Newstimes.ru
22 Sept 2004
Armenia
THE EURASIAN PROBLEM
By Vadim Dubnov
Armenia’s shortest route to Europe is through Turkey
“You were rooting for the French team, weren’t you?” the proprietor of the
bar in downtown Yerevan where I was watching the quarterfinals of the Euro
2004 Championship asked me. I noticed right away that he was ordering his
barmaids about in Russian. True, he spoke with an unfamiliar accent. I was
rooting for the French but I had no pity for them as they wandered around
the field like shadows of their great ancestors. The proprietor sighed. “No,
I don’t feel sorry for them at all. That’s why I rooted for the Greeks from
the very beginning though I don’t like them.” And he explained: they are my
neighbours. “And you are.” “I’m Bulgarian.” My brows must have shot up, and
he smiled: “Everybody is surprised. Somehow nobody is surprised that
Bulgarians live, for instance, in Spain or Denmark. So why not in Armenia?”
“And how do you like it here?” “It’s all right. Armenians are almost like
Bulgarians, but just a bit higher in the mountains.” He smiled again. “A lot
alike. Again, take the Turks whom many people believe we don’t like either.”
Northern Avenue
Armenians residing in Moscow do not believe that back in their homeland
apricots cost 1,500 drams, almost three dollars. Everybody knows that in
July not even a bloodsucker would charge more than 200 or 300 drams for
apricots, like for cherries. My friends do not believe me when I tell them
that, but I am not joking.
Yerevan is no longer a city of comfortably low prices. The central avenue is
no longer a natural extension of the friendly outskirts where everyone is
everyone’s neighbour. The downtown capital is flooded with neon that is
reflected from the tinted shop fronts of boutiques, beauty salons, and every
barber’s shop boasts a European style store window. Quite close a new avenue
is being laid through from the Opera House to the city’s main square. It is
called Northern Avenue, and the apartments in its elite buildings are being
advertised on radio channels in Moscow. They will be the homes of those who
in times past emigrated to Russia, the USA and Europe, made their fortune
there and now realized every emigre’s dream of having two homes. The new
avenue is in the construction phase as yet, but the new city developers have
already ousted the shanty town without which Yerevan is not Yerevan. But
that is the point: this is a different Yerevan, one without its shanty town
and with a downtown area which, it seems, all the eternal elderly people
have left and gone somewhere else and where to rent a flat costs almost as
much as in Europe. Armenians living in Moscow do not believe that you no
longer can rent a flat in Abovyan Street for less than 300 or 400 dollars.
Apricots and cherries cost 6 to 7 times more than they used to there: this
year rains alternated with hailstorms, but everybody realizes that these
fruits will never be cheaper even with the most ideal weather. Housewives
complain that meat, too, has gone up two times, though hailstorms do not
seem to have anything to do with it. The dollar is falling in value,
however, nobody on TV can explain intelligibly why. Wages in drams are
remaining on the same level but jobs are becoming harder and harder to land.
But the city seems to have more money, God alone knows where it has come
from. Cafes and restaurants are full, in the evenings, young couples with
middleclass faces stroll in the streets pushing baby carriages. They would
not believe that a short while ago the city did not have electricity. To
earn 100 dollars a month is considered good luck.
How presidents do not get deposed
“Anyway we will overthrow HIM.” The peaceful course of our conversation in
the small roadside cafeteria was interrupted by its owner. We were in Goris,
a tiny town hidden in a gorge in the backwoods of Armenia. We had been
discussing a different matter: why his potato cakes cost 50 drams and why
35,000 drams of I.O.U.s were recorded in his thick ledger. All the debtors
were neighbours and friends, it meant nobody was in a hurry to pay up and it
would be indecent to refuse more credit and that was the way all Armenia
lived. Yet, it was better than it used to be a few years back when there was
no money at all in Goris. Nowadays money has come from somewhere. Yet, the
ledgers with debtors’ names are piling up. “We will depose him anyway.” The
landlord breathed the words out as if wondering why I was not asking him
this question. “It did not work out in April, so it will take place in the
autumn.”
Actually, in April there were no plans to depose President Kocharyan. At
least the students had none when they came to the president’s palace in
Bagramyan Avenue as if to an ordinary party carrying guitars and tape
recorders and, of course, with the respective slogans. Nobody expected
clubs, water jets and electric shock devices. Plainclothes men, when it
became suddenly clear were not students, had been lurking in the mob. They
supervised the carnage professionally and mercilessly. Those students who
were fortunate enough took refuge with strangers in neighbouring courtyards.
The unlucky ones met sunset in police stations and hospitals.
