GLENDALE – On April 1, Consul General of Armenia in Los Angeles Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary Armen Baibourtian met with Pasadena Mayor Victor Gordo at the historic Pasadena City Hall. Deputy to the Mayor Vannia De La Cuba also participated in the meeting.This meeting was the first since the election of Victor Gordo as Mayor of the city of Pasadena and the restrictions imposed due to the pandemic. Taking the opportunity, Ambassador Baibourtian congratulated Mayor Gordo on assuming this important position. In his turn, Mayor Gordo expressed his delight that the city where he holds the office has a tangible Armenian population. He mentioned that the local Armenian-American community have made great contribution to the development of the city.Ambassador Baibourtian and Mayor Gordo discussed several ideas and concepts for initiating new cooperation programs, the implementation of which would enable to elevate the mutual cooperation to a new level. It was mutually agreed to promptly proceed to the first steps in that direction. The interlocutors decided to hold their meetings on a regular basis.Victor Gordon was elected Pasadena’s third Citywide-elected Mayor on November 3, 2020. He has been a member of the Pasadena City Council since 2001.The world-renowned Caltech’s (California Institute of Technology) 37 Nobel Laureates have brought 38 Nobel Prizes home to Pasadena.

ԼՈՍ ԱՆՋԵԼԵՍՈՒՄ ՀՀ ԳԼԽԱՎՈՐ ՀՅՈՒՊԱՏՈՍ, ԴԵՍՊԱՆ ԱՐՄԵՆ ԲԱՅԲՈՒՐԴՅԱՆԸ ՀԱՆԴԻՊԵՑ ՓԱՍԱԴԻՆԱՅԻ ՔԱՂԱՔԱՊԵՏ ՎԻԿՏՈՐ ԳՈՐԴՈՅԻ ՀԵՏ
ԳԼԵՆԴԵՅԼ – Ապրիլի 1-ին Լոս Անջելեսում ՀՀ գլխավոր հյուպատոս, արտակարգ և լիազոր դեսպան Արմեն Բայբուրդյանը հանդիպեց Փասադինայի քաղաքապետ Վիկտոր Գորդոյի հետ։ Հանդիպումը տեղի ունեցավ 145 հազար բնակչություն ունեցող Փասադինայի քաղաքապետարանի պատմական շենքում։ Զրույցին մասնակցում էր քաղաքապետի տեղակալ Վանիա Դե Լա Կուբան։Այս հանդիպումն առաջինն էր Փասադինայի քաղաքապետի պաշտոնում Վիկտոր Գորդոյի ընտրվելուց և համավարակի պատճառով կիրառվող սահմանափակումներից ի վեր։ Դեսպան Բայբուրդյանը, առիթն օգտագործելով, շնորհավորեց քաղաքապետ Գորդոյին պատասխանատու պաշտոնին անցնելու կապակցությամբ։ Քաղաքապետ Վիկտոր Գորդոն իր հերթին ուրախություն հայտնեց, որ պաշտոնավարում է հայաշատ քաղաքում, որտեղ ամերիկահայերը մեծ ներդրում ունեն քաղաքի տարբեր ոլորտների զարգացման գործում։Դեսպան Բայբուրդյանը և քաղաքապետ Գորդոն քննարկեցին համագործակցության մի քանի գործնական ծրագրերի գաղափարներ, որոնց իրագործումը հնարավորություն կտա փոխգործակցությունը նոր մակարդակի բարձրացնել։ Որոշվեց առաջիկայում առաջին քայլը կատարել այդ ուղղությամբ, ինչի մասին լրացուցիչ կտեղեկացվի։ Զրուցակիցները պայմանավորվեցին իրենց  հանդիպումներին պարբերական բնույթ տալ։Վիկտոր Գորդոն քաղաքապետ է ընտրվել 2020 թվականի նոյեմբերի 3-ի համաքաղաքային ընտրություններում։ Նա Փասադինայի քաղաքային խորհրդի անդամ է 2001 թվականից։Փասադինայում գտնվող աշխարհահռչակ Կալիֆորնիայի տեխնոլոգիական ինստիտուտը քաղաքին հատուկ պատվի է արժանացրել Նոբելյան մրցանակի 37 դափնեկիրներ տալով։

It’s clear that Armenia was in a better state during the administration of Robert Kocharyan and that the use of his experience is very important in the current situation. This is what former Minister of Defense of Armenia and Artsakh (Nagorno-Karabakh) Seyran Ohanyan told yerkir.am.

