history. Three hours before Abramian’s murder the pair stabbed to death Kyril Sadikov, a Tajik. They ate some food, then set off in search of their next victim. The 45-page court indictment against them shows a disturbing pattern, with the skinheads lying in wait next to different suburban metro stations and stabbing their victims 15 to 60 times. The victims had one thing in common: they weren’t Slavs. Most were guest workers toiling in Moscow’s building industry or as cleaners in the capital’s communal courtyards and urban parks. Nobody knows how many low-wage gastarbeiter are currently resident in Moscow, a teeming metropolis of 12 million people - estimates range from 200,000 to 2 million. Typically, Ryno and Skachevsky’s targets had fled poverty and the impoverished former Soviet republics of Central Asia - Tajikistan, Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan. Others were from China. A few were “of Caucasian appearance”, as the charge sheet puts it, from Russia’s troubled southern provinces of Chechnya or Dagestan.

Like all warriors involved in a holy war, as they perceived it, the boys sometimes made mistakes: several of their dark-skinned victims were actually ethnic Russians. […]

I later discover that most Russian skinheads revere the Führer, believing that his only mistake was to attack Russia. The average age here is about 15 or 16; the style is baseball caps, Burberry scarves and Lonsdale - the uniform of the British far-right. One skinhead even has a Union Flag jacket. There are several girls. The skinheads adhere to two ultra-nationalist groups - the Movement Against Illegal Immigration and the Slavic Union. […]

In December 2008, Ryno and Skachevsky were sentenced to 10 years in jail, the maximum sentence for a juvenile. Five other members of their gang were jailed for between six and 20 years. […] Ryno made a final speech to the jury. In a rambling address, he explained that he committed the murders for the “tsar, country, and monarchy”. Later he revealed that after prison he intends to embark on a new career. He wants to be a politician.

Marta Abramian shows off a photo of her husband, taken a month before his murder. As well as their son Georgy, the couple have two strikingly pretty dark-haired daughters, Meline and Karine, now 20 and 21. The photos show Karen dancing with his girls at a party; other snaps show the family relaxing on holiday in Egypt, next to a camel; there are black and white photos of Karen’s happy boyhood in Baku, Azerbaijan. The couple met and courted in Baku, but in the late 80s they moved to Moscow when war erupted between Azerbaijan and Armenia. Karen studied at Moscow University and then joined an insurance firm, rising to become its general director. He wrote poems and composed songs. “He was a wonderful father, a wonderful son and wonderful husband,” Marta says. “I never thought this could happen to my husband. We considered ourselves real citizens of Russia. We work here. We pay taxes. This is our country.”

We meet in the apartment of Karen’s parents, Asya, 75, and Georgy, 76. They sit together on the sofa holding their son’s framed photo; his murder outrages them still. After an hour punctuated by phone calls from the court - the skinheads’ trial is just ending - Marta takes us to the spot where Karen was murdered. Next to the entrance, she has planted a small fir tree; she and the kids still live upstairs on the ninth floor. “It’s so we can remember Daddy,” she says. “It’s very difficult without him. There is just an empty shape. Nothing can fill the emptiness.”

*photo - via San Francisco Sentinel

Forest guard hunt a wild boar in Khosrov reserved forest (Armenia)

This message I received from the Armenian environmental Facebook group:

"The head of foresters KILLS WILD ANIMALS... to protect the Khosrov reserved forest.

"it's a stupid animal damaging the trees" says the head of foresters.

Reserved Forest? Slaughter house? Place for having Fun?....

What is KHOSROV RESERVED FOREST NOW?

Who are the real protectors of it? In whose hands is it? How many animals still exist in the place called RESERVED FOREST"?

Watch - The head of foresters hunt a wild boar in Khosrov reserved forest.

PLEASE WATCH AND REACT sending this video through your mailing lists....

here is the number of Ministry of Nature "Protection" 519182, 523835 and email: info@mnp.am

Lets protect our rights to live in HARMONY with NATURE~~"

Read also related report by A1+ (in Armenian).

Armenian bachelors among the most desired in Moscow

For the third year in a row, the highest number of marriages with foreign citizens in Moscow in 2008 were with citizens of Turkey, reports Interfax (via Tert.am). This followed by Germany, US, Israel and the UK.

Among the CIS countries (ex-Soviet states), the ‘most desired’ are citizens of Ukraine followed by Armenia, Moldova, Uzbekistan and Azerbaijan (all sharing the second place).

On one hand, this may sound like an encouraging statistics having the background of recent surge in racist, neo-nazi attacks on foreigners in Moscow, especially from the Caucasus and Asia. However, this perhaps a reflection of numbers of ethnic Armenians etc. who are Moscow residents and tend to marry their compatriots too.

