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SPECIAL INTEREST: PRINCIPALS SAY CLOSURE OF ORPHAN SCHOOLS WILL HARM, NOT
HELP, VULNERABLE CHILDREN
By Gayane Abrahamyan
ArmeniaNow reporter
Angry teachers have condemned a government decision to close secondary schools
for nearly 1,000 orphaned and socially vulnerable children.
Officials in the Ministry of Education and Science want to integrate children
in the 12 special secondary institutions into mainstream schools. They argue
that separate schools for orphans and other children who lack proper parental
care simply isolates them from the rest of society.
But staff in the schools insists that their children face special problems and
that closure will damage their emotional and educational welfare.
According to the government’s decision, the special schools should be
converted into regular secondary schools by the end of 2007. Special boarding
centers would be created to meet the needs of children who were unable to go
home.
`These children are by no means deficient compared to their peers, they don’t
need special education; so why separate them from the society?! Implementation
of this decision will integrate them into society,’ says Louiza Gharibyan,
representative of the Agency for Family Issues at the Ministry of Labor and
Social Issues.
Those in the schools in Yerevan hold a different opinion, however. They
believe the realization of such reforms will be a disaster for children who
already face great difficulties.
`It will be the same with these schools as it was with the vocational colleges
when they closed them and now spend huge sums to restore them,’ says Simon
Simonyan, Principal of the Yerevan Special School for Orphans and Children
Deprived of Parental Care # 3.
Simonyan believes there is still a need in this type of school and it will be
possible to close them only in 10 to 15 years, when social conditions in
Armenia have improved.
`You will simply kick 1,000 children into the street by eliminating this type
of school, for many here are on the edge of delinquency and need special
attention and pedagogical work, something an ordinary school cannot provide,’
he says.
Samvel Mktrchyan, Principal at the Special School #7, thinks that the problems
faced by these children will not disappear because of the entrance into force
of this new law. They exist and need special attention, he says.
`There is no need to develop theories, just look at the reality with an open
mind. Children of this category cannot integrate into a group of well-off and
indulged children; they will not go to ordinary school,’ says Lazarian.
According to Mktrchyan the main reasons for not going to a mainstream school
are social and psychological.
`Take the simplest situation: the pupil will not able to pay for textbooks,
will not be able to pay for a party with the class, and will not be able to
take part in buying a present for a teacher. This will isolate him from school
and society even more, a bigger psychological complex will develop in him,
more than it would if he had stayed in this kind of school,’ Mktrchyan
explains.
A pedagogue for 50 years in School #3, Astghik Jamalyan believes the problems
of the children’s private life will also hinder their studies in an ordinary
secondary school.
`They will be teased in ordinary schools. Here with us almost all the children
have family problems, they can imagine themselves in one another’s shoes. In
an ordinary school children from good families will constantly throw in their
faces that someone’s mother is an alcoholic or a dissolute person,’ says
Jamalyan.
Ani, aged 10, is at a special school because her mother is a drunkard; she is
doing well at the school and frequently flees from her home to the school.
`I can’t study anywhere else. What if my mother goes there drunk, what will
the children say? Here everybody is like that: someone doesn’t have a mother,
the other lacks a father, no one looks at me askance; here it is better than
at home, the teachers are both mothers and fathers,’ says Ani.
Anahit Muradyan, a senior specialist at the Agency for Secondary Education at
the Ministry of Education, says everything should be done through the
educational reforms to make children feel comfortable at school.
`I am also concerned that those children will not feel comfortable in the
ordinary schools after the restructuring, will not be psychologically safe and
protected. But everything is being done in that direction and we need to
create comfortable conditions for the children by all means,’ she says.
Gharibyan, the family issues representative, emphasizes that work should also
be carried out to help children return to their families. But teachers at the
special schools are confident that few of the children can go back home.
`What family are we talking about? We have a child, for instance, who is a
pimp to his own mother. While children of his age (YES?) visit his mother, he
stands outside the door getting 500 drams from them. Shall we send him to this
mother, or maybe to an alcoholic or drug addict?’ says Zhanna Babayan,
Educational Program Deputy Principal at School #3.
Staying at school is also preferable for 12-year-old Yeranuhi. She
explains: `My father is a drunkard, he beats me: he once threw me down from
the second floor and I had to have stitches in my head. He beats me so much
that I lose consciousness. They say this school will be closed. I don’t know
where to go. I will run away from home.’
Mktrchyan thinks that the special schools offer the only means for children
like this to get an education. He says: `Some children have left our school
and have come back; it shows that they can’t study in another environment.
`The educational program here is the same as the one in ordinary schools, but
the approaches to education are different. Here, there are not just teacher-
pupil relations but more of a parent-child tie, we care for every single
problem they have.’
Principals of the schools plan to appeal to the National Assembly to hold
hearings and debates about the proposed reforms. They want deputies to support
the continuation of the schools.
They believe that these approaches should be adjusted and fitted to Armenia’s
conditions, taking into consideration the national mentality.
`Today the Ministry tries to wreck years of achievement, in order to meet the
requirements of the education reform. I consider it a betrayal of both the
nation and these children,’ says Deputy Principal Babayan.
GYUMRI’S NEW HOPE: RA WANTS TO REVIVE CITY’S SHAKEN REPUTATION AS HUB OF
INNOVATION
By Suren Deheryan
ArmeniaNow reporter
Every morning Robert Sargsyan and his nine coworkers show up at a makeshift
building in Gyumri to conduct experiments and design sophisticated seismic
equipment that was renowned in Soviet times.
Sargsyan, 71, is director of Gyumri’s special experimental technological
institute, which since the 1988 Spitak earthquake has been located in
two `domiks,’ or small temporary shelters, heated by a wood stove.
While the earthquake damaged the original building and some of its equipment,
the collapse of the Soviet Union cost it its glory and its main customer.
