Month: February 2015

TSARUKYAN EXCLUDED FROM NATIONAL SECURITY COUNCIL OF ARMENIA

Vestnik Kavkaza, Russia
Feb 13 2015

13 February 2015 – 1:05pm

Armenian President Serzh Sargsyan has signed a decree on termination
of membership in the National Security Council of the chairman of the
opposition party ‘Prosperous Armenia’, one of the country’s richest
men, Gagik Tsarukyan, for systematic failure to appear at the meeting.

Earlier, speaking at the Republican Party Council meeting,
Serzh Sargsyan leveled harsh criticism at Tsarukyan for his
‘pseudo-political’ activity, saying he would be excluded from the
Security Council because “the supreme security body of the country
is not a cinema where one can come and leave when he wants.”

Sargsyan also said that a meeting of the Security Council will be held
today, at which the law-enforcement agencies will discuss verification
of rumors about Tsarukyan’s relationship with the criminal underworld.

AZERBAIJAN AGAINST POLITICIZATION OF EUROVISION SONG CONTEST

Vestnik Kavkaza, Russia
Feb 13 2015

13 February 2015 – 6:47pm

Armenia plant to sing the “Don’t Deny” song commemorating victims of
the Armenian genocide at the 2015 Eurovision Song Contest in Austria
this year. Azerbaijan has warned Armenia against politicizing the
song contest, Trend reports.

Armenia accuses Turkey of committing genocide against Armenians
in Anatolia in 1915. Parliaments of several countries have already
recognized the genocide as a historical fact.

BOOMERANG ESSENCE OF THE “TRANSFER ECONOMY” IN ARMENIA

Vestnik Kavkaza, Russia
Feb 13 2015

13 February 2015 – 6:51pm

Susanna Petrosyan, Yerevan. Especially for Vestnik Kavkaza

Armenia’s accession to the Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU) actualized
the problems associated with local production, competitiveness of
Armenian goods, the prospect of their implementation on the domestic
and foreign markets. Just a month after the country’s accession
to the EAEU, Armenian millers faced a serious potential loss of
the internal market. Imports of cheap flour from Russia have hit
the interests of local producers by creating unequal conditions of
competition. Experts believe that the reason for this is the sharp
drop in the ruble exchange rate, resulting in exports from Russia
becoming much more profitable than their own production. But it’s
not just about the situation around the supply of flour.

For 15 years, Armenia’s economy has been orientated toward the
development of imports to the detriment of local production. This
economic policy has a political background. According to the economist
and representative of the Board of the opposition party “Armenian
National Congress”, Vahagn Khachatryan, support for large importers by
the government due to the desire of the authorities to reproduce, in
which the major monopoly-importers play the most significant role. As
a result of the government’s economic policy, the core of which is
still cooperation with a large-scale commercial capital program aimed
at imports, the country formed a considerable trade imbalance in favor
of imports, the amount of which is three times higher than exports.

This trade imbalance leads to the removal of large volumes of Armenian
currency, which becomes the source of a number of many other problems
in the economy.

If we talk about the competitiveness of Armenian products, it is
necessary to pay attention to its high cost, the cause of which
remains high. Transport costs make up 10-15% of the cost structure of
production. But the main reason for the high cost of Armenian products
is the difficult situation which is being faced by local producers, and
it is the exclusive way of the economy, and lack of real competition.

Representatives of the ruling Republican Party of Armenia (RPA) point
to the high cost of Armenian products which, in their opinion, makes
no sense to compete with imported goods. Such a statement was recently
made by an MP from the faction “RPA” Alexan Petrosyan, according to
whic, the cost of one unit of Armenian products is 64% more expensive
than the cost of goods imported to Armenia from China or Argentina.

Firstly, it is unclear which group of goods was mentioned by the
deputy, and secondly, it doesn’t matter how much Chinese and Argentine
products are cheaper, to their initial value is added transportation
costs, which ultimately forms the market value of the goods.

