A Putin’s Fan Club will open in Armenia on February 2nd with the initiative of a recently founded organization called CIS Youth Council.

According to Aravot Daily, the goal of the club is to promote Russian – Armenian relations as well ass the ideas of Russian presidential hopeful V.V. Putin.

The Fan Club will operate in Russian Book Houses operating in Armenia. That probably means two locations: one in Yerevan and a recently opened one in Artashat.

The initiator of this idea is Andranik Nikoghosian, the president of the above mentioned CIS Youth Council, as well as the owner of a large number of Armenian media outlets and founder of a range of organizations, among which are Gazeta.am, MaxInfo.am, NeoNews.am, InterPress.am, Evraznews.com, “De Facto” magazine, youth movement “International”, Fund “Forward Russia-Armenia”, “Eurasian Integration”, Panarmenian International Youth Centre, Civil Youth Initiative “Russians of Armenia”.

Nikoghosian, who is a young ambitious politician apparently based in Moscow, has become increasingly active as pre-election campaign activates in Armenia. Recently there were rumors, that he might be appointed as governor of Armavir region in Armenia, which he denied, but made a point of it in his own media outlets.

Andranik Nikoghosian is also rumored to be behind the controversial “Chenq lrelu” initiative.

PS: I have been taking this initiative with a lot of humor and skepticism, because there doesn’t appear to be much of anything else I can do. There certainly is nothing wrong with having a Putin’s Fan Club in Armenia, but I have a strange feeling, that this is part of a much bigger game.

A filmmaker makes a journey into her own family’s history to investigate the terrible truth behind her grandmother’s odd tattoos and, in the process, unveils the story of the Armenian women driven out of Ottoman Turkey during the First World War.

The film was screened prime-time on Al Jazeera from January 11 – 18th. (Thank you 517design for the link to the film in HD).

On January 15th more than a hundred environmental activists, artists and journalists visited Teghut forest, where a major mining project is underway.

Yerevan’s Central (Closed) Market, a popular tourist attraction and an officially recognized architectural monument, has closed its doors for renovation since January 1st.

While in operation, the picturesque market presented an opportunity to explore Armenian food and sweets, even though it was too expensive for an average Yerevantsi to shop in and was never really busy.

In September 2011 the market was acquired by MP Samvel Alexanian, who happens to be one of Armenia’s richest business man, top importer of food products like sugar and oil and the owner of supermarket chain Yerevan City. He bought it from another big business man and MP Gagik Tsarukian. The two are often referred to as oligarchs.

Days before the closure of the market for renovation, rumors went around, that Alexanian is planning to turn the market into a branch of his “Yerevan City” chain, leaving the 70-something salespeople in the market out of work, a charge, which the business man denied today.

Digging inside the Closed Market, Photo via A1plus

“The Closed Market won’t turn into a Yerevan City shop. We will only renovate and bring it to a proper condition,” Samvel Alexanian told Hetq.am today.

The business man also informed, that an underground parking facility is being built under the market. He insisted, that the market will be modernized, shops will open inside and operate alongside food-sellers, thus creating many more jobs than the market used to provide (Alexanian mentioned up to 300 jobs to be created in the market, but I’ll believe it when I see it).

His words seem to be confirmed by Yerevan’s Municipality. Their spokesperson told RFE/RL, that the Closed Market was in pretty bad shape, the toilets weren’t operating, there was no running water, so in fact the renovation works were taking place because the Municipal officials had demanded improvement of the conditions in the market. He also said the architecture of the building will remain intact.

