The video shows a crew of cameramen and Yerevan heritage activists visiting the area, talking to inhabitants.

Admittedly, the whole district is in a very bad shape and something needs to be done about it. In many cities of the world that I’ve visited, such historical buildings have been renovated and restored, turned into a main tourism attraction. Yerevan’s current rulers, however, with their lack of taste and understanding of heritage, only seem to think that tall, glass and concrete buildings deserve to represent this ancient city. I’m startled to think what would happen if someone offered them to redevelop Rome or Athens.

Scores of troops, tanks, artillery systems and other military hardware paraded across Stepanakert on May 9 in one of the largest ever displays of Nagorno-Karabakh’s military power.

Watch the full slide-show here.

Looks like Armenia is more or less content with the outcome of the parliamentary elections that took place on May 6.

Armenian president Serzh Sargsyan’s Republican party won a decisive victory and strengthened their hold on the National Assembly. The Republican faction had 62 mandates in the 131 seat parliament elected in 2007. Now they can easily claim 71 seats after gaining 44% of the proportional vote and winning 29 seats in the constituency based majoritarian voting system.

There are two political forces, whose opinion matters most of all in terms of making these elections legit. Both of those forces have by now issued statements, which basically mean that they’ll accept the results of the elections and go to parliament.

The Republican party’s most significant political opponent is of course its junior partner in the ruling coalition  - the Prosperous Armenia Party (BHK). This party was the only force which had enough political weight and resources to challenge the Republicans. At some point during the pre-election campaign it even seemed that they can come out as winners of the elections. The preliminary vote counts showed, however, that although BHK has expanded its presence in the new parliament, it is not even close to threatening the power of the Republicans. BHK will be able to claim 34 seats which is an increase compared to their presence in the outgoing parliament with 26 mandates. The leader of the party Gagik Tsarukian issued a statement yesterday, saying he will hold true to his campaign promises and help “overcome the challenges faced by our people and our state.” He also called unprecedented the large number of people who voted for his party (450,000), which signals that BHK is basically happy with the elections. Even though this is a confusing message, I take it as an acceptance of defeat.

The ruling Republican party’s arch-rival,  the opposition Armenian National Congress (HAK) on Tuesday rejected official vote results as fraudulent but said it will take up seats in the new National Assembly and fight against President Serzh Sarkisian “on all fronts.” Going to parliament means they accept the outcome of the elections and won’t stir up another riot akin to the one that led to violent clashes on the streets of Yerevan and 10 deaths back in March 1, 2008.

One of the biggest losers of the elections is the opposition Armenian Revolutionary Federation (Dashnaktsutyun), which held 16 seats in the outgoing parliament and will be able to claim only 6 in the new one.  They challenged the legitimacy of Sunday’s parliamentary elections on Tuesday, saying that their outcome was essentially decided by “unprecedented” vote buying.

However, the experience has shown, that Dashnaktsutyun has always been more reasonable in stirring internal political matters in the face of an external foe (Azerbaijan and Turkey), so as ceasefire violations by Azerbaijan in Armenia’s bordering Tavush region continue to intensify, Dashnakstutyun will most probably tone down their revolutionary rhetoric and avoid complicating matters not to give additional stimuli to Azerbaijan to press on with more attacks.

A junior member of the ruling coalition Orinats Yerkir (Rule of Law Party) and opposition Zharangutyun (Heritage) party will each be getting 6 seats. Orinats Yerkir had 8 deputies, while Zharangutyun had 7 in the outgoing parliament, so they both have reasons to be dissatisfied. However, none of these forces are likely to do anything radical, go out on the streets protesting, etc.

PS: I had two big concerns throughout the election campaign. One was that the post-election period might once again turn into a blood-bath as in 2008. Luckily, we avoided this. A second concern was that a further strengthening of BHK will lead to the return of former president Robert Kocharian, who is rumored to be behind the political moves of the party led by Gagik Tsarukian, a close ally of Armenia’s second president. Kocharian, of course, is the man who locked down A1plus TV, choked media freedom in Armenia and was running the country during the Parliament shootings of October 27, 1999 and killings of protesters on March 1, 2008. So yes – personally I’m also fine with the outcome of these electiona like almost everyone.

In an event officially called nationwide parliamentary elections held on May 6, Armenia’s ruling parties maneuvered their way into the country’s new parliament.

Before the new parliament officially takes off, which means they will continue the previous Parliament’s established tradition of rubber-stamping the Republican President’s and his Republican government’s decisions, let’s look at this video by A1+ about what the previous parliaments in Armenia have accomplished so far.