According to PhD in Economics Zoya Tadevosyan, even if such cheap
commodities do exist, it does not mean that they should be given
preference at the expense of national manufacturers, which have
practically been eradicated with the help of the government’s policy.

“Following the logic of the republicans, Armenia needs to give up
its industry and orient solely towards imports. The economy needs
developing instead of talking about cheap products. The RPA is trying
to justify its incompetent economic policy,” assumes Tadevosyan.

The long promotion of monopolistic importers by the government has
put national manufacturers in a very complicated situation, even in
such a sector as agriculture.

Numerously, some experts have expressed concerns that certain contacts
in customs offices allow importers to deliver much cheaper agricultural
products than national ones. A row that erupted around tomatoes from
Turkey a few years ago is a good example.

The development of conditions for a real, instead of declared,
competitive business atmosphere may become a solution, though unlikely
in the light of the current government. In this aspect, it is very
important that the objective situation in Armenia starts changing
under the influence of external factors and, most importantly, under
the economic problems of Russia. The fall of the Russian ruble in
ratio to the dollar provoked a dramatic fall of transfers sent by
Armenian migrants from Russia to their homeland in dollars, becoming
a blow to the “transfer economy” that has existed for over 10 years.

Reduction of cash transfers has had a negative effect on the consumer
potential of the population, hence on the volumes of commodities sold,
many of which are delivered by monopolistic importers. Thus, the
long exploitation of the “transfer” model, serving the interests of
importers instead of the development and formation of a differential
economy backed by local manufacturers, has lead to an arduous
socio-economic situation, where the interests of ordinary citizens,
national manufacturers and monopolistic importers are at stake.

From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

RELATIVES DEMAND INFORMATION ABOUT KILLED SOLDIERS

Vestnik Kavkaza, Russia
Feb 13 2015

13 February 2015 – 8:07pm

A group of protesters in Yerevan demanding information about soldiers
killed not in action have had a fight with police near the residence
of President Serzh Sargsyan this week. The mother of one of the dead
soldiers was hospitalized after the incident. Sargsyan’s administration
has been receiving letters from the relatives asking for information
about the soldiers. One of such letters received at the Presidential
Administration on November 27 came from Goar Sargsyan, the mother of
soldier Tigran Oganjanyan, killed by electricity in 2007, Epress.am
reports.

Goar Sargsyan emphasized that parents seeking information had met with
Prime Minister Ovik Abramyan and Prosecutor General Gevorg Kostanyan
and wanted to meet with President Serzh Sargsyan, referring to his
promise to investigate the deaths. The president did not find time
to meet with them personally. In response to the refusal of the
protesters to leave, the police moved people away from the residence.

Goar Sargsyan and her husband Suren Oganjanyan were injured. Raphael
Pogosyan, the head of the rapid reaction section of the Ombudsman’s
Office, was told that demonstrations around the building were
prohibited.

Igran Orukhanyan, spokesman of the Prosperous Armenia Party, said that
the political crisis in Armenia was so grave that President Sargsyan
could not keep his promises.

Arman Musinyan, spokesman of the Armenian National Congress, believes
that Sargsyan is not committed to promises at all. He called the
disappointment of the public unsurprising.

From: A. Papazian

TURKEY IS READY TO OPEN BORDER AFTER LIBERATION OF OCCUPIED REGION OF AZERBAIJAN

13 February 2015 – 1:07pm

Turkey is ready to open its border with Armenia in return for Yerevan
ceding from at least one occupied region of Azerbaijan, Turkish Prime
Minister Ahmet Davutoglu said at a meeting with representatives of
national minorities.

Armenians who live in Turkey are a part of the country as well, and
relations between Ankara and Yerevan should not adversely affect them,
he said.

According to Davutoglu, Turkey intends to work to resolve the
difficulties in relations with Armenia, Trend reports.

