Gagrule.net News, Views, Interviews worldwide
Armenians from the village of Burnashet in Georgia’s Samtskhe Javakheti province set off to climb Mount Ararat on Friday, August 3, as reported by Akhaltskha.net.
The group of 16 people is at 2941m height at the moment. Before starting the journey Artur Kocharyan told about the goals of the group: “Our group includes people of 14 to 58 years. We are joint by a single concept – to climb mount Ararat and set the Armenian flag on top of it, also the flags of Artsakh, Georgia and Russia.”
A decision has been taken to shut down the only Armenian school operating in Jordan, a move that can pose a serious threat to the local Armenian community’s existence, Maral Nersessian, one of the community members, said on Facebook.
She says their existence is already put at risk outside the community amid unprecedented mixed marriages and union-related issues, and now without the school serving as ‘the pillar of the community, it is set to face a reality marked by radical threats.’
Nersessian is alerting that the number of school students is falling year by year, with the major blow to the school being the migration of Syrian Armenians.
Armenian “fascinating” language
The Armenian tongue has been included in the list of five languages with unique qualities that make them interesting to study and learn. In an article published on Sunday, July 15, The Daily Caller unveils the “fascinating languages off the beaten track that are worth taking the time to learn.”
“Armenian, the official language of Armenia, shares many unique qualities that might seem daunting but also fascinating for English speakers to study,” the article says.
The heavily inflected language has a unique 39-letter script and was first created in 405 AD to translate the Hebrew Bible and Christian New Testament, according to Brittannica.com.
Armenian is an independent branch of the Indo-European languages. Historically being spoken throughout the Armenian Highlands, today the language is widely spoken in Armenia and throughout the Armenian Diaspora.
Polish, Russian, Hungarian and Romanian have also made it to the list of the five most interesting languages, which, according to the article, are bound to be a great way to learn about another country’s history and culture!
Ashot Khudaverdyan’s paintings on display during the “Yerevan 2800” art exhibit at the Glendale Central Library. The paintings are part of a special 10-day exhibition at the Glendale Central Library’s ReflectSpace and PassageWay galleries to celebrate Yerevan’s history. (Courtesy of Glendale Central Library)
A new art exhibit will pay homage to Armenia’s capital city, a place many Glendale residents call their native home.
To celebrate the 2,800th anniversary of Yerevan, the capital of Armenia, a special 10-day exhibition at the Glendale Central Library’s ReflectSpace and PassageWay galleries will celebrate the city’s history.
The library’s newest exhibit, “Yerevan 2800” will be in its ReflectSpace and PassageWay galleries. It is a joint effort between the city of Glendale and the Library, Arts & Culture Department in collaboration with the Yerevan Municipality Tourism Office.
“We usually approach an exhibit with contemporary art, along with historical images and context,” said co-curator Ara Oshagan. “There is a huge population of Yerevanians in Glendale.”
The exhibit also comes on the heels of Armenia’s “Velvet Revolution,” a nonviolent grass-roots movement to remove President Serzh Sargsyan from office. Sargsyan resigned on April 23, and opposition leader Nikol Pashinian was elected prime minister on May 8.
Isajanyan, 41, was in Yerevan a few days before the exhibit opened on Wednesday.
She and her 10-year-old son were in the city for 40 days while Isajanyan worked on a group art exhibit. Isajanyan said the Yerevan people are still in the honeymoon period after the election.
“People were so happy. Everything has changed completely,” Isajanyan, 51, said. “They believe the new generation will lead us to new heights.”
For her portion of the exhibit, Isajanyan painted abstract pieces that symbolically represent how Yerevanians are never far from their native home.
“In America, there are a lot of nationalities. People are trying to live together,” Isajanyan said Friday morning. “This is an opportunity to be together. We are bringing you our culture, showing who we are and where we come from.”
“In my work, I show how people don’t have to physically be somewhere” to appreciate it, she said.
Artist Black lived in Yerevan for 22 years and brought an interesting piece from his homeland to the exhibit — garbage.
“I’m not offended when people say, ‘What does your garbage represent?’ Sometimes people ask what I do for a living. I say, ‘Garbage collector,’” Black said Friday afternoon.
Sev Black, whose real name is Henrik Khachatryan, is presenting a collection of artwork created in Yerevan in the early 1990s from garbage.
What residents considered useless or expired, Black saw inspiration. He said his pieces are in relation to possession and how society treats inanimate items, and by extension, people, who matter and don’t matter.
“We use them, then throw them away,” Black said. “Then, when it [breaks], we throw it away. And we project our way of being onto the people, too. If we can get some profit or something from them, we will have good relations with them. If not, we throw them away.”
