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  • ArmeniaNow.com - March 4, 2005

    ARMENIANOW.COM
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    Phone: +(374 1) 532422
    Email: [email protected]
    Internet: www.armenianow.com
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    FOR THE RECORD: GENOCIDE DOCUMENTATION TO BE PUBLISHED BY NATIONAL ARCHIVE

    By Gayane Lazarian
    ArmeniaNow Reporter

    The National Archive of Armenia will for the first time publish a book
    entitled `Eyewitness Evidence about the Genocide' this month. The book
    will present 600 documents.

    `These documents have never been paid attention to. Genocide was
    presented by official, diplomatic documents' says National Archive
    Director Amatuni Virabyan. `An individual, a person has not been
    featured. We always said that 1.5 million people had been
    exterminated, and it was said abstractly, in an unaddressed manner,
    there were no concrete people. Now if we say that 25 people were
    killed, we will mention each of them name by name.'

    The facts on the basis of which the book will be published were put
    down from the words of emigrants in 1916 by journalists of the `Mshak'
    newspaper published in Tiflis. They toured all Eastern Armenia, and
    even met survivors in Russia and documented their stories.

    Virabyan says that the stories of all eyewitnesses have one common
    scheme. The teller depicts the general situation of the village, how
    many Armenian residents it had, how many churches there were, and
    finally how the massacres began.

    For example, case No. 439 presents the massacres of Sasun's Aghbi
    village in the province of Bitlis. The 9-page story was accounted by
    journalists on November 5, 1916 in Tiflis, from the words of
    40-year-old eyewitness Nure Yeritsyan.

    `There were 150 houses in the village. I had three sons, Sogho, Misak
    and Azat, with me and one son, Sedrak, was in Russia, one daughter,
    Azniv, two daughters-in-law. We were rich. We had 700 honeycombs bees,
    150 rams, 40 heads of cattle, 50 land-plots, a watermill and other
    riches. I was the only survivor from our house. I reached Tiflis and
    now live with my son Sedrak.'

    Thereafter, Nure tells of how they fled the village, how they hid in
    the Andok, Tsovasar, Kanasar mountains. During the escape she lost her
    daughters-in-law, sons, grandchildren.

    `November 1915. We slept inside rocks, in dry grass, there was nothing
    to eat. We even ate dogs and cats. Finally, we even started to eat
    human flesh. When we were thirsty we used to drink each other's
    urine. In December-January there was no longer human flesh left, we
    began to eat the remaining hide of cattle, leather shoes, and then
    animal and human bones. We warmed them on fire and ate grinding them
    with our teeth,' Nure tells.

    Virabyan says it is natural that Turks should deny it, saying that
    there was no organized massacre. According to them, there were
    deportations and it was quite possible that people died on their way.

    `Our goal is to show with 600 horrible human stories that similar
    brutalities were repeated everywhere, in all provinces, villages,'
    says the archive director.

    There are 12,000 documents kept in the National Archive today. Besides
    the book to be published soon, another one will appear in autumn. The
    facts for this book were collected by the well-known writer Hovhannes
    Tumanyan in 1918. `A public committee was set up upon the writer's
    initiative to decide the losses incurred by the Armenian people. They
    drafted a special questionnaire and visiting different places asked
    people to fill in them. The eyewitnesses filled in their names, age,
    village of residence, and, most importantly, how many members of their
    families were massacred and how many survived,' Virabyan explains.

    In the data collected by Tumanyan people often mentioned themselves as
    the only survivors from their families. Virabyan says: `A man
    mentions 26 family members name by name and then says that he was the
    only survivor. The stories are horrible. On the Andok hill surrounded
    by Turks and Kurds starvation led the Sasun folks to eat the flesh of
    those who had died. They tell of how Turks cut a child into pieces,
    boiled and forced the parents to eat it. At first the editorial board
    decided to publish the names of those people, but later we abandoned
    that thought.' Director of Turkish Studies at the NAS Institute of
    Oriental Studies, Associate Professor Ruben Safrastyan says that such
    publications are important and should have been accomplished
    earlier. They are also indispensable original sources for scientific
    researches.

    And the archive director says that the recent statement made by Turkey
    that archives in Armenia are closed is baseless.

    `I deny it, no Turkish historian or journalist has yet turned to me, I
    am ready to receive any Turkish historian and open the archives, all
    the facts pertaining to the Genocide. I made this statement long ago
    and there are responses,' he says.

    A number of foreign journalists have turned to Virabyan, she says,
    including one New York producer who is making a film about the Ottoman
    Empire.

    The director also says that they have close ties with the Turkish
    National Archive and that they in turn invite them for studies of the
    Turkish archives.