It’s Dubai calling for Arthur Baghdasaryan

Ever wondered what Arthur Baghdasaryan is up to nowadays? Yes, the former fake oppositionist, current head of the National Security Council of Armenia Arthur Baghdasaryan. Apparently, he is busy with establishing the “organisation which shares our ideology”... in Dubai where he had lavish New Year celebrations this year with some of his party comrades. Pay attention to the word “ideology” here, that is his Orinats Yerkir party's "ideology". A laughing stock.
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Լավ է՝ թրաֆիկինգի զոհ չեն դարձել
168 Zham, via Tert.am

Երեկ ԱԺ-ում կայացած ճեպազրույցի ժամանակ ԱԺ «Օրինաց երկիր» խմբակցության ղեկավար Հեղինե Բիշարյանը լրագրողներին փորձում էր համոզել, որ Ամանորին ՕԵԿ-ական պատգամավորները մեկնել են Դուբայ ոչ թե հանգստանալու, այլ իրենց «հերթական կառույցն այնտեղ ստեղծելու նպատակով»։ Հարցին, թե ի՞նչ ծրագրի շրջանակներում են իրենք Դուբայի ամենաթանկ հյուրանոցում մնացել, և արդյոք ո՞չ պետբյուջեի միջոցներով՝ Հ. Բիշարյանը պատասխանեց. «Որևէ կուսակցություն պետբյուջեի հաշվին որևէ տեղ չի գնում։ Կարծում եմ, շատ մարդիկ, կուսակցություններ դրսում են լինում, բայց քննարկման չի ենթարկվում՝ ով ուր է գնում։ Այո, ՕԵԿ-ն իր նախագահ Արթուր Բաղդասարյանի հետ մեկնել էր Դուբայ, և սա մեր հերթական հանդիպումն էր դրսի հայկական համայնքի հետ։ Կարծում եմ՝ այստեղ որևէ արտառոց բան չկա, թե ինչպիսի հյուրանոցում, ովքեր էին գնացել»։ ՕԵԿ-ական պատգամավոր Հովհաննես Մարգարյանն էլ հավելեց. «Մենք մեր աշխատավարձով տոմս ենք գնել և գնացել ենք մեր հերթական կառույցը բացելու Դուբայում»։ «Դուբայում «Օրինաց Երկիր» կուսակցությո՞ւն եք ստեղծում» հարցին Հ. Մարգարյանը պատասխանեց. «Մեր քաղաքական ուժին հարող հասարակական կազմակերպություն, որն այնտեղ կրում է մեր գաղափարախոսությունը»։ ՕԵԿ պատգամավորների «պարզաբանումները» մեղմ ասած, արժանահավատ չեն, քանի որ Ամանորին ոչ ոք գործնական հանդիպումներ, այն էլ՝ Դուբայում, չի ունենում։

ՕԵԿ-Ը՝ ԴՈՒԲԱՅՈՒՄ
Aravot, 7 February 2009

«Մենք մեր աշխատավարձով տոմս ենք գնել եւ գնացել ենք մեր հերթական կառույցը բացելու Արաբական Միացյալ Էմիրություններում, ի դեպ, նմանատիպ կառույցներ մենք ունենք եւ Ֆրանսիայում, եւ Գերմանիայում, ասեմ ավելին, Գերմանիայում այդ կառույցների մասնակից է նաեւ նույն իմ անուն-ազգանունով եւ հայրանունով իմ եղբոր որդին, որը բնակվում է այնտեղ եւ Գերմանիայի քաղաքացի է»,- ԱԺ ճեպազրույցների ժամանակ այսպես բացատրեց ՕԵԿ-ի ղեկավար կազմի՝ Արաբական Էմիրություններ կատարած վերջին այցի մանրամասները ՕԵԿ-ական պատգամավոր Հովհաննես Մարգարյանը, եւ երբ լրագրողները զարմացան, թե ինչպես է կուսակցական կառույց հիմնվել այլ երկրում, պարոն Մարգարյանը նոր բացատրություն տվեց. «Ոչ թե կառույց, մեր քաղաքական ուժին հարող հասարակական կազմակերպություն, որը կրում է մեր գաղափարախոսությունը»:

Adana 100

(Press release) The Armenian Genocide Museum-Institute organizes an international conference on April 20-21, 2009 dedicated to the centennial anniversary of the Armenian massacres in Adana district of the Ottoman Empire.

Historians from Armenia, Italy, Hungary, Austria, France, USA and Sweden specialized on these issues will make speeches at the conference.

The speakers will have the opportunity to present their papers and share their knowledge about the massacre in Adana district and in the city of Adana itself in spring 1909 in the main reverting on the motives of massacres as well as international responses.