Black, 63, collected the garbage and then used different torches to create his work.
“They are like my brushes,” he said.
Black considers himself a performance artist who sometimes brings the process-making of his work to the audience.
“When I was younger in Yerevan, I burned my art in public,” Black said. “In one exhibition, I was burning one piece, then we would go inside to see the other.”
Black said Friday he would not be burning anything during the exhibit’s opening reception later that night. He will be smiling, as he will be sharing his homeland with people interested in its history, culture and people.
“I lived there all my youth and some of my adult life,” Black said. “I am proud.”
Amid ongoing protests against Catholicos Garegin II’s rule, the Armenian Church today held a Supreme Spiritual Council Assembly sitting, chaired by the Catholicos himself.
The Assembly decided to defrock Koryun Arakelyan, the priest who is leading the protests. But the Catholicos himself halted the decision, calling for love and understanding. The Assembly subsequently issued a one-week deadline for the protesters to cease their actions.
Earlier the protesters had even breached into the Armenian Church HQ and began a sit-in. Only after few days police intervened.
In the evening of July 7, in Tsakhkadzor President Sarkissian met with the participants of the Pan-Armenian Youth Gathering. The meeting started with the prayer offered by the His Holiness, Supreme Patriarch and Catholicos of All Armenians Garegin II, Presidential press service reported.
The gathering, whose motto is “To Fatherland, to Holy Etchmiadzin”, is organized by the Catholicos of All Armenians in the framework of the program which declared 2018 the Year of Youth and is uniting 400 young people from Armenia, Artsakh and over twenty countries from all over the world.
Conversations with the participants of the gathering mainly pertained to national identity, Church and Christianity, and patriotism.
Speaking of the Armenian identity, President Sarkissian noted that the history of our people provides multiple episodes which fill us with pride, and the recent events in Armenia are one of them.
“There are but few nations and states in the world which have been able to carry out revolutionary changes without clashes and bloodshed; few are the nations which have been this much tolerant and reasonable. We have many reasons to be proud Armenians, and the recent events added another particle to our pride,” President Sarkissian added.
Speaking of the role of Christianity and the Church, the President of Armenia noted that every person is free to choose faith, but he also reminded that the Armenian Apostolic Church is not just church. “For seven hundred years, we have been living as proud Armenians because of the Armenian Apostolic Church; it was preserving and defending our statehood for centuries, passing from generation to generation our national heritage.”
Armen Sarkissian responded also to various questions of the participants of the gathering. The President of Armenia urged young Armenians from Spyurk to come to Armenia, dedicate themselves to the country and empower our Fatherland by preserving the national heritage.
Akhtamar’s Armenian Holy Cross Church
The Armenian Holy Cross Church on Akhtamar Island in Lake Van will celebrate a Divine Liturgy after a break of three years, Governor of Turkey’s Van Province Murat Zorluoglu has said.
According to the official, they have held discussions with the Armenian community and are currently negotiating with the relevant ministry on the issue, Ermenihaber reports.
“We aim to hold this ceremony after a three-year break,” the governor said.
The source says that the Armenian Patriarchate of Constantinople is expected to issue an official statement in the next few days over a liturgy to be offered on September 9 and urge people to take part in it.
The Armenian Holy Cross Church was renovated by the Turkish government in 2010 to serve as a museum. The Armenian community, however, has been allowed to hold religious services there once a year.
Armenian Fund’s director Ara Vardanyan arrested
Hayastan All Armenian Fund’s director Ara Vardanyan has been detained by the National Security Service (NSS) of Armenia on July 2 in suspicion of embezzlement and abuse.
The NSS said that Vardanyan has confessed in misappropriating the fund’s finances, including by using the money for online gambling.
According to Vardanyan, he has returned the misused money through the donated funds. According to him, he later entered personal cash to the fund’s bookkeeping, thus covering up the misused amounts.
In the last week alone Vardanyan transferred nearly 14,000,000 drams to online casinos from the fund’s credit card. The amount comprises nearly 130,000,000 in the period from 2016 to 2018.
NSS said it is currently carrying out inspections in the fund to clarify other possible abuses.
Vardanyan has been placed under arrest.
Armenia’s ministry of transport, communication and information technologies is holding talks with the Russian and Georgian partners in connection with the accumulation of Armenian trucks at the Lars border checkpoint, the ministry spokesperson Anahit Arakelyan told Armenpress.
She said the problem is linked with the system installed at the Georgian checkpoint which supposes ticket booking. “Talks are underway to simplify the procedure”, she said.
According to some media reports nearly 1500 Armenian trucks loaded with agricultural products were stuck in traffic jam at the Lars checkpoint.
