Category: Society

The Vochinch Syndrome | February 28, 2005
I'd like readers to see an article I wrote about the youth and also Armenian society at-large that was published on Hetq.am. The following is an excerpt and a link to the page. "An epidemic has erupted throughout Armenia and...

Trafficking of Women & Children from Armenia -- 2 | February 24, 2005
This week's Hetq Online continues to publish more articles on the trafficking of women and children from Armenia, and in particular, the investigation conducted by Edik Baghdasarian and Ara Manoogian who visited Dubai a number of times over the past...

Invisible People | February 23, 2005
A continuing study of homelessness in Yerevan by Hetq Online Today I made a return visit to a derelict school in the Shengavit district of Yerevan at the request of UNICEF who were assisting Shant TV in the production of...

Lawless Oligarchs | February 21, 2005
Yet more coverage of a problem in Armenia that is fast-becoming serious but this time by RFE / RL's Emil Danielyan, perhaps the best journalist / analyst in Armenia today. As in other former Soviet Republics, sooner or later the...

Armenian Mafia | February 18, 2005
The American ambassador to Armenia met with Glendale cops to discuss Armenian citizens committing crimes in the area. The LA Daily News has covered this story. What I found amazing is that " As many as 500 criminals are believed...

Trafficking of Women & Children from Armenia | February 17, 2005
Finally, the secret is out although I did hint at it coming when one person commented on this blog that Ara Manoogian should be prosecuted for his investigations. Anyway, in that case, Ara wasn't involved at all but he has...

Finally, a Homeless Shelter in Yerevan | February 11, 2005
Well, I'm very glad to see this news as reported by Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty's excellent Armenian service. It is planned that a shelter for the homeless will be opened in Yerevan in the future. Of course, this...

If They Don't Interfere We'll Live More Peacefully | February 11, 2005
Another item on Armenian-Azeri relations (and in fact, between all three S. Caucasus Republics) but this time in the form of the market up at Bagratashen / Sadakhlo. I've been to Bagratashen to photograph Armenian refugees and I've been through...

Hummers | February 01, 2005
I see Ara Manoogian has blogged this; it's an interesting view into the new rich in Armenia. This article appears on the Armenialiberty website, and was written by Ruzanna Khachatrian and Emil Danielyan. Many wealthy and government-connected Armenians consider it...

Nascent Anti-Semitism | January 28, 2005
Just as the horrors of Auschwitz are being remembered, here is a story about 'anti-Jewish' propaganda in Armenia. Of course Armen Avetisian, leader of the Armenian Aryan Union is openly anti-semitic, and just having a political party which such a...

Human Rights Report | January 17, 2005
ArmeniaNow.com picks up on the Human Rights Watch report on the situation in Armenia. The respected global watchdog, Human Rights Watch, reiterated its strong criticism of President Robert Kocharyan's spring crackdown on his political opponents in an annual report on...

Bash dies | January 16, 2005
Onnik sent me this note about Bash, who was posted about last week....

Urgent Appeal for help | January 10, 2005
Onnik has given me this urgent request for help on behalf of a group of homeless people on the streets of Yerevan. I'll post it in full....

In Limbo | January 05, 2005
Transitions online reports on the plight of the "240,000" refugees in Armenia. 21% of these people have been naturalised as Armenian citizens, which at first looks like a success. "That, says the UNHCR, is one of the highest rates of...

Unluckiest Village in Armenia | December 24, 2004
Continuing with the theme of hardship at Christmas, the Institute for War and Peace Reporting shares this article about the village of Vanand in Armavir marz. Drinking water is worth more than gold here. Ohanes Margarian, a 40-year-old villager, told...

Frozen to death | December 24, 2004
It's sad to bring up this topic on the eve of the holiday season, but HETQ Online has a story about the homeless of Armenia. Aram, homeless himself, is a kind of liaison between the homeless and the outside world....