This proposal was perceived negatively in Armenia. The deputy director
of the Caucasus Institute, Sergey Minasyan, told Vestnik Kavkaza that
the current Armenian leadership will never agree to such a deal.

“These conditions are absolutely unacceptable. Such proposals were
repeatedly voiced by the Turkish side, and before they had not spoken
about “at least one area”, but about “at least one village”. It is
clear that there will be no positive response to it,” Minasyan said.

He noted that Armenia is currently divided into two camps on the
issue of opening the border with Turkey. “There is a mood in Armenian
society that Armenia does not need an open border with Turkey as
long as Turkey does not recognize the 1915 events as genocide of
Armenians and will not make any other overtures to Yerevan. There
are other moods in Armenian society, but the most prevalent is the
first option,” the deputy director of the Caucasus Institute said.

Meanwhile, the political scientist Togrul Ismail drew attention to
the fact that in this way Turkey wants to show its willingness to
improve relations with Armenia.”But for that, Armenia should abandon
its aggressive foreign policy, to go to the peace talks, at least
partially withdraw from the occupied territories. In other words,
Turkey has made a political gesture to Armenia and it is waiting for a
similar gesture from the Armenian side. Initially in 1993 the borders
were closed in protest against the occupation by Armenian military
units of the territory of the Kelbajar district, and it is necessary
to open them, whatever progress has been made in the peace settlement.

Turkey must see a concrete result in this case first,” he explained.

“Alas, there is no result yet. The Armenian side constantly demands
negotiations without preconditions, but Armenia has made such a
thing, that the conditions we are talking about are not advanced,
but are just normal for dialogue. It should withdraw from the occupied
territories, move away from an aggressive foreign policy, to drop the
charges against neighbors of various genocidal events. To behave like
a normal country, improving relations with its neighbors. And now we
have a sort of whim of the state against all its neighbors: Armenia
has territorial claims on Turkey and Azerbaijan and Georgia. This
is not serious and does not meet current international standards,”
Togrul Ismail concluded.

IN ARMENIA, TOWNS WITHOUT MEN AS MIGRANT LABORERS LEAVE TO FIND WORK

Washington Post
Feb 13 2015

By Karoun Demirjian February 13 at 9:30 AM

LICHK, Armenia — From late November through February, the stone
church in this rural community in the country’s poorest province
churns out new couples with the frequency of a Las Vegas chapel.

Winter is wedding season in Lichk because as soon as the snow melts,
all the adult men here — and in the nine other towns served by its
little church — leave to work in Russia.

For years, these villages have been like countless others in former
Soviet republics, where able-bodied men are lured to Russia by
seasonal work and higher wages. But stiffer laws for foreign workers
and Russia’s worsening economy are making many migrant laborers
reconsider their annual journey. For the men of Lichk — and other
Armenian workers, who as members of the Eurasian Economic Union don’t
need special work permits in Russia — it has meant working abroad
longer but sending less money home.

The years of migration have also reduced local industries around
Lichk to practically nothing and left local women to choose between
their increasingly difficult lives in a manless world or following
their husbands to Moscow.

“If these great men would not go and work in Russia, we would not
have this church as they built it,” Father Simon Kahana Ter-Mgrtchyan
said in a special blessing to the town’s dependence on Russia, now so
ingrained it has become part of the standard wedding ceremony in Lichk.

“Our women, they understand that this is the way it is,” Ter-Mgrtchyan
explained later. “The men will go earn money outside, in Russia. And
everything else is going to fall on her shoulders.”

‘There are no men here’

“The women are like men here,” said Gayane Shakhverde, as she watched
the sheep and cows she and her friends brought to the roadside market
on the main highway outside Lichk one recent Sunday morning.

Raising and selling animals is just one non-traditional responsibility
women have assumed in their husbands’ absence. They also till gardens
for food, organize family finances and even work construction projects
as they arise.

