Month: June 2017

Cinema: The Promise review: Romantic saga told against backdrop of Armenian genocide

Lara Antonian
Sydney Morning Herald, Australia
The Promise review: Romantic saga told against backdrop of Armenian genocide

Sandra Hall                                         

★★★
M, 134 minutes

It's old-fashioned. Terry George, director of The Promise, agrees with the film's critics on that point.

The difference is that he believes it's necessarily old-fashioned – a romantic saga built on the David Lean model by way of persuading audiences to see a film about the Armenian genocide. And it's an understandable argument. There is not only the horrific nature of the Turkish government's massacre of 1.5 million of its Armenian population between 1915 and 1922. There are also the difficulties presented by Turkey's persistence in denying it ever happened.

MGM tried and failed to make a film about the genocide in the 1930s. Clark Gable was to have starred in an adaptation of The Forty Days of Musa Dagh by Austrian novelist Franz Wurfel until the Turkish government threatened an international campaign against the film. And the Canadian independent Atom Egoyan, who is of Armenian descent, also found himself in a fight with "the denialist lobby" over his 2002 film Ararat. According to Variety, Miramax, Ararat's distributors, were bombarded with so many negative responses that its website crashed.           

Christian Bale (left) and Oscar Isaac star in the film that tackles the Armenian genocide, albeit from a distance. Photo: Open Road Films

With these precedents working against it, The Promise would not have been made if it hadn't been for Kirk Kerkorian, a former head of MGM, whose family fled the Ottoman pogroms. Shortly before his death in 2015, Kerkorian put up the finance for the film, which was budgeted at $100 million, quite a chunk of money for an independent production.

George, who told the story of another genocide in Hotel Rwanda (2004), plots a careful course between romance and history, with romance coming out on top. It's an international cast. The ever-adaptable Oscar Isaac, whose career has seen him play Mexican, French, Russian and Indonesian, is cast – quite credibly – as the Armenian hero Mikael Boghosian.

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French-Canadian Charlotte Le Bon is the Armenian girl he loves and Christian Bale supplies the American element that seems to be essential to any historical epic that comes out of the US, whether or not the Americans had a significant role to play. He's a hard-drinking, hot-headed yet gallant American correspondent who insists on staying in Turkey to report on the massacre.

The action begins in 1915 with a glimpse of paradise. Mikael leaves his poor but happy village in southern Turkey to study medicine, having promised his new fiancee (Angela Sarafyan) he will be back in two years to marry her. Arriving in Constantinople, he finds a luminous fairytale city rich in possibilities.

His uncle, a prosperous Armenian merchant, welcomes him to his sunlit villa on the Bosphorus and five minutes later he's already regretting his engagement because he's fallen for Le Bon's Ana Khesarian. Paris-educated, she's working as tutor to his uncle's children but she also has a lover – Bale's Chris Myers. Wearing a moustache that is a performance in itself, he spots the couple's growing attraction to one another and morosely takes another hit of whisky. 

But Turkey's entry into the war as Germany's ally soon puts an end to paradise, scattering the cast in various directions. Chris and Ana escape to the south so that he can get another angle on the war, while Mikael is shipped off to a labour camp. Death from starvation and overwork is imminent when he's saved by a series of niftily choreographed exploits of the "with one leap, Jack was free" variety.

Then he, too, heads south, speeding towards his inevitable reunion with Ana at such a rate you could be excused for imagining Turkey to be the size of Lord Howe Island, if it weren't for the effort that George's cameras put into evoking the country's desert flatlands, pine forests and rocky hillsides.

It's a handsome film and George manages to keep the genocide in focus with shots of the Turks herding long lines of refugees across the desert expanses.  But the full horror is kept at one remove. Either it remains in the middle distance or we arrive for the aftermath – to be told rather than shown. And I can't pretend to be sorry about that, given the savagery with which the killings were carried out. At the same time, the facts of it all have been shoehorned so tightly – and tritely – into an over-familiar narrative formula that you don't feel a thing.