Immigration and Return | December 22, 2004
HETQ Online has a photostory entitled "Immigration and Return": It's a series of photographs taken by Zaven Khachikyan during stays in Switzerland and the Russian region of Krasnodar. It's a touching series of pictures of Armenians in their different environments....

Donating a computer? | December 22, 2004
The company I work for has 5 iMacs which we no longer need. I thought of donating these to Armenian schools or a charity that can find a home for them. Does anyone know who can help with this? There's...

Armenians to swap places? | December 09, 2004
The New York Times (free registration required) has an article about young Armenians who contemplate leaving their country. "We can fit in anywhere," she said. "The only place we can't is Armenia." He is one of those nostalgic for an...

A Caucasian in the Caucasus | November 26, 2004
Chad did me the service of posting about me, so I return the compliment. I particularly like the part about being smart, although I hate to point I am not in Armenia (Tokyo, if you must ask). His Farther From...

A dark past | November 25, 2004
Dhimmi Watch has an interesting entry on an article by Gamaliel Isaac in Front Page Magazine. The statement of Mr Akyol that Turkey has an Islamic Heritage free of anti-westernism and anti-semitism is inaccurate. We need only look at Turkey's...

Facing extinction | November 15, 2004
Articles like this (from The Times) pop up every so often. "If there are no systemic changes in Armenia, we could face a catastrophe," says Vardan Gevorgyan, a sociologist. "We will not disappear as an ethnic or cultural group in...

Poverty in decline | November 11, 2004
Eurasianet.org comments on a recent survey which pointed to a decline in the number of people living in poverty in Armenia. Given the NSS findings, questions are already being raised about the accuracy and potential effectiveness of the government's anti-poverty...

Fighting on many fronts | November 04, 2004
A depressingly familiar scene is recounted by Edik Baghdasaryan on HETQ Online. Gagik described what happened next. "We didn't get out of the car. He got out, came up and grabbed the door with his right hand and hit me...

Economic and drug-related crime on the rise | October 29, 2004
Mediamax reports (Via Groong) on the rise of economic and drug-related crime. While the number of reported crimes dropped by 4%, those involving drugs rose by over 30%. In the course of the fight against drug trafficking, 339 drug-related crimes...

Abandoned | October 27, 2004
HETQ Online has a photostory on the Nork Children's Home in Yerevan. "It is also one of the main depositories for children waiting to be adopted. However, in an investigation conducted last year by American-Armenian Ara Manoogian and RFE/RL reporter...

Turkification | October 25, 2004
Ara Manoogian posts about what he calls "Turkification". One of the ways Armenians from Artsakh migrate to the West is via political asylum. And who better to qualify than a child from a mixed marriage, the father being Armenian and...

Misery for all | October 22, 2004
Out of a survey of 81 countries to see who are the world's most unhappy countries, Armenia has come 79. Contrary to popular belief, economic wellbeing is not a key factor in one's happiness. People from developing countries, Mexico and...

Corruption | October 21, 2004
Armenialiberty.org has some good news of sorts: "Armenia again fared better than most other ex-Soviet states but was just a whisker away from being rated as a highly corrupt nation in a closely-watched annual report on corruption around the world...

Energy Crisis | October 16, 2004
Thanks to Onnik for passing this on. It's good to see a first-world newspaper giving voice to this kind of article. Rob Maguire is a student living in Yerevan, and has written about the rise in the price of electricity...

Shop til you drop | October 14, 2004
ArmeniaNow.com reports on the shopping center (mall) opened recently in Yerevan by Robert Kocharyan and Yerevan Mayor Yervand Zakharyan. According to the Chief - designer of Tashir, Ashot Arshakyan, only GUM's walls are left to hold up a brand new...

Who killed Joshua? | October 08, 2004
The murder earlier this year of Joshua Haglund, an American working in Yerevan as a university teacher, has remained unsolved. Rumours abounded at the time of his murder that it was a hate crime (he was gay), or that he...

