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  • Repatriation Project Aims To Get 3,500 Diasporan Armenians To Move T

    REPATRIATION PROJECT AIMS TO GET 3,500 DIASPORAN ARMENIANS TO MOVE TO 'HOMELAND'

    epress.am
    11.03.2011 14:47

    Armenia is known for having a high emigration rate, caused mainly by
    labor migrants heading to Russia and elsewhere in the former Soviet
    Union in search of work. Now, a private initiative is striving
    to mitigate the effects of the steady outflow of human capital by
    enticing ethnic Armenians living abroad, particularly those living
    settled lives in the West, to resettle in the "homeland."

    The project, largely an online media campaign started by those who
    have already made the move, is being framed in Peace Corps-like
    terms and aims to appeal to idealistic impulses in the diaspora. Its
    leading advocates - drawing on a deeply held Diaspora concept that
    Armenia's survival depends on a strong defensive capability - exhibit
    a missionary zeal when discussing the allure of repatriation.

    "I really believe that this land has some kind of magnetic pull,"
    commented Los Angeles native Madlene Minassian, who decided with
    her family to settle in Armenia about a decade ago. "A lot of people
    are happy to live in a certain place, but I can say that I'm happy
    and proud to be here, and I think that's such a different kind of
    existence."

    The Armenia 3500 Project strives to convince 3,500 ethnic
    Armenians from the West to move to either Armenia, or the
    majority-ethnic-Armenian, disputed territory of Nagorno-Karabakh,
    within the next three years. Those who opt for Karabakh would be
    eligible for a free house as an additional incentive. The program is
    run by a group of 30-somethings who have already repatriated.

    These evangelists maintain that Armenia 3500 participants can become
    difference-makers, hopefully creating jobs with their investments,
    and pressing for better governance. "They bring language skills and
    introduce new ideas, as well as new expectations, from business and
    government," a project representative, who declined to be named,
    said of the repatriates. "This all helps to stimulate investment,
    jobs and reforms."

    Only a few months old, the project has signed up 12 Diaspora Armenians
    in the United States, United Kingdom and Germany to make the move.

    Meeting the target quota of repatriates will not be easy, some
    experts assert. One skeptic is history professor Stephan Astourian,
    executive director of the Armenian Studies program at the University of
    California, Berkeley. He noted that repatriation since Armenia gained
    independence from the Soviet Union in 1991 has been minimal at best.

    "The fact of the matter is that a miniscule amount of Armenians have
    repatriated, with the exception of one country - Iran," Astourian
    said. He estimates the number of Armenian repatriates since 1991 at
    5,000 to 10,000. Official data was not immediately available.

    By contrast, the United Nations Development Programme estimates that
    as many as 1.3 million Armenians have left Armenia since 1991.

    Astourian claims that the reasons for low diaspora interest in
    returning to Armenia to live are the same that have prompted Armenians
    to leave - a lack of rule of law, and economic difficulties; plus,
    rampant corruption.

    "I think repatriation would be highly desirable if there was a
    state based on the rule of law, with the control of the police,
    real parliamentary life and judiciary," Astourian commented.

    Armenia ranked 123rd out of 178 countries in a 2010 Transparency
    International report measuring corruption; slightly better than
    neighboring Azerbaijan, which was ranked 134th, but far worse than
    next-door Georgia, in 68th place.

    Armen Rakedjian has firsthand experience of the red tape and corruption
    plaguing the region's Armenian communities. After relocating from Paris
    to the Nagorno-Karabakh town of Shushi in 2004, Rakedjian got caught
    up in a dispute over improperly registered property that ultimately
    cost him his entire $50,000 investment. He blames his loss on the
    alleged need to pay bribes and "high salaries" to correct the problem.

    Nonetheless, Rakedjian decided to stay in Shushi, where he runs a
    B&B with his wife, Cristina. In Karabakh, he says, he can preserve
    his cultural identity. In France, "I don't have any insurance that my
    daughter will stay Armenian, or the children of my daughter," Rakedjian
    said. "I have to live here. I have to endure all the difficulties,
    to have the possibility to remain Armenian."

    The extent to which either the de facto government of Karabakh or
    Armenia's Ministry of Diaspora lends a hand to repatriates making
    this transition is unclear. Armenia currently has no state-funded
    program covering repatriation. Representatives from the Ministry of
    Diaspora, which is a frequent target of criticism for doing little
    to support repatriates in Armenia, were not available for comment in
    time for publication.

    State-sponsored support could have helped Natasha Hillis and her
    husband, Victor Sargissian, a dentist, with their move to Yerevan from
    Ventura, California. Financial problems forced the couple and their
    two young sons to move back to the United States this past summer.

    Although Sargissian found work at a dentist's office, he complains
    that business was slow, with most locals unable to afford regular
    dental care. "Making a living to support the standard of living
    that we're accustomed to here in the US was basically impossible,"
    recounted Hillis, who taught English part-time. "I was making $4 an
    hour, and my cab to and from the center cost me $3."

    Many repatriates acknowledge that their expectations of life in Armenia
    were unrealistic. To counter that, one Wynnewood, Pennsylvania-based
    non-profit group, Birthright Armenia, offers travel fellowships to
    diaspora members to work as short-term volunteers in Armenia without
    committing to a permanent move. Twenty-five of the 550 participants
    in the program since its 2003 launch still live in Armenia, according
    to the organization's executive director, Sevan Kabakian.

    Two of those participants - Canadian freelance writer Nyree Abrahamian
    and her American husband, Areg Maghakian, deputy director of operations
    at the Armenia Tree Project - have now been living in Armenia for
    close to five years. Though they haven't ruled out the possibility
    of returning to North America, the couple says they have put down
    roots in Armenia.

    Despite the lack of ready, well-paid employment, the attraction of
    working in a developing country where they could have a greater impact
    ultimately persuaded the pair to stay. "It's moving and changing
    and twisting," Abrahamian said of Armenia's development. "Not only
    do you get to see that, but you get to be a part of it and actually
    affect it."

    Diaspora groups hope that, eventually, more ethnic Armenians will
    say the same.

    Article by Liana Aghajanian originally published by EurasiaNet.org.

    Image cropped and retrieved from the Project's Facebook page.

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