“The men send money,” Anna Kaleshian said. “But if there is no man
or boy in your house, it can get very hard.”

Kaleshian and Shakhverde, now middle-aged, barely question the system
anymore. They’re so used to doing everything that even when their
husbands come home, they are reluctant to hand over their manly
responsibilities, including chasing skittish sheep frightened by cars.

Some of Lichk’s younger women do manage to steal a girly moment when
their husbands return.

“Everything happens in seasons here. There are weddings in the winter,
and all the babies are born in the late summer or the fall — for
obvious reasons,” said Angela Bunyatyan, 33, who cuts, curls and
sprays hair for 12 hours a day or more during the winter months in
her small salon at the edge of town.

For more than a decade, her husband, Araik, 34, has been traveling the
1,400 miles to Moscow with his brother to find jobs in construction
or laying asphalt — two industries Armenian workers have dominated
in the Russian capital.

Bunyatyan worries about running their 10-person household — the
brothers’ families live together with their parents — on whatever they
are able to send home. She also worries about the kind of accident
that incapacitated her neighbor Barsegh Vartanyan, 42, whose family
is in massive debt because he can no longer work. Almost every family
in Lichk is one misstep away from a similar fate.

But when Araik goes, Bunyatyan trades her hair dryer for a shovel
and plants potatoes in the family’s fields.

So does Tatevik Ispiryan, 28, who also taught herself to drive, fix
irrigation systems and work a threshing machine so she can harvest
the wheat her family grows more efficiently.

“Everything is resting on my shoulders, and there are times when I feel
I am extremely in need of my husband and father’s help,” she said. “But
I feel that I’m stronger when I’m alone because I make the decisions.”

Ispiryan, who was married at 15, now tries to pass that independent
spirit to her 11-year-old daughter, pushing her to think about a
career and not to get married before she turns 30.

But that message hardly matches the realities of life in Lichk.

“There are many cases when women start to think and do something
independently, people start to gossip,” said Anahit Gevorgyan,
director of the Martuni Women’s Community Council.

Only a few women like Bunyatyan have businesses — and her salon
shuts down when the men go, as people would wonder who her customers
are primping for. Bunyatyan won’t even wear sunglasses, she said,
because it draws too much negative attention.

Gossip can have serious consequences in a place where, despite
women’s unisex work roles, men still call the shots from thousands
of miles away.

“Our husbands can get very jealous,” said Dzaghig Melkonian, 27,
explaining that even when her husband was in Russia, she had to ask
her mother-in-law’s permission to leave the house for any reason
except to pick her kids up from school.

Many women also grapple with the nagging worry that if they upset
their husbands, they could be left alone. Gevorgyan estimates almost
half of the men have mistresses or second families in Russia, and
some have abandoned their families entirely. Without the remittances,
a local woman’s ability to work like a man counts for almost nothing:
It is still a below-subsistence existence that needs to be supplemented
to support a family.

Such fears keep women’s aspirations of independence in check.

“Our main concern is if the young unmarried boys go and get connected
to Russian women. That’s why many parents make their sons get married
early,” said Melkonian, who was married at 18. In the process, the
practice locks the region’s daughters into their support role.

Nothing at home

Armenia is not the only former Soviet republic sending migrant workers
to Russia: Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan’s national incomes depend even
more on Russian remittances.

But in the area around Lichk, there really is no other option.

Some Lichk families renovated their houses and purchased cars with
their Russian earnings, leading people in the region to refer to
Lichk as “Putinka.”

Now, even if they wanted to, it is difficult for Lichk residents to
break their Russian bond.

“We will have to work double now, because the ruble isn’t worth as
much,” Araik Bunyatyan said. “I worry about my wife very much. Each
man is supposed to provide for his family. The longer I’m gone,
the more my wife and mother will have to do all the work here that
I should be here doing.”

Facing the possibility of months or even years apart, the Bunyatyans
are starting to talk seriously about leaving Lichk behind.

