Passage on vehicles as well as on foot are restricted in the center of Yerevan. The Opera theatre and virtually all length of Mashtots avenue are blocked within a semi-triangle: police are prohibiting pedastrians and vehicles from entering the restricted are from Pushkin, Abovyan, Moskovyan, Tumanyan and Parpetsi streets.
According to the official note sent out by the Yerevan municipality yesterday, the area will be blocked from 10:30 to 16:00 today, while the presidential inauguration ceremony takes place in the Opera house.
Many people were approaching police and asking what was the reason for such strong measures – who were the authorities afraid of? Well – my answer is simple, I think the police are protecting Armenian citizens from the newly elected president.
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
Police blockade of Yerevan’s centre © Photos by Artur Papyan, Yerevan, 2008
So, Armenian police order their police supplies from UAE? Iran?
Heil Serj
Finally, the police are doing a good job!
It’s absolutely critical – they need to protect Serzh from Armenian citizens,
these people are very dangerous.
I am very worried for safety of Ms Sarkissian, God save his soul!
Let’s all pray for him!
Nice the yellow tape is written in every language but Armenian …ha ha ha ha
The tape is in English and Arabic, not Farsi. So, yeah, I’d say UAE. The connection is probably one of Serj’s gambling-buddy Arab sheikhs that he goes whoring with. They probably talk about their latest “method” together. These corrupt morons tend to stick together, send each other police-state knick-knacks.
And vart, yes I do pray he stays alive, because when I think which would be more satisfying, watching him get dismembered by the people or watching him stand trial at the Hague, I have to say the former, but then I couldn’t show a clip of that to children as a history lesson.
vart said: “I am very worried for safety of Ms Sarkissian, God save his soul!
Let’s all pray for him!”
Do you have any clue as to what a craven minion you sound like? That’s like calling a cockroach “Mr. cockroach,” tailor-making a suit for a dung-beetle, gold-plating a sewer, or mating with a Down’s syndrome patient with syphilis.
That is pretty mature argumentation. All that is missing are a few mother jokes. Does anyone in the radical opposition wonder why the movement gains no momentum? Because it is predicated on hate/revenge/sour grapes. I think Armenian society as a whole would benefit from constructive opposition thoughts and not just childish insults and name-calling.
“watching him get dismembered by the people”
BTW, What is this? Some kind of caveman call for blood? No need to import this savage attitude into Armenia.
OK>>>>a MOTHER JOKE
What did Serzh’s mother say when he plopped out of the womb?????
!$@$@#^^$&%&**(((&))**&%%&$##
Who ate Serjik’s cake? see
http://www.payqar.org/am/33
parisan said: “What about a model of society where a few families run a country serviced by foreign workers devoid of most rights?”
You bring up a very important and troubling point. Allow me to make it even more troubling: What if the KGB knew about such a transition and decided that it would be for the good of Russia to have such a border state with Iran that is as controllable as the UAE has proven to be for the British and Americans for the greater part of a century?
And what if the KGB had established strong ties with Armenian veterans of the Ardzakh war who had turned toward crime after the war because there was no other way to make money and they were professionals in violence and would be ideal to run such a state? Ah, but that’s not a conditional, that’s a fact.
I think that would mean it would be better to vote for and support a presidential candidate that would appease the Russians while avoiding turning Armenia into a corrupt Saudi dictatorship of inept buffoons, lording it over the people strictly through the interference of international forces and zero internal merit. That candidate would be Levon Ter-Petrossian.
Or what if it were to be better to have a candidate who is ready to acquiesce to Turkish Azeri demands, in essence shun Russia to have Armenia become part of the greater-Turkish space. Western neo-colonialists looking for a weakened Armenian indian-reservation as part of a pan-Turkish expanse from the Bosphoros to the Caspian would support and finance such a coup plotter.
That stooge would be Levon Ter-Petrosian.
Having been in Armenia for nearly two years, and having found a resurgent love of my culture, it saddens me to think that any Armenian of sensible mind could look to Sarkisyan as anything other than a thug beholden to too many people to ever be effective as a defender of the Armenian people.
It is a sad commentary, this parade for held for 48 people, where not a single average citizen was allowed to watch as the man who wants to play at being president was “crowned”. This isolation, the fear he expresses toward his own populace is to me evidence enough that he has already acknowledged his theft of the presidency and the illegitimacy of his coming to power.