Armenia — Map of crowdsourced alerts on possible electoral fraud and violations from iDitord.org portal, 07May2012

I would say that the National Assembly elections held on May 6 in Armenia were the most calm and peaceful polls we have seen in the past 10 years. Mind you, calm and peaceful doesn’t mean democratic.

President Sarkisian’s Republican party leaders are calling these the best elections Armenia has seen in the past decade. Sure enough, Republicans have won a clear majority in the proportional vote gaining 43.94 percent of the vote and are headed towards winning an unquestionable majority in parliament as their majoritarian candidates, including a full range of oligarchs, come out of the elections as winners.

Two major opposition forces – Armenian National Congress (HAK) and Armenian Revolutionary Federation (Dashnaktsutyun) claim widespread bribing of voters. HAK coordinator Levon Zurabian went further and called the elections “disgraceful,” saying that the authorities have resorted to “the full range of falsifications” to secure an election victory for the incumbent authorities.

The OSCE/ODIHR, which ran the largest and most authoritative international election observation mission has issued a statement, which would be best described as confusing.

“The election campaign was open and respected fundamental freedoms, and the media offered broad and balanced coverage during the official campaign period,” said Radmila Šekerinska, the Head of the Election Observation Mission of the OSCE Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights. “Unfortunately, this was overshadowed by concerns over the accuracy of voter lists and violations of the Electoral Code that created an unequal playing field.”

There are more than 1000 alerts on iditord.org – a crowdsourced map of electoral violations run by my organization Media Diversity Institute – Armenia. Most of those alerts are about bribing the voters. A vast majority come from untrusted sources or lack enough specificity to really go after the violators. It is, however, an evidence, that at least one claim of the opposition, that widespread vote buying took place, may hold ground.

On the personal level, I hear a lot of gossip about voters being bribed in favor of Republicans, Prosperous Armenia and Rule of Law parties. Most of the rumors fail my basic test by the 5W question – who, what, when, where, why… But the rumors are there and they tend to be blown up when politicians add fuel to the fire. Let’s just hope, that the so far calm and peaceful elections won’t grow into another March 1 violence we witnessed in 2008.

The intrigue of the day is of course the response of the Prosperous Armenia (Bargavach Hayastan) party to the elections. A lot, if not everything, depends on their moves now. The party led by Armenia’s richest tycoon Gagik Tsarukian received 30.13% of the proportional vote and is winning several majoritarian seats. Prosperous Armenia joined HAK and Dashnaktsutyun in issued a critical statement about the elections this night, but they have refrained from going further today.

And they are silent. And the pressure grows…

RFE/RL reports: “Eyewitnesses, including an RFE/RL cameraman, Sevak Grigorian, said hundreds of gas-filled balloons held up by young HHK activists at Republic Square exploded, sparking a massive firewall and injuring dozens of them. Grigorian described cries in the crowd and chaotic scenes resulting in a brief stampede that nearly caused him to lose his camera.”

Armenian Police said they’ve launched investigation and are looking at all possibilities, including that of deliberate arson.

Armenian President, who visited some of the injured youth at the hospital shortly after the blast, has come up with a statement, noting, that this was a “blow” to all of us as well as promising to provide the best possible care for the injured.

“I’m calling upon everyone to remain calm. Let’s pray for the injured and wish them a quick recovery,” he has added.

PS: Eyewitnesses told me, that the concert program at the Republic square, which was halted after the blast, resumed in less than 20 minutes after it and Serzh Sargsyan delivered his campaign speech as planned. Apparently, the organizers of the rally weren’t informed about the real scope of the blast and numbers of injured at that point, otherwise, one would consider their behavior a cynical attempt to cover up everything.

Armenia -- President Serzh Sargsyan visits Mashtots park, Yerevan, 01May2012

In what seems to be a carefully choreographed performance ahead of this Sunday’s parliamentary elections, Armenian President Serzh Sargsyan ordered the removal of kiosks assembled in a park in central Yerevan. In doing so, Sargsyan ended the 80-day standoff between the municipality and environmental activists.

The activists claim that the construction of the kiosks (or boutiques as they’re called) in the little ragged park next to Yerevan’s central Mashtots avenue is illegal and should be called off.

Meanwhile, the municipal authorities say the kiosks were constructed legally and only temporarily, for 2-3 years.