“We cannot have any expectations. We just have to wait until the
spring,” Angela Bunyatyan said. “But if life would be better in Russia
than it is here, I would like to go.”

Marianna Grigoryan contributed to this report.

Karoun Demirjian is a reporting fellow in The Post’s Moscow bureau.

She previously served as the Washington Correspondent for the Las
Vegas Sun, and reported for the Associated Press in Jerusalem and
the Chicago Tribune in Chicago.

RUSSIAN GAS SUPPLIES RESUMED TO ARMENIA VIA GEORGIA

Interfax, Russia
Feb 13 2015

The transportation of natural gas to Armenia across the territory
of Georgia via the North Caucasus – South Caucasus trunk pipeline,
which was interrupted on Thursday, was resumed at 7:45 pm local
time on February 12, Armenia’s gas monopoly, CJSC Gazprom Armenia,
the subsidiary of OJSC Gazprom, said in a statement.

The supply of Russian natural gas to Armenia was temporarily stopped
from 1:30 pm local time on February 12 due to damage to the trunk
pipeline on the territory Georgia. Gas supply for consumers was carried
out without interruption using reserves from the Abovyan underground
gas storage facility.

The trunk pipeline, along which natural gas is supplied from Russia
to Georgia and Armenia, was built in the 1970s. For the transit of
Russian gas, Georgia receives 10% of the total volume of gas being
supplied to Armenia.

CAMPUS COMMUNITY REMEMBERS A LEGEND

The Collegian, CSU Fresno, CA
Feb 13 2015

Posted by: Daniel Leon Feb 12, 2015

The Fresno State campus remembers legendary basketball player and
coach Jerry Tarkanian, who passed away at the age of 84 Wednesday
morning in Las Vegas.

“We are saddened today at Fresno State by the news of the passing of
the legendary Jerry Tarkanian,” Fresno State President Joseph I.

Castro said at Wednesday’s press conference. “He was a good friend,
a mentor, a great coach, a great citizen of the Central Valley and
beyond. I want to express our condolences to Lois and his entire
family. They were so very kind to Mary and I when I became president,
and I appreciate that very much.”

Tarkanian, who was commonly referred to as “Tark” or “Coach Tark,”
played at Fresno State from 1954 to 1955. He returned in 1995 to
coach his alma mater and officially retired in 2002. He led the
‘Dogs to a 104-79 record and seven postseason trips in his seven
seasons with the team. Six of those seven resulted in 20-win seasons.

Tark also coached at UNLV from 1973 to 1992. During his tenure with
the Rebels, he helped lead them to a national championship in 1990 by
beating Mike Krzyzewski and the Duke Blue Devils 103-73, which marked
the largest winning margin in NCAA championship game history. With
Tarkanian at the helm, the Rebels made 18 trips to the NCAA tournament,
including four Final Four appearances.

His overall coaching record of 706-198 and his .803 winning percentage
ranks fourth best all-time. Tarkanian was inducted into the Basketball
Hall of Fame in 2013 and had his No. 2 jersey retired on March 1,
when the Bulldogs hosted a nationally ranked San Diego State team.

“We lost a giant not only in the coaching profession but as a person,”
Fresno State head men’s basketball coach Rodney Terry said. “Upon
getting the job here, he was one of the first people who called me
to congratulate me. What I was so fond of was his story telling and
his genuine personality. I’m glad we were able to embrace him here
while he was still with us and do what we did in terms of honoring
him here at the Save Mart Center last year when we retired his jersey.

“He had great memories of being a player here and being a coach here.

We lost a giant that impacted so many lives, and that’s what I look
at, the lives that he impacted. He helped turn his players into men,
and they had a lot of fondness towards him. That’s the legacy you
want to leave, and he was a great man in doing that.”

Tarkanian to be honored this weekend

Fresno State will fly national and state flags at half-staff on Monday,
Feb. 16 in memory of Jerry Tarkanian.

