11:10,
YEREVAN, FEBRUARY 20, ARMENPRESS. President of Artsakh (Nagorno Karabakh) Arayik Harutyunyan, State Minister Ruben Vardanyan and Speaker of Parliament Artur Tovmasyan visited the Stepanakert Memorial Complex to pay tribute to the memory of the fallen heroes on the occasion of the 35th anniversary of the Artsakh Movement, also known as Karabakh Movement.
Other government officials were also accompanying the top leadership, Harutyunyan’s office said in a press release.
Thursday,
Squatters Evicted From Former Defense Ministry Building
• Robert Zargarian
Armenia - Squatters evicted from the former Defense Ministry building outside
Yerevan, .
The Armenian police made more than 20 arrests on Thursday as they evicted
hundreds of squatters from the former building of the country’s Defense Ministry.
The building located about 15 kilometers west of Yerevan housed the ministry
until 2005. More than 150 impoverished families moved to occupy its rooms in the
following years.
The Armenian government decided last year to give the high-rise to its State
Revenue Committee (SRC). The agency comprising the national tax and customs
services is due to relocate there in 2027 after a large-scale reconstruction.
The occupants of the abandoned building received formal eviction orders last
month. They refused to move out, saying that they are too poor to rent, let
alone buy, homes elsewhere.
Hundreds of police officers scuffled with some squatters as they began the
evictions early in the morning. A police spokesman said later in the day that
more than two dozen people were detained as a result.
Armenia - Riot police guard the former Defense Ministry building cleared of
squatters, .
“Who the hell are you?” one man shouted at the policemen. “Under what law? Tell
us about that law.”
“They kicked the door open. It’s such an inhuman treatment,” said Paulina
Petrosian, a middle-aged woman who has shared a room in the building with her
daughter and two young grandchildren for the last four years.
The family previously lived in Gyumri. Petrosian said it left the city for
economic reasons.
After being forced out of their rooms, the squatters gathered in the building’s
courtyard with suitcases and other belongings, refusing to leave. They said they
have nowhere to live.
“If they give us another place to live in, no problem, we’ll hand their
privatized building back to them,” Petrosian told RFE/RL’s Armenian Service. “If
not, I will stay here with the other people.”
The Armenian Ministry of Labor and Social Affairs promised to provide the
evicted people with temporary housing. The ministry said it is also considering
fully or partly paying their rent.
Karabakh To Reopen Schools Despite Lack Of Gas Heating
• Gayane Saribekian
Nagorno-Karabakh - An empty classroom in a school in Stepanakert, January 20,
2023.
Authorities in Nagorno-Karabakh said on Thursday that they will likely fully
reopen all local schools next week even if Azerbaijan continues to block
Armenia’s natural gas supplies to the region cut off from the outside world.
Dozens of schools using natural gas for heating were shut down on February 7
following a fresh disruption in the gas supplies carried out through
Azerbaijani-controlled territory. About half of Karabakh’s 19,000 or so
schoolchildren are enrolled in them.
Classes were not suspended for high school students because the authorities
installed woodstoves in their classrooms. The other Karabakh schools are now
fully heated by firewood.
Azerbaijan reportedly unblocked the flow of gas to Karabakh on Wednesday only to
halt it again two hours later.
“We have wood-heated schools without a second shift,” said Hasmik Minasian, the
Karabakh education minister. “In other schools we installed stoves for grades
9-12. We will try to organize second shifts for the other students.”
“All schools will probably operate in the coming days,” Minasian told RFE/RL’s
Armenian Service.
Karabakh schools had already been shut down for three times since Azerbaijani
government-backed protesters blocked on December 12 the sole road connecting
Karabakh to Armenia. They were most recently reopened on January 30 after a
partial restoration of the gas supply.
Following the February 7 disruption, Karabakh’s leadership urged the
international community to exert stronger pressure on Azerbaijan to end the
blockade. It accused Baku of trying to create “unbearable” living conditions for
the Karabakh Armenians so that they leave their homes.
