Azeri opposition leaders sue presidential aide for putting pressure on court
Muxalifat, Baku,
30 May 04
Text of Sabina Avazqizi report by Azerbaijani newspaper Muxalifat
on 30 May headlined “Leaders sue Ramiz Mehdiyev” and sub-headed
“Demanding that legal action be taken against him”
As we have reported, the head of the presidential administration,
Ramiz Mehdiyev, in an interview with one of newspapers, has commented
on the trial of the opposition leaders who were illegally arrested
in the aftermath of the 15-16 October developments [post-election
riots in Baku].
The official fully dedicated his comments to putting pressure on the
court and abused his power to accuse the opposition leaders. He said
that by refusing to attend the court hearings, the leaders cannot
succeed in putting pressure on anyone.
Mehdiyev also expressed some negative opinions about the leaders. He
said that the leaders, who are currently being kept at the
[high-security] Bayil prison, want their trial to last till October
in order to create even more hue and cry over their detention because
of the municipal elections which are due at that time.
Seeing this as an insult, the leaders have lodged a suit with the
Sabayil district court. The suit says:
“In an interview with Sarq newspaper on 28 May, the head of the
Azerbaijani presidential administration, Ramiz Mehdiyev, said that
‘those in the opposition who organized the 16 October clashes will
not succeed in putting pressure on anyone by refusing to attend
the court hearings’. Also, in his interviews with ATV and Lider TV
channels, Ramiz Mehdiyev accused us of trying to delay the trial
until the October municipal elections in order to receive money from
foreign countries. Therefore, by accusing us of involvement in the
organization of the 16 October disturbances, by libeling us and by
saying inaccurately that we intend to receive money from abroad,
Ramiz Mehdiyev has committed a crime punishable under Article 147
of the Azerbaijani Criminal Code. At the same time, the high-ranking
official abused his power to put pressure on the court.
“Taking the above into account and governed by Article 37.2 of the
Code on Criminal Procedures, we request you to institute criminal
proceedings against the head of the presidential administration,
Ramiz Mehdiyev.”
The suit has been signed by the chairman of the People’s Party of
Azerbaijan, Panah Huseyn, the deputy chairmen of the Musavat Party,
Arif Hacili and Ibrahim Ibrahimli, the editor-in-chief of Yeni
Musavat newspaper, Rauf Arifoglu, the chairman of the Hope Party,
MP Iqbal Agazada, the secretary-general of the Democratic Party
of Azerbaijan, Sardar Calaloglu, and the chairman of the Union of
Karabakh war veterans, Etimad Asadov.

Azeri presidential aide says BBC radio cannot be taken off air
Azartac news agency, Baku
31 May 04
Azerbaijan is a democratic republic, democracy in the country is
developing rapidly, and it would be inappropriate to take a media
outlet off the air for the information it circulates, the head of
the presidential administration, Ramiz Mehdiyev, has told Azartac
news agency commenting on a BBC correspondent’s visit to Nagornyy
Karabakh without the permission of the Azerbaijani authorities and
in violation of Azerbaijani laws.
Ramiz Mehdiyev added that the BBC correspondent should have observed
the law, and the fact that he did not has caused fair discontent of
many people.
However, since freedom of the press is duly protected in Azerbaijan,
it would be unacceptable to take sanctions against the radio station
or to take it off the air. This runs counter to democratic principles
and to our position, Mehdiyev said.
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

ARMENIAN PREMIER READY TO NEGOTIATE WITH OPPOSITION
Ayots Ashkhar, Yerevan
27 May 04
Text of Vaan Vardanyan’s report by Armenian newspaper Ayots Ashkhar
on 27 May headlined “Mutual work was a success”
Armenian Premier Andranik Markaryan had a traditional meeting with
journalists yesterday after a meeting between the National Assembly
and the government.
(Correspondent) Mr Markaryan, what is your assessment of the one-year
activity of the National Assembly?
(Markaryan) It is positive. The government and the National Assembly
managed to work together, as the same format operates in both branches
of power in the person of the coalition parties, the United Labour
Party and the People’s Deputy group.
Unfortunately, the opposition boycotted the last session of the
National Assembly. It does not prevent the legislative branch of
power from working. And I think the opposition should be concerned
about this. And its presence at the next session is desirable.