“We will depose him anyhow.” “And who will take his place?” The owner of the
bar in Goris changed the subject with disarming resolve. “Had there been
someone to take his place we would have already deposed him, to be sure.”
The leader of the Armenian opposition is Stepan Demirchyan, the son of the
First Secretary of Armenia’s Central Committee of the Communist Party, who
had been shot to death in the parliament massacre in 1999. In Armenia the
right to ask the question “Why would you want a president like Stepan
Demirchyan?” belongs exclusively to visitors. Armenians themselves have not
asked it since Demirchyan’s first TV appearance. While there was, at least,
nostalgia for his father along with the memory of Soviet Armenia’s
breakthrough he had masterminded, his son, it is commonly recognized, has
inherited only his stature and voice. He has come out for raising the
working people’s wellbeing, creating a socio-market nation and restoring
government orders.
Armenian liberals back Demirchyan not fearing the ambiguousness of the
situation. “The main thing is to depose Robert,” is the liberals’
explanation. “Afterwards we’ll get rid of Stepan.” Meanwhile Vasgen
Manukyan, a political veteran who eight years ago ran against Ter-Petrosyan
as an equal and in last year’s election campaign was one of the most active
members of the opposition coalition headed by Demirchyan, was not overly
embarrassed by lending his name to such a non-convincing favourite. Today
Manukyan describes the nuances of the overall opposition with literary
accuracy: “Everybody wants to depose the president, so we march along with
Demirchyan because there is nobody else to go with. But because you are
marching along with Demirchyan, you realize that nothing will come out of
it. Forget him. Anyhow Demirchyan is no better than Kocharyan.”
But no other opposition is in sight in Armenia. The pyramid of power here is
such that even major neighbouring countries would envy it.
High technologies Armenian style
There is more to the power pyramid than just closing the opposition TV
channels. The authorities deal with this matter at the initial phase either
out of nervousness or after laying the groundwork for it when there are no
real dangers. The essence of building the pyramid and its total
inclusiveness is that the authorities fill all possible political niches.
This is all there is to it.
“What can the authorities be reproached with from the point of view of
liberal economic theory?” I would ask Armenian economists this and get this
reply: “Nothing. Armenia is in such a situation that even the most
inveterate Marxist would have to carry out reforms.” True, though, the
Armenians smiled when I mentioned the phenomenal 12 percent economic growth.
The trickiness of this figure would suit anyone’s taste. Take the
construction that is almost fully financed by a 200-million dollar grant
from the Lindsey Foundation of US billionaire Kirk Kirkoryan. The building
industry is a special form of economy where no statistician would be able to
assess the percentage of misappropriated funds. But some people may see
something exotic in the main trick with the economic growth: it is rooted
not in construction or even agriculture but jewellery.
Cutting diamonds is a traditional occupation of Armenians. Weighty positions
in this business belong to Armenians of the Diaspora, particularly in
Antwerp, Belgium, which is the principal diamond market in Europe. Being an
extremely capital-intensive industry, cutting diamonds bought on the Belgian
market is the principal component of both the economic growth and Armenia’s
exports and imports. This is the tricky thing: Armenian cutters work on
customer-furnished raw materials which are never counted in calculations of
the GDP or economic growth. The share of diamonds is almost 350 million
dollars out of the 800 million dollars in exports.
Meanwhile the real growth that is there and estimated by unbiased experts as
3 to 4 percent is stable. The Soviet industry has fully died out while quite
modern and export-oriented industries have grown in their place: light
industries, farm produce processing and Armenia’s special hope — high
technologies. Armenian programmers, I mean, those who have not left for
Russia or the West, have followed India’s method — they work at home
filling Western orders. Armenians’ indigenous self-name sounds like “hi”. So
the suggestion to translate “high-tech” as Armenian technologies gets a most
favourable response.
Asked what approaches to the economy should be changed if Kocharyan is not
re-elected, none of the aspirants gave a clearcut answer. But this did not
cool the general indignation.
Human, all too human
The old acquaintance of mine who was showing me the sights on Northern
Avenue was no supporter of the president. Not at all. Trying to be
objective, he remarks that the laying of this avenue brought Kocharyan no
particular dividends though they seemed to be there. “Can you imagine, what
there would have been if Stepan had started it?”
Armenian politics is a triumph of the human factor. The common practice
there is not to call politicians by their family names. They do not speak of
Kocharyan, Demirchyan, Sarkisyan. First names suffice: Robert, Stepan,
Vazgen, or Serge. Armenia is a land of neighbours. One does not choose one’s
neighbours, they are either liked or disliked, and a neighbour may help you
or may complain to police about your dog. In a word, the neighbour is an
artefact in the life of every Armenian and even the worst of neighbours,
like it or not, follows certain common rules. Consequently, in the
neighbourhood gossip even the worst neighbour is one of your own.