In 1908, the Young Turkish revolution brought some hope for change for the Empire’s Christian minorities. However, the initial euphoria and hopes for equal rights for Muslims and Christians were dashed in brutal slaughtering of Armenian population in Cilicia and its center Adana. This massacre revived the fears of Christian minorities, particularly of Armenians towards the traditional Ottoman policy against them.

The Adana massacres of April 1909 became a symbolic prelude for the state orchestrated and executed policy of genocide against the Armenian population of the Ottoman Empire. Ethnical cleansings and large-scale massacres were carried out even earlier; during the Hamidian massacres in 1894-1896 about 300.000 Armenians were annihilated and evicted.

The study of Adana massacre reveals several important issues, particularly in terms of crime investigation, reparation and involvement of Turkish regular army in the massacre. These tragic events resonated with the events of the earlier attacks on the Armenians and brought back the feeling of the coming catastrophe.

The Adana massacres heralded a large-scale extermination policy, which was implemented shortly after the breakout of the WWI. This resulted in the genocide of Armenian population of the Ottoman Empire during 1915-1922, and expulsion of several hundred thousand people from their homeland.

Armenian Genocide Museum & Institute

Breaking news: Armenia deputy police chief murdered

RFE/RL: Colonel Gevorg Mherian, a deputy chief of the Armenian police, was gunned down outside his Yerevan home late on Tuesday.

Police sources said Mherian, 33, was repeatedly shot in the head by unknown gunmen as he left an apartment building in the capital where lived with his family. A senior medical official told local Kentron television that he was dead by the time an ambulance arrived at the scene.

Dozens of police and other law-enforcement officials, including Prosecutor-General Aghvan Hovsepian, rushed there shortly after the murder. The police did not immediately issue any statements.

Mherian was appointed as deputy police chief in July as part of a reshuffle of the higher echelon of Armenia’s security apparatus initiated by President Serzh Sarkisian. He had previously served as an adviser to former President Robert Kocharian monitoring the implementation of the Armenian government’s strategy of combating corruption.
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As per Armenia Today, he was a close associate of Armenia's ex-president Robert Kocharyan.
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A1+: Այսօր ժամը 20. 20 -ի սահմաններում Կիեւյան փողոցի վրա գտնվող իր բնակարանի մոտ, հրազենով սպանվել է ՀՀ փոխոստիկանապետ, գնդապետ, 1975թ. ծնված Գեւորգ Մհերյանը: Նա մահացել է գլխին ստացած հրազենային կրակոցից: Մեր տեղեկությունների համաձայն` Մհերյանի վրա արձակվել է 6 կրակոց: Դեպքի վայրից հայտնաբերվել են պարկուճներ, հանցագործության առարկան` զենքը դեպքի վայրում չի հայտնաբերվել:

Դեպքի վայր են ժամանել ՀՀ Ոստիկանության բարձրաստիճան պաշտոնյաներ, ինչպես նաեւ ՀՀ Գլխավոր դատախազ Աղվան Հովսեփյանը, ԱԱԾ պետ Գորիկ Հակոբյանը: Մանրամասները ճշտվում են: Դեպքի առթիվ հարուցվել է քրեական գործ: Քննությունը վարում է Հատուկ քննչական ծառայությունը, որը կոչված է բարձրաստիճան պաշտոնյաների դեմ եւ նրանց կողմից կատարված հանցագործությունների ուսումնասիրմանը եւ բացահայտմանը: Գեւորգ Մհերյանը ՀՀ փոխոստիկանպետի պաշտոնում նշանակվել է 2008թ. հունիսի 2-ին` Սերժ Սար•սյանի հրամանով: Մինչ այդ նա եղել Ռոբերտ Քոչարյանի օգնականը` իրավական գծով:

*photos - Photolur, via A1+

Armenian church + Kim Kardashian

Debbie Hovsepian, Gayane Tatoulian, Abp. Hovnan Derderian, Maria de Silva, Kim Kardashian, Kloe Kardashian, and Robert Kardashian, Jr., at a fund raiser for the Etchmiadzin Children’s Fund, Universal City, Calif., Jan. 23, 2009. Hilma Shahinian for the Armenian Reporter

Universal City, California - The unlikely pairing of the Armenian Church and sex-scandal-infamous party-girl-turned-celebrity Kim Kardashian help raise more than $90,000 for the Etchmiadzin Children's Fund (EFC). The charity's annual Gala Night on Friday, January 23, attracted more than 350 guests and featured real, somewhat real, and fake Hollywood stars, celebrity look-alikes, Las Vegas impersonators, and a few disconcerted church ladies.

*source: The Armenian Reporter