(Correspondent) What is your attitude to the failed dialogue with the
opposition? You have met Aram Sarkisyan (a member of the opposition’s
Justice faction and chairman of the Democratic Party of Armenia)
and intended to continue this line. Against the background of the
failed dialogue, what will be the fate of this initiative?
(Markaryan) I thought that the coalition’s meetings with the opposition
would yield certain results, that is why I announced my intention to
meet the leaders of the opposition. But before I returned from abroad,
the opposition put forward new preconditions, which is inadmissible. If
they change their position, I am ready to negotiate with them as the
leader of the Republican Party of Armenia (RPA) and prime minister.
(Correspondent) Are you satisfied with the activity of the coalition
parties last year? When the coalition was just being formed, did you
think that the relations would be the way they are now?
(Markaryan) The formation of a coalition is not a marriage of parties
or a compulsory term. It is a mutual desire of everyone. None of the
coalition parties has attempted to describe the declaration as null
and void so far, and I can state that no such thing will happen in the
future. There are problems discussed inside the coalition. One should
not forget that it is the first attempt to form a coalition. Every
month and at every session, the work of the coalition becomes more
and more improved, especially in the National Assembly. The coalition
representatives have no problems with each other in the government at
all. There are some problems between the coalition parties operating
in the National Assembly, but they are technical and will be settled
in the course of time.
(Correspondent) Did the RPA play any role in changing the restraining
measure against (ex-Defence Minister) Vagarshak Arutyunyan and what
is your opinion of this, on the whole?
(Markaryan) Politics cannot be mixed with criminal cases and no party
can interfere in a criminal case. MPs or political forces can only
propose that the restraining measure be changed. And I can assure
you that RPA has made no such proposal.
(Correspondent) The head of your faction, Galust Saakyan, often states
that the opposition is falling apart little by little. Can one state
that the possibility of a third force appearing is increasing?
(Markaryan) A holy place is never left unoccupied, someone will take
it at last, but I cannot call them a third or a fourth force.
(Correspondent) The Georgian president has reached an agreement with
Turkey on the construction of a new railway. In turn, Iran and Russia
are concluding a similar deal with Azerbaijan. Don’t you think that
Armenia will be sidelined?
(Markaryan) I think that just for this reason, we shall try to
participate in this programme. We are having negotiations both with
Russia and Georgia to open the Abkhaz railway. If it is opened,
it will be less possible to sideline the country. We have our own
problems, other states have their own. We must only take into account
the reality, and how can Armenia influence the solutions to these
problems? We have proposals which seem promising to other parties.

A hidden holocaust – The Turkish state has never had to answer for the
genocide of its Armenian minority nearly 100 years ago
Irish Times;
May 29, 2004
The Burning Tigris: The Armenian Genocide By Peter Balakian Heinemann,
329pp. (pounds) 18.99
That history is a form of advocacy is nowhere more clearly illustrated
than in the continuing controversies, and silences, surrounding the
destruction of the Armenian presence in the Ottoman Empire. It is
not in dispute that over 100,000 Armenians died in the nationwide
massacres of 1894-96 and the Cilician massacres of 1909. Nor is
it disputed that mass deportations and killings carried out in 1915
under the Young Turk government – wartime measures undertaken to solve
finally the problem of an alien, potentially unreliable minority –
led to the Armenian population in Turkey falling from 1.5 million in
1914 to 100,000 in 1923. The contentious issue is the precise legal
and moral character of this apocalypse; specifically, whether the
Armenians fell prey to a deliberate attempt to exterminate them as
a race. Were they, in other words, the victims of genocide?
Even to state this question, in the view of Peter Balakian, is to risk
collusion in mass murder. The argument against genocide – kept alive
by ‘the Turkish government and a small group of its sympathizers’,
who characterise the fate of the Turkish Armenians as essentially
disastrous rather than genocidal – is, according to Balakian, so
plainly made in bad faith and so obviously meritless that it is
‘morally wrong to privilege the deniers by according them space in
the . . . media’. For the avoidance of doubt and personal culpability,
then, I should perhaps make the following clear: even if you disregard
every shred of survivor testimony, the Armenian genocide in 1915 is
an open-and-shut case. The extraordinarily detailed contemporaneous
accounts of Western bystanders (diplomats, missionaries, businessmen
and other eyewitnesses) and the testimonies forthcoming at the Ottoman
courts martial in 1919, can leave no intellectually conscientious
person in any reasonable doubt that probably more than a million
(exact numbers are inevitably hard to compute) Armenians were
systematically and intentionally put to death as part of a scheme
of racial elimination. Why, though, has this crime not received
the general and profound acceptance afforded to, say the Jewish
holocaust? Why, for example, have successive American (and indeed
Israeli) administrations refused to acknowledge the genocide?