In honor of the legendary coach, there will be a moment of silence
at Saturday’s men’s basketball game versus Boise State and a video
tribute will be displayed at halftime.

Also at the game, fans will have the opportunity to sign cards next
to Coach Tarkanian’s legacy display on the northwest concourse of
the Save Mart Center for the Tarkanian family.

Bulldogs’ head coach Rodney Terry will leave an empty seat on the
bench at the game and place a white towel in the empty seat, similar
to one Coach Tarkanian used at all of his games. Along with that,
the Fresno State men’s basketball team will add a “Tark” patch to
its jerseys starting Saturday.

The marquees at Cedar and Barstow avenues and the Save Mart Center
(Shaw and Chestnut avenues) are displaying graphics honoring Coach
Tarkanian.

Donations

The Tarkanian family requests that donations in his memory be made
to Fresno State’s Armenian studies program, said Amy Tarkanian,
the coach’s daughter-in-law.

Donations can be made online at
(check the
“Other” box and type in “Tarkanian”).

Or checks — payable to Fresno State Foundation (memo: Gift in
Memory of Coach Tarkanian) — may be mailed to: Office of University
Development, California State University, Fresno, 5244 N. Jackson Ave.,
M/S KC45, Fresno, California 93740-8023

From: Baghdasarian

HALL OF FAME BASKETBALL COACH JERRY TARKANIAN DIES IN VEGAS

Associated Press Online
February 12, 2015 Thursday 12:41 PM GMT

By TIM DAHLBERG, AP Sports Writer
LAS VEGAS

LAS VEGAS (AP) – He couldn’t stop fighting the NCAA any more than
he could give up chewing towels courtside. Jerry Tarkanian built a
basketball dynasty in the desert, but it was his decades-long battle
with the NCAA that defined him far more than the wins and losses.

The coach who won a national title at UNLV and made the school
synonymous with basketball died Wednesday after several years of
health issues. He was 84.

Tarkanian put the run in the Runnin’ Rebels, taking them to four
Final Fours and winning a national championship in 1990 with one of
the most dominant college teams ever. His teams were as flamboyant as
the city, with light shows and fireworks for pregame introductions
and celebrities jockeying for position on the so-called Gucci Row
courtside.

He ended up beating the NCAA, too, collecting a $2.5 million settlement
after suing the organization for trying to run him out of college
basketball. But he was bitter to the end about the way the NCAA
treated him while coaching.

“They’ve been my tormentors my whole life,” Tarkanian said at his
retirement news conference in 2002. “It will never stop.”

The night before he died, fans attending UNLV’s game against Fresno
State draped towels over the statue of Tarkanian outside the campus
arena that depicts Tarkanian chewing on one of his famous towels.

Tarkanian’s wife, Lois, said her husband – hospitalized Monday with
an infection and breathing difficulties – fought health problems for
the last six years with the same “courage and tenacity” he showed
throughout his life. His death came just days after the death of
another Hall of Fame coach, North Carolina’s Dean Smith.

“Our hearts are broken but filled with incredible memories,” Lois
Tarkanian said in a family statement. “You will be missed Tark.”

Tarkanian was an innovator who preached defense yet loved to watch
his teams run. And run they did, beginning with his first Final Four
team in 1976-77, which scored more than 100 points in 23 games in an
era before both the shot clock and the 3-point shot.

He was a winner in a city built on losers, putting a small commuter
school on the national sporting map and making UNLV sweatshirts a hot
item around the country. His teams helped revolutionize the way the
college game was played, with relentless defense forcing turnovers
that were quickly converted into baskets at the other end.

He recruited players other coaches often wouldn’t touch, building teams
with junior college transfers and kids from checkered backgrounds. His
teams at UNLV were national powerhouses almost every year, yet
Tarkanian never seemed to get his due when the discussion turned to
the all-time coaching greats.