One of the drivers of the truck released a video on internet stating that most of the drivers are at the checkpoint for already 7 days.
On June 29, Foreign Minister of Armenia Zohrab Mnatsakanyan, who is in Berlin on an official visit, met with Heiko Maas, the Foreign Minister of Germany, the Armenian MFA told Armenpress.
Welcoming the Armenian FM Mnatsakanyan, Foreign Minister of Germany Maas noted that this visit is a good opportunity to become personally acquainted and discuss the prospects of developing bilateral cooperation, as well as to make new arrangements.
Expressing gratitude for the invitation and warm reception Minister Mnatsakanyan noted that there is a rich and broad agenda between Armenia and Germany, the two countries cooperate in many directions and have coherent positions and mutual understanding on various international issues. “It is no coincidence that Germany is the first EU country which I visit in my current capacity. This fact speaks for itself and in a best way defines our partnership,” said Minister Mnatsakanyan.
The Foreign Minister of Armenia briefed his German counterpart on the recent internal political developments in Armenia, the Government’s commitment to continuing the reform process aimed at strengthening democracy, rule of law, equality and justice in economic and social spheres, and the unyielding fight against corruption.
The interlocutors highlighted the peaceful nature of the events of the velvet revolution and the shown restraint, emphasizing the maturity of democracy and state institutions in Armenia. The German Foreign Minister noted that the events in Armenia are obvious examples of peaceful political changes.
Zohrab Mnatsakanyan expressed his gratitude to the people of Germany for the comprehensive support being provided to Armenia since its independence, which played an important role in strengthening the democratic institutions and development of Armenia.
Ministers Mnatsakanyan and Maas noted with satisfaction that the Armenian-German ties are developing dynamically. In that context, they touched upon the schedule of high-level reciprocal visits planned for this year.
The agenda of negotiations included joint steps aimed at developing bilateral cooperation in cultural and scientific-educational spheres. Minister presented the steps that are being taken to advance the creative and innovative education agenda in Armenia, the experience used in that field and the achievements reached. The Foreign Minister also highly assessed the activities of the Goethe Centre in Armenia, expressing hope that it would expand its activities in the future.
The heads of Foreign Ministries exchanged views on issues related to Armenian-German trade and economic cooperation too. In this regard, the Minister highly appreciated the work of German international cooperation agencies – GIZ and KFW, in Armenia. Zohrab Mnatsakanyan noted that among the EU countries Germany traditionally is one of Armenia’s largest partners, which is actively represented in the Armenian economy. Within the context of bilateral economic collaboration, the activities of “Cronimet”, “Siemens” and other companies in Armenia were emphasized.
Foreign Ministers of Armenia and Germany touched upon the Armenia-EU partnership. In that context Minister Mnatsakanyan underlined the importance of the Comprehensive and Enhanced Partnership Agreement, noting that while being a new milestone in the EU-Armenia relations, it also opens new perspectives of cooperation with the EU member states in bilateral format. Minister Mnatsakanyan expressed hope that Germany, like other EU member states, will soon ratify the agreement.
Zohrab Mnatsakanyan and Heiko Maas highlighted the importance of establishing a cooperation between the European Union and the Eurasian Economic Union. Minister Mnatsakanyan underlined that Armenia can become a strong and reliable link between these two multilateral platforms.
Within the framework of Armenia-EU cooperation, Zohrab Mnatsakanyan highlighted the issue of launching visa liberalization dialogue, stressing the need to move forward in that direction in order to encourage people-to-people contacts.
Touching upon the settlement of the Nagorno Karabakh conflict, Minister Mnatsakanyan reiterated Armenia’s commitment to the exclusively peaceful resolution of the conflict within the internationally agreed format of the OSCE Minsk Group Co-Chairmanship, noting that the priorities of the Armenian side are the issues of status and security of Artsakh. In terms of the advancement of negotiation process, Minister Mnatsakanyan highlighted the importance of creating an environment conducive to peace, emphasizing in this context that the European partners should be vigilant in all the actions that undermine the efforts in that direction, including those that promote the arms race.
In this context, Minister Maas reaffirmed Germany’s unconditional support for the efforts of the OSCE Minsk Group Co-Chairmanship, highlighting the importance of exclusively peaceful and political settlement of the conflict.
The agenda of the meeting included also the urgent international and regional issues, particularly the situation in Syria and developments around Iran’s nuclear program.
Prior to the meeting, the Foreign Ministers of Armenia and Germany were introduced to the historical documents related to Armenian-German relations, including the 100-year old documents testifying to the ties between the First Republic of Armenia and Germany.
Following the negotiations the Foreign Ministers of Armenia and Germany held a joint press conference.