“I highly respect Robert Kocharyan, and if he has decided to enter politics, I unequivocally support him because Armenia was more organized, security was on stronger foundations, the economy developed and the foundation for tourism was laid due to the knowledge and experience of Robert Kocharyan, and, of course, there have also been shortcomings during his administration,” Ohanyan said, adding that if Kocharyan invites him to run in the snap parliamentary elections and join his team, he will accept the offer.

I don’t agree with the opinion that the war is not over. The war is over, a truce has been declared, and large-scale military operations aren’t being conducted. This is what Director of the Caucasus Institute, political scientist Alexander Iskandaryan told reporters today, adding that this doesn’t mean that a new war is ruled out and that Azerbaijan isn’t taking any actions.

According to him, Azerbaijan is trying to obtain all the dividends from its victory.

“The Azerbaijani authorities are seeking to hit Armenians where it hurts the most. A lot is done for the internal audience. The loss of territories and people is what hurts us Armenians the most, and the authorities’ first direction is the occupation in Armenia’s territories and on the line of contact of Artsakh (Nagorno-Karabakh). The second and third directions are the prisoners of war and the strategy on communication in the Lachin corridor. Another issue is Meghri where the Azerbaijanis will try to approve the version that Turkey needs. This is a political project, not economic,” Iskandaryan said.

As far as Armenia’s authorities are concerned, the analyst said it’s clear that something is going on behind closed doors, but if we look at the public, one gets the impression that almost nothing is happening. “However, it’s important to understand that there aren’t enough resources to advance own interests. The resources need to be regained, but there are no such opportunities now,” he concluded.

WASHINGTON, DC (barnabasfund.org) — A report from the US Department of State released 30 March 2021 has confirmed the role of Turkey in supporting Azerbaijan’s war against ethnic Armenians in Nagorno-Karabakh.

The 2020 Country Reports on Human Rights Practices also highlight war crimes committed by Azerbaijan during the conflict, including military strikes against civilian targets and the torture and abuse of Armenian prisoners.

The report states that Azerbaijan’s invasion of Nagorno-Karabakh was conducted “with Turkish support”.

A separate resolution of the European Parliament, published 11 March, condemned Turkey’s action of sending Syrian mercenaries to fight for Azerbaijan in Nagorno-Katabkah, “in violation of international law”.

After the conflict Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan declared, “The crescent and star embellish the skies of Karabakh now thanks to the efforts of our Azerbaijani brothers and sisters … The Azerbaijani flag flies proudly over Nagorno-Karabakh as a symbol of our martyrs’ valour.”

Turkey’s role in the conflict and the accounts of Azerbaijani brutality and abuse have raised fears about the possibility of a new Armenian genocide.

Nagorno-Karabakh  is part of the historic homeland of the Armenian people, who around 301 AD became the first Christian nation, and the region still contains many ancient churches and monasteries. Karabakh was placed within Azerbaijan by the USSR in 1923.

Azerbaijan war crimes described as “credible” and “significant”

The US Department of State also cites “significant human rights issues” perpetrated by Azerbaijan in Nagorno-Karabakh, including “unlawful killings, civilian casualties, and inhuman treatment”.

These include in Stepanakert the use of aerial bombardment, artillery and cluster munitions against civilian targets such as medical centres and ambulances, gas and electricity plants, sources of food and water, and “schools and pre-schools”.

In October 2020 videos appeared showing Azerbaijani soldiers mocking and then killing two Armenian civilians in the town of Hadrut, later identified as 25-year-old Yuriy Adamyan and 73-year-old Benik Hakobyan.

The report also describes as “credible” accounts of Azerbaijani abuse and murder of civilian detainees and the torture of military prisoners of war.

Following the closure of borders between Azerbaijan and Armenia in 1991, the report notes, “inflammatory rhetoric” became more common. By 2020, “an entire generation had grown up listening to hate speech against Armenians”.