Slave Trades | October 07, 2004
HETQ Online has some good, punchy stories at the moment, well all the time really. The latest is a piece on the sentencing of 'Mother Pimp', who was convicted of trafficking in young women. According to the charges against her,...

Hostel Yerevan | October 05, 2004
Not Hotel Yerevan. In the year that a new 5 star hotel was opened in Yerevan, with more than $18 million in money from the US Government and World Bank, we have people living in scenes like this. HETQ Online...

Poverty on the decrease? | September 08, 2004
I would be very skeptical at anyone telling me that poverty is on the decrease in Armenia. However the government has claimed just this in a report. Armenialiberty.org reports: According to a senior official from the National Statistical Service, preliminary...

Olympic repercussions | September 03, 2004
Armenia's dismal showing at the Olympics in Athens is causing passions to run high. An earlier post on Blogrel referring to Hrach Kalsahakian's Azad-Hye blog sparked a heated discussion between readers. ArmeniaLiberty.org has an article about the outcry from within...

The Olympic Dream | August 31, 2004
Hrach at Azad-hye.com laments the lack of medals won by the Armenian Olympic team. From the opening ceremony it was clear that the Armenian team was lacking motivation. The men were wearing dark soviet style gruesome customs, while there was...

Armenia & Karabagh : The aftermath | August 30, 2004
Paul Mellor is a British photographer who travelled to Karabagh to take some startling images. An exhibition of these images were shown recently in the UK, and are now part of an exhibition in Massachusetts. The Milford Daily News reports...

Law-abiding police | August 24, 2004
Georgian traffic police have been fired, reports the International Herald Tribune. Georgian driving rules might be recorded like this: Always be first. Always regard a two-lane highway as a three-lane highway, keeping in mind that the middle lane, an imaginary...

Unemployment at 30%? | August 18, 2004
Another story from RFE/RL, this time on the unemployment rate in Yerevan. According to a survey by the EU-sponsored Armenian-European Policy and Legal Advice Center (AEPLAC) unemployment in Yerevan is three times higher than official figures, although it is in...

Ex-Minister's son avoids jail | August 18, 2004
RFE/RL reports on the trial of Hayk Aramian, son of former Minister for Urban Development Ara Aramian. He has been on trial for shooting three men in a Yerevan cafe in March. Hayk Aramian, 24, was convicted of deliberately opening...

Khorovats Street | August 08, 2004
I'm amazed it took this long for someone to write about Proshyan Street, otherwise known as Khorovats street. Well, ArmeniaNow.com has devoted an article to the Yerevan street where hungry Yerevantsi go to have the widest selection of Khorovats restaurants....

Armenia's ethnic minorities facing difficulties in preserving culture | August 06, 2004
Armenia's ethnic minorities make up something like 3% of the population, and according to this report, they are facing difficulties in preserving their culture. The Armenian government is currently elaborating a number of concepts to preserve the cultural originality of...

Crime figures up | August 05, 2004
RFE/RL has a report on the rising crime figures. Armenian Police admit that they were diverted from the task of tackling crime by the opposition protests in the spring. According to official statistics cited by the deputy chief of Armenia's...

The Alleged conference | August 05, 2004
Score Turkey 1, Armenia 1. Turkey denies the Genocide, while Armenia denies the conference. I'm referring to the Genocide conference that is alleged to have taken place in Vienna. It was subsequently denied that anyone from Armenia had gone to...

Photo presentation | August 03, 2004
I gave a sideshow presentation about Armenia to members of a travel and outdoor sports club here in Tokyo. It was interesting: an odar talking to odars about Armenia. I started by explaining the region, and some of the history,...

The Armenian sex trade | July 29, 2004
HETQ Online has a series of reports on prostitution in Armenia. They include brief interviews with prostitutes, and details of the daily difficulty in their lives. Life and death in the Armenian sex trade The Armenian sex trade - 2...