    And Safrastyan notes that it was in 1989 that Turkey for the first
    time declared its archives open. `The US-based Zoryan Institute set
    up a group of Armenian specialists from the Diaspora and Armenia, of
    which I was a member, and asked the Turkish government to give
    permission according to their statement. The reply was a denial.'
    According to Safrastyan, only one specialist of Armenian nationality
    from the United States worked in the Ottoman archives - Ara Sarafian,
    and that wasn't in regards with the genocide issues, but he studied
    demographical issues. `Hilmar Kaiser, a German, worked in those
    archives. His studies specifically focus on genocide issues. But as
    the Turks knew what sort of work he was going to do, they began to
    raise obstacles. Two years ago Kaiser published an open letter among
    fellow scientists in which he mentioned the attitude showed towards
    him by the Turks. He was unfairly accused of breaking laws and making
    unauthorized copies.'

    The 1915 documents are in Ottoman Turkish, which greatly differs from
    modern Turkish. It is written in Arabic letters and is read from right
    to left.

    Safrastyan explains that knowing only Ottoman Turkish is not enough
    for working in Ottoman archives. One should first be familiar with
    handwritings and their different varieties. Each Ottoman state
    department of that time had its own system of record-keeping.

    `The researcher must know not only the Ottoman Turkish, but the whole
    system of Ottoman statehood,' he says.


    OUT OF THE LOOP: AZERBAIJAN SAYS GEORGIA MUST STOP ASSISTING TRANSPORT
    TO ARMENIA

    By Aris Ghazinyan
    ArmeniaNow Reporter

    A special agreement between the State Customs Committee of Azerbaijan
    and the Customs Department of the Ministry of Finance of Georgia
    banning the shipment of cargoes designated for Armenia via Georgian
    territory is expected to be signed soon on the Azeri-Georgian border.

    This document was to have been signed in January, but was postponed.

    Azerbaijan, which has been blockading Armenian communications since
    1989, maintains active railway communication with Georgia via the
    Baku-Tbilisi rail. This communication is vital to both states:
    Azerbaijan thus ensures its gateway to the Black Sea ports of Georgia,
    and Georgia, in view of its blockade of Abkhazia, gets the only
    possibility of railway communication with the outside world via
    Azerbaijan's territory.

    At the same time, official Baku repeatedly expressed doubts over the
    `non-purposeful' use of this mainline. In its opinion, among the
    cargoes shipped from Azerbaijan through the Georgian border are also
    containers designated for Armenia which are shipped from Tbilisi to
    Yerevan through the functioning Tbilisi-Yerevan railway. Thus, as the
    Azeri authorities claim, the blockade of Armenia is disrupted at the
    expense of its mediated involvement in regional commodity
    turnover. The agreement is intended to prevent a further exploitation
    of the situation.

    On February 22, during inspections conducted by the State Customs
    Committee and the Ministry of Transport of Azerbaijan, about 200
    carloads of oil products were found on the Azeri-Georgian border, at
    the Beyuk-Kesik station. These cargoes were to be shipped to Armenia
    via Georgia. As the `Sharg' agency reports, this cargo was shipped via
    the Caspian railway of Azerbaijan to Georgia. A total of 420 carloads,
    of which 297 were with grain, 75 with diesel fuel, 7 with tires, 2
    with engine oil, 32 with liquefied gas, etc. were stopped on the
    border. As a result, a sharp deficit of liquefied gas was felt in
    Armenia, which led to a sharp increase in prices for it.

    During a November Russian blockade of transport following the Beslan
    terrorism by Chechens, an inspection of cargo bound for Georgia via
    Azeri rail found undocumented goods believed to be bound for Armenia.

    `What would be Georgia's reaction if Azerbaijan began supplying diesel
    fuel or other products to Abkhazia or South Ossetia?' said
    Azerbaijan's Ambassador to Tbilisi Ramiz Hasanov in this regard. `I
    think that this would be an infringement of Georgia's national
    interests.'

    On November 30, a working group of Azerbaijan's State Customs arrived
    in Tbilisi. The group got down to the documentation of cargoes.

    Commenting on the situation, the first Vice-Premier of Azerbaijan's
    government Abbas Abbasov said that Azerbaijan would not allow cargoes
    to Georgia if they were designated for Armenia.

    `Baku has signed a number of international acts-agreements on transit,
    transportation and export, as well as on the Free Trade Zone, with the
    only condition - non-admission of the use of Azerbaijan's territory
    for the transit of cargoes to Armenia,' the vice-premier
    emphasized. `A similar agreement has been signed also between Baku and
    Tbilisi, and therefore Georgia must abide by its commitments. We
    demanded that the Georgian authorities should strictly prohibit the
    transit of Armenian cargoes. But if this process continues, Azerbaijan
    will stop all cargoes heading for Georgia without exception.'

    Official Yerevan has not yet responded to the possible signing of the
    Azeri-Georgian agreement, whose `anti- Armenian' essence is not even
    concealed. The Armenian side continues to focus attention on the
    `Abkhazian section' of the railway, whose operation ensures Yerevan's
    exit to Russia bypassing Azerbaijan.