In The Burning Tigris, Balakian approaches these questions – and the
evidence of genocide – by chronicling the American response to the
lot of the Armenians. The story begins in the 1890s, when news of the
atrocities authorised by Sultan Abdul Hamid II began to filter back
from the many American missionaries posted in eastern Turkey. Thanks
to such remarkable women as Clara Barton (the first president of the
American Red Cross) and Julia Ward Howe (the famous suffragist and
abolitionist), the fate of the Armenians – an ancient Christian nation
threatened by the heinous Turk – became a burning public issue. Acting
to safeguard ‘the spirit of civilization, the sense of Christendom,
the heart of humanity’ (Howe’s words), huge charitable sums were
donated by the American public. This effort, Balakian notes, marked
the beginning of the modern era of American international human rights
relief, in which specialised relief teams were sent to the site of the
disaster. For nearly three decades, American humanitarian sentiment
and the ‘starving Armenians’ were practically synonymous.
Then comes the terrible meat of the book – the Turkish campaign to
wipe out the Armenians in 1915. By chance, a cadre of literate and
scrupulous Americans was on hand to see or hear about most of it,
and rose to the occasion. In particular, Henry Morgenthau, the US
ambassador in Istanbul, received a flood of dispatches from all
sectors of Turkey describing unimaginable horrors. Balakian most
effectively collates and summarises these, and the picture that
emerges – ravines filled with corpses, freight trains packed with
deportees, emaciated naked women and children filing into Aleppo,
deportees dying in typhus-stricken encampments in the Syrian desert –
is utterly clear and utterly damning. Morgenthau heroically did his
best to ameliorate matters, but Washington refused to act. Once again,
though, the American public reacted with enormous generosity. After
the war, public sentiment relating to the Armenians gradually fizzled
out. As US-Turkish relations improved, few chose to dwell on what
happened to the Armenians. To this day, the Turkish state remains
bitterly hostile to any recognition of the genocide and, because of
its importance as a NATO member and bulwark of moderate secularism
in the Muslim world, is allowed to get away with it.
The Burning Tigris is a scorching and essential book, but not always
circumspect. Little attempt is made to explain the sense of religious
and national imperilment that turned ordinary, peaceable Turks into
butchers of women and children. (‘Nothing is so cruel as fear,’ noted
the British vice-consul, Maj Doughty-Wylie, whose superb account
of the 1909 Adana inter-communal massacres Balakian heavily relies
on without making reference to those parts that mitigate Turkish
culpability.) This does not substantially detract, however, from
the overwhelming power of the case Balakian presents. We are left,
nonetheless, with at least two dismaying conclusions. First, that even
in questions of genocide our capacity for sympathy is closely related
to our self-interest; second, that advocacy such as Peter Balakian’s,
however brilliant, is only as effective as the fairness of the hearing
afforded it.
Joseph O’Neill is the author of two novels and, most recently,
Blood-Dark Track: A Family History
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

EU halts E100m aid to Armenia in nuclear row
Irish Times
May 29, 2004
Alarmed at the potential for another Chernobyl-type nuclear accident,
the European Union has frozen E100 million of grant aid to this small
state in the Caucasus following the refusal of the government here
to agree to a date for c losure of an ageing Russian-built nuclear
power plant sited in one of the world’s most active seismic zones.
The pressurised water reactor at Metsamor, about 40 kilometres west
of the Armenian capital, Yerevan, was first commissioned in the mid
70s but shut down in 1988 after an earthquake killed 25,000 in cities
and towns in the area. The reactor was restarted in 1995 due to severe
energy shortages in the country.