The President, who visited the park in the company of Yerevan’s Mayor Taron Margaryan, said the kiosks “don’t look good” and shouldn’t be left standing even temporarily.

“Yes, the municipality has made a correct (legal) decision, but this indeed doesn’t look good. You should find a way and remove all this,” Sargsyan told Yerevan’s Mayor.

Sure enough, this marks a great victory for the activists, who were able to force the President himself look into the matter and come up with a solution.

The poster reads: "The time of self-determined citizen"

However, the manner in which the matter was handled by Sargsyan has triggered an angry response from the activists, who nevertheless found time to celebrate their victory today.

In a statement published by “Ecolur” environmental news agency, the activists have noted, among other things, that “the Yerevan’s mayor should consider the will of Yerevan’s inhabitants and not the aesthetic  preferences and positions of a single person [meaning the president], regardless of the office that person occupies. such matters are regulated by the Armenian Constitution and the people’s best interest.”

The activists have also stressed, that their main demand for justice and bringing municipal and law-enforcement authorities to account in front of court for taking illegal decisions and enforcing them has not been met.

PS: At any rate, the activists forced the country’s top official to carry out their demand and this is a remarkable achievement of civil activism in Armenia. These guys showed they’re real fighters, who stood there under snow and rain, fought back police and provocateurs and won their cause! My environmental friends – you are amazing! Kudos to you!

I have been following “The Beautified Project” band for several years now and either my musical tastes have evolved, or the band has changed, but I’m growing increasingly more fond of their sound. The song, Kilikia, in their interpretation is just great and so I decided to take the chance and publish some info about them on this blog.

The Beautified Project band was formed in London in 2004 by singer/songwriter Andre Simonian. After releasing its first demo album ‘Serenades For Insanity’ the project moved to Andre’s homeland Armenia in 2006, where twin brothers, guitarist and back-vocalist Armen Shaverdian and pianist and back-vocalist Arlen Shaverdian joined the band as permanent members. Although the band has three official members, during their live performances they appear as five-piece, joining them a bass player and a drummer, both of whom are session musicians.

In May 2008 The Beautified Project released their first official album ‘Behind the Happy Mask…’ It became the first English-language album ever recorded in Armenia. It was produced by music producer Serj Melkonyan. The design of the album was handled by famous Armenian graphic designer Arvin Kocharian. It was nominated for ‘Best Rock Album’ and ‘Best Album Cover Design’ in 2009 Armenian Music Awards in California. The video for the song ‘Me and My Despair’ was the first video from Armenia which was aired by Mid-East MTV. ‘Behind The Happy Mask…’ went to become one of the best-selling albums of 2009 in Armenia.

In May 2010 The Beautified Project released their second official album, ‘Beyond the Butterfly’. The album was critically acclaimed by the Armenian media. Both the album and its first music video for the song, ‘Butterfly’, enjoyed chart success in various Armenian TV channels both in Armenia and abroad.

The band’s official blog is here and their Facebook page is here. There’s also an  hour-long interview with the band’s vocalist Andre Simonian here.

Prominent Armenian film director Tigran Khzmalian’s film “The Genocide Photographer” tells about Armin Theophil Wegner, a witness to the Armenian Genocide whose photographs documented one of the greatest crimes against humanity committed in the past century.

BSW-AM blog has posted these wonderful photographs of traditional Armenian costumes. The blog also informs, that photos are collected by Ilya Vartanyan, who is soon going to publish a book with these photos as well as many others, depicting Armenian traditional dresses. A very welcome publication, I daresay. Will be waiting for it impatiently.

While Armenia obsesses over the elections, real and imaginary political games, etc, my good friend Arzuman Harutyunyan, Director at Art Sight Video Studio has produced another one of his brilliant PSAs about stuff that really matters.

As a father of two – I couldn’t resist sharing this.

While it was evident, that the ruling Republican party would get the biggest amount of donations, it is rather surprising to see, that “Zharangutyun” (Heritage) party, which is currently the smallest opposition party in the National Assembly, comes second by the amount of donations received, surpessing even “Bargavach Hayastan” (Prosperous Armenia) party lead by Armenia’s richest tycoon Gagik Tsarukian.

This is one of those cases when numbers talk.

Armenia’s homemade drone carried out various intelligence-gathering maneuvers in military exercises attended by the Chief of the General Staff of the Armenian Armed Forces Yuri Khachaturov.