    `The restoration of the cargo and passenger traffic on the Abkhazian
    section is also in the interest of Georgia itself,' Armenia's Minister
    of Transport and Communication Andranik Manukyan told REGNUM news
    agency on February 25. `After all, today Tbilisi has to use transit
    via Azerbaijan's territory.' `The blockade of the Abkhazian section
    in fact does not deprive Abkhazia of communications with the outside
    world, as the Sukhumi-Sochi railway branch is operated,' Armenia's
    President Robert Kocharyan emphasizes in this regard. The context of
    this statement by the Armenian leader is evident: to make it clear for
    the Georgian authorities that it is Armenia and not Abkhazia that
    suffers from the Abkhazian blockade.


    BIG PLANS: RUSSIAN-ARMENIAN BUSINESSMAN HAS EXPENSIVE IDEAS FOR
    ARMENIA INVESTMENT

    By Julia Hakobyan
    ArmeniaNow Reporter

    A well-known Armenian-Russian businessman announced this week his
    plans for a multi-million dollar investment into development of
    tourism infrastructure in Armenia's resort town of Tsakhkadzor. Ara
    Abrahamyan, president of the Moscow based Union of Armenians of Russia
    said that if his plan is approved by Armenian President Robert
    Kocharyan he envisages to invest $100 million in the first phase of
    hotel construction in Tsakhkadzor. Abrahamyan demonstrated to
    journalists a sketch of the hotels network in the area, which will
    take over 100,000 square meters. He said that Tsakhkadzor, a popular
    skiing area in Armenia can become an attractive tourism destination
    and mentioned that for example in Austria 35 percent of its budget
    comes from tourism.

    `We have already come to the agreement with the Russian Minister of
    Sport that 500 Russian sportsmen will take rest and training in
    Tsakhkadzor year round,'said Abrahamyan, adding that the hotels will
    be 3 and 5 stars. Abrahamyan, 48, who is also a founder of the World
    Armenian Congress told journalists that last year his organizations
    distributed more than 5,000 computers in the schools of Armenia and
    Karabakh.

    However the businessman blamed Armenian authorities for their
    insufficient efforts toward strengthening Armenia- Diaspora ties. He
    mentioned that both his organizations do a lot in uniting Armenians
    throughout the world and promoting Armenian issues, but without
    support from the Armenian government the efforts of his both
    organizations are not effective enough.

    He mentioned that he donated $200,000 last weekend to the Armenian
    Revolutionary Federation for promoting genocide recognition. In all
    $1.7 million was raised at the February 26 banquet in Paris to
    contribute to the activity of Hai Dat (for genocide recognition).

    Abrahamyan who is known for his close ties with the Kremlin mentioned
    that Russian President Vladimir Putin is to visit Armenia later this
    month.

    `This year we plan to erect a monument dedicated to Armenian genocide
    in Moscow's Victory Park,' he said. `Until now there is not one
    monument in Moscow in memory of genocide victims, except a khachkar in
    the yard of an Armenian church. Also, a discussion on genocide has
    been suggested in the Russian State Duma.'

    Referring to the process of passing of a number of Armenian
    enterprises to Russia to reduce the Armenian debt, he said that the
    deal was profitable both for Armenia and Russia. However he said that
    sufficient work was not done for their exploitation and creating of
    jobs.

    (In exchange of debt of $93 million Armenia has passed five
    enterprises to Russia, such as Hrazdan Heat Power Plant, `Mars' plant
    and others.)

    Abrahamyan complained that he is unable to complete construction of
    buildings in a plot of land he acquired in the North Avenue complex -
    the area of elite businesses and residences under construction now in
    the center of Yerevan. `I have desire, I have money but it is not
    possible to work. It is a paradox.' Abrahamyan however refused to
    explain the reasons and did not specify whom he accuses in stagnating
    construction. He only said that he knows that people who lived in that
    area are unsatisfied with the compensation they got to leave their
    houses which were demolished for the avenue construction.

    `I was accused that I bought land and did not pay money to people, but
    I had nothing to do with compensation. I deal with municipality and
    agree that they did not pay enough money to the people,' he said.


    AIR APPARENT: LEGAL MEASURES AIM TO MAKE ARMENIA SMOKE FREE

    By Julia Hakobyan
    ArmeniaNow Reporter

    Armenia took a step toward combating smoking this week as the `Law on
    Restriction of Tobacco Realization, Consumption and Usage' came into
    effect March 2.

    The law which is to be implemented in three phases envisages that by
    next year smoking in public places, such as hospitals, cultural and
    education institutions, public transports, sport halls and complexes
    will be forbidden. The sale of cigarettes to minors (below age 18) is
    forbidden since the beginning of this month. Before the end of this
    year both public organizations and state institutions should allocate
    a room for smokers, while the rest of its offices should be
    smoke-free. This restriction applies also to restaurants and cafés,
    where non-smoking areas should be designated.