Cinema: Despite US reviews, this $100 million epic set in the Ottoman Empire’s dying days is a cracker

Ara Felekian
NEWS.com.Australia
June 9 2017


June 9, 20175:15pm

Vicky RoachNews Corp Australia Network

THE PROMISE

Three stars

Director Terry George

Starring Christian Bale, Oscaar Isaacs, Charlotte Le Bon

Rating M

Running time 133 minutes

Verdict Historical drama delivers a powerful message

THE story behind this big budget epic, which has been the subject of IMDB vote-rigging allegations, is perhaps more interesting than the film itself.

Before he died, self-made billionaire Kirk Kerkorian funded The Promise to the tune of $US100 million to shine a light on systematic extermination of an estimated 1.5 million Armenians between 1914 and 1923.

Turkish authorities have consistently refused to acknowledge the genocide. (As a presidential candidate, Barack Obama pledged to officially do so. But when he gained office, “genocide” was dialled back to “mass atrocity” because the US needed Turkey’s help in fighting Islamic State.)

Oscar Isaac and Charlotte Le Bon are reunited in The Promise. Picture: Jose HaroSource:Supplied

In this context, it’s entirely plausible that the stream of one-star reviews that flooded the website prior to the film’s release were politically-motivated, as suggested by director Terry George (Hotel Rwanda).

But the response from named critics writing in influential publications has also been fairly tepid.

Oscar Isaac lends a sympathetic integrity to the role of Mickael Boghosian, an Armenian apothecary who betroths himself to a young woman from his village in Southern Turkey so he can use the dowry to put himself through medical school.

Christian Bale and Le Bon find themselves in the right place at the wrong time.Source:Supplied

This, presumably, is the promise of the title, but its potency peters out midway through the story. The ultimate commitment is one of survival.

In Constantinople, Boghosian meets the Paris-educated Ana (Charlotte Le Bon). The instant, mutual attraction is perhaps heightened by the pair’s shared Armenian heritage.

Further complicating matters is Christian Bale’s hard-drinking, heavy-hitting US war correspondent, with whom Ana is already in a relationship.

While the romantic rivalry plays out in a fairly predictable fashion, the horrendous events the three characters are caught up in during the dying days of the Ottoman Empire are little-canvassed enough to pack a real punch.

The Promise is no Dr Zhivago. But it delivers handsomely on Kerkorian’s original intent.

The Promise is now screening

Art: Swiss artist Therese Weber’s solo exhibition to open at Armenia’s National Gallery

Adrine Hakobian
Panorama, Armenia


On June 15, a solo exhibition titled “Paper-Hand and Mind: Narrations in Art” by Swiss artist Therese Weber is set to launch at the National Gallery of Armenia. As the Gallery told Panorama.am, the exhibition features more than 50 works of the past 20 years of Weber’s artistic activity. The exhibition will last until 15 July.

Swiss artist Therese Weber got acquainted with Armenia for the first time in 2015. Starting from that time, the artist has regularly touched upon the Armenian culture and the spiritual heritage in her works. 

Chess: Five Armenian chess players claim to be qualified for World Cup

Emil Lazarian
Panorama, Armenia

The final round of European Individual Chess Championship 2017 will be held today in Minsk, Belarus, with the best 22 players being qualified for the next Chess World Cup.

As the National Olympic Committee of Armenia told Panorama.am, five representatives of Armenia – Arman Mikayelyan, Hrant Melkumyan, Arman Pashikian, Sergei Movsesian and Samvel Ter-Sahakyan have scored 7 points each and have a chance to be qualified for the World Cup.

Maxim Matlakov (Russia) and Baadur Jobava (Georgia) are leading the table with 8 points. Five more players gained 7.5 points.

Tourism: Armenia, where natural beauty, wine and brandy trump a troubled past and a volatile present

Anna Tamamian
Economic Times, India


By ET CONTRIBUTORS | Jun 11, 2017, 12.15 AM IST

By Neeta Lal

From a vertiginous 1,476 feet, the almond-coloured cityscape of Yerevan, Armenia’s capital, looks bewitching. A 572-step stairway has transported me to the Mountain Terrace of Cascades, a contemporary art museum and sculpture garden, from where I am soaking in a panorama of terracotta-roofed houses, statuesque buildings and green pastures stretching out to snow-swathed mountains. Above it all soars Mount Ararat where Noah’s Ark is believed to have lande ..