`Our specialty is already in our blood and even during these difficult years
we didn’t plunder or sell the property belonging to the institute,’ says
Sargsyan, who has 50 years of experience as a designer of seismic
equipment. `Instead, we tried to survive by continuing to implement our
ideas.’
Only a few similar scientific and technological facilities remained in Gyumri
after the earthquake. These, Sargsyan says, have been struggling to
survive `with a hope for tomorrow.’
That day may come within a couple of years under a government-backed plan to
build a technology and research facility, or `technopark,’ in the city.
The project, approved earlier this month, aims to rebuild the city’s former
production and technological potential as well as provide jobs for highly
skilled specialists in the Shirak region.
`The program of the establishment of a technopark in Gyumri is important from
several aspects-such as the social aspect, employment, use of local scientific
potential, as well as in terms of developing small and medium-sized
enterprises,’ Armen Gevorgyan, Armenia’s deputy minister of Trade and Economic
Development, told ArmeniaNow.
It would become Armenia’s second such facility after Yerevan’s ViaSpher
Technopark, which was set up six years ago and today incorporates 12 companies
under its roof working in such fields as microelectronics, vacuum
technologies, and natural energy.
Unlike the Yerevan technopark, which was established largely due to the
efforts of American and European companies, the Armenian government is at the
vanguard of the Gyumri project.
`Establishing a technopark is an expensive pleasure. However, for this purpose
the government is ready to assist as far as possible both financially and
organizationally,’ Deputy Minister Gevorgyan said, urging local authorities
and scientists to make an active contribution to the program.
There were 38 factories and scientific institutes in Gyumri before 1988,
producing machines, tools, furniture, construction materials and food. These
accounted for 7 percent of Soviet Armenia’s production and employed 21,000
people.
Today, according to the official statistics, 48 small factories operating in
Gyumri employ 780 people.
Plans call for transforming the old Soviet-era company, Analitiksark 1, into
the new technopark. Analitiksark 1 still produces specialized devices used in
shipping and submarines.
The technopark will be funded through the government-owned New Investments
Company, which provides venture capital to new firms, as well as private
sources. The initial phase of the technopark will cost $200,000, with future
costs still being worked out.
According to New Investments Company deputy director and program manager Gagik
Karapetyan, the technopark will act as a business innovation center for the
purpose of developing small and medium-sized enterprises that will provide
specialized equipment, as well as offer information, expertise and other
services to small companies.
Investors in the project expect the technopark will be ready in 2008, the 20th
anniversary of the earthquake that killed at least 25,000 people in the Shirak
region. They hope it will mark the beginning of the revival of science in
Gyumri.
That would be good news for Robert Sargsyan’s technology institute, which at
its peak employed 130 people. During the Soviet era, it was second only to a
similar facility in Moscow for design and production of seismic devices. Its
reputation was burnished not only on its seismographs, but production of
submarine detection devices.
Today, it designs seismic monitoring systems for nuclear power stations and
water reservoirs in Armenia and abroad.
Showing a number of devices created jointly with his colleagues, Sargsyan
said: `Gyumri has a scientific potential not for writing articles but for
turning out production. If the technopark is created it will be an amazing
thing. We still have a lot of ideas that have not got off the drawing board
yet and which will ensure competitive production.’
NAMES AND NEIGHBORS: TERRITORIAL TENSIONS REFLECT THE LEGACY OF SOVIET POLICY
By Aris Ghazinyan
ArmeniaNow reporter
Recent events in the Armenian populated regions of Georgia – the murder of 23-
year-old Gevorg Gevorgyan in Tsalka (a province of Kvemo-Kartli) on March 9
and subsequent unrest in Akhalkalaki (the Samtskhe-Javakhetia province) – have
exacerbated ethnic tensions.
The situation has always been strained, but a major clash between Georgians
and Armenians in Tsalka and nearby villages on May 9 last year left more than
30 people injured. Following numerous incidents in 2005, units of Georgia’s
internal troops moved into the region temporarily. Currently, representatives
of organizations representing Armenians in Georgia are preparing another plea
for autonomy to the authorities in Tbilisi.
`There will be only three autonomous areas in Georgia,’ Prime Minister Zurab
Nogaideli stated unequivocally during a visit to Yerevan immediately following
the previous such appeal in April 2005. `They will be Abkhazia, Adjaria and
Tskhinval.’
Thus, the authorities of modern Georgia adhered to the principles of Soviet
national policy on the issue of the political-administrative division of the
country.
`Soviet Georgia occupied a territory of 69,700 square kilometers, which
corresponded to only 0.31 per cent of the territory of the USSR,’ political
scientist Sargis Zoranyan, a member of the Board of the Soviet of Armenian
Intellectuals `Vernatun’, told ArmeniaNow.
`Still, there was a factor that put this republic in a special position: the
presence of autonomous entities per square kilometer of territory. The total
combined territory of the Abkhazian ASSR (8,600 sq. km), Adjarian ASSR (2,900
sq. km) and South Ossetian Autonomous District (3,900 sq. km) measured 15,400
sq. km, or 22 percent of Georgia. None of the union republics of the USSR
objectively could compare with Georgia in this respect.’
All three autonomous areas were formed nearly simultaneously during Stalin’s
period in charge of national policy in Soviet Russia. He had an immediate
influence on the formation of socialist autonomies in the Sovietized republics
of the Caucasus. The Abkhazian ASSR was formed first on March 4, 1921 and
joined the new Georgia in December of that year. Next came the Adjarian ASSR
in June 1921, followed by the South-Ossetian Autonomous District in April
1922. The USSR was formed in December 1922; Georgia, along with Soviet Armenia
and Azerbaijan, joined the new state as one of the three components of the
Transcaucasian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic. Meanwhile, its
administrative borders remained unchanged.