    The law was passed by the National Assembly last month after being
    twice rejected by the lawmakers, some of whom are the republic's
    biggest importers of tobacco.

    Last November Armenia also joined a Framework Convention on Tobacco
    Control (FCTC), an international treaty negotiated by 192 member
    states of the World Health Organization. (WHO) The FCTC requires
    following the WHO standards of health warning, covering 30 percent of
    a cigarette pack with information about the dangers of
    smoking. According to the FCTC, the Armenian government should outlaw
    cigarette advertising by 2010.

    Armenia so far is the only member of the FCTC among Commonwealth of
    Independent States (CIS).

    However statistics say that Armenia tops the list of European counties
    in consumption of cigarettes. An estimated 70 percent of men are
    smokers.

    At present, the sale and advertisement of cigarettes dominates the
    consumer market. Few places have designated smoking areas. Even the
    Ministry of Health which is actively campaigning against smoking does
    not have a special smoking area in its building.

    According to the state custom service, 442 million cigarettes were
    imported to Armenia over the first quarter of 2004, showing a 22.8 per
    cent growth over last year. Cigarette production accounts for 3.3 per
    cent of Armenia's industrial output. In 2003 3.22 million cigarettes
    were made by local producers, 14.4 percent more than a year before.

    WHO statistics say that about 2,000 people die in Armenia annually
    from smoking related diseases. Organizations in Armenia who campaign
    against smoking hope that with the new law the number of smokers in
    Armenia will stop increasing.

    Yelena Manvelyan, the head of `Armenian Women for Health and Healthy
    Environment' ngo greeted especially the fact that smoking will be
    prohibited in public transport.

    `The drivers who smoke put in danger the health of passengers, who
    become passive smokers,' she said. `Of course enforcing the law in
    Armenia where most of men smoke is not easy and it will take a long
    time. However without taking first steps we can not go ahead.'

    The Armenian Public Health Alliance and the Coalition for Tobacco Free
    Armenia issued a statement yesterday which reads `Without an
    exaggeration, this law can save lives, as it encompasses measures
    aimed at preventing tobacco uptake by children, assisting smokers in
    quitting, and protecting the right of non-smokers for a smoke free
    environment.'

    The WHO statistics say that tobacco is the second major cause of death
    in the world. It kills one in ten adults' worldwide (about 5 million
    deaths each year). If current smoking patterns continue, it will cause
    some 10 million deaths each year by 2020.


    GROWING AWARENESS: AGENCIES COOPERATE FOR THE SAKE OF A GREENER ARMENIA

    By Suren Musayelyan
    ArmenianNow Reporter

    An American government agency and Armenian environmentalists are
    joining hands to save Armenia's forests through education.

    The main purpose of the two-day workshop, `Environmental Education',
    organized by the U.S. Peace Corps and the Armenia Tree Project (ATP)
    in Yerevan was to promote cooperation between specialists from
    Armenian NGOs and Peace Corps volunteers involved in environmental
    projects and provide both with useful information about education in
    this sphere.

    The workshop organizers hope that, updated on environmental education
    matters, the participants will spread on the knowledge in their
    day-to-day work with members of the public, including in the country's
    regions. During the workshop local and international environmental
    educators shared their theoretical and practical knowledge and
    experience with the participants through original presentations. The
    workshop also discussed such topics as fishery, forestry, food chain,
    grafting, etc.

    According to ATP Country Director Susan Yagubian Klein, Armenia may
    face complete deforestation in 20 years unless it takes urgent action
    to stop the shrinkage of forests today. Meanwhile, she said, education
    and environmental awareness are an important component in the struggle
    to preserve wildlife. `The only way that logging is going to be
    stopped is for the public to become aware of the situation and the
    best way to reach the public is through educating young people,' said
    Klein. `So, this is one way to make the public more aware of the
    dangers to the environment.'

    Klein cited the data of the `Millennium Challenges' Program Report
    according to which forests occupy only 8-10% of Armenia's territory
    today. Meanwhile, according to the same source, forests made 12% of
    the country's territory in 1990 and 25% at the beginning of last
    century.

    Since its establishment in 1994, the Armenia Tree Project has planted
    and tended more than 580,000 trees in about 500 areas of Armenia. It
    has two arboretums in two villages of the Ashtarak and Masis regions
    where it grows about 40,000 saplings every year.

    The US Peace Corps has been in Armenia since 1992. This year is the
    seventh year of its cooperation with the ATP. Among the 85 Peace
    Corps volunteers in Armenia there are also ten who are involved in
    environmental projects. According to Peace Corps Environmental
    Education Project Head Armen Tiraturyan, the organization's volunteers
    mainly work with young Armenians in all marzes (regions) of the
    country except Armavir and Ararat. `We hope that after the workshop
    they will be able to apply their knowledge in their practical work
    with the public,' he said.