“Kroonk” (Crane bird) drones were first demonstrated in last year’s Independence day military parade. Skeptics had since argued, that Armenian UAV’s can’t fly and/or they are in fact made in Russia. Now we can see, that at least half of those claims are false. The “Kroonk” birdy flies, it is cool and I just love it!

Since this is coming from Armnews TV, which is known to be linked with Armenia’s President Serzh Sargsyan, we can almost be sure, that his Republican party is pretty much content with getting 34 percent of the parliament seats, which will give them a clear majority in parliament if they also win most of the sits via majoritarian system, where in most cases Republican-backed oligarchs are contesting elections.

The 9 percent for Armenian National Congress adds an interesting touch to the survey too.

PS: Unzipped blog raised some doubts about the validity of Gallup polls in Armenia, but from what I checked on Gallup website, this seems to be genuine.

If you have problems viewing the poll, try this link: http://docs.com/K5FI

Anna Arakelian, a 20-year-old resident of Yerevan, was crowned Miss Armenia 2012 in the country’s first beauty contest in five years held on April 10. (A photo story by Karen Minasyan.)

President of Armenia met the group last year and said instead of demanding an increase of funding, the young scientists should think of better utilizing the funding available to them already. This is surely, a valid statement.

However, a new article in New York Times adds a bit of perspective to the situation with state funding of science and education in Armenia.

According to NYT, Philip Altbach and his colleagues at the Center for International Higher Education have examined academic salaries, contracts and benefits in publicly funded universities in 28 countries, including Armenia.

“They depict a world increasingly divided “into two categories — brain drain and brain gain,” as countries with more resources siphon off academic talent from poorer countries,” the newspaper writes. “In terms of purchasing power, newly hired academics in China ($259 per month, as calculated by this particular study’s index) were the worst off, paid less than colleagues in Armenia ($405) or Ethiopia ($864).”

Go figure!

Internet speed in Armenia continues to grow at a mind-blowing pace. A direct indicator of this comes from the statistics provided by YouTube, according to which average download speed of videos from Armenia has reached about 3.2 mbps in March 2012.

Hovhannes Ishkhanian, a young Armenian writer, is facing prosecution for a limited edition (300 copies) book he published, which the Armenian police claim contains pornography.

Ishkhanyan, 24, was summoned for questioning for his book “The Demob Day” by the military police and then by the Kentron police station. He was told at the Military police, that the book contained false information, discredited the army and insulted the religion and Armenian mothers.” Authorities threatened to open a case against the writer under 263rd article of the Criminal Code which foresees heavy penalties and a jail term of up to 3 years for “disseminating pornographic materials and objects.”

The situation with the police got me interested, so I read the book. Admittedly, reading was without enjoyment. The book contains too much violence and vulgar language for my taste, but that’s about it. One can hardly expect a book about the Armenian Army to contain a lot of tenderness and poetic speach – after wall, we’re talking about a structure, were dozens of soldiers die every year in non-combat situation, mainly because of hazing, violence and pressure, which forces soldiers into committing suicides.

The writer, who has published the book after returning from his conscription based military service, says it is fiction, even if it is partly derived from Ishkanian’s personal experience.

The heroes of the book, young soldiers who died or became crippled during military service, tell horror stories of mistreatment by military officers.

The terms with which the writer describes military officers, has clearly got them offended. It seems that it took the authorities are trying to figure out other ways to punish Ishkhanian.

Needless to say, that we’re witnessing a clear case of censorship, which is totally unacceptable.

Armenian internet activists and writer’s friends have launched a petition demanding to stop the persecutions against Hovhannes Ishkhanyan.   If you agree with the statement above, please make sure to sign it.

Women’s Economic Opportunity Index 2012 - Cover Page

The Economist Intelligence Unit has published the “Women’s Economic Opportunity Index 2012” along with a report, which attempt to measure progress in the economic advancement of women around the world.

The result is a comprehensive assessment of the enabling environment for women’s economic participation in 128 countries. The Index aims to look beyond gender disparities to the underlying factors affecting women’s access to economic opportunity. It draws on data from a wide range of international organisations, including the UN, the International Monetary Fund, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, the World Health Organisation, the Food and Agriculture Organisation, and many others. The result is a comprehensive assessment of the enabling environment for women’s economic participation in 128 countries.

Here’s the main chart, where Armenia is ranked 64th among 128 countries, Georgia is 59th, Azerbaijan is 90th. Other countries of interest include Russia (66th), Turkey (65th), Iran (117).

Sweden, Norway and Finland lead the way for women’s economic opportunities, while Yemen, Chad and Sudan are the worst.