That changed in 2013 when the man popularly referred to as Tark the
Shark was elected to the Naismith Memorial Hall of Fame, an honor his
fellow coaches argued for years was long overdue. Though hospitalized
in the summer for heart problems and weakened by a variety of ills,
he went on stage with a walker at the induction ceremony.

“I knew right from day one I wanted to be a coach,” Tarkanian said.

“Coaching has been my entire life.”

Tarkanian’s career spanned 31 years with three Division I schools,
beginning at Long Beach State and ending at Fresno State, where
Tarkanian himself played in 1954 and 1955. Only twice did his teams
fail to win at least 20 games in a season.

But it was at UNLV where his reputation was made, both as a coach
of teams that often scored in the triple digits and as an outlaw
not afraid to stand up to the powerful NCAA. He went 509-105 in 19
seasons with the Runnin’ Rebels before finally being forced out
by the university after a picture was published in the Las Vegas
Review-Journal showing some of his players in a hot tub with a
convicted game fixer.

UNLV was already on probation at the time, just two years after
winning the national title and a year after the Runnin’ Rebels – led
by Larry Johnson, Stacey Augmon and Greg Anthony – went undefeated
into the Final Four before being upset in the semifinals by the same
Duke team they beat by 30 points for the championship the year before.

Even after losing four of his starters off that team and being on
probation, Tarkanian went 26-2 in his final year at UNLV.

His overall record is listed several different ways because the NCAA
took away wins from some of his teams, but the family preferred to
go with his on court record of 784-202.

The sad-eyed Tarkanian was born to Armenian immigrants Aug. 8, 1930,
in Euclid, Ohio, and attended Pasadena City College before transferring
to Fresno State, where he graduated in 1955. He coached high school
basketball in Southern California before being hired at Riverside
City College, where he spent five years before moving on to Pasadena
City College.

He was hired at Long Beach State in 1968 and went 23-3 in his first
year, then led the school to four straight NCAA tournament appearances,
including the 1971 West Regional final, where Long Beach led UCLA
by 12 points at halftime only to lose by two. While at Long Beach he
got into his first dispute with the NCAA, writing a newspaper column
that questioned why the organization investigated Western Kentucky
and not a powerful university like Kentucky.

Never shy about challenging the NCAA, Tarkanian once famously said:
“The NCAA is so mad at Kentucky, it’s going to give Cleveland State
two more years’ probation.”

By the time he moved to Las Vegas in 1973, Tarkanian was considered
one of the rising coaching stars in the country. He quickly built a
name for what was then a small school and by his fourth season at UNLV
he had the Runnin’ Rebels in the Final Four, where they lost 84-83
to North Carolina. It would be another decade before UNLV made the
Final Four again, and the Runnin’ Rebels were in three in five years,
including the national championship season of 1990.

In the final that year, UNLV used its pressure defense to blow out
Duke 103-73 in one of the most dominant performances in championship
game history.

It all happened with Tarkanian on his chair courtside, chewing on a
moist towel that was always left carefully folded underneath his seat.

The towel chewing, Tarkanian would later say, was something he
started doing during long practices when he could not stop to go to
a drinking fountain.

___

Associated Press Writer Ken Ritter contributed to this report.

From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

SINGER ANITA DARIAN REMEMBERED FOR GENRE-SPANNING CAREER

National Public Radio
February 12, 2015 Thursday
SHOW: All Things Considered 08:00 PM EST

GUESTS: Anita Darian, The Tokens, Lynda Wells, Mickey And Sylvia

ROBERT SIEGEL: A moment now to remember a soprano whose voice was
heard by millions of people who never who she was.

(SOUNDBITE OF UNIDENTIFIED SONG)

ANITA DARIAN: (Singing) How I wish we weren’t…

ROBERT SIEGEL: Anita Darian died last week at age 87. This is from
her singing Ned Rorem’s “Four Dialogues.” She sang classical music,
musical comedy and pop music. She was a studio singer with a vocal
range to match her stylistic range.