In March 2021 the Armenian National Commission for the UNESCO condemned the alleged demolition of a church building in Mekhakavan, Nagorno-Karabakh, describing it as “another act of cultural crime by Azerbaijan”.

A man has reportedly presented to a Melbourne hospital with blood clotting a week after having the AstraZeneca COVID vaccine.

The 44-year-old man received the AstraZeneca jab on March 22 and has since presented to a hospital in Melbourne with a very low platelet count and blood clots, 7NEWS reported, citing the ABC.

It is not yet known if the man’s clotting is related to the vaccine.

Australia’s deputy chief health officer Michael Kidd is expected to provide an update during a press conference on Friday afternoon.

This comes a week after Canada suspended the use of the Oxford-AstraZeneca coronavirus vaccine for people under age 55 following concerns it might be linked to rare blood clots.

On Friday, British regulators said they had identified 30 cases of rare blood clot events after the use of the AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine, 25 more than previously reported.

The Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency said on Thursday it had received no such reports of clotting events following use of the vaccine made by BioNTech SE and Pfizer.

The health officials said they still believe the benefits of the vaccine in the prevention of COVID-19 far outweigh any possible risk of blood clots.

Majority of Australians are expected to receive the AstraZeneca vaccine as it is manufactured by CSL in Melbourne.

Due to the meeting scheduled with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Moscow on April 7, Armenia’s Prime Nikol Pashinyan is working in self-isolation as of Friday. Pashinyan’s spokesperson Mane Gevorgyan informed about this on Facebook.

Also, she noted that in addition to personal receptions and public events, Pashinyan works with a planned agenda, too.

by Giulio Meotti,

• Erdogan was promoting his global campaign of victimization by “Islamophobia”, while in fact it is the critics of extremist Islam who are in danger and frequently killed.
• In the Caucasus, Turkey has just supported the Azerbaijani war against Armenia in Nagorno-Karabakh in order to create a Turkish Islamic corridor between Azerbaijan, Turkey and other Muslim countries.
• “It began in 1989 with the fatwa against Salman Rushdie: no Western country reacted except with words – as if they thought a verbal spell might work!…. The battle lost in Armenia is the first of a war waged in the West against the Judeo-Christian civilization”. — Michel Onfray, Reveue des deux mondes, February 1, 2021.
• While the new sultan extends his influence to Syria, Libya and the Caucasus, he also extends it to the Mediterranean. For pacifist Europe, that sea only exists when it comes to bringing in migrants.
• “What the Turkish regime is doing is using its diaspora as a Trojan horse.” — Michel Sifaoui, europe1.fr, February 7, 2021.
• In Turkey under Erdogan, school textbooks have been rewritten to refer to Jews and Christians as gavur, “infidels.” Earlier Turkish textbooks referred to the members of the two religions as the “people of the Book”…. The curriculum adopts an anti-American stance, and shows sympathy for the motives of ISIS and al-Qaeda. — Report by the Institute for Monitoring Peace and Cultural Tolerance in School Education (IMPACT-se), March 2021.
• “We are a large family of 300 million people from the Adriatic to the Great Wall of China”. — Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Minval.az, October 18, 2018.

“It was a very special day, July 24 [2020],” said France’s leading expert on Islam, Gilles Kepel.

“It was pilgrimage time to Mecca and, due to the pandemic, no one was there! It was the anniversary of the Treaty of Lausanne, the origin of modern Turkey within its current borders. Erdogan was about to twist the arm of the secular Ataturk, who had turned the old Hagia Sophia basilica into a museum that he had donated ‘to humanity’. Erdogan… turned it back into a mosque”.

This was the moment, remarked Kepel – who just published a new book, “Le Prophète et la Pandémie” [“The Prophet and the Pandemic“] — that Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan became the new leader of the umma, or global Islamic community. “Erdogan is trying to appear as the champion of Islam, just like Ayatollah Khomenei in 1989”.

Both Khomeini and Erdogan seem to have been committed to erasing secularism and ties with Western culture from their respective countries; to heading a battle against Saudi Arabia for supremacy of the Islamic world and to re-Islamizing their societies. Veiled women, for instance was rarely seen in Tehran before Khomeini, and Erdogan reintroduced it into Turkish society.