Objectively, the Georgian Soviet Socialist Republic was a Soviet mini-empire
outlined by with Stalin’s blue pencil. This circumstance explains the presence
of three autonomous entities within such a small area.
However, proceeding from the logic of the formation of Soviet autonomous
areas, another one should have been created on the territory of Georgia – the
Armenian autonomy.
`The fact of a 200,000-strong Armenian population concentrated in the
territory of, in particular, Akhalkalaki and Bogdanov (now Ninotsminda)
regions, constituting more than 90 per cent of residents, objectively
presupposed the formation of a new national autonomous area,’ Zoranyan says.
Georgia was the only republic in the USSR where 200,000 members of one
national group were living closely together without autonomy. Why?
`The presence of a fourth autonomous area in Soviet Georgia, of course, would
have accentuated even more the artificial nature of the formation of this
republic within the borders outlined by Stalin. This could in no way
correspond to the aspirations of the ideologues of Soviet national policy,’
says Zoranyan.
`However, the main reason for the inadmissibility of forming an `Armenian
autonomy’ on Georgian territory was not that. It was linked closely to Soviet
methods of resolving the issue of `Armenian lands’ in the South Caucasus.’
Each autonomous entity with a dominant ethnic group in the USSR included an
ethnonym in its official title; `the iron rule of Soviet democracy’ was
supposed to apply throughout the Union, regardless of the status of the
entity – whether it was a Union republic, an autonomous republic, an
autonomous region, or an autonomous district.
`The only Union republic in which this `iron rule’ did not operate was
Azerbaijan,’ says the political scientist. `The autonomous Armenian areas
there – Nakhichevan ASSR and Nagorno Karabakh Autonomous District – did not
contain the ethnic name, otherwise the removal of Armenian lands from Armenia
would have been clearly stated.
Had the Soviet `iron rule’ been applied in those cases, then there would have
been an `Armenian Autonomous Republic’ (Nakhichevan) and an `Armenian
Autonomous Region’ (Nagorno Karabakh) and an `Armenian Autonomous District’
(Javakhk in Georgia) immediately bordering Soviet Armenia. The reduction of
Armenian territory by the Bolsheviks would have been apparent.
If Georgia and Azerbaijan have officially rejected the legacy of the USSR, say
political scientists, then why do they remain the most ardent adherents of
Soviet territorial policy?
STRUGGLING FOR ANSWERS: PARENTS ASK WHETHER A FIGHT AT SCHOOL KILLED THEIR
SON
By Zhanna Alexanyan
ArmeniaNow reporter
The death of a teenager following a fight between youths from Russian and
Armenian sections at a Yerevan school has raised questions and passions among
parents and students.
Eduard Vardanyan, a 10th grade student at Yerevan school #7, died on March 9.
Ten days earlier, he had suffered blows to the head after trying to separate
students who had come to blows during a break from lessons.
Eduard, 17, was knocked over during the melee on February 27 and classmates
say he was kicked in the head as he lay on the ground. The principal and other
senior teachers at the school have denied that he was involved, however, and
have upset the boy’s parents by blaming his death on alleged poor health.
Eduard continued to attend school for a week after the incident, but his
health declined dramatically on March 8 and his parents rushed him to
hospital. Surgeons could not save him and he died the next day.
Naira and Hovhannes Vardanyan say their son had not told them any details of
the fight at the school, although they were aware of it. He had come home with
bruising around his eyes and had been complaining of headaches.
`I thought it would pass. It is difficult to conclude from bruising to the
eyes that something serious has happened,’ says the father.
Eduard was known at school as a modest, well-organized and clever boy, a keen
sportsman who was physically strong, but not a fighter. He wanted to be an
army officer after graduation and was planning to go to Russia in the summer
to enter the Military Academy.
The parents say the management of the school have sought publicly to blame
their son’s death on poor health. Naira says that, as a sportsman, Eduard
underwent compulsory annual medical tests and was always healthy.
`My child has been playing sports for more than 10 years and has never had
health problems. They tell us now that our child had poor health and died from
an illness. My child has already passed away, let them not play with his
honor,’ she says.
A preliminary medical investigation concluded that Eduard died from a brain
deficiency. The doctor told his parents that he suffered a haematoma.
`We were unaware of the illness and even if my child had a deficiency, it
never bothered him before. Let them say at least that the beating on his head
contributed, that a haematoma has developed and has bled,’ the mother
complains.
The day after the incident, boys who had been involved in the fighting were
brought for questioning to the juvenile department of Kentron community police
station. The local prosecutor has opened a preliminary criminal investigation.
Eduard’s parents say that they did not seek an inquiry by law-enforcement
bodies.
After the surgery, when Eduard was in coma yet, his relatives agreed to write
and sign a note saying that their son had a congenital defect (disease), thus
they did not have any complaints. His aunt now feels pangs of conscience for
writing such a note.
`When the investigator told us to write that we wouldn’t lodge any complaint,
we were confused feeling completely at a loss. I don’t know why I signed it,
but now I am conscience-smitten. Disease still needs to be proved,’- says the
boy’s aunt, Nune Isahakyan.
`I don’t want to complain as I know what country I am living in. Nothing will
change with my complaint and my child will not return. I don’t want to cause
pain to anyone else,’ says Naira.
`I am anxious about the spreading of rumors about my child’s health, since
everybody knows what has really happened. The school is responsible for that.’
Victoria Rukhikyan, the principal of the school, bases her opinion of Eduard’s
health on the preliminary conclusions of the doctor.
`When I visited the hospital the child was in coma. Doctor Gaboyan said his
illness had a hidden character,’ she says. The principal insisted that, before
coming to the hospital, she had not known that Eduard had had any connection
with the brawl at the school.
She is not convinced even now that he was there during the fight or that he
was beaten up, saying: `That’s a matter for investigation.’