(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, “THE LION SLEEPS TONIGHT”)

THE TOKENS: (Singing) Near the village, the quiet, the lion sleeps
tonight. Hey, hey.

ANITA DARIAN: (Vocalizing).

LYNDA WELLS: And there she is. It is the floating voice of Anita
Darian.

ROBERT SIEGEL: And that’s Lynda Wells, who was friends with Anita
Darian for nearly 50 years.

LYNDA WELLS: Well, let me tell you a funny story about “The Lion Sleeps
Tonight.” The arrangers and producers called Anita in to record with
this new group called The Tokens. And when she got into the session,
they showed her the chart that she was to sing, and they tried it once
through and she said it’s too low. I need to sing it up an octave. And
the producer and the arranger looked at her and said you can’t do
that. And she said, well, let’s try it.

ROBERT SIEGEL: (Laughter) So this is her range. This is her natural
range that we’re hearing her sing at.

LYNDA WELLS: (Laughter) She had four workable octaves without going
to falsetto.

ROBERT SIEGEL: Now, she, in addition to other things, performed in
musical theater. She performed in opera, yes?

LYNDA WELLS: Absolutely. She did everything from Helen the Hellmann’s
hen in commercials to the beginning voices of “Alvin And The Chipmunks”
to imitating a theremin for Burt Bacharach to going onto Broadway.

ROBERT SIEGEL: Wait a minute. Did you say Hellmann’s hen for Hellmann’s
mayonnaise?

LYNDA WELLS: Yes (laughter).

ROBERT SIEGEL: So she did a lot of studio singing.

LYNDA WELLS: She did a lot of studio – and she did voices, so she
did cartoon voices.

(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, “LOVE IS STRANGE”)

MICKEY AND SYLVIA: (Singing) Love, love is strange.

ROBERT SIEGEL: This was a famous record by Mickey and Sylvia called
“Love is Strange.”

(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, “LOVE IS STRANGE”)

MICKEY AND SYLVIA: (Singing) You’ll never wanna quit.

ANITA DARIAN: (Singing) No, no.

MICKEY AND SYLVIA: (Singing) After you’ve had it…

ROBERT SIEGEL: Wait a minute. Is she doing the no-no?

LYNDA WELLS: Yes (laughter) yes, yes.

ROBERT SIEGEL: That’s Anita Darian.

LYNDA WELLS: It’s not the same woman that you heard on “The Lion
Sleeps Tonight,” is it?

ROBERT SIEGEL: And she seemed to carve out some kind of niche for
exotic songs.

LYNDA WELLS: She did. When she was recording for Cap Records, they
decided to use the exotica of her Armenian heritage doing an album
based on some Armenian songs and things like “Come On-A My House,”
which had been a hit for Rosie Clooney, but had never been done in
the original Armenian.

(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, “COME ON-A MY HOUSE”)

ANITA DARIAN: (Singing in Armenian) I’m gonna give you candy.

ROBERT SIEGEL: It’s probably better than the English there.

LYNDA WELLS: (Laughter) Well, it was really cute.

ROBERT SIEGEL: Do you ever wonder how it is that someone like Anita
Darian, who had a wonderful voice – yet had all kinds of studio work
singing in all kinds of famous records but not – not what we think
of as a star who was a household name. Why not?

LYNDA WELLS: I think that she was so versatile that she would fall
into niches, so she became the backup singer. You’d either bring in
a string section or you’d bring in Anita Darian.

ROBERT SIEGEL: Well, thank you very much, Lynda Wells, for talking
with us about the remarkable voice and the remarkable career of your
friend the late Anita Darian, who died last week at age 87.

LYNDA WELLS: Thank you so very much.

(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, “MISIRLOU”)

ANITA DARIAN: (Singing) Desert shadows creep across purple sands.

Natives kneel in prayer by their caravans.