The Iranian mullahs were also able to impose on the international arena the use of the word “Islamophobia”, but now it is Turkey that is leading the ideological persecution of the “Islamophobes”. Under the auspices of Turkish diplomat Volkan Bozkir, President of the 75th Session of the United Nations General Assembly, the UN just celebrated the “International Day against Islamophobia” and Secretary General Antonio Guterres himself strongly denounced an “epidemic of Islamophobia“. Erdogan was promoting his global campaign of victimization by “Islamophobia”, while in fact it is the critics of extremist Islam who are in danger and frequently killed.

This grotesque and shameful conference was organized by the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC), an entity made up of 56 mainly Muslim countries, plus “Palestine”. In the OIC, states such as Pakistan punish “blasphemy” with death; Saudi Arabia flogs and jails liberal bloggers such as Raif Badawi, and Turkey fills its jails with writers and journalists, to mention just a few of members.

On that July 24, in 2020,, Erdogan challenged Europe and the West by re-appropriating what had been, for a thousand years, the largest church in Eastern Christianity. The lack of response on the part of the West most likely convinced him that the moment was right. No one paid attention or countered the act.

Unlike Iran and Saudi Arabia, Turkey is a democracy. It is in talks with the European Union about its possible membership; it is pampered in Washington; it is the second-largest army in NATO, and stands as Asia’s gateway to Europe.

The Financial Times (FT) has dedicated a series of analyses to Erdogan’s grand plan for hegemony. In Africa, for the past 15 years, for instance, the Turkish president has spearheaded a mega-relaunch of his alliances. Since 2009, Turkey has increased the number of embassies there from 12 to 42. Erdogan has even been a frequent visitor, making trips to more than 20 capitals. The government has set itself the goal over the next few years of doubling Turkey’s trade volume with Africa to $50 billion, about a third of its current trade with the European Union.

Turkey has also chosen the Balkans as a battlefield — “the region,” according to the FT, “is symbolically very important, since much of it was ruled by Istanbul during the Ottoman Empire”. Then, there is Europe:

“Several European countries have voiced concern over activity by Turkey’s intelligence service on their soil and the use of state-trained Turkish imams to spy on the diaspora”.

Erdogan’s goal in Europe seems to be to use the Turkish diaspora as a political instrument of pressure on states (in particular Germany, France, Austria, Belgium and Holland) and as the base for his hegemony.

In the Caucasus, Turkey supported Azerbaijan’s war against Armenia in Nagorno-Karabakh presumably to create a Turkic-Islamic corridor between Azerbaijan, Turkey and other Muslim countries. Erdogan also apparently makes use of mercenaries. The Indian media reported a contingent sent to Kashmir to support Pakistan. Turkey has also previously used “Sadat” mercenaries against the Armenians, as well as in the Libyan and Syrian civil wars.

In the latest issue of the Reveue des deux mondes, the French philosopher Michel Onfray remarked that there is a clash of civilizations and that Erdogan now leads the Islamist side. “It began in 1989 with the fatwa against Salman Rushdie,” he wrote.

“No Western country reacted except with words – as if they thought a verbal spell might work! With the beheading of Professor Samuel Paty it is this Judeo-Christianity that is being attacked — in Armenia, Islam is attacking the oldest Christianity in Europe …. Europe is afraid of Erdogan and his ability to cause damage. This Tamerlane in the making threatens, insults, attacks, [and] supports those who threaten us, insult us and attack us”.

That, Onfray continues, was the meaning of the Turkish aggression against Karabakh:

“Armenia is being attacked by Azeris and Muslim Turks who want its total disappearance. It is the result of a war of civilizations. What is happening in this country, which is the cradle of Christian civilization, is what awaits us here, in the tomb of the Judeo-Christian civilization itself. The battle lost in Armenia is the first of a war waged in the West against the Judeo-Christian civilization”.

Erdogan has not even tried to hide his ideological vision. “The crescent and star embellish the skies of Karabakh now thanks to the efforts of our Azerbaijani brothers and sisters”, the Turkish president proclaimed after the war. “The Azerbaijani flag flies proudly over Nagorno-Karabakh as a symbol of our martyrs’ valor”.