Russia, the United States and the European Union have repeatedly urged
Azerbaijan to reopen the Lachin corridor. U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken
telephoned Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev for that purpose late last month.
Aliyev again defended the Azerbaijanis blocking the corridor and demanding that
Baku be given access to “illegal” copper mines in Karabakh.
Pashinian Hopeful About Armenian-Azeri Peace Treaty
• Astghik Bedevian
Czech Republic - Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian and Azerbaijani
President Ilham Aliyev talk during an EU summit in Prague, October 6, 2022.
Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian on Thursday expressed hope that Armenia and
Azerbaijan will finalize in the near future a bilateral peace treaty while again
accusing Baku of trying to depopulate Nagorno-Karabakh through an ongoing
transport blockade.
Pashinian said that Yerevan presented the Azerbaijani side on Wednesday with
fresh proposals regarding the treaty. He did not disclose those proposals or
give other details of the deal discussed by the two countries.
“Obviously, this document should be acceptable to Azerbaijan as well, and we
hope that it will be possible to build on some progress observed as a result of
three rounds of negotiations,” he said during a weekly session of his cabinet.
Azerbaijani leaders have said all along that the treaty must be based on key
elements which it presented to Armenia in March 2022. Those include mutual
recognition of each other’s territorial integrity. This would presumably mean
Armenian recognition of Azerbaijani sovereignty over Karabakh.
Armen Grigorian, the secretary of Armenia’s Security Council, said earlier this
week that the peace deal should make a reference to Karabakh. He said Yerevan is
pressing for an “international mechanism” for direct negotiations between Baku
and Stepanakert regarding the security and rights of Karabakh’s ethnic Armenian
population.
The Azerbaijani Foreign Ministry deplored Grigorian’s comments on Wednesday,
saying they show that Armenia has not abandoned territorial claims to
Azerbaijan. A ministry spokesman ruled out any talks with the Karabakh Armenians
whom he described as Azerbaijani citizens.
Nagorno-Karabakh - Empty shelves at a supermarket in Stepanakert, January 17,
2023.
As well as reaffirming his declared commitment to the Armenian-Azerbaijani
treaty, Pashinian condemned the continuing Azerbaijani blockade of the sole road
connecting Karabakh to Armenia and the outside world. Baku has also been
blocking Armenia’s supplies of electricity and natural gas to Karabakh,
aggravating the humanitarian crisis there.
“Azerbaijan's actions have one goal: to complete the policy of ethnic cleansing
of the Armenians of Nagorno-Karabakh,” charged Pashinian.
Azerbaijan’s Foreign Minister Jeyhun Bayramov again defended Azerbaijani
government-backed protesters blocking the road when he spoke with U.S. Assistant
Secretary of State Karen Donfried by phone on Wednesday for the second time in a
week. Bayramov said that the protesters’ demands for an end to “illegal” mining
in Karabakh have still not been met.
The United States as well as the European Union, Russia and international human
rights organizations have repeatedly called for an immediate reopening of the
Lachin corridor.
Later on Thursday, Pashinian flew to Munich to attend an annual international
security conference that will open in the German city on Friday.
Pashinian’s press office said he will hold “a number of bilateral meetings” with
foreign leaders on the sidelines of the forum. The office declined to say
whether Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev, who is also scheduled to participate
in the Munich Security Conference, will be among them.
Armenia Sees More Progress In Normalization Talks With Turkey
• Ruzanna Stepanian
Turkey/Armenia – The ruins of a medieval Armenian bridge on the Turkish-Armenian
border, April 23, 2014.
Armenia and Turkey have agreed to speed up efforts to normalize their relations,
Foreign Minister Ararat Mirzoyan said on Thursday after his landmark visit to
Ankara.
Mirzoyan met with his Turkish counterpart Mevlut Cavusoglu and also visited
Adiyaman, one of the cities in southeastern Turkey ravaged by last week’s
powerful earthquake. The Armenian government sent more humanitarian aid to its
residents during his trip.