‘Our position of principle is that nuclear power plants should not
be built in highly active seismic zones,’ said Mr Alexis Louber,
head of the EU’s delegation in Armenia. ‘This plant is a danger to
the whole Caucasus region.’
As part of a general policy seeking the closure of ageing nuclear
plants in territories of the former Soviet Union, the EU had offered
the E100 million in aid to Armenia for finding alternative energy
sources and helping with decommissioning costs at the plant. The EU
decision to freeze the aid, made some weeks ago but only just revealed
here, is seen as a mark of Brussels’ frustration on the issue.
‘We cannot force Armenia to close Metsamor,’ said Mr
Louber. ‘Originally it was agreed the plant should cease operations
this year – now we’re asking for a definite date as to when the plant
will be closed. We feel that should be well in advance of the end of
the plant’s design life cycle in 2016.’
The plant, in a gently rolling plain in view of the snowy peak of Mt
Ararat in nearby Turkey, has no secondary containment facilities to
prevent radioactive leakage in the event of a nuclear accident – a
safety requirement now considered essential in all reactors. Another
worry is that, due to border and railway closures with surrounding
territories, nuclear material to feed the plant has to be flown into
Yerevan’s civilian airport from Russia and then transported along a
badly surfaced public highway to the plant.
‘It is the same as flying around a potential nuclear bomb,’ said
Mr Louber. ‘It’s an extremely hazardous exercise.’
Mr Areg Galystyan, Armenia’s deputy minister of power, dismissed
suggestions that Metsamor is unsafe, saying dollars 50 million had
been spent on upgrading safety features at the plant.
‘It was a big mistake to shut the plant down in 1988,’ he said. ‘It
created an energy crisis and the people and economy suffered. It would
be impossible for us to cause the same problem again by shutting off
the plant.’
He also insisted that all necessary safety measures were taken when
flying in fuel to feed the reactor, though exact details of the
operation were kept secret ‘to avoid alarming people’.
Dr Alvaro Antonyan, president of Armenia’s National Survey for
Seismic Protection, said Russian scientists built the power station
on a special raft in order to withstand earthquakes. Dr Antonyan
said the 1988 earthquake, which measured 6.7 on the Richter scale,
had not damaged the reactor.
‘I fear for my two children because I do not think the plant is
safe,’ said Mr Gohar Bezprozvannkh, who worked at the plant for two
years. ‘Earthquakes happen here and there is danger. On the other
hand we do not have any other options for work.’

Maxine Lynch Bedyn: Run ragged escorting Malak Ottawa Citizen
Ottawa Citizen
May 28, 2004
In the early ’70s, as an information officer at the Canadian Government
Office of Tourism, I was assigned to arrange film and still photos
of the NAC.
Malak Karsh was commissioned to shoot the stills. He would arrive
at my apartment at 5 a.m. to review photos, after leaving the dark
room at two in the morning. In-between, we trekked all of the NAC,
shooting stills of the building and performances at night. Although
in my 20s, I found his schedule exhausting.
One evening, in the middle of a play, Malak exuberantly ran on to
the stage to get a better shot. The union was aghast and threatened
to walk out. I had to mollify many ruffled feathers.
Finally, one evening, I curled up in the press box of the Opera,
to rest during a performance. Joe Morrissey, a colleague from the
CGOT, locked me in. I suddenly came to from a snooze to find myself
enveloped in the dark of the NAC!
Heart pounding, I knocked on the door – no answer. Unbeknownst to me,
Joe crept back and quietly unlocked the door. I knocked some more and,
suddenly able to open the door, I stormed out to find Malak sitting
innocently on the wall near the canal.
Malak shot several award-winning photos of the NAC that were used
promotionally for many years, and often spoke to me of the fun we
had that summer.

Staunton News Leader, VA
May 30 2004
Family, God play starring roles in Grace graduation
Ex-Navy Seal prepares Warriors for battle
By Chris Lassiter/staff
[email protected]
STAUNTON — Albert Mirzoyan literally had a long journey to graduation
day at Grace Christian High School.
It wasn’t that long ago that Mirzoyan’s family fled their home country
of Armenia and were struggling to find the necessities in life: food,
water and electricity.
Through a series of events, the family relocated to Staunton.
Events that Mirzoyan said were no accident.
“It’s so awesome how God works,” said the senior, his face partly
covered by his cap tassel. “I never thought I’d be a student here.