One of Erdogan’s advisors, the retired Turkish general Adnan Tanrıverdi, who founded the mercenary agency “Sadat”, articulated the vision of a unified Islamic superpower. His Justice Defenders Strategic Studies Center called it “Asrica“, the union of Africa and Asia, 61 countries whose capital is Istanbul and under the aegis of this “Erdoganistan”. They include 12 countries of the Middle East, namely Bahrain, United Arab Emirates, Palestine, Iraq, Qatar, Kuwait, Lebanon, Syria, Saudi Arabia, Oman, Jordan and Yemen; eight in Central Asia, Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Turkey and Turkmenistan; four in the Near East, namely Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Iran and Pakistan; three in Southeast Asia, Brunei, Indonesia and Malaysia; six in North Africa, namely Algeria, Chad, Morocco, Libya, Egypt and Tunisia; six in East Africa, including Djibouti, Eritrea, Comoros, Mozambique, Somalia and Sudan; ten in northwestern Africa and South America, ie Western Sahara, Gambia, Guinea, Guinea Bissau, Mali, Mauritania, Senegal, Sierra Leone, Guyana and Suriname; eight in South West Africa, namely Benin, Burkina Faso, Gabon, Cameroon, Niger, Nigeria and Togo; and four in Europe, Albania, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Kosovo and Macedonia.

Turkey evidently wants to be a great neo-Ottoman Emipire and the only one capable of leading the Muslim world. The conversion of Hagia Sophia into a mosque seems to have been intended as a watershed in Islamic history that heralds the establishment of a powerful league of Muslim nations to face the West under the Turkish leadership.

Three seas surround Turkey: the Eastern Mediterranean, the Black Sea and the Aegean Sea. Turkey recently launched a large naval exercise. The Turkish Ministry of Defense announced that 82 warships, 17 naval aviation craft, amphibious forces, air force units and special operations teams engaged in exercises that ended on March 8.

“Blue Homeland” — Mavi Vatan in Turkish — is the geopolitical concept that marks Erdogan’s agenda for the coming years. Conceived by nationalist Admiral Cem Gurdeniz, it is the “diplomacy of drills and warships” that pursues “the return of Turkey to the sea, the union between Anatolia and the eastern Mediterranean”. The goal is clear: to control the sea, to control energy resources and to impose its influence. Erdogan announced that it will no longer be called “Aegean”, but the “sea of ​​islands”.

Ankara is on a collision course with Greece and Cyprus over who has the right to exploit the eastern Mediterranean’s oil and gas deposits. “They will understand that Turkey has the political, economic and military power to tear up immoral maps and imposed documents,” Erdogan said.

Turkey has problems with Cyprus, which, unlike the Turks, belongs to the European Union but not to NATO. Turkey, which invaded the island in 1974, remains the only country to recognize Turkish-occupied Northern Cyprus as a state. The Republic of Cyprus, which is majority-Greek Cypriot, wants to make deals with foreign energy companies, while Turkey, to the island’s north, wants economic rights in the waters that Cyprus considers its own.

While the new sultan extends his influence to Syria, Libya and the Caucasus, he also extends it within the Mediterranean. For pacifist Europe, that sea only exists when it comes to bringing in migrants.

President Erdogan, in an official visit to Paris on January 5, 2018, proceeded to launch this provocative phrase to the leaders of the French Council for Muslim worship: “The Muslims of France are under my protection”. Those were the first lines of an inquiry by the France’s Journal du Dimanche. Several reports sent to the Elysée Palace by the Directorate General for Internal Security (DGSI), which the newspaper was able to consult, reveal the scope, forms and objectives of a “real infiltration strategy” through networks managed by the Turkish embassy and the Turkish spy agency, the MIT. “They act mainly within the Turkish immigrant population, but also through Muslim organizations and also recently in local political life, through the support given to elected officials”.

“These actions have different objectives,” commented the journalist Mohamed Sifaoui.

“First, to improve the image of the Turkish regime in the diaspora and in French society. Then, to defend Erdogan’s image at all costs. And finally, of course, the spread of an Islamist vision of Islam”.