HIV/AIDS growing in Armenia | July 29, 2004
Arminfo reports on the rise of HIV/AIDS in Armenia. Apparently Armenian men use an average of 2.36 condoms each annually. They got that figure by dividing the number of condoms imported annually into Armenia, 10.9 tons, or 2.181 million, by...

Earthquake-proof housing gets shake-up | July 28, 2004
news@nature.com has a story about Mexican research into housing in poorer earthquake-prone countries. Earthquakes in rich countries such as the United States or Japan do not tend to cause huge numbers of casualties, because buildings are designed to withstand the...

CD: Poverty, Transition & Democracy | July 24, 2004
A Photo CD created by Onnik Krikorian and supported by the AGBU London Trust has been updated, and is available for free download (for educational and not-for-proft purposes). Onnik comes from the UK, and has lived and worked in Armenia...

Waiting in pain | July 22, 2004
The Guardian newspaper ran this story yesterday. It's a story from the other side, about the Azeri MIAs. When the open warfare that claimed 25,000 lives and uprooted 600,000 Azeris was at its peak, Ikhtiyar was 18 and serving in...

Haidouks | July 21, 2004
Groong has a story by Ruth Bedavian about the House-Museum of Poet-writer Avetik Isahakyan in Yerevan. Isahakyan's House Museum is filled with memorabilia from his long and illustrious life. Display case after display case yields artifacts, photos, news clippings and...

A discussion on Genocide | July 21, 2004
Anadolu Agency reports on a conference going on in Vienna: Turks And Armenians Exchange Documents To Discuss So-called Genocide Claims I was approached about a month ago by someone wanting me to blog about this and hoping to get Armenians...

A murder with no murderer | July 18, 2004
Continuing on the subject of crime and violence, ArmeniaNow.com has an article this week about the Joshua Haglund case. You may remember the violent murder of Haglund, an American who was teaching English in Yerevan. The fact that Haglund was...

Beating indictment | July 16, 2004
Panarmenian.net reports that that Armenian Armed Forces Chief of Staff, Colonel General Mikayel Harutyunian's son Arsen, 30, had beaten US citizen David Backer, 29. This apparently happened at Yerevan cafe. Two of the Americans female companions were also beaten. This...

Rural wireless access | July 16, 2004
I came across this article on how wireless internet access has been set up in rural Nepal. The few rural internet access projects, such as the Armenian School Connectivity Program run by Project Harmony might want to look into these...

Armenian Women | July 15, 2004
The Womens' Resource Center, Kanayq Hayots, is celebrating its 1st anniversary. Kanayq Hayots Women's Resource Center, based on the campus of Yerevan State University, in Armenia, is celebrating the Center's first anniversary of operation with the unveiling of its E-Center...

Exodus | July 12, 2004
Armenia's official population is something like 3 million, but it's an open secret that the real population is more like 1.5 million. The difference is made by up the new Diaspora, those who are working abroad in Russia or other...

AGBU London Lecture Series | July 09, 2004
Onnik Krikorian gave a lecture in London recently on the subject of social vulnerability and poverty in Armenia. He presented his CD-based photo project to the audience. Poverty reduction seems to be a hot topic now, the condition of some...

Third World in Azerbaijan | July 08, 2004
There's an interesting story in the Journal of Third World Studies (Via Groong) on the blight in Azerbaijan. Oil wealth and open borders notwithstanding, Azerbaijan is painted as a gloomy place. The Karabagh conflict is not the focus of this...

Freedom rings for Armenia | July 07, 2004
Garin Hovannisian muses in this piece on U-Wire about the 4th of July holiday and a freedom that might have been in Armenia. I believe strongly however, that a sense of, or want for freedom is fundamental to human nature....

Ararat wins top honours | July 06, 2004
Atom Egoyan's "Ararat" won the top prize at the Golden Apricot Film Festival in Yerevan, reports Canada's CBC. Unfortunately it cost $15 million to make, but brought in only $2.7 million in worldwide box office receipts....