This is the best thing ever. I’m leaving one stage of life and moving
to the next.”
The administration at Grace Christian made sure that Mirzoyan and the
other 24 students gathered at St. Paul’s United Methodist Church went
out in style.
The graduation’s two tear-jerking events — the flower exchange and
the candle-lighting ceremony — were preceded by a couple of hymns
and Katherine Archer, Mary Helen Clemmer and Kathryn Rawley’s humorous
trip down memory lane.
Bill Renton, a Navy Seal and two-time Olympian, gave the graduation
speech. Renton, who teaches and coaches soccer at Grace, charged the
students to commit to the Christian life in the same way a Navy Seal
commits to defending America.
Afterwards, tears flowed freely as students embraced their mothers
and presented them with red roses.
“I almost cried,” senior Cameron Culbertson said. “My mom was bawling.”
The fathers also got involved in the ceremony, lighting a candle
for their children as a sign of passing the Christian heritage on to
another generation.
“It’s very touching,” graduate Nathaniel Knopp said. “It makes
you realize the influence he’s had in your life by setting a Godly
example.”
The ceremony had its light moments, too. Renton ripped off his white
dress shirt to reveal his “salmon” polo knit shirt.
“Everyone knows men don’t wear pink,” he said, laughing at the inside
joke between him and the students. “It’s salmon.”
The seniors recounted their April 1 prank on the teachers and staff,
when they arrived at school one hour early and claimed the staff
parking for themselves.
John Morrison, the head administrator at Grace Christian, reciprocated
by giving the kids fake diplomas as they crossed the stage.
It was the type of ceremony that made Jennifer Card, Holly Mancini
and Philip Silling glad they attended Grace Christian.
“I’m going to miss everyone,” Mancini said. “This is a good school,
and I’m thankful to come out of it.”
From: Baghdasarian

The Observer /Guardian (UK)
May 30 2004
Kings and criminals
Dan Neill and Jane Perry on Gilgamesh | Stump | The Good Doctor
Gilgamesh
by Joan London
Atlantic Books £7.99, pp256
The Epic of Gilgamesh is the world’s oldest known work of poetry. It
tells the story of King Gilgamesh of Uruk and his heroic travels
through Mesopotamia around 3,000 BC. Joan London’s award-winning
novel Gilgamesh is, in its own understated way, no less epic or
heroic. It tells the story of Edith Clark, a young Western Australian
farm girl, and her journey from Australia to Armenia via England in
search of Aram Sinanien, the father of her son, at the outbreak of
the Second World War. London’s prose is measured but tender,
capturing the essence of the novel’s diffident, romantic heroine. Her
polished narrative fragments offer sharp and fleeting glimpses of a
past that often seems to span millenniums rather than decades, as if
she had retrieved and lovingly restored the ancient clay tablets on
which the original epic was inscribed.
Stump
by Niall Griffiths
Vintage £6.99, pp228
It would be unfair on Niall Griffiths’s considerable talents to brand
Stump Welsh noir. It is so much more than that. But the story invites
the label. A one-armed alcoholic Liverpudlian goes about his daily
business in a small Welsh seaside town – shopping, gardening and
visiting friends. Meanwhile, two inept criminals travel south from
Liverpool to wreak violent revenge on their quarry – a one-armed man
living by the sea in Wales. Things often have a habit of colliding in
Griffiths’s novels: the ancient and the modern, the mythic and the
real, the magical and the mundane, the poetic and the prosaic. In
Stump, the craggy peaks and urban squalor of north-west Wales form
the backdrop to an elemental battle being played out within the mind
of the sometime narrator, as he struggles to come to terms with his
dismembered body, his alcoholism and his murky past.
The Good Doctor
by Damon Galgut
Atlantic Books £7.99, pp215
For the majority of its citizens, post-apartheid South Africa is not
the utopia that was once promised. Lawlessness, disease and
corruption have poisoned the democratic dream. But for Laurence
Waters, a young white doctor posted to a decaying rural hospital, the
chance to change society for the better is still a reality. His
disillusioned older colleague, Frank, finds Laurence’s optimism
chafing, but Galgut’s beautifully understated and moving novel,
shortlisted for both the Booker and the Commonwealth Writers Prize,
shows how these states of belief and despair, both personal and
political, slowly come to achieve a kind of equilibrium and mutual
comprehension.