Bucolic locations, monasteries set in tumbling landscapes, gurgling streams, lapis lazuli lakes — Armenia is picture-postcard turf. One of the cradles of civilisation, the pint-sized country was also the first in the world to officially adopt Christianity as the state religion in AD 301. With doughty neighbours (Turkey, Georgia, Azerbaijan, Russia and Iran) hemming it in, the nation is also at a geopolitical and cultural crossroads. 
The History Museum at Republic Square in Yerevan  
Much of that eclectic heritage is on view at the city’s numerous historic sights. At Matenadran, the museum of ancient manuscripts in Yerevan, we inspect fascinating memorabilia, including scroll upon scroll of medieval parchments and complex documents expounding on everything from geometry and cosmology to theology and poetry.  

  As the world wakes up to the charms of this Caucasian nation of 3 million people, tourism is galloping — at about 25% per year. Effervescent eateries, cafes and malls are mushrooming and stylish hotels are replacing vapid, Soviet inn-type accommodations. 

Yerevan — located 12 km from Turkey — is where Armenia’s heart beats. It has street art-splashed alleys and leafy boulevards sprouting olive, cherry and mulberry trees. Cafés and wine bars remain open until early morning as punters hold chinwag over coffee and gelatos. Locals and tourists stroll along promenades or congregate around musical fountains prancing to classical tunes.  

  Buildings hewn from pinktuff (an igneous rock, formed from the debris ejected by a volcano) give Yerevan a pink glow as well as its moniker, the Pink City. The majestic Republic Square is studded with buildings. I take it all in one evening from a cafe on Abovyan Street while nursing my soorj ( in pic below ), the Armenian coffee prepared in a long-handled, bronze jezve coffee pot that derives its name from the sound of slurping made by a contented coffee drinker ..

Volatile Past
Despite its cosmopolitan facelift, Armenia’s turbulent past still lingers. Roiled by bloody invasions by Romans, Persians, Ottomans and the Soviets, the scars of vicious ethnoterritorial conflicts and economic despair remain.

A visit to the Genocide Monument in Yerevan is a stark reminder of a mass extermination — the Armenian Genocide that killed 1.5 million Ottoman Armenians between 1915 and 1923.
Set on a hilltop, the spot also houses an underground gallery recreating the horror. Outside, a Spartan memorial stands over an eternal flame. There’s also a garden of trees planted by representatives of various nations that recognise the genocide, including the UK, US, France and Russia.

Not all of Armenia's troubles are in the past.

The country is still bedevilled by the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict with Azerbaijan that has left it with closed borders. Human rights issues and wrenching poverty add to its woes.

"Today, over two-thirds of Armenians live outside the country and have settled as diaspora communities," says our guide Sira. The country's most famous surname must be Kardashian – the socialite Kim Kardashian's family escaped from Armenia to America in 1913 but they still have strong ties to the country.  In 2015, when the Kardashians went on an eight-day tour of Armenia, it created quite a kerfuffle in the tiny nation.

Magic Mountain
The image of Mount Ararat is a leitmotif in Armenia. Though the mountain was ceded to nearby Turkey in 1923, it continues to be the country's cultural signature, adorning everything from chocolates to wine bottles to apparel as well as Yerevan's coat of arms. 

The mount isn't the country's only enchantment though. As I travel through dramatic, photogenic gorges and canyons which carve their way across the Caucasus Mountains, monasteries hewn out of the tuff rock, pagan temples, glutinous lakes and churches nestling in desolate locations add to the visual delight. From the Khor Virap Monastery, on Turkey's border, I take in the view stretching from vineyards to Ararat's 5,137-m-high summit.

The monastery – lying 30 km south of Yerevan – is a popular, out-of-town retreat. It was in a snake-filled pit below this monastery, the story goes, that St. Gregory the Illuminator, who brought Christianity to the region, spent 12 years.

The Tatev monastery, a ninth century shrine located on a large basalt plateau, stands on the precipice of a deep gorge of the Vorotan River.

A UNESCO World Heritage site, it played a pivotal role in the region's spiritual, political, cultural and educational history. The trip to the monastery isn't for the faint-hearted though.

We huddle into the world's longest reversible cable car line, a 5.7-kilometre engineering feat that spans a spectacular gorge. The car line runs from Halidzor village, connecting Yerevan to the village of Tatev, within walking distance of the monastery.