    Peace Corps Armenia Country Director Patrick Hart also stressed the
    importance of their cooperation with the ATP. `Our volunteers teaching
    in Armenia's regions and trying to raise environmental awareness among
    young Armenians will only benefit from their cooperation with the ATP
    whose work is crucial to improving the environment,' he said. Peace
    Corps Armenia Program and Training Officer Deborah Wild said that one
    of the reasons for the successful cooperation between the ATP and the
    Peace Corps is that the two organizations share the same values. `We
    share concern for Armenia's long-term development and the future of
    Armenia and its children,' she said. `That is why we share our great
    interest and enjoy collaborating in the area of education.'

    ATP Community Tree Planting Project Coordinator Anahit Gharibyan also
    commented on the significance of the workshop. She said that the
    event had brought together people who are genuinely concerned over the
    country's environmental problems. `The level of environmental
    awareness among children and young people is very low in the country,'
    she said. `I think that young people and children must be educated on
    environmental issues from early age.' According to the workshop
    organizers, `Environmental Education' is going to become an annual
    workshop in Armenia.


    HANDS ACROSS HAYASTAN: ARMENIANS HOPE TO DANCE INTO THE RECORD BOOK

    By Marianna Grigoryan
    ArmeniaNow Reporter

    This year Armenians will have a chance to celebrate the First Republic
    Day, May 28, in an original way. A move is underfoot, literally, to
    have more than 160,000 Armenians join in a `Round Dance of Unity'.

    `All our nation will unite around the round dance of unity,' says Aram
    Karapetyan, the head of the Nig Aparan Compatriots Union and the
    headquarters of the `Round Dance of Unity' initiative.

    Karapetyan says the idea of the initiative has been circulating for so
    long nobody can tell where the idea comes from.

    `All of us hand in hand will dance the round dance of unity at two
    o'clock that day,' says Karapetyan. `The people are so excited we
    couldn't have expected, and we feel excited of it even more. People
    come to register with families and organizations bring long lists of
    participation.'

    Karapetyan says the round dance will start at the new bridge in
    Ashtarak and make a circle that will include the cities of Ashtarak,
    Talin, Artik, Aragats, Alagyaz of two marzes, and the dance will close
    on the Ashtarak Bridge again.

    According to a special plan, participants will arrive at the main
    roads where they will join hands. Diaspora are expected among the
    guests.

    Karapetyan says delegations from Kazakhstan and Belarus will arrive in
    Armenia to take part in the event. The Karabagh delegation headed by
    the Prime Minister will also arrive. Ten applicants from Turkey have
    wished to participate, two of them ethnic Turks.

    `This is a dance when scientists and craftsmen, artists and doctors,
    peasants and citizens will be hand in hand,' says
    Karapetyan. `Well-known artists, officials, scientists, doctors will
    be present, who will address the people in special videos broadcasted
    by TV before the event.'

    Karapetyan says all these will be shot from one or two helicopters as
    the round dance hopes to get recognition in the Guinness Book of World
    Records.

    `There has not been such a thing in the world before when so many
    people joined hands,' the excited leader says (having apparently not
    heard of the `Hands Across the World' phenomena). `The representatives
    of the Guinness book will also be present that day and we will be
    registered in the book of records.'

    The territory for the round dance takes nearly 160 kilometers. It has
    been estimated that ideally some 160,000 participants are needed,
    although the organizers believe the number of participants will be
    more.

    `The participants are different,' says Karapetyan. `Owing to the works
    that started a month ago more than 110,000 have applied for
    participation - individuals and mainly organizations with all their
    staffs.'

    At the same time for more variety of the round dance, according to the
    organizer, the organizations will participate in their professional
    dresses, - the doctors in white smocks, and the individuals the way
    they prefer.

    Educational institutions will also participate in the
    initiative. There will also be participants on horses and in royal
    coats. Each registered participant will get a special certificate of
    participation.

    `At present we work on providing national music all around the 160
    kilometers,' says Karapetyan. `Besides the national music, we have
    planned participation of 1,600 professional dancers, although 10,000
    have applied for it; they will make the event more lively.'

    Within the frameworks of the event, 36 khachkars with Armenian letters
    will be placed; they will also plant 200,000 poplars.

    According to Karapetyan, the poplar has been chosen because these
    trees do not need special care and there is no problem of regular
    irrigation.

    Karapetyan says everything is planned beforehand to escape
    misunderstanding. The police will support the event with its different
    regiments.

    `We hope everything will be wonderful, and we will surprise the world
    with this original initiative and will be registered in the Guinness
    Book of Records,' says Karapetyan. `People will stand hand in hand for
    nearly an hour so that the helicopters manage to shoot the video; then
    the national celebrations will start, with singing and dancing and
    feasting, for which special tables will be installed.'