The Moscow Times
May 28 – June 3, 2004
Tug of War
Tracking the Caspian’s history from different perspectives, two books draw a
common picture of foreign imperialism.
By Kim Iskyan
Before I left Moscow for the Caucasus a few years ago with plans
to dabble in journalism, a friend with experience throughout the
Caspian field begged of me: “Please promise me you’ll never use
the words ‘Great Game’ in a Caspian story.” The term had become a
geopolitical cliche, he said, thanks to journalists who spent one
week in the region spouting off the usual blather about how ironic
it is that the 19th-century battles between Russia and Great Britain
for control over Central Asia are being replayed — before buying a
carpet or two and going home.
Clearly, Lutz Kleveman, author of “The New Great Game: Blood and Oil
in Central Asia,” is in flagrant violation of my friend’s rule. But
Kleveman, a journalist, should arguably receive a pass, as he moves
well beyond the tired formulas that plague coverage of Central Asia
and the Caucasus (or the entire former Soviet Union, for that matter)
to effectively assess the contradictory and nuanced forces that shape
the region.
Foremost among these forces for Kleveman is oil, the “devil’s
tears.” Taking the reader through a wide swath of the Caspian area,
Kleveman creates context with easily digestible historical overviews
(mercifully light on the Great Game analogies); discussions with local
oligarchs, power players and politicians; and dusty, dangerous treks
to the Caspian to kick its soft underbelly of oil. Along the way,
Kleveman underscores the many compromises that the developed world —
and the United States, in particular — has made in the name of oil
or one of its auxiliary ends: cozying up to the strong-arm antics
of Uzbekistan’s Islam Karimov, ignoring the catastrophe of Chechnya,
and looking the other way as Nursultan Nazarbayev rewrites the book on
corruption in cahoots with American oil companies, to name just a few.
Meanwhile, Kleveman suggests that the answer could be found in Iran, if
only handled the right way. A Persian pipeline would be a significant
improvement on the current options — Russia, the South Caucasus,
Afghanistan, all of which have been the subject of endless political
machinations — as it would be shorter, cheaper and safer. But these
are pipe dreams, he admits, given present perceptions of the United
States. “The Americans and their double standards: We Iranians have
a more open democracy than any of the Arab sheikhdoms with whom the
Americans are aligned!” complains a newspaper editor in Tehran whom
Kleveman interviews.
Itar-Tass
And all for what? According to the U.S. Energy Department, the Caspian
Sea region has roughly 3 percent of the proven global oil reserves
and 4 percent of natural gas reserves. Kleveman estimates that the
Caspian could provide between 5 percent and 8 percent of total global
oil production by 2015. That might sound like small beer, but it’s not:
Fresh, marginal oil supplies can have a disproportionate influence,
in part by cutting into the ability of oil cartel OPEC, which controls
the majority of global oil production, to affect prices. With stability
still elusive in the Middle East, energy resource diversification
— even if it’s only a few percent here and there — has become a
geopolitical mantra for oil and gas importers. And China’s voracious,
ever-escalating demand for energy exerts an unrelenting upward pressure
on prices, leading to stiff competition for oil assets.
The timing of Kleveman’s travels was in some ways highly fortuitous, as
he was on the front lines of the post-Sept. 11, 2001, surge of interest
in Central Asia and the Caspian — parts of the world that, just
five years earlier, had barely registered on the global geopolitical
radar screen. But as the United States invaded Iraq in March 2003,
elevating the fight for access to fossil fuels to a whole new level
by coupling it with the struggle against terrorism, Kleveman was just
dotting the i’s of his final draft; consequently, Iraq is accorded only
a hastily written epilogue. But Kleveman’s insistence on the primacy
of oil politics was, if anything, further strengthened by subsequent
events — particularly the emerging bankruptcy of claims that the war
had been predicated on uncovering Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction.
Indeed, fossil fuels are important. But, at the end of the day,
the war on terror is about more than energy imperialism. Kleveman’s
suggestion that oil politics dictate every last dimension of economic,
geopolitical and human endeavor in the region is, perhaps, a bit of
an exaggeration, even with Big Oil in the White House.