As we glide over an eye-popping landscape – misty mountains, bridges and glittering rivers – the guide explains that the $18 million cable car was mostly funded by private donations.

"It is part of a $50 million public-private project to develop tourism at Tatev and in the surrounding region, one of the 15 provinces of the ancient kingdom of Armenia," she adds.

From Tatev, we drive through a mountain bowl at an altitude of about 2 kilometres above sea level to Sevan. The Alpine Lake is one of the largest in the Caucasus region and located 1,897 metres above sea level. Its pristine beauty and powdery beaches are a big lure for tourists, especially the Russian oligarchs who land here discreetly in private jets. Also known as the Armenian Riviera, the lake's chameleon-like transformation – from Azure to mystic dark blue in the span of a few hours – is mesmerizing.
From the seaside promenade, merely gazing at the waters and beyond is a meditative experience.

Cradle of Wine

You know you are in wine country the moment you land at the Yerevan airport where a 20-feet-tall inflatable wine bottle greets you outside the terminal ( in pic ). Armenia, along with Georgia, Azerbaijan, northern Iran and eastern Turkey constitute what is called the Cradle of Wine in the Caucasus Mountains. Wine-making supposedly originated here in biblical times.)

The meticulous Armenians have kept records of viticulture since Noah's time when the biblical patriarch planted the first vineyard at the foothills of Mount Ararat. Some of the highest wine-growing regions in the northern hemisphere, diverse microclimate and rich, volcanic soils lend distinct flavours to an array of indigenous grape varietals.
Armenia is also known for brandy production.

Driving around the country, the advertisements for Ararat brandy are everywhere. I take a tour of its factory located in an imposing brick building on a hill overlooking Yerevan.

Here, I learn all about the production of the country's favourite tipple. Though fruit brandies from apricot, black plums, apples and other fruits, grown in orchards, are quite popular, seasoned Armenian vintners stick to grapes, the guide explains, as we amble down Charles Aznavour Alley stocked with "President's Barrels" dedicated to Presidents of various countries who had visited the factory, and which were being aged until a President asked for them.  
The guide goes on to narrate an apocryphal story about Armenian brandy: during the Yalta Conference in February 1945, after dinner, the host and Russian leader Josef Stalin asked British Prime Minister Winston Churchill if he wished to have a drink. "I'd like a brandy with my cigar," boomed Churchill.
Stalin then offered his guest Ararat Dvin, the best Armenian brandy. So enamoured was Churchill of the honey-hued liquor that Stalin instructed that Churchill is presented with a case of Ararat every month. Thereafter, Armenians say, Churchill swore by the three Cs that made his life worth living – cognac (Armenian), cigar (Cuban) and coffee!

The writer is a Delhi-based journalist 

http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/magazines/travel/armenia-where-natural-beauty-wine-and-brandy-trump-a-troubled-past-and-a-volatile-present/articleshow/59085967.cms




Sports: Montenegro – Armenia: score prediction, preview, live streaming free

Suren Karakhanian
The Quebec Times


Zoe | |

  

Montenegrins to kick-start the selection by dialing just seven points, but after balkantsy lost two games in a row and allowed the competitors to get close to him. Will Jovetic and the company retain the second place?
Football. 2018. Qualification. Europe. Group E. Montenegro – Armenia
, 21-45 GMT

Montenegro
Indeed, Montenegrins very cheerfully started the tournament – after visiting a draw with Romania (0: 0) followed by a victory over Kazakhstan (5: 0) and Denmark (1: 0). But after the game balkantsev something went wrong – leading 2: 0 in the away match against Armenia, they managed to lose 2: 3, followed by home yielded Poland (1: 2). In the table until the second team, but the fight is very dense, the same Armenian team loses only one point, ranking fifth.

Armenia
Armenia started the cycle with three consecutive defeats, Poland, Denmark and Romania chance Caucasian team left little winning with a total score of 8: 1. There was a coaching castling, under the direction of Artur Petrosyan changed the game, in addition to the already mentioned strong-willed victory over Montenegro, and was winning Kazakhstan (2: 0). The Armenians until the fifth table, but only the beginning.

Statistics and personal meetings
Internal meeting of the teams until one victory 3: 2 it got to Armenia.