The heads of educational sections at the school, the deputy principal for
educational issues and the chairperson of the trade union at the principal’s
office share her opinion. All are unanimous that they attended the scene of
the fighting very quickly and had not seen Eduard there.
`He had not been beaten up, we didn’t see him lying on the ground, and
children didn’t tell us about that,’ said Valentina Baghdasaryan, the head of
the educational section.
Eduard’s classmates and their parents were anxious about the teachers’
position. They want the principal to organize an open meeting to share details
of the incident. They also point the finger at students in the Russian 10th
grade class, who they say frequently initiate disruption.
`Open discussion will help to calm passions. Their friend has died and it has
left a deep psychological imprint on the children’s minds. We don’t want our
children to face injustice at this age and to be broken,’ said one parent.
During a meeting of parents and students attended by a representative of the
prosecutor’s office and the head of the education agency at the municipality,
Eduard’s classmates recounted how they saw him being thrown to the ground and
kicked. But they say they did not see who was responsible.
DELIVERY PROBLEMS: NEW LAW ON DISTRIBUTION OF NEWSPAPERS RAISES CONCERNS ABOUT
CENSORSHIP
By Arpi Harutyunyan
ArmeniaNow reporter/special to IWPR
Armenian journalists are sounding the alarm over legislation that requires
newspaper delivery companies for the first time to apply for licenses.
Local activists say that the legislation, introduced by Armenia’s parliament
last year in the form of an amendment to existing laws on mail service and tax
regulations, is in fact a hidden form of state censorship.
“The journalistic community and public organisations of Armenia are trying to
stop this law,’ Boris Navasardyan, chairman of the Yerevan Press Club, told
IWPR. `Otherwise, we will have to admit that it is one more mechanism for
secret censorship.”
The legislation stipulates that firms pay 11,000 US dollars per year in order
to receive licenses for the right to deliver newspapers. This requirement will
bankrupt many small independent delivery companies, say observers, and place
the country’s newspaper distribution service firmly in the hands of two state-
connected enterprises, Haipost, Armenia’s postal service, and Haimamul, the
main kiosk vendor.
Haipost, as a self-financing closed joint-stock company, is nominally
independent. However, since all of its shares belong to the state, it is
considered to be closely linked to the government.
Haimamul for its part is fully independent, though its origins indicate close
state ties. The firm was established in 1939 as Soviet Armenia’s sole concern
handling newspaper subscriptions and delivery. Today it is the largest single
distributor, and with about 400 kiosks and 7,223 subscribers, one of the few
that reaches all the country’s regions.
Rather than censoring the newspapers outright, say media professionals,
government officials can instead pressure these two companies to prevent
publications with offending content from reaching the public, especially in
rural areas.
“I have the impression that the Armenian government is doing all it can, and
even what it cannot, in order to reduce newspaper dissemination as much as
possible,’ said Hakob Avetikyan, editor in chief of the daily Azg. `They want
to reduce the amount of undesirable information to the public.”
The critics point to a number of incidents where Haimaimul failed to
distribute certain publications. In October, 2002, for example, 4,600 copies
of the Aravot opposition newspapers disappeared from Haimamul’s kiosks.
Aravot editors’ say that the incident was tied to an article that was critical
of Hrach Abgaryan, former adviser to Armenia’s Prime Minister Andranik
Margaryan.
Members of the Yerevan Press Club and other public organisations say the new
legislation violates human rights and have sent a letter to parliament
demanding the law be changed. IWPR has learned that the opposition United
Labour Party has thrown its weight behind the initiative.
Press club officials say that the laws violate Article 10 of European
Convention of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms, Article 19 of Universal
Declaration of Human Rights as well as Article 24 of the Armenian
constitution, guaranteeing the right to free expression.
“If we are members of the Council of Europe and if we speak about European
integration, freedom of speech, and freedom of the press, then we should
reject licensing of the media,” said Armen Davtyan, director of the Blitz
independent media distribution company, who compared the situation with
licensing of press distribution in Armenia to that in authoritarian Belarus.
The new legislation comes into force just as a number of small, independent
companies have sprung up to challenge Haipost and Haimamul’s near-monopoly
over distribution.
Last year, for example, the US-funded Eurasia Foundation and George Soros’
Open Society Institute awarded grants to five companies under a programme to
support alternative distribution channels and improve delivery to rural areas.
Eurasia officials say that very few of Armenia’s daily newspapers reach the
country’s villages, where much of the population resides. Some remote towns do
not receive a single newspaper, they say.
“Our aim was to create stable companies that would lead to the weakening of
the monopoly of Haipost and Haimamul and become alternative companies in the
newspaper market,” Alisa Alaverdyan, Eurasia’s external relations coordinator
said.
Now, however, because of the new legislation, these enterprises are under
threat of closure. Tax officials have paid several visits to the heads of the
Blitz Media Company, one of the new distributors, demanding that they either
suspend their activities or pay for a license.
“I pay annual 1,500 dollars in income tax, and according to what I know, other
small organisations that work in this sphere pay approximately the same
amount,’ said Blitz director Davtyan. `There is no logic in this fixed sum of
11 thousand dollars for the license.’
Haikaz Simikyan, head of the Simikyan distribution company in Vanadzor with
700 subscribers, one of the five firms to receive Eurasia Foundation and OSI’s
grants, said it’s likely to close if they pay the license fee.
“This amount is absurd,’ said Simikyan. `We won’t have any income under such
conditions.’
Eurasia Foundation officials agree that the law comes at a very untimely
moment. “As a result of [our] programme, the circulation of some newspapers
grew significantly,’ said Marina Mkhitaryan, Eurasia’s programme
coordinator. `[This continued] until the distribution companies encountered
problems with taxation bodies because of their lack of licenses.”