Thomas Dunne Books
Land Beyond the River: The Untold Story of Central Asia By Monica
Whitlock Thomas Dunne Books 304 Pages. $27.95
In “Land Beyond the River: The Untold Story of Central Asia,” Monica
Whitlock, who has reported from the region for the BBC for much of
the past 12 years, takes a very different approach to describing the
forces that shaped Central Asia. While Kleveman’s book is equal parts
travelogue, contemporary history and political analysis, Whitlock
builds from the ground up, tracing the “Zelig”-like progression of
a few generations of two colorful Central Asian families through
the turmoil and travails of 20th-century Uzbekistan, Tajikistan and
Afghanistan to show the impact of the region’s various struggles on
the individual. Later, shifting into reportorial territory that seems
more stylistically familiar to her, Whitlock describes the Russian
involvement in Afghanistan and the post-Soviet evolution of the region,
particularly of Uzbekistan and Tajikistan.
Also in contrast to Kleveman, neither oil nor the Great Game figures
much into Whitlock’s vision. Her primary interest is in the history
of Russian involvement in the region, rather than on the global
geopolitical tug of war that currently characterizes the area. The
region she portrays is one that has always been at the periphery, with
change evolving very slowly — and, even then, only at the (frequently
extraordinarily brutal) whim of the Soviet Union. Arguably, the Soviet
Union’s role as key agent of external change is now being assumed
by the United States and friends, in view of the recent invasion of
Afghanistan and the close relationship that has developed between
the United States and Uzbekistan.
The enduring irony of all this is that, for much of Russia (and for
Moscow in particular), Central Asia and the Caucasus remain on the far
fringes of relevance. Much as U.S. policy toward Mexico is far more
important to Mexico than it is to the United States, the relationship
between Russia and the Caspian area remains highly unequal to this day.
Whitlock helps explain how the Caspian area became such a mess,
while Kleveman takes confusion and borderline anarchy as his point
of departure. But both books share an underlying message: that the
United States is the latest on the laundry list of countries with
imperial designs, albeit of different stripes, on the region — and
that, if history is any guide, the odds are heavily stacked against
sustainable success.
Kim Iskyan is a freelance journalist based in Armenia.

Newsday (New York)
May 30, 2004 Sunday
CITY EDITION
QUEENS DIARY;
His is really a pressing business;
LIC’s Madame Paulette turns dry-cleaning into a celebrity-attracting
art form
BY MERLE ENGLISH. STAFF WRITER
Marcie Goodman Gottlieb lives on Manhattan’s Upper West Side but
doesn’t mind traveling to the East Side just to drop off her dry
cleaning. She’s been doing so for more than 10 years.
Her mother, who lives in Baltimore, uses the same dry cleaner,
sending in special items or bringing them with her on visits to New
York.
“They are the best at what they do,” Gottlieb said. “Their customer
service is incredible. They are so accommodating with everything you
take in. If you need it back immediately, they’ll get it back
immediately, and they’ll always get your stains out.”
The reason for the extra effort is Madame Paulette, a one-of-a-kind
dry cleaning business in Long Island City.
Basic black
The building out of which the business operates would be nondescript
except for its all-black exterior.
Classic black, a color often associated with haute couture, is a
signature for Madame Paulette’s president, John Mahdessian, 38.
Fresh out of Villanova University in 1987, Mahdessian took over from
his father what is now a 50-year-old family-owned business with a
reputation – Mahdessian states unequivocally – as “simply the finest
custom couture cleaner in the world.”
In keeping with that characterization, the building’s black exterior,
the company’s promotional materials and several products reflect the
image of the business as a service catering mostly to the world’s
high-end fashion houses and bridal salons.
A press kit is in velvety black stock, embossed with the name “Madame
Paulette” in golden script. A stain removal kit for upscale travelers
is encased in shiny black packaging.
Black is also the color of a custom-designed garment bag, a solid oak
hanger and a VIP gift box. And all carry Madame Paulette’s gold and
black logo showing a stylishly dressed woman and the company’s
initials.
But the elegant apparel that comes into Madame Paulette’s Long Island
City plant and headquarters from bridal salons at Barneys, Bergdorf
Goodman, Saks Fifth Avenue and such couture houses as Christian Dior,
Fendi, Givenchy, Gucci, Hermès, Prada, Versace and Yves St. Laurent,
is of all colors, textures and intricacies of design.