Sifaoui cites as an example the latest charter wanted by French President Emmanuel Macron, the charter of principles present in the law that strengthens “republican principles,” and is currently being examined by Parliament:

“It was not signed by the two Turkish federations, at the request of Ankara, because it is a charter that recalls the fundamental principles important for the Republic and which the Turkish regime clearly opposes… What the Turkish regime is doing is using its diaspora as a Trojan horse.”

The Brookings Institution wrote in 2019:

“According to the [French] ministry of interior, 151 imams have been sent by Turkey (which has undertaken a spate of religious outreach to Muslims across Europe over the past decade)…”

Just as Turkey controls 400 mosques out of 2,500 in France. It is Ahmet Ogras, apparently close to Erdogan, who for two years occupied the symbolic position of president of the French Council for Muslim Worship — as Turkish voters in France are generally more pro-Erdogan than in Turkey. During the presidential elections of 2014, Erdogan won 66% of the votes cast by Turkish citizens in France, compared to only 51.79% in Turkey. First- and second-generation Turkish immigrants in France continue to watch Turkish television, which is extremely submissive to Erdogan’s power. In French public schools, 180 teachers, directly appointed by Ankara, are responsible for teaching the Turkish language.

These efforts make up the great project of conquest by Erdogan the Islamizer.

Erdogan recently withdrew Turkey from an international treaty on preventing violence against women. With this decision, it seems that the president is determined to increase impunity around murder of women and “honor killings”, which common in Turkey.

In Erdogan’s Turkey, school textbooks have been rewritten to refer to Jews and Christians as gavur, “infidels,” according to a new study published by the Institute for Monitoring Peace and Cultural Tolerance in School Education (IMPACT-se). Earlier Turkish textbooks referred to the members of the two religions as the “peoples of the Book”. “School books have been used as a weapon in Erdogan’s attempts to Islamise Turkish society and to trace back to a nostalgic era of Turkish domination,” wrote IMPACT-se’s CEO, Marcus Sheff.

These are some of the findings of the study: Jihad was introduced in textbooks and transformed into the “new normal”, with martyrdom in battle glorified. Ethno-nationalist religious goals of neo-Ottomanism and pan-Turkism are taught. Therefore, Islam is described as a political issue, with science and technology used to further its goals. There is an emphasis on concepts such as “Turkish world domination” and “Turkish or Ottoman ideal of world order”. According to the curriculum, the “Turkish basin” extends from the Adriatic Sea to Central Asia. The curriculum adopts an anti-American stance, and shows sympathy for the motives of ISIS and al-Qaeda. Turkey takes anti-Armenian and pro-Azerbaijani positions. The identity and cultural needs of the Kurdish minority continue to be largely neglected. The pogroms of 1955 against the Greek community in Istanbul are ignored.

At schools, during the term of Erdogan, maps showing Turkish power have appeared. Reference is made to the “Turkish heritage from the Adriatic Sea to the Great Wall of China”: “Turkish cultural artifacts can be seen in a vast region, starting with the countries of Central and East Asia, such as China and Mongolia, and extends to Herzegovina and Hungary…”

“We are a large family of 300 million people from the Adriatic to the Great Wall of China,” Erdogan said in a speech from Moldova.

Europe, the US, NATO and the Free World might start worrying. Erdogan seems aiming to be the new Islamist wolf in sheep’s clothing.

Giulio Meotti, Cultural Editor for Il Foglio, is an Italian journalist and author.

Source: https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/17202/erdogan-turkey-islamic-superpower

By Suzie Racho

Tucked away on a wooded hillside in the middle of San Francisco sits a big concrete cross. When it was built, it could be seen from miles around. Now, a thick grove of trees partially shields it from view.

Over the years, Bay Curious has gotten several questions about the cross. Even lifelong San Franciscans, like Julia Thollaug and Phil Montalvo, have wondered about it.

“I grew up in and around S.F. I’ve always noticed the cross and just wondered why it was there and where it came from?” says Thollaug.

“Growing up in the Outer Mission/Crocker Amazon, the cross was always in view. I never understood when it was constructed, or even as of today, why it’s still up on Mount Davidson,” adds Montalvo.