Government officials for their part defend the legislation by saying that it
in no way restricts the dissemination of the news. Delivery is being licensed,
not subscription, they say, and the law will strengthen the distribution
system and regulate deliveries, especially to rural areas.
Tamara Ghalechyan, spokesperson for the Ministry of Transport and
Communications, said that the high license fee will help weed out the field
and assure that only companies that can provide the best services will be
involved in newspaper delivery.
“The state is establishing a regulating mechanism for companies which are
responsible for organising subscriptions,’ Ghalechyan said.
Many do not buy this explanation, however. `What sense is there in
subscription, if there is no delivery?’ asked Blitz distribution company head
Davtyan.
Haipost officials guarantees that the company’s 904 post offices will deliver
all newspapers in a timely manner, even those to far-flung regions. “We
deliver newspapers to subscribers even in the most remote villages,” said
Haipost spokesperson Astghik Martirosyan.
Martirosyan supports the new legislation whole-heartedly. “If the state
believes that we need such a law, this means that we indeed need it,” he said.
Interestingly, despite the benefits that their company will allegedly reap,
Haimamul officials say that they are opposed to the law. “The number of
newspapers is already very small and they do not reach residents in the
regions,’ said Haimamul executive director Arshaluis Manukyan.
`Laws like this will lead to the total isolation of rural residents from any
information, since companies with small budgets will be unable to pay and will
have to halt their activities,” he said, calling the legislation “the product
of a morbid imagination’.
This article first appeared on the website of the Institute of War & Peace
Reporting at Seda Muradyan, IWPR’s Armenia coordinator, also
contributed to this report.
INSECURE FREEDOM: SURVIVOR OF STALIN’S PURGES MUST WAIT FOR A PLACE TO CALL
HOME
By Vahan Ishkhanyan
ArmeniaNow reporter
Evelina Gevorgyan is laying cards to read her fortune, although it is a
pastime she no longer believes in.
`My future was foretold long before, I was to be a great singer. But Article
58 was stuck on my back. Who would allow me to follow a singing career?’ she
says.
Article 58 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Soviet Federative Social
Republic made anti-Soviet propaganda an offence, for which she was convicted
and sentenced to four years in prison in 1942. It was article 67 in the
equivalent code of Soviet Armenia.
Evelina, now 86, lives in a company watchman’s room measuring only 3.5 square
meters. Her work and life are contained in this one room, even smaller than
her KGB cell. But that’s fine, unlike many she does not remember the Soviet
Union fondly.
`I rejoiced greatly when the Soviet Union collapsed. True, I now live in such
a small room but let it be so, only do not let the Soviets return.’
Her father Yervand Gevorgov, a merchant and agronomist, was a member of
Yerevan’s elite – his stores were located in the present Kirov park, and his
house stood on the site of today’s Poplavok jazz restaurant, a favorite
hangout of Yerevan’s new elite and middle class residents.
In 1924, he was shot dead by a Cheka official without trial. Later, when
Evelina was in jail, the investigator said to her fiancé who had come to find
out why she had been arrested: `You know whose daughter she is?’
It was written in the verdict passed on Evelina – `social status – from former
dispossessed kulaks’. From the early years of Soviet rule until the late 1930s
those who had owned property were considered kulaks. Their property was
confiscated and they were exiled. Evelina’s social origin was already
considered to be a criminal offence.
On March 8, 1942, on international women’s day, Evelina, a 22-year-old student
at music college, was arrested in one of Stalin’s regular purges. She met the
people with whom she was accused of plotting anti-Soviet propaganda for the
first time only when she was brought to court.
She was sentenced to hard labor felling trees in the Urals region, but World
War Two, so misfortunate for so many, proved Evelina’s salvation.
`We were supposed to go to Sukhovo-Bezvodniy, near the town of Gorky. Had they
taken me there, I would not have survived. We were lucky, the Germans were
shelling those areas and we were spared the task of cutting trees for 12 hours
a day.’
Instead, they were taken to Baku and then to Krasnovodsk by steamship: `We
disembarked in a cemetery and each of us chose a tombstone to sleep on. Then a
convoy came at night and they made us line up in five rows,’ she recalls.
`They were to take us to the distribution point and they warned us that anyone
who could not walk would be gunned down on the spot. There was an Armenian
girl there, Asya, who could barely walk from pneumonia. Two Armenian thieves,
Pavlik and Mukuch, said they would carry my things so that I could prevent an
Armenian girl being killed. I helped her to walk, stopped her from falling to
the ground.
`We reached the distribution point but Asya died. Before she went, she asked
me to write a letter to her sister in Leninakan saying that she was no longer
alive. Asya was serving a second term in prison and had spent five years in a
concentration camp. When she was released, she rented a home in Kirovakan. One
of her neighbors wrote a report about her saying that every time the Germans
occupied a city or town Asya was playing the piano out of joy.’
They were taken on to Tashkent by train, 120 prisoners in each carriage. An
epidemic of cholera was decimating their numbers. Evelina says: `People were
dying all the time. Suddenly, the train would stop in the middle of a desert
to throw out the dead. They left the bodies lying there, there was no time to
bury them.
`A German woman next to me died from cholera, she stayed beside me, dead, for
half a day until they came to throw her out. I wonder how I didn’t contract
the disease. In the afternoon they gave us fish to eat and we were terribly
thirsty. At night they gave us water with worms in it.
`On the ship, in a space partitioned from us, had been German prisoners. They
were given only fish, without water, and they were dying from thirst. A German
woman and I gave them water.’
Of about 5,000 prisoners on the train, only 1,700 made it to Tashkent. They
were placed in the same barracks in the penal colony, working next to
political prisoners and criminals.
`A Cheka official was asking in the colony – what article? You would say `58′
and he would give you a dim look, while another would say `226′ (theft) and he
would smile `well done! It’s good that it is not political’.’