    FILM STAR: SINGLE FATHER PLAYS OUT HIS OWN ROLE OF `TRAMP'

    By Vahan Ishkhanyan
    ArmeniaNow Reporter

    `My late mother would say: you love Raj Kapur so much that you will
    end up being a tramp one day,' Avo remembers his mother's
    prophesy. Raj Kapur was a Bollywood star whose movies were very
    popular in Armenia in the 1970-80s. The `Tramp', in which he starred
    was always on the screens. Many know by heart the songs from this
    movie. The mother was right. Whether it was the love of the film or
    the economic hardship of his country, Avo became a tramp . . .

    Avetik Khachatryan, 40, still sings songs from those Indian films. He
    also named his children from movie references. Hrach, is 10 (he named
    him in honor of Raj Kapur), and his daughters are Gita, 6, and Zita,
    4, (from the `Zita and Gita' movie). Even the birthmark on Gita's back
    is reminiscent of India's map. He calls himself and his son tramps
    (`brodyaga,' in Russian) - brodyaga Hrach and brodyaga Avo.

    He loved Indian movies so much that in the `80s Avo learned to speak
    Hindi from Indian students and translated three movies into
    Armenian. He remembers the words of his Indian friend, which he says
    in Hindi and then translates: `Armindar was right when he said that
    life is worse than death.'

    Avo's life has also turned into an Indian movie. He has become a kind
    hero who is without a proper job, raising three children alone. He is
    not the father of the youngest of the children, but he considers it
    his duty to father her too: `Blood doesn't count here,' he says. His
    wife left him, leaving the children behind. Sometimes she pays visits
    and takes little Zita with her and then she brings her back again.

    In the 1990s Avo's brothers ran into debts, sold their father's house
    and then left for Russia. Avo rented an apartment where he lived with
    his mother and worked at a construction site. He got married in
    1994. A year later Hrach was born. His wife left but then came back
    and Gita was born, and again she left with Gita.

    Avo lost his job as a construction worker. He could no longer pay the
    rent. The two tramps - Avo and three-year-old Hrach - found themselves
    in the street, homeless and hungry.

    `I knocked at somebody's door, a woman opened. I asked her to let me
    stay with her for one night because I had nowhere to sleep and to pity
    my child. She asked if it was a new way of robbery. I told her I
    wanted to stay for one night and suggested that she tie my feet with a
    rope to make sure I wouldn't run away. She believed me, led us to the
    bedroom upstairs. And in the morning she gave us tea.'

    For two days Avo fed his child from garbage cans. Then he learned
    about bottle collecting.

    Avo joined the large army of the poor going from home to home
    collecting bottles and handing them to reception points for cash. `For
    many years I was collecting bottles with Hrach in my arms or in the
    pram. We have our own anthem - the song from `Tramp': `Give way, they
    are calling you.'

    At first collecting was difficult. Many people drove him from their
    doorsteps and cursed him and some even wanted to beat him for knocking
    at their door. But now he has permanent residents who know him and
    keep bottles especially for him.

    Soon, he took a second `job'. He dumps garbage that people leave on
    their doorsteps. Some pay 200 drams (about 50 cents) a month; others
    pay 50-100 drams a day. All in all, he manages to earn 5,000 drams
    (about $9) a month by dumping garbage.

    Occasionally Avo picks up odd jobs. Recently he hauled 39 sacks of
    sand up four flights of stairs. He was paid about $4.30.

    For four years the `tramp' has managed to rent a 12-square-meter room
    in Yerevan's Nork district where he lives with his three
    children. There is no kitchen; the toilet is outside. It costs 8,000
    drams a month. The landlord wanted to raise it to 10,000, but then he
    felt sorry for Avo and left it unchanged. Every morning Avo goes
    collecting and dumping, leaving his three children alone. Since Hrach
    began to attend school he doesn't go with him: `I said, Hrach jan, you
    must attend lessons, you don't have to come with me anymore. If they
    ask you at school about your daddy's occupation, tell them he is
    engaged in commerce.'

    Avo is glad to see February pass. People don't drink so much in
    winter, leaving fewer bottles. He was short by half on the February
    rent. And the electric bill of about $15 is due.

    `Well, summer will come soon, everything will be alright,' Avo says.

    Avo always wears clean clothes, a white shirt. He used to wash his
    clothes by hand. Now he has an old Soviet-type washing machine which
    residents gave him as a gift. It leaks water, but anyway it is better
    than doing laundry by hand.

    The single father manages enough for food, electricity and rent. The
    family's possessions, including cassettes with Indian songs and a
    small TV-set that has lost colors are gifts from residents.

    Varduhi Manukyan, who lives on Baghramyan Avenue, says that people
    like Avo very much: `He is a guy who will always lend his helping
    hand, he knows a lot, he is not a simple poor man,' he says. `I give
    him bottles and also clothes and equipment that I don't want to throw
    away. He has a son, Brodyaga. He used to come with him before.' The
    residents do not know about his two daughters.

    `It is said in the Bible: I have dressed flowers in colorful clothes,
    but you, human being, if you love me as much as a mustard seed,
    honestly, won't I be all the more sure to clothe you?' says Avo,
    without feeling that his life has given the Biblical passage a new
    sense.