Mahdessian said his staff of artisans, tailors and craftspeople,
recruited from around the globe, are entrusted with “the finest
garments in the world.” Many are worn by runway models and
celebrities such as Jennifer Lopez, David Letterman, Madonna, Janet
Jackson, Steven Spielberg, Sting and Barbara Walters, whom he lists
among his clientele.
A visitor on a recent tour of the plant at 42-20 12th St. found the
place a beehive of activity as employees meticulously inspected,
dry-cleaned and hand-pressed clothing.
Already cleaned on hangers around them were Chanel suits, shirts,
dresses and gowns swathed in white garment bags with such labels as
Vera Wang and Angel Sanchez.
A pink, strapless seersucker gown belonging to Christie Brinkley was
ready for delivery to her home in the Hamptons. It was on one of the
paper mannequins Mahdessian uses to keep cleaned clothing
wrinkle-free. Also ready to go was Vogue fashion editor Andre Leon
Talley’s blue and yellow robe.
Madame Paulette developed techniques to keep fine clothes – many
adorned with appliques, embroidery, sequins, feathers and other
handwork – in their original splendor. Perspiration, blood and other
stains are removed according to the type of stain, its color and
chemistry.
“Even if you spill a whole bottle of red wine, it’s no problem,” said
Mahdessian, who refers to himself as “Johnny on the spot.”
Faded fabric colors are restored, and even vintage items considered
damaged beyond repair are salvaged, he said.
Madame’s touch
Unusual combinations of materials in garments are taken apart for the
special cleaning each material requires and are put back together by
couture tailors.
“The steps we take are painstaking and unconventional,” the company
states on its Website.
“We are pioneers in what we do,” Mahdessian said. “Fifty percent of
what we do here is by hand. We even use Q-tips because of the
intricacy of the work.”
Hand-finishing by Jahfrey Juvon, 22, of Maspeth, hired two months ago
in quality control, left an inexpensive woolen vest looking like
cashmere.
“Every single person that touches the garment is a quality-control
expert,” Mahdessian said. “Even business and casual attire deserve
the same expert attention to detail. Improper maintenance of the
garment wears the garment out. We can increase the garment’s life
expectancy and preserve its value.”
Treasured bridal gowns are cleaned and stored in museum-quality,
acid-free archival chamber boxes. Such attention costs more than
regular cleaning – $18 for a shirt or pair of pants, for example.
The business operates 24 hours a day to respond to emergencies, such
as a gown that is stained or stepped on during a wedding or similar
damage done to a vintage piece a celebrity is wearing at the Oscars.
Tailors, spotters and pressers are on hand “for any needs that come
up,” Mahdessian said. “We save the day all the time.”
Madame Paulette was founded by an uncle of Mahdessian’s father,
Noubar. The uncle, whose name Mahdessian couldn’t recall, was an
Armenian who came to the United States in 1957. The company was named
for the uncle’s wife.
All in the family
Noubar Mahdessian and his wife, Ann, a teacher and interior
decorator, ran the business until they retired and turned it over to
their son.
John Mahdessian, who grew up in Little Neck, lives in Long Island
City. Being a businessman wasn’t his first career choice. He had
graduated with a degree in marketing and planned to go into
investment banking.
He soon realized, however, that he loved the business. He expanded
the staff from 10 to 75 at the Long Island City headquarters and his
flagship 1255 Second Ave. site in Manhattan.
He was committed, he said, to making the business “the finest, most
advanced, state-of-the-art dry cleaning establishment in New York,
the U.S., and the world.”
Now the woman behind the name “is my mom,” Mahdessian said. “We
consider her Madame Paulette,” until he marries, he said.
Custom couture cleaning is only one reason that Gottlieb is willing
to travel across town.
“They’re friendly and smiley, and they’re all happy,” Gottlieb said.
“People say they’re expensive, but if they are, they’re worthy every
penny.”
GRAPHIC: Photo by Daniel Avila – John Mahdessian, president of Madame
Paulette, poses inside a robe owned by Vogue fashion editor Andre
Leon Talley in the cleaner’s headquarters in Long Island City.