Mirzoyan said he and Cavusoglu reached “concrete understandings” on bilateral
ties as he spoke during a weekly government meeting in Yerevan chaired by Prime
Minister Nikol Pashinian.
“I can announce a decision to accelerate the process of dialogue and the process
aimed at the ultimate opening of the [Turkish-Armenian] border,” he told fellow
cabinet members.
Mirzoyan reiterated that the two sides plan to rebuild a medieval bridge over a
river marking a section of the closed frontier. He also announced that they
could open the border to citizens of third countries as well as holders of
Turkish and Armenian diplomatic passports this summer.
Turkey - Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu and Armenian Foreign Minister
Ararat Mirzoyan meet in Ankara, .
Speaking at a joint news conference with Mirzoyan on Wednesday, Cavusoglu said
the assistance provided by Armenia to victims of the devastating earthquake
could facilitate the normalization process. But he appeared to link that process
to the outcome of Armenian-Azerbaijani peace talks.
Turkey has for decades made the opening of the border and the establishment of
diplomatic relations with Armenia conditional on an Armenian-Azerbaijani peace
deal acceptable to Azerbaijan. Turkish leaders have repeatedly reaffirmed this
precondition since the start of the normalization talks with Yerevan in January
2022.
Ankara briefly opened one of the border crossings on Saturday and Wednesday to
receive two batches of Armenian humanitarian aid. According to Mirzoyan, it will
also allow the 27 members of an Armenian search-and-rescue team, who flew to
Adiyaman last week, to return home through the same border gate.
Reposted on ANN/Armenian News with permission from RFE/RL
Copyright (c) 2023 Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty, Inc.
1201 Connecticut Ave., N.W. Washington DC 20036.
Erdogan considers the meeting with Pashinyan possible
17:15, 1 October 2022
YEREVAN, OCTOBER 1, ARMENPRESS. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has announced that he may meet Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan in Prague at the beginning of October, ARMENPRESS reports, the President of Turkey announced this while giving a speech in the parliament.
"It is possible that we will meet with Pashinyan in Prague," Erdogan said.
Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan did not rule out the possibility of meeting with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan in Prague in an interview given by Public TV on September 30.
press release templates
ARTsakh Arts and Cultural Foundation is proud to announce that Gate to Heaven a film by Jivan Avetisyan, has been included in AMC’s independent programming schedule. Gate to Heaven will see its theatrical release starting October 21, 2022 at the following locations
Boston, AMC Methuen 20
Detroit, Forum 30
Glendale, Americana at Brand 18
Las Vegas, Town Square 18
Orange, Orange 30
Avetisyan spent 38 days in Artsakh during the 2020 war, which began on September 27 and ceased on November 9. He documented the atrocities and war crimes committed by Azerbaijani forces against the Armenian population of Artsakh, including his family. Avetisyan’s quest is to bring awareness to Artsakh by telling these stories and promote peace through the art of filmmaking.
Gate to Heaven is an international war drama starring Richard Sammel, Tatiana Spivakova, Sos Janibekyan, Leo Pobedonoscevas and Naira Zakarian.
In the midst of our unprecedented times coupled with the brutal war in Artsakh (Nagorno Karabakh), Gate to Heaven, a film from Armenia/Artsakh, received a considerable amount of publicity, especially in Europe, Russia and the US. The riveting war drama takes place in Artsakh during the four-day war in 2016.
The film tells the story of Robert Sternvall, a German journalist haunted by his past who returns to Artsakh after a 22-year absence to cover the resurgence of war. In the course of his reporting, Robert meets Sophia Marti, a young opera singer and daughter of missing photojournalist Edgar Martirosyan, who Robert abandoned to be taken captive during the fall of the village of Talish in Nagorno-Karabakh in 1992. As their romance develops, Robert cannot escape from his guilty conscience and must face the truth of his past actions. Meanwhile, the editor-in-chief of the Berlin Post is preparing a grand exhibition to showcase Robert’s talent and celebrate his accomplishments. Sophia is eager to attend the prestigious event, not knowing what awaits her.