Neither of them has ever visited Mount Davidson Park, where the cross is located. And after living here for decades, I hadn’t either.

Mount Davidson Park rises above a quiet residential neighborhood just west of Twin Peaks. It’s not well known or well marked.  But  once you start walking the park’s trails, you’re surrounded by eucalyptus trees and it’s easy to forget you’re in the middle of a major city.

When you get to the top, you see two things: a view that stretches all the way to the East Bay and one very big cross.  

Author and Mount Davidson historian Jacquie Proctor says the cross’s origin story goes back to 1923. To a time when the area was a forest.  

“A guy named James Decatur, who is an employee of the Western Union Telegraph Company and involved with the YMCA, hikes through that forest and comes to the top, ” Proctor says. “And he sees this incredible view of downtown. And he is just overwhelmed. He is inspired then to build a cross to crown the highest point of the city.”

An imposing sight, the concrete cross stands 103 feet tall and measures 10 feet wide at the base. 

Decatur thought it would be a perfect place to hold an Easter sunrise service. Holding religious ceremonies in natural settings was a trend at the time. Proctor says people were pushing back against the materialism of the Roaring ’20s by reconnecting to the natural and to the spiritual.  So it wasn’t hard for Decatur to find support for his idea. 

Several of Mount Davidson’s trails had already been established by its landowner, a developer named A.S. Baldwin.  Baldwin was already starting to build houses in the surrounding area. These would become neighborhoods like Westwood Highlands, Forest Hill and St. Francis Wood. Baldwin saw the service as a way to introduce more people to new neighborhoods west of Twin Peaks. So he not only gives Decatur permission to hold the event, but donates $2,000 to get a 40-foot tall wooden cross constructed for the service. That’s nearly $31,000 in today’s dollars.                                                                                                                            

The event also received enthusiastic backing from city officials, religious leaders and community groups.  Boy Scout troops camped out the night before and acted as ushers for attendees. The dean of Grace Cathedral led the service.                                                          

That Easter morning was a rainy one, but Proctor says that didn’t stop 5,000 worshipers from showing up. 

“James Decatur thinks, ‘This is great. Had no idea 5,000 people would come, so let’s do it again!’ ” Proctor says.

Decatur raises money for a bigger wooden cross for the service the following year. But it wouldn’t be the last service or the last cross. There were five in all.  Each temporary cross was replaced as the now annual service got more and more popular, drawing tens of thousands of people, Proctor says. 

“People are dressed up,” Proctor says. “They’re wearing fancy shoes and their fur coats. It was this incredible civic event. “

But it was still being held on private land, land that was beginning to fill with new houses. 

The encroaching development alarmed nature lover Madie Brown. In 1926, she led a campaign to urge the city to buy 25 acres on Mount Davidson to create a public park. Bolstered by women’s groups across the city, the three-year campaign was a success. She even won the support of Baldwin’s widow, Emma, who donated the six acres at the peak.  The cross would now be sitting on public land.  

After years of temporary crosses,  construction began on the monument in 1932. 

It took two years and $20,000 to build the enormous concrete cross — almost $400,000 in today’s dollars. By the time it was completed, the country was in The Great Depression. But the people still wanted a grand celebration.

As part of the ceremony, a dozen 1,000-watt flood lights were installed on poles surrounding the cross. 

Madie Brown envisioned a dramatic moment when the lights would be switched on for the first time. She wrote to an envoy of President Franklin Delano Roosevelt asking him to do the honors.

“It seems most appropriate that the President, who has brought light into many a darkened American home and who through his New Deal has instilled the principles of the Golden Rule into American business, should take part in this cross lighting ceremony,”  she wrote.

Western Union set up a trans-Atlantic hookup  between Washington, D.C., and San Francisco. And on the evening of March 24, 1934, President Roosevelt pressed a gold telegraph key that sent electricity across the country to light the Mount Davidson cross. Once lit,  the cross was visible from 50 miles away. That Easter, 50,000 people journeyed to the monument. 

The cross became a San Francisco landmark. But other than an appearance in the Clint Eastwood movie, “Dirty Harry” in 1971,  it  had largely stayed out of the news until the early 1990s, when the issue of a cross on public land ends up in court.