Levon (Ter-Petrosyan) was a neighbour. His former associate and now an
implacable foe Vazgen (Manukyan) was a neighbour. Robert Kocharyan whom
Ter-Petrosyan extracted from Karabakh to be a premier, remains an alien.
Last year he won the presidential race. Familiar as Armenians are with
falsifications, they did not forgive Robert one: he is alien.
Kocharyan did not resort to pretences or try to make some people change
their minds if they wanted to see him as an alien. He began relying on those
whom he was sure of, that is on the Karabakh natives. That affected people’s
attitude to the Karabakh problem. On Karabakh fell the shadow of the
attitude to Robert and to the Karabakhis who had followed him and were
getting the best contracts and ousting Armenian Armenians from the economic
heights.
The human factor is at work here, too. Armenians note in Robert, even with a
shade of some respect, the famous stubbornness of the Karabakhis. He does
not deviate and forgets nothing. He does not forget the hours he wasted in
ministers’ anterooms while he was still the president of Karabakh: not one
of those ministers managed to retain his position. A colleague compares
Kocharyan to a boxer who takes blows till his opponent gets sure of his
victory and relaxes: then Kocharyan strikes with all his might. The rallies
in April were dispersed with demonstrative cruelty as if to show to Yerevan
that ‘neighbours’ do not act in such a way. Yerevan was enraged and it is
said that had the people rallied again the following night and in a
different mood, the regime might have wavered and, possibly, his men would
have fled.
But the people did not rally. No one followed Demirchyan. The power pyramid
being what it is, there can be no other leaders.
A shadow for the president
The skilfully built power pyramid should not give cause for formal
suspicions, from the viewpoint either of democracy or of economic
experiments. The claims that international economic institutions have on
Armenia are purely technical in nature. Nothing is heard of the European
bodies’ complaints concerning the legitimacy of Robert Kocharyan’s authority
that were uttered after his election.
Nobody has made any complaints about the natural and logical consequences
that arise from building that kind of model. This is what makes the model so
convenient. There is a parliament and the required parliamentary procedures
have been followed. So it is not at all important that with this kind of
model the authorities are forced to make the parliament fully controllable.
In such cases the parliament is always comical in its own way, particularly
when the controlling block had to be entrusted not to one party but to three
as in Armenia. The fight to be the top dog among the monopolists of power
turns out fiercer than any ideological polemics with the opposition.
Particularly so in a land of neighbours. Because it is customary with
neighbours to use nickname along with names. It seems nobody remembers the
family name of apparently the best known deputy any longer but everybody
knows who owns the castle built midway between Yerevan and Abovyan: Dodi
Gago. The nickname means literally “dumb-faced Gago”. There is also a deputy
nicknamed German Rubo moonlighting as the chief of the Armenian Soccer
Federation: nobody remembers now why he is called “German”. He should not be
confused with Flower Rubo, now an ex-deputy who had launched his career in
the Soviet era, before he first did time. Yerevan natives recall that one
could always buy a bouquet from him when there was not a flower in the whole
city. When there is neighbourhood democracy everybody is somebody’s
neighbour though they may not have met personally. So Dodi Gago would help
keep somebody’s son from being drafted, and Flower Rubo would always lend
money. Under this regime with its power pyramid they have all put on decent
coats and know perfectly who is the guarantor of their wellbeing and peace
of mind.
Thus a system has developed, that is, ossified. All liberal economic
initiatives work for the monopoly of power that sponsors these initiatives
exactly within its limits. Investments fall under the umbrella of the
authorities – with the proper kickback. The larger share of the GDP gets
distributed within the businesses and jobs that were fortunate enough to
fall under that umbrella. So nobody in Goris expects miracles and
cancellation of the debt ledgers because the money flow dries up before it
reaches Goris.
This is what is habitually called stability in Armenia: the authorities are
busy with what they must be busy, that is, staying in power. As a rule, the
authorities face little danger. Though many in Yerevan thought, nursing some
hope, that after the April rallies Kocharyan had gone to Moscow to get
backing. But that time the effect produced was unexpected: for the first
time the shadow of dislike for Kocharyan darkened the image of his
counterpart a bit.