    Four years ago Avo asked his landlord to go to the village after his
    wife and ask her to come back. Before he went, the wife showed up with
    a newborn baby in her arms.

    `Avo came and said, `Uncle Vagho, you see, there is no woman in the
    house, it is difficult, I want to bring the mother of my children
    back.Will you go to Lernavan to speak for me? Perhaps she will listen
    to you and come back',' says the landlord, Vaghinak.

    A few days later he looked out the window and saw a woman holding an
    infant. The wife came and stayed. Three or four months later she
    weaned the baby and left. Avo kept that child too. She calls him
    daddy, she hasn't seen another daddy.

    Now his wife shows up once or twice a month: `The mother of the
    children is not 100 percent, she is a 30-percent mother,' says
    Vaghinak. `What will be their end now, I don't know.'

    And the Indian movie continues, with good and bad people, love and
    betrayal, compassion and cruelty. . . And the `tramp', who dumps
    garbage and picks bottles, and waits for the happy ending.


    WINTER WATER WORLD: JERMUK HOPES TO REVIVE YEAR-ROUND TOURISM REPUTATION

    By Suren Musayelyan
    ArmenianNow Reporter

    While mild weather has been welcomed in the capital, about 170
    kilometers south-east of Yerevan, the forested resort town of Jermuk
    is still deep in winter.

    Here on the plateau, 2070 meters high above sea level, the thick snow
    layer of Jermuk glows under sun rays as if shedding light of diamond
    grit. The only noise-maker of the local nature, still enjoying winter
    sleep, is the waterfall, which from 60 meters height flow into Arpa
    River running through the town.

    Once famous for its curing complex and water treatment, today Jermuk
    is trying to again attract winter guests by restoring heating systems
    in health resorts.

    In comparison with Tsaghkadzor known for providing active winter rest
    in Armenia, the main advantage of Jermuk with its typical mountainous
    climate is the curable mineral water.

    The curing complex of seven resorts of the town includes inner and
    outer usage of thermal waters, diet therapy, gymnastics, walk therapy
    in the open air, climatic and physiotherapeutic procedures.

    `In the past our curing complex was dealing with visitors arriving
    from all the former Soviet republics the whole year round,' says
    Stepan Avagyan, the head of Jermuk Business and Tourism Association
    `Fifteen years have passed, and today our main goal is to return that
    very contingent to Jermuk.'

    In the city, founded in 1935 on the basis of mineral waters, today the
    visiting card is still the mineral water gallery, where one can enjoy
    several natural springs free of charge. The lowest temperature of the
    waters is 30C, with 65C the highest.

    In 1951 the first factory of mineral waters was established in the
    town. During Soviet times its production, that is mineral water
    Jermuk, was exported into 50 countries. Today the leading companies
    here, producing mineral waters, are `Jermuk Group' and Jermuk Parent
    Enterprise.

    Here patients with diagnosis of the alimentary canal, liver,
    gall-bladder diseases, diabetes and gynecological illnesses pass
    courses of water treatment.

    The flow of visitors to Jermuk, mainly from the regions of Armenia,
    begins in May and last till September. During Soviet times, however,
    all the year round the town with 2,000 resort beds received 20,000
    visitors annually from Russia only.

    The first step of fame rehabilitation of Jermuk among CIS countries
    took place last week, when local businessmen invited ambassadors of
    Russia, the Ukraine and Belarus in Armenia to acquaint themselves with
    the opportunities of the resort winter rest in Jermuk.

    The weekend getaway was supported by Urban Institute financed by
    USAID. Last year the Urban Institute helped finance and organize
    Jermuk's new tourism association, as part of similar involvement in 12
    towns throughout Armenia. According to the specialists Jermuk
    business and tourism center is among the most successful ones, where
    the powers and businessmen are already united.

    `It is so pleasant that all the businessmen involved in Jermuk tourism
    business take part in the development of the economic
    association. That means that in all the projects related to Jermuk
    they will be present with an associated team,' says Ara Petrosyan, the
    Deputy Minister of the Trade and Economy Development of Armenia.

    Two years ago the previous state health-resort complex in Jermuk was
    actively privatized by businessmen.

    `Today problems put in front of us are changed. The private owners
    understand that they should repair the resorts to return their
    visitors. Today the customer pays and demands up-to-date service: he
    is not satisfied with the former conditions,' says Stepan Avagyan.

    In Jermuk's health-resorts depending on quality of service, one-day
    rest ranges from $18-80. Businessmen assure that during the first five
    years all the city's medical and rest buildings will meet contemporary
    requirements. `Today increase of `nostalgic' tourism is registered in
    CIS countries: that is the tourists visit the places they have been
    during Soviet times. It is conditioned on the likeness of the
    mentality and customs, as well as on the absence of language
    obstacles,' says Deputy Minister Petrosyan.