They worked on looms making cloth, but one day Evelina contracted
jaundice. `Suddenly I had an acute pain, I fell and they carried me out on a
stretcher. I was losing consciousness, I was in a very grave condition,’ she
says.
`There was a doctor, Abazov, he had been the people’s commissar (minister) for
healthcare in Turkmenistan. He had been in jail for 16 years and it was not
known when he would be released. For prisoners like him there was an order
from Beria – unless a special instruction was issued, you were imprisoned for
life.
`Abazov said `you are a political prisoner, I won’t let you die’. Seven or
eight people in the infirmary, who were also suffering from jaundice with me,
died. But he didn’t let me die. They placed us in the same barracks as people
convicted of criminal offences so that they would abuse us, but some of them
treated us well.
`A thief name Lena slept next to me in the barrack, she had a wooden leg and
she suffered from syphilis. She had been robbing trains. She would come to the
hospital and ask me what I needed; I would ask for boiled potato and a pillow
and she would bring them to me the next day.’
It was not as terrible in the camp as after being released from it. Political
prisoners like Evelina did not have the right to live in 39 cities, including
Yerevan. For some time she lived at her mother’s home in Dilijan, then a
relative appealed to a senior government official to let her return to the
city.
`I was one of the few former political prisoners allowed to stay in Yerevan,’
she says. Evelina continued her education, but as a fourth year student she
was expelled as a decadent, under Article 58 again. With the help of an uncle,
she got reinstated at college and completed her studies, but she did not enter
the conservatory later.
`It was better in the concentration camp, people had peace of mind. It was
terrible later on, you didn’t have the right to go anywhere, article 58 was
always written on your back.’
In 1951 when thousands of Armenian families were being expelled to the Altai
area, Evelina had her trunk packed and was waiting for the authorities to come
for her. But exile passed her by. She married a persecuted man like herself
and gave birth to a son in 1955.
In 1957, Evelina Gevorgyan and five people convicted together with her were
acquitted.
She sang for ten years in the state choir, also in the Opera chorus and from
1975 she worked as a comptroller in the hall of a chorus company. She sold her
home in 1984 to give her son an opportunity to leave Armenia.
For years she lived in a rented apartment, but when the years of economic
crisis struck she could no longer afford to stay there. In 1993, she was given
the small watchman’s room at the Chorus Company, where she lives and works as
the watchman of the building.
All she possesses now are her photographs and some kitchen utensils. The room
is so small that it is impossible to lie down flat, and when Evelina wants to
get some rest she places a chair under her feet and lies on a narrow ottoman.
Under the law for victims of repression, those who need housing are eligible
for a plot of land and a preferential loan for 25 years of up to 5 million
drams (about $11,000) to buy an apartment or build a house. However, changes
in the legislation mean no land has been allotted in Yerevan since 2003 and
none has been available outside the city either since December last year.
Victims of Soviet oppression are also entitled to lump-sum compensation of
12,000 drams (about $26) from the State. In 1996 it was 6,000 drams.
`This compensation is formal, we suggested that it be 12,000 drams at least
every year,’ says Anahit Gevorgyan, head of the department for elderly affairs
at the Ministry of Labor and Social Affairs. `We had also suggested that the
government make 300 million drams available in loans, but they don’t do that.’
There are 570 loan applications from repressed people at the Ministry of Labor
and Social Affairs, of which 311 are considered well founded. Evelina is 233rd
on the list.
Since 2002, loans have been issued to 165 people, including only 42 last year.
The government allocates 100 million drams annually for this program and
Evelina can expect to get her loan only in 2010 when she will be 90.
`Are they mocking me? What shall I be in four years?’ she says.
IN THE SCRUM: ARMENIA JOINS THE PACK OF RUGBY-PLAYING NATIONS
By Suren Musayelyan
ArmeniaNow reporter
Last year Armenia provided a sensation in the rugby world with a series of
seven victories in seven matches that immensely increased the nation’s world
rating and lifted it from Division C to Division B of the European Rugby
Association (FIRA-AER).
Currently 33rd in the 62-nation world rugby rankings (),
Armenia is the fifth strongest team among former Soviet republics after
Georgia, Russia, Ukraine and Moldova.
Gagik Panikyan, the President of the Rugby Federation of Armenia, is full of
hope that rugby will become a popular and well developed sport in Armenia one
day. But for now he says: `This sport is being developed in Armenia only at
the cost of the great enthusiasm of its fans.
`But the team cannot survive on enthusiasm alone. I am sure that rugby can
have a good future in Armenia and it will be a pity if the team that has
achieved serious success in the international arena within a short period of
time will not be able to continue its performances.’
Armenia’s team mainly consists of Diaspora Armenian rugby players from France,
but it is the Federation’s objective to grow local rugby talent for future
national teams.
After Armenia beat Luxembourg away 39-12 last autumn to qualify for Group B,
the host nation’s Federation website wrote in its report: `No miracle happened
in Luxembourg. Despite their good performance Luxembourg could not oppose a
very professional team of Armenia.’
Rugby was first brought to Armenia during the second wave of Armenian
repatriation in the early 1960s by a compatriot from France, Jacques Aspikian.
Ironically, Armenia’s sporting bureaucrats then proved more `zealous’ in
pursuing the Soviet ideological line that rugby was a `bourgeois game’ than
their colleagues in neighboring Georgia, to where Aspikian moved to lay the
foundations of the future Georgian rugby school, now the strongest among post-
Soviet countries. Georgia qualified for the last rugby World Cup in Australia
in 2003.
But rugby still found its way in Soviet Armenia and a Yerevan rugby team
played in the USSR championships beginning from the 1966-67 season.
The collapse of the Soviet Union and the political, economic, and social
difficulties that followed appeared to put an end to the sport in
Armenia. `The future of Armenian rugby seemed all but hopeless then,’ says the
federation’s press attaché and executive committee member David Petrosyan.