Film still from Gate to Heaven
Gate to Heaven has been selected at numerous international film festivals. In September, the film opened the Be Epic! London International Film Festival, where it won in the category of “Best Cinematography.”
Gate to Heaven won “Best Production Design” and “Best Sound Mixer” at the third annual Anahit Film Awards held by Armenian National Film Academy. In October 2021, the film won four awards at the Ontario International Film Festival (ONIFF): “Best Sound,” “Best Music,” “Best Script for the International Feature” and “Best International Feature Film.”
Gate to Heaven film composer Michele Josia of Italy was recognized at the Global Music Awards and was honored as a finalist for “Best Score of the Month” at the Tracks Music Award.
The film’s creative team partnered with MPM Premium International Sales of France in early spring of 2020 to participate in the virtual screening of Cannes Marché du Film. MPM Premium has received numerous leads across the globe, including the United States. Shortly thereafter, Gate to Heaven was selected at Moscow International Film Festival, Non Competition Category.
The film was removed from the festival shortly after the start of the Artsakh War, for which the creators of the film received contradictory explanations. They received an official letter from the festival director six hours after the start of the Artsakh War, stating that the film will be removed from the festival as a precautionary measure “to avoid clashes between Armenians and Azerbaijanis in Moscow.” Yet the team was also alerted that the screening was canceled “due to the political pressures received by Azerbaijani government officials.”
Within a few weeks of the Moscow International Film Festival, the Golden Apricot International Film Festival took place in Yerevan, Armenia. Gate to Heaven was screened during the “Dedication to Artsakh” program, the proceeds of which were donated to Artsakh.
In December 2020, the Cinema for Peace Foundation in Berlin hosted a virtual screening of Gate to Heaven. Sammel joined producer Kestutis Drazdauskas from Lithuania and executive producer Adrineh Mirzayan from the US on a panel titled “Conference for Peace on Nagorno-Karabakh.” They addressed the response of the international community to the war and the role of civil society organizations, filmmakers, human rights experts and EU politicians in peacebuilding.
All proceeds from each screening will benefit Avetisyan’s next film project Revival.
Revival gained international interest by the selection committee of Berlinale Talents at the Berlin International Film Festival. Avetisyan was selected amongst 3,400 applicants to attend Berlinale Talents 2020. Within the talent program, Avetisyan became the subject of a documentary by German international broadcaster Deutsche Welle, DW Documentary.
The project was also selected by Roy W. Dean Grant in the “Hot Films in the Making” category. From the Heart Productions hosted the film on their website for a year to help raise funds.
Avetisyan and his team are also in the development phase of the Black List, a feature film inspired by the life of Alexander Lapshin, a popular Russian-Israeli travel blogger who unwittingly found himself on Azerbaijan’s infamous black list.
Gate to Heaven was produced by Fish eye Art Cultural Foundation (Armenia), Artbox Production House (Lithuania), 7 Morgen Filmproduktion (Germany), Glaam Media Invest (France), ARTsakh Arts and Cultural Foundation (USA), Timeless Production Group (Bulgaria), The Lab – a Media Production Company (Czech Republic) and Ala Bianca SRL (Italy).
Armenia is dissatisfied with the CSTO response to Azerbaijani aggression, Armenian parliament speaker Alen Simonyan said during an interview to Public TV Channel.
“Our expectations are not met. It will be difficult for us, being in constant contact with the people, to explain to them why the CSTO does not take the measures envisaged. Naturally, we have made, are making and will make conclusions,” he said.
Simonyan also added that at the same time, the Armenian side keeps expecting an appropriate reaction from CSTO: “Although, one may wonder what else to expect.
In this context, Simonyan drew parallels with a spoiled gun, which can “hit or just scare”. The speaker also agreed with the anchor’s comment that Azerbaijan “doesn’t take this gun” seriously.