    According to him Armenia has a great potential of tourism development,
    the proof of this is the statistics in the mid of 80s, when the number
    of visitors into Armenia surpassed 600,000.


    LOOKING FOR REFUGE: APARTMENT DISPUTE HIGHLIGHTS FRUSTRATIONS OF REFUGEES

    By Zhanna Alexanyan
    ArmeniaNow Reporter

    A refugee family faces eviction from an apartment they have occupied
    for nearly 15 years and are caught in the confusing legal quagmire
    that affects some 300,000 Armenians who escaped from Azerbaijan in the
    late 1980s and early '90s. In October of the last year a civil court
    ruled that 72-year old Albert and Raya Lazaryan must leave the
    two-room apartment they took in June, 1990.

    At issue is whether the Lazaryans are rightful owners of the
    apartment, according to a law that gave refugees the right to own
    apartments they had inhabited for at least 10 years.

    After escaping Baku and living for a year with relatives, the
    Lazaryans learned of an apartment that had been vacated. (There were
    many such cases of abandonment in the early 1990s in Yerevan.) They
    say they got assurance from the proper authorities that the apartment
    was indeed unoccupied, then moved in.

    Over the past 14 years the Lazaryans have made attempts to buy the
    apartment and say they were defrauded of $1,600 by police for that
    purpose. In 2001, the Lazaryans got Armenian citizenship and at that
    point stepped up efforts to buy the apartment. They were told,
    however, that the apartment had already been privatized, by its
    previous owner, the Meliksetyan family, since 1994. In 1996,
    according to Lazaryan, the municipality had attempted to move another
    family into the apartment, but were prevented by laws that protect
    refugees. `If the Meliksetyans had privatized this apartment in 1994,
    why did they want to give it to someone else?' asks Lazaryan. In 2001
    the Court of the First Instance satisfied the Lazaryans' appeal `to
    recognize the right for use of living space and property ascribed to
    Hasmik, Karen, Armen Meliksetyans as lost'. The decision also mentions
    the defendant `has presented false information' on inhabiting
    apartment since 1990. But another court overturned the ruling,
    recognizing ownership by the Meliksetyans. The Lazaryans believe
    officials were bribed into back-dating the ownership transaction.

    Advocates for refugees say the Lazaryans are caught in a situation
    confronted by many refugees who have tried to make their status in
    Armenia permanent.

    According to data collected by the Helsinki Committee of Armenia none
    of the nearly 50 suits in various court instances on depriving
    refugees of apartments or temporary asylums have been solved in favor
    of the refugees during recent years.

    `Absolutely all the court instances infringe the refugees' rights
    prescribed by the law. As a result refugees who have become citizens
    of Armenia are being ousted from the place they live', reads the
    annual report of the Helsinki Committee for 2004.

    On February 4 the Department for Ousting and Inhabiting Issues at the
    Compulsory Implementation Department postponed the ousting of the
    Lazaryans `because of the actual lack of free dormitory room or space'
    (according to another decision of the government in similar cases the
    Refugee Committee provides an identical apartment). Seemingly
    overlooked in the dispute is Item B of the Republic of Armenia
    Decision number 588 of November 18, 1992. According to that
    legislation, it is prohibited to issue deeds of ownership to someone
    other than the occupant for those apartments that have been inhabited
    by refugees even illegally.

    Like others among the approximately 65,000 refugees who have earned
    citizenship, the Lazaryans are caught in a `catch 22' in which
    becoming citizens has actually been to their detriment. That is to
    say, they are no longer eligible for benefits that apply to those
    having refugee status.

    Since 2000, Albert Lazaryan has been disabled by a heart
    condition. But when he applied for poverty benefits allowing for his
    condition, he was told that he would not get the allowance, because he
    was already getting a free apartment.

    `At last the court deprived me of both allowance and apartment,' says
    Lazaryan, who claims that he is being `deported' for a second time,
    `this time from my homeland'.

    The Lazaryans daughter live with them, but she is unemployed. Their
    only son was killed in a car accident two years after moving to
    Armenia. Their monthly income is an old-age pension of about $35.

    `I always buy yesterday's bread to pay some 30 drams less than the
    usual price,' says Raya Lazaryan. `This cruel winter we passed without
    having heated our home.'

    Six days after moving to Armenia Albert Lazaryan started working in a
    bus depot. Later, when it was liquidated, he worked as a driver in a
    garbage collection service.

    `I have done every kind of work to provide for my family. While
    working on the bus depot I have served 20-25,000 people a day. What
    else should I do for this country not to be ousted from my legal
    apartment' he says. In Baku, the Lazaryans owned a three-room
    apartment that they still hold the deed to.

    Lazaryan's former colleague, Lendrush Sahakyan who knows him since
    1985 when they worked on an international transportation system, says
    his friend was respected and lived a comfortable life in Baku.

    `The illness and the illegalities have made him poor. They can now do
    anything to him - he has neither money nor other means,' says
    Sahakyan.
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