Montenegro home team won just one of five recent matches.

Forecast
Before recommissioning a full-time match, the team played a friendly game – Montenegrins at home lost to Iran (1: 2), Armenia defeated St. Kitts and Nevis (5: 0). Of course, the level of the national team of the island is not too good, but the final score showed that Armenia has finally found the optimal combination, began to score Mkhitaryan, who in the past held the coach rather strange position on the field. We believe that to fight the Montenegrins again, that does not ideal in defense Armenia is able. We offer to play this pair of goals on both sides.

BAKU: Ethnic minority activist faces travel ban in Azerbaijan

Liana Toganian 
Turan news agency, Azerbaijani Opposition
June 9 2017


Ethnic minority activist faces travel ban in Azerbaijan

[Armenian News note: the below is translated from the Russian edition of Turan]

The head of an ethnic minority centre in Azerbaijan has been barred
from travelling abroad in connection with an investigation into an
ethnic reporter's defection to Armenia.

Rafiq Calilov, the head of the Talis (Talish) culture centre, says
that he was not allowed to leave the country in late May because of a
travel ban imposed on him by the Prosecutor-General's Office.

The travel ban was imposed because Calilov is a witness in the case of
correspondent of Tolisi Sado (Tolyshi Sado, Voice of Talis) newspaper,
Sahin Mirzoyev, who defected to Armenia in February 2017. Armenia is
Baku's arch-foe due to the Nagorno-Karabakh dispute.

Calilov said that he had no plans to emigrate, but wanted to travel to
Dagestan, Russia for the wedding of a friend's son. He described the
travel ban as politically motivated and filed a complaint with the
Prosecutor-General's Office.

"I do not understand what is the point of not allowing me to travel
abroad. If I wanted to leave, I would have done that in 2014 when I
was in Europe. I am not going to leave Azerbaijan," Calilov said.

Turan said on 8 June that the editor of Tolisi Sado, Hilal Mammadov,
was interrogated at the Interior Ministry's organised crime department
in connection with the Sahin Mirzoyev case.

Hilal Mammadov, received a five-year prison sentence in September 2013
on charges of drug possession, high treason and incitement of hatred.
He was given a presidential pardon in 2016.

Tolisi Sado's previous editor, Novruzali Mammadov, died in a Baku
prison hospital in 2009, a year after he was sentenced to 10 years in
prison for high treason and spying for Iran.

Jewel purpose: the Boghossian family bring art-deco gem Villa Empain back to its former glory

Arpi Talalian
The Telegraph, UK
June 8, 2017 Thursday 11:00 AM GMT
 
 
Jewel purpose: the Boghossian family bring art-deco gem Villa Empain back to its former glory
 
 By Talib Choudhry
 
 
 
With its granite and gold leaf exterior, the Villa Empain must be one of the most distinctive and beloved buildings in Brussels.
 
Louis Empain – son of billionaire industrialist and railway pioneer Edouard Empain – commissioned architect Michel Polak to design the villa as a private residence in 1930. Four years later it was completed, combining the simple lines of Bauhaus architecture with the luxurious materials and detailing of art deco.
 
The original solarium now serves as a meeting roomCredit: Jake Curtis
 
The villa was designed as a home of Gatsby-esque grandeur – except no wild parties were ever held there; Louis Empain was a very sober young man – so reclusive it was rumoured at the time that he never actually moved in.  In reality, he did live in the villa for at least four years, and the few who were lucky enough to step inside would have seen yet more splendour.
 
Floors and walls are rendered from five different types of marble; there is panelling in walnut, rosewood and oak, as well as the more exotic African bubinga and Venezuelan manilkara; bathrooms are tiled with intricate mosaics; and stained-glass panels and magnificent wrought-ironwork feature throughout. The swimming pool, which extends the entire length of the villa and boasted a thermostatically controlled heater,  was one of the most impressive of its era.
 
Dominique Gonzalez Foerster's Chambre installationCredit: Jake Curtis
 
As such, Villa Empain is an aptly decorative home for the Boghossian Foundation, established as "a centre for art and dialogue between the cultures of the east and the west". Opened by the high jewellery house in April 2010, what might be dismissed as a glitzy vanity project for a luxury goods brand is, in fact, a heartfelt endeavour to use art as a force for good.
 