PS: We have heard a lot of assurances by now, that the Closed Market will continue to be a Closed Market. But something tells me – it will never be the same again, even as it seems from the first glance, that big improvements are coming its way. Time will tell…

Meanwhile, most Armenians lay lavish tables on New Year’s Eve and celebrate with a lot of food. Khozi bood (glazed ham) and lots of meat products leave little chance for the believers determined to fast. New Year’s Eve and the following 3 days are a period of paying courtesy visits to relatives, respected friends, colleges and seating at the table and tasting the plentiful food…

A lot of Christmas symbolism is applied to the New Year instead of Christmas in Armenia. On New Year’s Eve we put up a Tonatsar (Christmas tree), prepare gifts for our children, because Dzmer Pap (or Kaghand Pap, otherwise known as Santa Clause) with Dzyunanushik (Snow-white, Santa Clause’s granddaughter) comes to Armenia on New Year’s Eve, not on Christmas.

Things get further complicated, because many young people celebrate Christmas on December 25th, with the tradition of Western Christian Church penetrating Armenia through Hollywood movies  and other types of Californication.

Christmas Day itself is more of a religious holiday in Armenia, so the feasts of New Year’s Eve are not really seen as appropriate. The day’s traditional food is harisa, fish and red wine.

With all of this confusion, New Year becomes Armenia’s favorite holiday, while the real Holy Day – the day of Christmas, pales and becomes something of a complimentary holiday.

I understand, that the root of the problem lies in our Soviet heritage. The Communists, who were atheists in their beliefs, fought fiercely against Christianity for 70 years. This included forbidding Christmas and encouraging lavish celebration of New Year as a replacement. Now, 20 years after Soviets are gone, we still see the impact.

I volunteered to work on December 31st and January 1st this year (as well as previous two years), because I firmly believe, that the real holiday for me should be the Armenian Christmas day – January 6th. Consider this my little protest against the extravagant New Year celebrations and a challenge to myself, to learn to appreciate real Armenian traditions and values.

I want to finish this post by wishing you all a “Shnorhavor Soorb Tsnund” (which means ‘Congratulations for the Holy Birth’). Let this year be full of blessings and joy for us and our wonderful country – Armenia.

This blog was viewed about 210,000 times in 2011. In 2011, there were 180 new posts, growing the total archive of this blog to 1,232 posts.

Here’s the shameful bit – the busiest day of the year was September 17th with 6,272 views. The most popular post that day was Armenia’s first real porn scandal as it were…. :)))

The top referring sites in 2011 were:

• facebook.com
• networkedblogs.com
• twitter.com
• go.mail.ru
• wordpress.com

There’s a lot more I wanted to write about and discuss this year (e.g. issues of Kajaran mining project, Yerevan’s closed market and Parisian surch cafe), but everything ends at some point, so I will stop here and wish all the readers of this blog a very Happy New Year! Hope to see you here, at this blog – next year.

Photo from http://http://www.tekgoblin.com/

Armenia’s largest mobile operator, VivaCell-MTS, announced today about the commercial launch of its fourth generation 4G/LTE (Long Term Evolution) network.

Currently VivaCell-MTS’s LTE network is available in the small center of Yerevan, with further expansion planned in other parts of RA.

LTE, the new generation mobile communication technology enables an increased data transfer rate and reduced latency. The theoretical capacity of LTE network is up to 150 Mbps for download and up to 50 Mbps – for upload. However, VivaCell-MTS advertises a maximum speed of 6 Mbps. To compare, I have 3G modems from all of the Armenian operators – Beeline, Vivacell-MTS and Orange, which allow comfortable use of 3G internet at speeds of 1-2 Mbps.

Vivacell-MTS’s new offer currently doesn’t make much sense. You will be paying double or triple the cost of accessing mobile internet at 4G but only be able to use in Yerevan’s center, whereas all mobile operators have excellent 3G coverage almost everywhere in the country.

However, first commercial launch of 4G will surely push the market forward. And Armenia becomes one of the few countries in the world to launch it. BTW – as far as I remember, Orange was the first company to test-launch 4G in Armenia almost a year ago. I’m sure, that Orange will be next to commercially launch its 4G/LTE network in Armenia and it will be very soon!

The event was part of Winterfest 2011, a series of fun and enjoyable events, including the Winter Parade, Music Days, games and crafts as well as exhibition of eco-friendly New Year trees, on-line Contests and Santa Run.