A decade of no wars
An acquaintance of mine, a businessman, went to the place where the borders
of Armenia, Georgia and Azerbaijan intersect. Armenian mobile phones don’t
work there and the Azerbaijan network does not link up with the Armenian
one. In short, he went to arrange the delivery of grapes by local farmers,
and invited me to come along. After discussing the purchase price the
conversation turned to politics. A hundred metres behind us an Azeri sniper
was watching our repast from the Azerbaijanian checkpoint. “You should not
expect Russians to come here and defend you,” my acquaintance was explaining
to the farmers. The farmers did not argue, but they were surprised that the
comrade from Moscow did not contest that statement. The farmers remember
something else. “If the men from Yerevan had not come here during the war
with Azerbaijan, we could have come to an arrangement with the Azeris on our
own, without a war.”
There was no and, apparently, had never been hatred for the Azeri neighbours
who lived just across the road, while Armenia was beyond a mountain range
with impassable roads. “It’s not their fault. They had to fight just like we
did.” Whose fault was it? Gorbachev’s surely.
Later, in Karabakh I encountered a man who had fled from Sumgait. He had
seen it all with his own eyes and had been miraculously saved. His family
and himself were taken out and hidden by an Azeri, his father’s friend. But
when that friend visited his home to take a TV set, his Azeri neighbours
nearly beat the friend to death: they mistook him for a robber. What did
that acquaintance of mine remember? He remembered that it is to Azeris that
a majority of people like himself owe their lives. “We from Sumgait, are
more tolerant towards Azeris than the Karabakh people. And the Karabakhis
are more tolerant than the Armenians from Armenia who see the Azeris as an
abstract enemy.”
Ten years have passed since that war. Nobody believes it will flare up
again. Not because they think that Russia will come to help. On the
contrary, they know already that Russia will not come. Or, if it does, it
will be only to buy up a powerplant or an aluminium smelter. “Why does
Russia buy electricity from us?” Asked by Yerevan intellectuals or farmers
living near Armenia’s borders, the question rings with equal suspicion. The
source of this suspicion is clear. The starting point is Russia’s passivity
in the conflict with Azerbaijan. But the conflict is of no interest even to
the Armenians themselves. That signifies that the reason for it is gradually
going away. Then why should they buy all the electric power, as well as the
Mars defence factory that nobody needs? Russia is so unwilling to let
Armenia go that is ready to waste money on the purchase of useless defence
rubbish just to keep Armenia dependent on it for energy.
Now that Russia’s help in the confrontation with Azerbaijan is no longer an
issue, the question arises: Why should Armenia want all this?
Especially now that alternatives are emerging.
The ball is thrown abroad
Mrs. K., a native of Yerevan, and her daughter Mrs. M. were detained when
they attempted to bring in undeclared gold articles worth several thousand
dollars. This quite common case was reported in the crime section of a
Yerevan newspaper, just a few lines lost in the kaleidoscope of other
happenings. What seemed unusual about the report was the fact that the
unlucky smugglers had attempted to bring in the gold from no other place
than Turkey. Actually, for some time now this, too, has not been much of a
surprise.
In the first two years of its independence Armenia had only two windows to
the outside world: the ports of Georgia and the border with Iran. Whether
one went East or West, one’s route was round about and costly, while the
average income was just enough for the blockade not to be absolute.
Armenia’s two other borders, both traditional and the longest, with
Azerbaijan and Turkey were sealed tightly. Curious things happen when a
border is closed for many years. The border trade between Armenia and
Azerbaijan is conservatively estimated at 40 million dollars.
During all these years Ankara has been staunchly backing Baku’s official
line to blockade Armenia. But things were much more sophisticated and
interesting in the day-to-day foreign policy practice in the early and
mid-1990s. Ter-Petrosyan, who was at that time president of Armenia and not
of Karabakh, realized that the choice was harsh and that in order to survive
Armenia would have to give up some of its Karabakh gains. Armenia did not
forgive him this stand then nor does Karabakh. People in Armenian diplomacy
at the time recall that Tansu Ciller, the then Turkish premier, was willing
to open the border for a tiny compromise, just a couple of villages on the
territories occupied by Karabakhis. Just a token.
Tokenism is much spoken of today again. For instance, Armenia’s refusal to
give up lobbying for the world community’s recognition of the 1915 genocide
of the Armenians. The case was reaching the usual dead-end when suddenly
discussions arose about opening the Turkey-Armenia border soon. Armenian
diplomats note with surprise that for all its Islamist reputation, Turkey’s
current government is much more constructive than its secular predecessors
were. Armenia’s Premier, Andranik Margaryan, has said that the border will
be opened by the start of the next year.