Caught up in the conflicts that have afflicted the Middle East throughout the 20th century, the Boghossian family found themselves fleeing from  Armenia to Syria and then Lebanon, before finally settling in Belgium and Switzerland.
 
"I had the good fortune to grow up in the magnificent country of Lebanon but I lived through the damage caused by civil war," explains Jean Boghossian, a Brussels-based artist (who represented Armenia at this year's Venice Biennale). "I witnessed the brutality with which a peaceful coexistence can turn into a murderous hatred, and the wound it causes. Before, during the genocide that they suffered in 1915, my Armenian forefathers also lived through a nightmare."
 
A small bathroom was entirely rebuilt and mosaic-tiled after being demolished in 2000Credit: Jake Curtis
 
In 1992, Jean was moved to set up the Boghossian Foundation with his brother Albert – the company's CEO – and their father Robert, in order to undertake charitable work in the Middle East.
 
"We have been involved with humanitarian and educational projects for many years but we wanted to do something larger  -  shine a light on new ideas," says Albert's son Ralph, the company's production director. "The result is the Foundation in Brussels, which works to promote understanding between different cultures. Being Armenian, we drew inspiration from the Silk Road – it's the universe around which the Boghossian house revolves."
 
Descended from six generations of gem dealers, the Boghossian family has forged a unique identity in the world of high jewellery. Famous for the "art of inlay", a technique of setting one stone within another – Boghossian was known as Bogh-Art before being renamed  in 2007 – the company's colourful aesthetic, extraordinary gems and attention to detail produce pieces akin to works of art.
 
Large parts of the original marble floor has been removed, but remained was so thick it could be sliced in half and repurposedCredit: Jake Curtis
 
"We start with the stone because we're gem experts and that's what we're passionate about," says Ralph. "We have developed many types of setting because it's the mount that emphasises and highlights the qualities of a stone."
 
Designs are influenced by both the Boghossian family's Middle Eastern roots and European lives today. Unusual stones are sometimes bought and stored for years before being turned into one of the handful of pieces that the house creates annually in Switzerland and Italy.
 
"We have loyal clients who buy several pieces on a regular basis," adds Ralph. "When you know that, for them, peerless beauty is the only thing that counts, you are able to push your abilities and create something special."
 
In contrast to the rarified world of Boghossian jewels, the Foundation at Villa Empain is open to all, and its general manager Louma Salamé (Jean's niece) is "very much into opening things up. Our shows and workshops are intended to make the visitor feel at home and we give everyone the same attention, whether it's the minister of foreign affairs or a Syrian refugee."
 
The villa's entrance hall features splendid wrought ironworkCredit: Jake Curtis
 
Louis Empain would surely approve of the current use of his former home. In 1937 Empain donated his mansion to the state as the site of the Royal Museum of Contemporary Decorative Arts of Belgium, but the Second World War brought a premature end to the museum's activities when the villa was requisitioned by the German invaders. It is rumoured to have been occupied by the Gestapo.
 
After the war, despite the conditions attached to Empain's gift to the Belgian state, the villa was handed over to the USSR to serve as its embassy. After much campaigning the building was returned to Empain in the mid-1960s and he staged exhibitions dedicated to kinetic and op art, before selling it in 1973, three years before his death. It was rented by the television station RTL for 20 years then, following another sale, the villa was abandoned and fell into disrepair.
 
When the Boghossian Foundation acquired Villa Empain in 2006, it was in a completely dilapidated state. After two years of site surveys and extensive research, complex restoration works took a further two. Walking through the building now it's difficult to imagine that it hasn't always looked the way it does.
 
The intricately panelled barCredit: Jake Curtis
 
"By restoring this magnificent piece of art-deco architecture and using it to house the headquarters of the foundation, we think that our projects will, in their own way, fulfil Baron Empain's wishes," says Jean Boghossian.  
 
Having worked at the Guggenheim, the Mudam and the Abu Dhabi Louvre, Salamé is eminently qualified to run the Foundation. "It's a dream project for me – I found the idea of a bilateral east-meets-west project tremendously exciting," she says. "I've followed its progress for over 10 years, but I thought I had to do things on my own for a certain time and tried to learn everything you have to know to become the director of a cultural institution."
 