The Winterfest is being held for the 5th time this year. The event is traditionally organized by Kanachastan NGO in collaboration with the Deem Communications.

Armenia -- Municipal authorities show a homeless person his temporary shelter, Yerevan, 23Dec2011 | Photo from Yerevan.am

The number of Yerevan’s homeless is a mystery. Municipal and State Social Welfare Administrations don’t have reliable data, because the homeless are constantly on the move and in many cases avoid the authorities. And yet, Yerevan’s mayor Taron Margarian has come up with a plan to solve the problem of sheltering them.

On Friday they mayor announced the launch of a joint project of Yerevan’s municipality and “Hans Christian Kofoed” fund, to search for and shelter all the homeless people in the capital before New Year and Christmas holidays.

According to the press announcement, financial means have been allocated to accomodate them, provide basic medical care and “other urgent needs.”

Armenia -- Yerevan's homeless at a temporary shelter provided by municipality and "Hans Christian Kofoed" fund, Yerevan, 23Dec2011 | Photo from Yerevan.am

Head of Municipal Social Welfare Department Ruzanna Zaqarian said, that the authorities plan to register all the homeless, create an inventory of their problems and start working towards finding employment or “other solutions” to their problems.

This is a very welcome move by the mayor, especially ahead of the festive holidays.

The Challenge

My collegue Vahe Sarukhanian, a journalist at Hetq.am, has covered Yerevan’s homeless people extensively. He told me the number of homeless people is definately more than 100 in the capital. As for a more accurate estimate, he says, nobody can be sure.

A Temporary shelter and Center for Supporting Homeless People has been operating in Yerevan’s Haghtanak (Choorod Gyugh) distrcit since 2006. It operates with state funding. The Center accomodates homeless people for a two-month period. During this time the social workers of the center try to address some of their problems.

According to Hetq.am, by the start of this year (during 4 years of operation), the center had returned 22 homeless people to their families, found employment for 20 of them.

A representative of the Ministry of Social Welfare told Hetq.am that 50% of the homeless people return back to Temporary shelter again and again after one or two days after their two-month housing period is over. The shelter can fit 60 people, so there’s always more people in need of a shelter than the center can provide. In winter they try to accomodate more people, cramming up to 100 in the space allocated for 60.

And yet, Vahe Sarukhanian tells me, even when those 100 have been in the temporary shelter, he has seen a lot more homeless people around the city.

Vahe’s articles show us portraits of hopeless and disappointed people (eg. here or here), who have no motivation to solve their problems and go on with life.

So, after the holidays are over, Yerevan’s mayor Taron Margarian will face a question - how long is Yerevan’s municipality, along with supporting donors and funds, ready and able to house those people?

The state-approved rate of sustaining a homeless person for a day is 2500 Armenian drams ($6.5). The state budget has allocated 69 million drams (around $180,000) for taking care of the homeless this year. This would be only enough for 75 people. The funding is up from 54 million drams of last year. But there’s always more in need.

Judging from Taron Margarian’s announcement, the municipality has found additional resources to house those not covered by the state budget, which is great. But their announcement also demonstrates, that the Social Welfare Administration don’t have numbers either. They don’t know if they’re dealing with 25, 50, 100 or 200 homeless. They are just starting to register the homeless and find out about their problems. I hope the municipality people have enough determination and resources to make everything right.

However, as the math above shows, only 20-25% of the homeless return to more or less normal life. What will happen with the rest? Will the municipality house 25, 50, 100 or a much larger crowd forever?

PS: I’m writing this blog-post as a note to myself. To get the facts down and revisit the issue in a couple of days, couple of weeks, couple of months, couple of years. Because it is very hard to see homeless people in the streets of Yerevan and harder to understand, that you can’t really help them. Hopefully, Yerevan’s mayor can.