After several years of litigation, the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals rules that city ownership of the cross violates the California Constitution’s separation of church and state laws. San Francisco has to find someone to buy the cross or tear it down. 

“The city decides they’re going to sell the land around the cross and the cross and they have to sell it with no conditions,” says Proctor.

In 1997, San Francisco settles on a plan to auction off the cross and the little over a third of an acre it sits on. The sale requires any bidder to keep the site open to the public and places restrictions on how many days it can be illuminated.

Three groups come forward in hopes of preserving the cross as a landmark: The Friends of Mount Davidson Conservancy (of which Jacquie Proctor was a member), the Museum of the City of San Francisco and the Council of Armenian American Organizations of Northern California.  

The Armenian group thought that the cross could become a memorial.

“Most Armenian Americans, including those in the San Francisco Bay Area, are descendants of the few survivors of the Armenian genocide, which was carried out by the Turkish leaders of the Ottoman Empire in 1915,”  says Roxanne Makasdjian,  a member of Council of Armenian American Organizations of Northern California.

Makasdjian says that  descendants often built two things in the places where they settled: churches and genocide memorials.  The Armenian Council thought a visible symbol like the cross on Mount Davidson could educate the public about this history. 

With the support of the neighborhood group, who share the goals of preserving the cross and the park, Makasdjian’s group wins the rights to buy the site and the cross for $26,000. 

Now, the cross is lit two nights a year, April 24 to commemorate the Armenian genocide and the night before Easter.

The annual sunrise service still exists. Now it’s non-denominational, and a few hundred people usually show up. Not quite the same scene as the thousands who appeared in their finery in the 1920s and 1930s.

But Proctor is thankful for the sunrise service. Without it, she says, Mount Davidson would look very different today.  

“If we didn’t have the sunrise service, we wouldn’t have a park there now. And it would have been covered with houses and buildings, like most of the other hills of San Francisco.”

In 2020,  the coronavirus pandemic canceled the Easter service for the first time since 1923.  And this year will be the second time.

Source: https://www.kqed.org/news/11867090/why-theres-a-cross-on-san-franciscos-highest-peak

People in Artsakh (Nagorno-Karabakh) were sending me letters and calling me on the phone telling me that President Arayik Harutyunyan came to Martuni and continued to state that everyone and the internal traitors are to blame for the war. I don’t know who the internal traitors are. All Armenians know that the traitors are the President and his colleague in Armenia. Who does he want to throw the blame on? This is what deputy of the Justice faction of the National Assembly of Artsakh Metakse Hakobyan told Armenian News-NEWS.am today, touching upon the President’s statement about Karmir Shuka village.

“I visited Karmir Shuka about 12 days ago and saw that it’s not safe there. I myself want Armenians to return and live in their settlements, and we’re doing everything to achieve this. When my fellow deputies and I went to Taghavard village, people were surprised and told us we were the first people who had visited them. I didn’t see that the people were in safety, and on the road, I saw a column of Azerbaijanis who were passing through Karmir Shuka, Spitakashen and Shosh. This is why I don’t believe anything Arayik Harutyunyan says,” the MP said.

Yesterday President of Artsakh Arayik Harutyunyan visited Martuni and several other communities where he also talked about Karmir Shuka village and emphasized that in this stage, in terms of self-establishment, every politician in Armenia is using a false agenda of patriotism and trying to blame Artsakh, stating that the latter is allegedly preparing to make certain transactions.

Deputy of the My Step faction of the National Assembly of Armenia Maria Karapetyan posted the following on her Facebook page:

“Dear citizens, during the elections, you will vote for only one political party, not one of the candidates included in the list of the particular political party. You will simply take the ballot indicating the name of your preferred political party and place it in an envelope. However, this doesn’t mean you won’t know who is included in the political party’s list since the lists will be promulgated in advance. This electoral system is referred to as simple proportional.”

Today the National Assembly of Armenia adopted, in the first and second readings, the bill on making amendments and supplements to the “Electoral Code of the Republic of Armenia” Constitutional Law, which proposes to do away with the rating electoral system and introduced the proportional electoral system with closed lists.