The first show that Salamé curated at the foundation was called Imaginary Borders. "There's an increasing stigmatisation of different groups of people for their religion, social background or nationality and the building of social barriers. All these walls are what we are fighting against."
 
The restored rear facade and magnificent pool of Villa Empain – renowned at the time it was built for its pioneering thermostatically controlled heating
 
The foundation's "mission" to encourage cultural exchange is carried out through exhibitions, events and residencies, with writers, artists, designers and curators living on site. The rooms in the villa are still referred to according to their original purpose and the hum of activity means it is far removed from a sterile gallery space.
 
"It's very much a living building – we want visitors to use the space and feel at ease," says Salamé. "It's a unique house, an amazing jewel and the perfect home for our mission. Genuinely, every morning when I put the key into this gorgeous front door, I feel like I've come home."  villaempain.com
 
 

Hayastan All-Armenian Fund begins construction of sports complex in Ditavan

Emil Lazarian 
Armenpress News Agency , Armenia
June 8, 2017 Thursday


Hayastan All-Armenian Fund begins construction of sports complex in Ditavan



YEREVAN, JUNE 8, ARMENPRESS. On June 8, the Hayastan All-Armenian Fund
held a groundbreaking ceremony for the future sports complex of
Ditavan, a village in Armenia’s Tavush province. Guests attending the
event included the sponsor of the construction project,
Argentinean-Armenian benefactor Nadya Ekserciyan, as well as her
daughter.

The planned sports facility having a total area of 504 square meters,
will be used for a wide range of physical exercises and matches. The
structure will also feature classrooms for preschoolers, and an
underground bomb shelter where the residents of Ditavan, which is
located near the border with Azerbaijan, will be able to take cover in
case of an emergency.

“Ditavan is burgeoning in front of our very eyes,” said Ara Vardanyan,
executive director of the Hayastan All-Armenian Fund, and continued,
“With its recently built infrastructures and community institutions,
this village stands apart as among the best in not only the Tavush
province, but Armenia as a whole. For this achievement, the support of
the Ekserciyan family has been invaluable. Today, we are delighted
that Mrs. Nadya continues the benevolent work of her late husband,
Armen Ekserciyan, by providing ongoing support for the steady growth
of Ditavan.”

Through the Ekserciyan family’s contributions totaling nearly $1.5
million, since 2007 the fund has implemented a string of development
projects in Ditavan, which has a population of 412. They include
natural-gas and water networks, as well as a school and a
multifunctional community center. In addition, the Ekserciyans provide
social assistance to Ditavan’s newly-wed couples and families with
newborns, and contribute to agricultural-development projects carried
out in the village.

In recognition of the Ekserciyans’ far-reaching support, Ditavan has
named its school, main street, and square after the benefactors, who
have also been made Honorary Citizens of the village.

US Ambassador to Armenia contributes to construction of longest zip line in the world

Jack Hunanian
news.am, Armenia
June 9 2017
US Ambassador to Armenia contributes to construction of longest zip line in the world

17:00, 09.06.2017
 

The amount required for the construction of the longest zip line in the world has been collected.

According to Marketing Coordinator of Yell Extreme Park, Gegham Vardanyan, during the fundraising about $22,165 thousand was collected instead of the needed $20,000. 310 participants from 21 countries took part in the fundraising. 70 percent of the funds were transferred from Armenia, Russia and US coming second and third. Together with Georgia they collected overall 93 percent of the funds.

Armenian PM Karen Karapetyan and US Ambassador to Armenia Richard Mills, as well as private entrepreneurs and different organizations also transferred funds for the construction of the longest zip line.

The fundraising was held from May 4 to June 2. The longest zip line will be built in Yenokavan village. It will be 2680 meters long and 200-300 meters high. The flight will last 3-4 minutes at a speed of 120 kmh.

Author of the Yell Extreme Park project and co-founder of the park, Tigran Chibukhchyan, noted that the project is quite complex from the point of view of engineering.

It is planned to launch the construction after June 20. The Armenian side will be supported by specialists from Georgia, France and Austria. “We would very much like to put the zip line in commission by late June, but we will be able to mention the precise deadlines in the first week of July,” Chibukhchyan noted.