“If it seems to you or the viewers that I will defend the CSTO, I have no such desire. I fully share that assessment. We’re talking about what to do. And I do not think that now is the time to make any sudden moves, but I share the assessment,” he stressed.
Simonyan recalled that Armenia and Russia also have an agreement on friendship and mutual assistance and according to him, the Armenian side is waiting for more tangible actions, rather than statements.
He said he was outraged by the provocative statements made on Russian public TV channels about the Armenian authorities: “I honestly don’t understand what kind of strategy this is and what goal it pursues.
Responding to a question on U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s upcoming visit, Simonyan said she is visiting Armenia on his invitation. To his conviction, the decision of visiting Armenia is an assessment of the democratic situation in the country by Washington. Simonian thanked her for not canceling her previously planned trip.
“Her visit to Armenia will be of great importance precisely in terms of security,” the speaker said.
He added that now both Pelosi and other partners are expected only on security issues and all contacts are about that.
Hrachya Aghajanyan will never forget the moment soil cascaded onto his head when he tried to open the door to a tiny abandoned shack in his grandparents’ Armenian village.
“I closed it quickly before the roof caved in,” says Aghajanyan. “The lady who owned the property said not to go in because the wood could be saved for her fireplace.” The ceiling, and the house, remained intact. So did one of the home’s most treasured objects: an 11th-century tonir.
In ancient Armenia, peasant homes like the one Aghajanyan tried to enter always had a tonir, a small tandoor oven built from clay and stone into the ground. The tonir was essential to daily life, used for baking the every-meal staple of lavash bread, providing warmth, and even hosting sacred ceremonies such as marriages. Its round “eternity” shape mimicked the sun, a key symbol of Armenia’s heritage that is found throughout local architecture.
Despite such historical importance, many tonirs were covered up and fell into disuse during the rise of industrial baking in the late 1980s. But a new generation of Armenians is giving the tonir a renaissance, both by modernizing old ovens and building new ones to cook both traditional Armenian and non-traditional dishes.
Aghajanyan, a former Armenian Ambassador to Denmark and Norway, discovered the tonir in the soil-covered shack in 2019. He was in Tsaghkunk, about a half-hour’s drive from the capital Yerevan, working for a historical-cultural NGO called Bnorran (“The Cradle” in English). He figured the property’s main building, a former canteen for Soviet farmers where his aunt used to work, could be an interesting restoration project.
As a kid, when staying at his grandparents’ home about a kilometer away, Aghajanyan would often walk by and hope his grandmother would give him a treat. Only in adulthood did he appreciate the sweet tonir-cooked pastries and the lavash his grandmother would make in her home, toiling for hours over the embers with other local village women. When they were young, he and his cousins were not aware of the oven’s sacred importance—they would run and jump over the stone covers, naughtily light small fires, play Hide and Seek, and even smooch their crushes inside.
In spring 2019, a three-month excavation of the shack next to the canteen revealed artifacts dating as far back as the 11th century, including the tonir. “When I saw it, I knew we could attract thousands of visitors,” he says
Aghajanyan purchased the property, renovated the canteen, and in June 2021, the restaurant Tsaghkunk (named after the village) was born. The found tonir has been covered in glass and preserved as a historical attraction, but the restaurant uses two new tonirs to cook dishes made from Armenia’s diverse local pantry, which includes wild herbs and flowers, grains and seafood. Tonir-centric recipes, like the signature roasted duck and beetroot, take a New Nordic approach to Armenian cuisine. They have been partly developed by Mads Refslund, cofounder of Noma, which is widely recognized as the world’s best restaurant. Aghajanyan cultivated the Refslund connection via a contact from his ambassador days.