The Rugby Federation was registered in Armenia in 2002 and the nation joined
the European Rugby Association. Its appeal for assistance was heard by
compatriots in France, home to a half-million strong Armenian Diaspora, and a
team was formed to participate in two rugby sevens tournaments. As a result,
by 2003 Armenia was already 20th out of 39 European sevens teams.
Success in the full 15-player game soon followed, with victories over Israel,
Norway and others. Armenia’s game against Israel in the town of Abovyan last
year was the first international rugby match to played on Armenian soil
(before that, Armenians had played their matches in France).
Petrosyan says Armenia has a good `bank of players’ in the Diaspora, in such
rugby countries as France and Argentina. There might also be potential players
in England, Australia and the United States. However, the Rugby Federation of
Armenia is aware that, although help from Diaspora players is essential,
Armenian rugby will only enjoy real success if things go well at home.
`Rugby now needs a push from the outside to achieve results and to popularize
it in Armenia. After that, it will be a lot easier to grow local players,’
Petrosyan says.
`Rugby has no state financing because it is not an Olympic sport. But
potential sponsors in Armenia and Diaspora should at least understand that,
for now, rugby is the only team sport in which Armenia is able to achieve
considerable success in the international arena.’
The Federation is constantly searching for ways to get funding and to
popularize rugby in Armenia, in particular through reviving its official
website this month. Visitors can find out about rugby in Armenia at
Besides, according to Petrosyan, efforts are being made to show major rugby
competitions, including the World Cup next year, on Armenian television. `In
that case more people will be able to appreciate the whole beauty and dynamics
of this game,’ he says.
Petrosyan also advocates rugby as a game to be included in the so-called list
of army and police sports.
`Unfortunately, the army, police, and security services in Armenia don’t care
about rugby. However, rugby is a sport that requires players to have good
physique and to display endurance, agility, vigor, team spirit, fighting
skills and a certain set of moral qualities. This makes rugby popular among
army and police structures in many countries,’ he says.
Armenia’s next opponents in FIRA-AER Division B are the national teams of
Slovenia, Hungary, and Lithuania. Its next home match will be against Slovenia
on May 13. The Rugby Federation is currently seeking sponsorship for the
national team to play its home matches in Armenia.
Matches:
Hungary v Armenia (April 29, 2006);
Armenia v Slovenia (May 13, 2006);
Lithuania v Armenia (June 4, 2006).
BOLLY HYE: INDIAN DREAM FACTORY PLANS FILM IN ARMENIA
By Julia Hakobyan
ArmeniaNow reporter
A well known Indian film director plans to bring Bollywood to Armenia.
Mukesh Bhatt says that he is so captivated by Armenia’s picturesque gorges and
alpine vistas that he intends to shoot a movie here.
He arrived in Armenia with a group of Indian businessmen to take part in the
Armenian-Indian business forum. Bhatt says friends and colleagues in India had
advised him to visit Armenia and upon arrival he feels he has found a unique
atmosphere.
`I found something very valuable- a devotion to traditions and goodwill to
other nations,’ says Bhatt in a press conference this week.
Bhatt, who has produced 45 films in Bollywood, the Indian Hollywood, plans to
start filming in Armenia next year. He says that the movie will be a love
story, a favorite theme of Bollywood.
He does not rule out casting Armenian actors in the film, which he assures
will attract a flow of tourists to the country. He reminded his audience of a
popular saying in India: `Tourism follows wherever Bollywood goes.’
Indian movies were very popular in Armenia during Soviet times, when they were
shown as a result of the good political and cultural relations between Soviet
and Indian authorities. Now Bollywood produces some 1,000 movies a year, with
some gaining popularity also in the West.
Armenian Deputy Foreign Minister Armen Baiburdyan shares the Indian
filmmaker’s opinion about the possibility of Bollywood boosting tourism in
Armenia. Taking into account that India’s population is about 1.1 billion
people, and that another billion in the world are fans of Indian movies, he
says there are real prospects for a movie made in Armenia to draw tourists to
the country to see it themselves.
The possibility of boosting tourism in Armenia through cinematography was
raised earlier in March during a press conference held by the new owners and
directors of HyeFilm, the Armenian movie company. It was privatized last year
by the Cafesjian Foundation, which promised to invest $20 million over ten
years to revive film production.
Ruben Gevorgyants, chairman of the Armenian Union of Cinematographers and the
new chairman of HyeFilm says he welcomes his Indian counterpart.
`We discussed with Indian colleagues their idea of shooting a movie in
Armenia. Making movies in other countries’ studios is widely practiced all
over the world and we will be glad if our studio and country attracts
international film directors,’ Gevorgyants told ArmeniaNow.
`HyeFilm has already got experience of cooperating with Russian and Iranian
film directors, who have shot movies in Armenia.’
Last year, HyeFilm’s new directors told journalists that they were negotiating
with German investors over the possibility of a joint project to make a film
of `Forty Days of Musa Dagh’, the novel by the Austrian writer Franz Werfel
about the Armenian Genocide in Ottoman Turkey.
The budget was supposed to be about $35 million. But Gevorgyants told
ArmeniaNow that, so far, the project is not ready to proceed, and it is
possible that the Bollywood company will become the first international studio
to work with the revived HyeFilm.
The Armenian-Indian business forum was organized by the Armenian Ministry of
Foreign Affairs and the Armenian Development Agency. It brought to Yerevan 17
representatives of leading Indian industries, including diamonds, IT,
pharmaceuticals and metallurgy, in search of better relations with Armenian
partners.
Currently, trade turnover between Armenia and India is worth only about $15
million, but officials of both countries say this has the potential to at
least double. Besides trade, India and Armenia cooperate in the spheres of
education, science and culture.