Yezidi Wedding | July 06, 2004
Is it Yezidi, Yazidi? Apparently the name comes the city of Yazd in Iran, now famous for its Zorostrian fire temple. I was lucky enough to visit Yazd a few years back, and visited the fire temple with its flame...

An Armenian in America | July 05, 2004
The New Republic has reprinted an article from 1921 by Armenian-American Aghavnie Yeghenian. In it, he laments the reaction by the major powers to the genocide; indifference or treachery. These sentiments seem vivid still, and could so easily be applied...

Armenia Tree Project Celebrates its 10th Anniversary | June 30, 2004
The Armenia Tree Project is celebrating its 10th Anniversary with a open air concert at Garni Temple. Luminaries such as President Kocharyan and US Ambassador Ordway have been invited....

Online Commerce | June 30, 2004
There is a very interesting article from the Pictorial Gazette, Connecticut, (Via Groong), about small-scale online commerce. Peter Kwasniewski, who together with his wife spent time in Armenia as Peace Corps volunteers. Peter just launched Peter K Designs, an online...

Targeting poverty | June 29, 2004
Eurasianet.org has a relatively upbeat article on investment in Armenia. New funds from the World Bank and also the Millenium Challenge Account set up by the US will be targeted at trying to aleviate rural poverty through investment in roads...

Project Harmony | June 28, 2004
There will be a presentation on the Armenian Schools Connectivity Project (ASCP) by Mourad Mouradyan of the Project Harmony on Tuesday 29, 2004 7:00PM at Armenian Society of Los Angeles....

Lessons in history | June 28, 2004
The Montreal Gazette has a good article (via Groong) about the book "From Empire to Republic" by Turkish scholar Dr. Akcam. Dr. Akcam stresses the important to Turkey of coming to terms with its past, but also makes the point...

Power taken from the masses? | June 25, 2004
Emil Danielyan has written an article on Transitions Online about Kocharyan and the worsening human rights record of Armenia. "Armenia has taken a big step backward in the past three months in terms of human rights protection," says Vartan Harutiunian,...

Genocide denial lecture | June 24, 2004
Haigazian University was the location for a lecture by Prof. Henry C. Theriault, an academic from the US. The Department of Armenian Studies has issued a press release (via Groong)about the lecture. In it, he draws interesting parallels with denialist...

The rich man's view | June 24, 2004
The Vahakni development, which I posted about two days ago, has a write up from the Institute for War and Peace Reporting. They interview Vahak S. Hovnanian, the man behind the project. "But Vahakni is in itself a lifestyle, which...

Internet crime | June 23, 2004
Maybe I spoke too fast. The Computer Crime Research Center reports that most computer crimes in Armenia are committed through the Internet. She said that these crimes are not solved in Armenia, like anywhere in the world, because banks try...

Cilicia to set sail | June 22, 2004
Here's a lovely story about the ship Cilicia, about to set sail from the port of Poti on an epic voyage to Amsterdam. I was lucky to clamber aboard the Cilicia on a cold and windy October day last year...

Judicial farce | June 16, 2004
HETQ Online, the Association of Investigative Journalists of Armenia, has some strong words in reaction to the fines imposed on thugs who attacked journalists in April at one of the opposition rallies. "This was a judicial farce. The trial was...

AGBU London lecture Series | June 11, 2004
Onnik Krikorian will give a photo presentation and lecture in London at the end of June, entitled "Poverty, transition and democracy in Armenia". Centre for Armenian Information and Advice 105a Mill Hill Road, Acton London W3 8JF Nearest tube: Acton...

Orran Children's Center opens | June 02, 2004
The Orran Children's Center has opened in Yerevan. Orran was founded in 2000 with the mission of assisting children who have resorted to street life out of poverty, eliminating street begging by children, helping families in spiritual crisis and economic...

The Children of Kharberd | May 31, 2004
HETQ Online have another in their series of photo stories. This series of photos, by Onnik Krikorian, are about the Specialized Children Home in Kharberd where 200 children with varying degrees of disability reside. After scandal after scandal in the...