General Assembly resolution 260 (III) of 9 December 1948 (Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide) states, that (a) Genocide, (b) Conspiracy to commit genocide, (c) Direct and public incitement to commit genocide, (d) Attempt to commit genocide and (e) Complicity in genocide are all acts, which shall be punishable.

Gregory Stanton, the president of Genocide Watch,  suggests, that genocide develops in 8 stages.  What I’m most interested in is the 8th stage – Denial.

“DENIAL is the eighth stage that always follows a genocide. It is among the surest indicators of further genocidal massacres. The perpetrators of genocide dig up the mass graves, burn the bodies, try to cover up the evidence and intimidate the witnesses. They deny that they committed any crimes, and often blame what happened on the victims. [...] The response to denial is punishment by an international tribunal or national courts.”

Coming back to General Assembly resolution 260 (III) and considering Stanton’s description of denial, I would argue, that denial is “complicity in genocide” which should be punished.

The lower chamber of France’s Parliament adopted a draft bill that aims at criminalizing public statements denying genocides. Turkey, a country which has been denying the Armenian Genocide it committed for around 100 years now, has reacted furiously to this move of the French National Assembly and called it a limitation of freedom of speech. France’s move has been criticised by others as well, while French president Nicolas Sarkozy has said Ankara cannot teach his country any “lessons.”

Given the definitions I brough above, it seems to me, that France is holding the moral high ground and it is ridiculous to confuse denial – something that constitutes a genocidal act, with freedom of speech. It is similar to giving false testimony about a crime and claiming, that you’re simply exercising your freedom of speech.

PS: I can at least understand when Turks deny genocide and invent the ‘freedom of speech’ argument to justify their denial. But when representatives of other nationalities and especially Armenians bring up the argument, I simply lose patience.

This is the Leningradian – Shinararner crossroad.

As the French parliament passed a bill criminalizing the denial of the Armenian Genocide, a Turkish guy’s hillariously failed attempt to post pro-Turkey messages in an Armenian group in Facebook have grabbed the attention of Armenian social networks and blogs.

Someone named Fatih Çiftçi has apparently tried to use Google Translate to get the Armenian equivalent of “Long live Turkey” and posted the resulting phrase into the Facebook group “Armenian Issues”.  He also posted phrases like “Turkey is the fastest growing economy in the world after China,” “Armenia is a poor country,” “GDP per capita in Turkey is $25,000 in Turkey while it is only $5200 in Armenia” and the like.

It would all be understandable, but… Google translated the word Turkey as the name of the bird-Turkey, which sounds like “hndkahav” (indian chicken) in Armenian and has no resemblance to the the word “Turkia” which is the Armenian equivalent of Turkey.

The guy soon understood his mistake and deleted his post (or someone else did, can’t be sure). Meanwhile, we all had some good fun!

Source: badu.am  Poster: Chtesutyun

Armenia plans to build a railway and a new road which will both serve to better connect Zvartnots international airport with capital Yerevan.

The airport currently is mostly served by taxi and a couple of bus and minibus routes. However, taxi is the main transportation as it is reasonably priced and fast.

Armenia’s minister of communications and transport Manuk Vardanian told a press conference today, that plans are underway to build a train-rail, which will serve for cargo as well as passenger transit by connecting the airport with Yerevan’s metro. He also mentioned plans to build a new road and making sure that it is served by bus and minibus routes more efficiently to provide and alternative to taxi.

Needless to say, that after the opening of airport’s new and shining terminal (I absolutely love it), getting there and back is the only part, which needs improving.

The Corporacion America group of Eduardo Eurnekian, an Argentine billionaire of Armenian descent, took over the Zvartnots airport near Yerevan in 2002 after signing a 30-year management contract with the Armenian government.

The agreement committed it to building a new airport terminal and modernizing other airport facilities left over from the Soviet era.

The terminal’s arrivals section went into service in 2006.

Armenia - The newly built flight terminal of Zvartnots international airport.

The larger departures area was inaugurated in September. I was one of the first passengers to arrive into the new terminal from Tbilisi.