The expansion of economic cooperation will be discussed at a sitting of the
Armenian-Indian Intergovernmental Commission for Economic Development to be
held in Yerevan this year.
Meanwhile, Indian businessmen are concerned only by the lack of a direct
flight from India to Armenia. The Armenian authorities promised to promote the
opening of a service between Delhi and Yerevan soon.
SPORT ROUNDUP: GYMNASTS END A 20-YEAR MEDAL DROUGHT
By Suren Musayelyan
ArmeniaNow sports reporter
GYMNASTICS
Armenia had its last medal-winning gymnasts in major international
competitions in the early 1980s (Edward Azaryan, Artur Hakobyan), at about the
time when Harutyun Merdinyan was born. This year, the 21-year-old gymnast from
Yerevan and his teammates have ended this barren period with medals at two
World Cup venues, in Iran and in France.
Merdinyan won silver in the season’s second World Cup tournament in Lyon,
France (March 18-19) that drew nearly all of today’s strongest gymnasts. He
ranked second in the pommel horse event behind Romania’s Ilie-Daniel Popescu.
Earlier this month, in Tehran, Merdinyan won gold for the pommel horse. Vahagn
Stepanyan, 22, from Yerevan, came 2nd in this event and on the floor and 3rd
on the rings and parallel bars.
Armenia’s Gymnastic Federation Secretary General, Garnik Saroyan, told Hayots
Ashkharh daily that Stepanyan missed the Lyon competition because of military
duty in the Armenian army. But he adds that both athletes are getting ready
for the European championships in Greece in May.
A1 Plus quoted Armenia’s legendary gymnast Albert Azaryan, now President of
the Gymnastics Federation, as saying of the result in France: `We have been
waiting for this success for a long time. We have won medals after our sport
school was recently fitted out with new equipment to international standards.’
WEIGHTLIFTING
Australia’s Aleksan Karapetyan, affectionately dubbed the Big Gorilla, and
successfully defended his Commonwealth Games 94 kg weightlifting title in
Melbourne on Tuesday, March 21, Agence-France Presse reports.
Karapetyan, born in Armenia, totaled 350 kg with his closest rival,
Australia’s Simon Heffernan, lifting 332kg. Scotland’s Thomas Yule took the
bronze medal with 326 kg.
`My father and son were watching so winning in front of them felt great,’ the
35-year-old said afterwards. `I had promised my son that I would win gold.’
The veteran lifter has yet to make up his mind whether to go for a third
successive gold at the next Games in New Delhi in 2010.
`If I am not injured then maybe I will compete in 2010. But at the moment I am
just happy to have given my country a gold medal,’ Karapetyan said.
FOOTBALL
The Armenian national team lost to 3-1 to Germany’s U-21 side in a friendly in
the German town of Alhen on Tuesday, March 21. Aram Hakobyan opened the score
for Armenia early in the first half, but the Germans equalized before half
time, then scored twice in the second half.
Armenia did not play its full-strength side in the match. The Football
Federation of Armenia explained that footballers based in Armenia were not in
sufficiently good shape for the game, since the national championships gets
underway only in April.
This is Armenia’s third straight defeat this season following losses to
Romania and Cyprus, both by 0-2, in an international tournament in Cyprus last
month. Meanwhile, before Armenia left for Germany, the Football Federation
officially confirmed Dutch trainer Henk Wisman in his position as head coach.
According to the FIFA World Rankings for March, Armenia is in 109th place,
between Thailand and Indonesia, among 205 listed nations, slipping back one
position from February. For full rankings, visit
,25 48,All-Mar-2006,00.html
(Source: the Football Federation of Armenia)
CHESS
Armenia’s grandmaster Levon Aronyan is sharing the fifth spot with three chess-
players in the continuing 15th Amber Rapid and Blindfold Chess Tournament at
the Fairmont Monte Carlo Hotel in Monaco, which runs from March 18-30. After
five rounds, he has 5 points and is fifth among 12 chessmen together with
Alexander Grischuk (Russia), Peter Heine Nielsen (Denmark) and Veselin Topalov
(Bulgaria), a point behind the leader, Hungary’s Peter Leko (Aronyan is 4th in
blindfold chess with 2.5 points, and shares 5th place with three other chess-
players with 2.5 points in rapid). In previous rounds, in rapid, he beat
Holland’s Loek Van Wely (with white), drew with Bulgaria’s Veselin Topalov
(with black), beat Hungary’s Peter Leko (with white), lost to Denmark’s Peter
Heine Nielsen (with black) and lost to Ukraine’s Vassily Ivanchuk (with
white); in blind, Aronyan lost to Van Wely (with black), beat Topalov (with
white), drew with Leko (with black) and with Nielsen (with white), and drew
with Ivanchuk (with black).
In Round Six Aronyan plays Francisco Vallejo from Spain with black in blind
and with white in rapid. For more news and results visit the Armenian Chess
Federation’s website: or the tournament’s official website:
Meanwhile, the leaders in the ongoing Armenian championship after seven rounds
are Artashes Minasyan (5.5 points) among men and Nelli Aghinyan (6 points)
among women.
Ten chess-players are participating in the men’s championships, of whom seven
are grandmasters. A1 Plus reports that the winner will receive 1.5 million
drams (about $3,300), with 900,000 and 500,000 drams respectively for second
and third. The champion will be included in Armenia’s national team for this
year’s Chess Olympiad in Turin, Italy.
The women’s championship also has ten competitors and the winner will receive
300,000 drams.
FIGURE-SKATING
Armenia’s ice-dancing pair Anastasia Grebenkina and Vazgen Azroyan finished
25th among 30 participants in the World Championships in Calgary, Canada in
the compulsory dance event on Tuesday, after which the Armenian pair withdrew
from further contest and was not among participants in the original dance
program on Thursday. For all results and standings visit the official website
of the 2006 World Figure Skating Championships at