In June President Kocharyan went to Strasbourg where he spoke in Russian and
said to Ankara with unexpected bellicosity: the ball is on your court, and
don’t think that we won’t be able to develop without you.
His speech was liked in Armenia.
The dilettante’s last bluff
In principle, with the way Armenia has been developing these last few years,
it can, indeed, develop without Turkey. Particularly with Turkey
unofficially having an impressive place on the list of Armenia’s trade
partners. Three weekly charter flights from Yerevan to Istanbul, and much
commerce across the border crossing in Sarpi, Adzharia: some estimates have
the trade turnover with Turkey at close to 200 million dollars a year, while
the figure for Iran, the erstwhile saviour, dropped to 60 million.
But it is not just a matter of legalizing what has long been done. Opening
the border with Turkey means Yerevan’s consent to a principally new
political map in these parts. Because if the miracle is to happen it will be
due mostly to the pressure of the West. The Americans realize what Iran
means to Armenia, and they have never made it a secret that their strategy
in these parts would be better served if Armenia re-oriented itself to
Turkey. So Washington is working actively to achieve this in both hostile
capitals. On the other hand, the European Union, which Turkey is striving
hard to join, has also set a condition for Ankara: no problems with
neighbouring countries. For Turkey a concession on this point is not so much
a matter of principle as champions of historic myths think. A corridor
through Armenia would open to Turkey the Eastern markets which it is now
reaching in round about and sometimes shady ways.
For Armenia the political and economic effect of having the border opened
could be just stunning. Transportation accounts for around 15 percent of the
cost of Armenia’s exports. With the exports being none too competitive, the
cost of transport is almost disastrous. But one does not have to cross
mountain ranges to reach the Turkish border: there is a railway going to any
point — the Mediterranean ports or even straight to Europe’s transportation
network which is not that far away. How this would effect trade turnover and
the ties with Russia is evident: try as the latter may it cannot get the
railway via Georgia and Abkhazia opened.
Such a revolution in Armenia would be a major decision, so Kocharyan is
manoeuvring. One of the props of his authority and, generally, of Armenia’s
stability are the Dashnaks whose ideas boil down to starting a war against
Turkey. Naturally, with Russia as an century-old ally. Meanwhile, the
authorities and the farmers on the borders with Azerbaijan and Georgia have
long noticed that no salvation is yet coming from the East, and in answer to
the eternal Eurasian question they recall with much pleasure that Armenia
plays in Europe’s soccer championship and with much bitterness that the
Eurovision bosses do not allow Armenia take part in its competitions because
their concepts of geography are somewhat different.
Yerevan has watched with longing the developments in neighbouring countries,
both the “velvet revolutions” and the dynastic versions of operation
“Successor”. They realize that the laws of genetics being what they are,
Aliyev Jr. is politically closer to Saakashvili’s generation than to the
older Aliyev.
And that Armenia is the only country that runs the risk of being left
outside the emerging dynamics.
But this precisely is the drama of the choice. Hard as Armenia may be
learning English and, naturally, forgetting Russian, the technology of power
with its stability and its logical consequences has nothing to do with the
world that can be accessed through Turkey. The presidential palace in
Bagramyan Avenue will never forget that, compared to the very sceptical
European observers of the elections, the cheerful team of CIS observers
headed by Yuri Yarov were a relief: they liked everything that happened in
the elections.
It is clear that the Armenian authorities do not intend to replace this
model much as the country considers them ever more alien. When the
opposition rallies were at their height and polemics on opening the Turkish
borders at their peak, Kocharyan rushed to Moscow. For salvation, it is
believed. But why did the range of subjects for discussion include one
unexpected for a cry for help: wouldn’t Gazprom take part in the
construction of a gas pipeline from Iran to Armenia? Actually, Gazprom does
not seem to have any reason to share Armenia with Iran, especially as the
project might be extended to include a pipe reaching Europe across the Black
Sea bottom. It would be the end of the monopoly not only in Armenia but in
all of Europe and even in Asia because to link the Iranian gasline to
Turkmenia would be just a matter of technology.
As it is, Gazprom looks on the idea favourably. It is an experienced gambler
that does not trust a dilettante’s bluff. And, besides, with well-founded
scepticism: Yerevan and Teheran have held talks on such a gas pipeline for
almost ten years and gotten nowhere. So one would think that strategically
Moscow made no mistake — what better response could have been made to the
Americans and their Turkish project — or that Kocharyan’s going to Moscow
was also correct.
Provided, of course, that the idea was not addressed to another party, the
Americans, who are very sensitive to any initiative with the word “Iran” in
its heading. It’ll be too bad if they relax and grow cool about their
Turkish idea.