​​Eurnekian’s group, which operates over 30 airports across South America, claims to have invested $160 million in Zvartnots’s reconstruction.

The airport’s newly built terminal will employ 1,500 people and have the capacity to process up to 3.5 million passengers a year, up from 1.1 million who used it last year.

The Zvartnots operator hopes to attract more transit flights from Europe, the Middle East and Asia. Eurnekian said the upgraded airport will also facilitate a greater influx of tourists into Armenia

The Zvartnots complex is also expected to become soon home to Armenia’s first-ever tax-free zone that will mainly cater for domestically grown agricultural produce to be exported abroad. It will have warehouses equipped with refrigerators, packaging facilities and a food safety laboratory.

Yerevan’s main Christmas Tree is up and shining with lights.

What do you think of first, when you stumble on a piece of ice and sprain your ankle?

After I got over the initial feeling of pain all I thought of was disgust, because it was clear, that I will have to go see a doctor.

I had 3 main options in Erebuni district where I live: Erebuni Medical Center, Aresh polyclinic and Muratsan hospital.

Erebuni medical center is considered to be the best medical institution in Armenia, which is probably true. It was also the closest one. But from a previous visit I hated it and had 2 reasons not to go there this time.

1. It is a total rip-off place. They charge huge amounts of money by Armenian standards from the second you set foot (or broken ankle) in it. The doctors there might be the best in Armenia, but they’re more concerned about making money, than curing anyone.
2. There are long cues next to every good doctor’s door in Erebuni medical center, as the whole republic comes here for treatment. No, I couldn’t possibly wait those lines.

So I decided to try my luck with Aresh polyclinic. The place was cold, dark and dirty. It looked like a piece of Soviet Union had been left behind. With the help of my wife I forced myself to drag the hurting ankle over the stairs (no access for disabled people) and more stairs to reach the reception and find out, that their surgeon is late so there’s noone to see me.

“What? No competent doctor to look at my husband’s broken leg in this whole polyclinic?” my wife asked.

“You can try the children’s surgeon”

“OK”

The children’s surgeon looked quite indifferent. “Is he from our area?” he inquired not even looking at me and talking to my wife.

“No”

“So?” he made us feel that we have nothing to talk to him about.

“His leg has swollen. It is hurting. It might be broken. We’re ready to pay,” my wife insisted.

“OK. Go to the lab and get it x-rayed,” he sqeezed through his teeth and dived back into his cabinet from the cold corridor where we were standing.

The search for the x-ray lab lasted a while. Luckily one of the two elevators was still operating. We went up to the 4th floor, went into the empty lab with the same cold corridors and closed doors, sometimes bearing signs, sometimes, no. There was noone in about 3 cabinets we opened, but everywhere the sound of the electric heaters tured up at full strength greeted us. There was nobody in the x-ray cabinet as well.

“That’s it. My patience has run out,” I said to the electric heater and the empty room with some cracked chairs and old looking equipment which was probably the x-ray machine.

***

All this running up and down stairs and peering through empty cabinets made my pains worse. My wife got totally frustrated seeing my miserable face and picked up a fight at the reception, telling the 4-5 coffee-drinking-nothing-doers that “this place doesn’t deserved to be a hospital.” So I drove, with more difficulty than before, to Muratsan hospital.

***

Muratsan hospital turned out to be “The Hospital of Yerevan State Medial University after M. Heratsi․” It was warm and bright inside. The place was decorated and totally ready for Christmas.

Before I understood what’s happening, the doctor pushed me on a super cool x-ray device. The LCD display in front of me was showing the bones. Robotic noise followed the movements of the camera.

The diagnosis cost me 8,000 AMD (about $ 20 U.S.) which is not expensive even in Armenian standards.

Adding to this the whole Christmas mood and nice personnel, you could call me happy, despite the fact, that I’ll have to spend next 5-6 days mostly in horizontal position and walk with a cane for a while.