According to Armenian food historian Ruzanna Tsaturyan, the popularity of tonirs has increased substantially in the last 30 years. Following the collapse of the Soviet Union, food shortages and electricity crises saw people baking their own lavash bread and barbecuing meat with tonirs. The rise of new gastronomy and tourism businesses in Armenia has cemented a renewed interest in tonir cooking, including a recent Smithsonian Institution program and lavash being named to UNESCO’s Intangible Heritage List in 2013.
“During the period of industrialization, we didn’t understand the treasure of the tonir,” she says. “Nowadays, I’m sure no one in the entire region would touch one single stone if they discovered a tonir on their land.”
Restoring and building tonirs is a thriving trade. Gexam Gharibyan is one of the handful of Armenia’s remaining tonir craftsmen. He has been in the profession for 46 years and represents the third generation of the family business.
Gharibyan remembers the old Soviet days, when he mixed clay by foot and the family made pitchers instead of tonirs due to their lack of popularity. Now he cannot keep up with orders for tonirs for Armenian businesses and private customers, at home and abroad. While his son had originally wanted to leave the family business due to its physically demanding nature, he changed his mind 20 years ago after seeing how profitable it had become.
Gharibyan is now working on modernizing the craft with new ideas. He has invented a pizza-oven tonir and portable tonirs with wheels for catering events, “since Armenians think everything tastes better when it’s cooked in clay,” he says.
Meanwhile, Hrachya Aghajanyan, with all the time spent at his restaurant Tsaghkunk, is also never too far from his roots. Now that he is the father of a 12-year-old girl, being in the place where he grew up and spreading the taste of tonir cooking and Armenian heritage is even more important to him—and what he considers part of an infinite cycle, like the tonir’s shape itself.
“Our cemeteries are on the hill of this village,” he says. “Tradition is forever. You can enjoy and appreciate the world, but this is the place where you came from and where you’ll end.”
16:10,
YEREVAN, AUGUST 30, ARMENPRESS. The Ministry of Labor and Social Affairs of Armenia drafted and put into circulation a bill on providing assistance in the form of a one-time payment to the victims of the Surmalu trade center explosion.
The ministry proposes to pay 150,000 drams and 300,000 drams to persons who were injured in the blast and received hospital treatment for up to 3 days and more than 3 days respectively.
Families of those who were killed in the explosion (including missing persons) will receive a 3,000,000 dram assistance for every victim (or missing person).
The August 14 explosion at the Surmalu trade center killed 16 people and injured over 60.
1 person is missing in the blast.
Greek F-16 fighters pursued two Turkish F-16s during a NATO NEXUS ACE training mission in the Aegean Sea. This was reported by the Turkish TV channel Haber Turk, citing a source in the Turkish Ministry of National Defense.
This is the second such incident in the Aegean. The Turkish side announced them to the central apparatus of the North Atlantic Alliance.
According to the channel, similar incidents took place on August 23 and 24.
In turn, the Greek Ministry of National Defense reported that on August 23, Turkish fighter jets committed 78 violations of Greek airspace, each time Greek military aircraft rose to intercept them.
Cyprus Airways announced today its third weekly direct flight to Yerevan, Armenia.
The added frequency, starting on September 13 continues increasing capacity on the route following its successful launch late last month.
Yerevan is the capital and largest city of Armenia, as well as one of the world’s oldest continuously inhabited cities.
Situated along the Hrazdan River, it is the administrative, cultural, and industrial centre of the
Paul Sies, CEO, Cyprus Airways, said: “Following this successful launch and increasing demand,an additional weekly flight to Yerevan was inevitable. It shows our intent to grow and expand our international network further.”
Flights to Athens have effectively been increased to double daily; Beirut becomes a daily service, while flights to Tel-Aviv increased to six weekly services.
Cyprus Airways will soon be announcing its winter 2022/23 flight schedule with new frequencies to the most popular destinations at the best value for money prices.
The airline also announced it will increase frequencies on its most popular routes.
Cyprus Airways currently operates to Athens, Thessaloniki, Preveza, Skiathos, Rhodes, Santorini, Heraklion, Tel Aviv, and Beirut.