Coupled with beatings of citizens that evening and the arrests that followed, Serzh has started off his presidency the only way he knows how. The right foot, the one he uses to step on innocent Armenians. I suspect, more such action will follow, perhaps even a repeat of the assassinations that took place in parliament ten years ago, who knows what lengths a man can go to to hold on to his power.
Because of this man, I feel shame for having been born Armenian.
David Beg – no need to feel shame. Better and worse people will come and go. If you are in Armenia, find something worthwhile to work on. Armenia needs a strong government and a strong opposition and the sooner people start working for one, the better. Cultivating good leaders (unlike the retread trash that was littering the Opera for a few weeks) is critical here. In my opinion, demanding FOR something rather than hurling insults AGAINST is also key to any movement gaining traction.
Did a crime occur that’s why they have circled the Opera Square with the yellow tape?
The attempted coup?
AH, perhaps it would be better if I started hurling bullets into crowds exercising that right to free assembly (which is now illegal). That seems to work, at least for you. It seems that criminality used to justify authority is acceptable to you. Your desire to move forward rather than recognize what is, is depressing, as it reflects the attitude of many I’ve encountered. The use of military on its own citizens is unacceptable. To have a military parade marching around Freedom Square (renamed Theatrical Square) after having spread asphalt to cover blood stains is also unacceptable. Yesterday I attempted to leave my home. It just so happens I live within the yellow cordoned off area. I was in a rush, and attempted to take Mashtots, wherein I was promptly and forcibly pushed away by police. I was told to go back and leave the other way. I said I lived here, but to my dismay, they said I would be unable to return to my own home until after the joke of a ceremony had ended.
I cannot look to the future, I live in the present. And in the present, the Republic of Armenia is ruled by a minority of people who abuse and hate its citizens. A two hours drive out of Yerevan will display to you the depth of poverty that stains this country. Go to Alaverdi, and beyond, near the border, look at all the once cultivated hillsides that used to bear an abundance of fruit, now dry and untended due to the governments unwillingness to give water. There is an active, and vile, program in place to ensure that regions outside of Yerevan be unable to develop, while atrocious construction projects, such as North Street, continue to make Yerevan, and thus Armenia, appear developed.
The truth of the matter is that this is not merely theft, it is the willful alienation of the populace, and if this man is to be the president, that he was able to worm his way into power, there will be little that can be done to oppose him or his successors.
You call those people at the opera trash. These are men and women who want their country back. The moment you objectify them in such a manner, is the moment you can justify the events of March 1st. This not a road I am willing to travel. And it is shameful that such an allegation can even be lobbed against them.
If things continue as such, the Armenia you know will cease to exist within a few short years. And if that is the case, perhaps Armenians really never deserved a motherland.
A coup, that did take place – as a result, Serzh Sargsyan seized power.
ArmeniaNow blogs has an excellent post about the inauguration day – I haven’t read anything that good for quite a while – highly recommended.
Beg, I am more with AH on this. It is important to understand the problems of the present but if you don’t have an eye on the future you won’t be able to do anything with your understanding. Putting it differently, the only practical use of our understanding of todays problems will be in building the future. Otherwise all we do is writing another human drama, and literature and history are full of such dramas, arguably better ones.
In fact your last line seems to suggest that things need to change and change is something that is in the future.
David Beg – I misspoke – I did not mean to objectify the people in the Opera as trash, but I feel confident that calling those (mis)leading the disgruntled masses trashes is kind.
I have never justified th events of March 1. I feel that both the authorities and the leaders of the radical opposition have to answer for what happened, I personally feel that the majority of the blame lies with those who preach hate hate and more hate.
The situation in the villages of Armenia is bad, and made worse by the mismanagement and theft of the previous 2 administrations (LTP and RK).
That LTP welcomed the depopulation of Armenia in the 90s, that he endeavored for the sell-out of Karabakh, that he encouraged dividing the Diaspora, that he created an oligarch structure, and that he fueled the internecine self-hatred (Karabakhtsi vs Yerevantsi) and the self-loathing (see your last sentence of your last post) is what I have a hard time forgiving him for,
ARMENIA 4 LIVE! (L)(K)
WELOVEARMENIA4LIVE/EVERRRRRRR 😉
armo4ever 🙂