Author: Chatinian Lara

DIVERSITY MANIA
By Walter E Williams

WorldNetDaily, OR
Nov 1 2006

There are some ideas so ludicrous and mischievous that only an
academic would take them seriously. One of them is diversity. Think
about it. Are you for or against diversity? When’s the last time
you said to yourself, "I’d better have a little more diversity in my
life"? What would you think if you heard a Microsoft director tell
his fellow board members that the company should have more diversity
and manufacture kitchenware, children’s clothing and shoes? You’d
probably think the director was smoking something illegal.

Our institutions of higher learning take diversity seriously and
make it a multimillion-dollar operation. The Juilliard School has
a director of diversity and inclusion; Massachusetts Institute of
Technology has a manager of diversity recruitment; Toledo University,
an associate dean for diversity; the universities of Harvard, Texas
A&M, California at Berkeley, Virginia and many others boast of
officers, deans, vice-presidents and perhaps ministers of diversity.

(Column continues below)

George Leef, director of the John W. Pope Center for Higher Education
Policy in Raleigh, N.C., writes about this in an article titled "Some
Questions about Diversity" in the Oct. 5 issue of Clarion Call. Mr.
Leef suggests that only in academia is diversity pursued for its
own sake, but there’s a problem: Everyone, even if they are the
same ethnicity, nationality or religion, is different. Suppose two
people are from the same town in Italy. They might differ in many
important respects: views on morality, religious and political beliefs,
recreation preferences and other characteristics.

Mr. Leef says that some academics see diversity as a requirement
for social justice – to right historical wrongs. The problem here is
that if you go back far enough, all groups have suffered some kind
of historical wrong. The Irish can point to injustices at the hands
of the British, Jews at the hands of Nazis, Chinese at the hands of
Indonesians, and Armenians at the hands of the Turks.

Of course, black Americans were enslaved, but slavery is a condition
that has been with mankind throughout most of history. In fact,
long before blacks were enslaved, Europeans were enslaved. The word
slavery comes from Slavs, referring to the Slavic people, who were
early slaves. White Americans, captured by the Barbary pirates, were
enslaved at one time or another. Whites were indentured servants
in colonial America. So what should the diversity managers do about
these injustices?

When academics call for diversity, they’re really talking about racial
preferences for particular groups of people, mainly blacks.

The last thing they’re talking about is intellectual diversity.

According to a recent national survey, reported by the American
Council of Trustees and Alumni in "Intellectual Diversity," 72 percent
of college professors describe themselves as liberal and 15 percent
conservative. Liberal professors think their classrooms should be used
to promote a political agenda. The University of California recently
abandoned a provision on academic freedom that cautioned against using
the classroom for propaganda. The president said the regulation was
"outdated."

Americans, as taxpayers and benefactors, have been exceedingly
generous to our institutions of higher learning. That generosity has
been betrayed. Rich Americans, who acquired their wealth through our
capitalist system, give billions to universities. Unbeknownst to them,
much of that money often goes to faculty members and programs that
are openly hostile to donor values. Universities have also failed
in their function of the pursuit of academic excellence by having
dumbed down classes and granting degrees to students who are just
barely literate and computationally incompetent.

What’s part of Williams’ solution? Benefactors should stop giving
money to universities that engage in racist diversity policy. Simply
go to the university’s website, and if you find offices of diversity,
close your pocketbook. There’s nothing like the sound of pocketbooks
snapping shut to open the closed minds of administrators.

icle.asp?ARTICLE_ID=52707

MEETING OF AZERBAIJANI AND GEORGIAN FOREIGN MINISTERS HELD IN BAKU

Regnum, Russia
Nov 1 2006

On October 31, Georgian Foreign Minister Gela Bezhuashvili arrived
in Baku on short-term visit. He met with his Azerbaijani colleague
Elmar Mamedyarov and planned to go to Moscow on the same day; a REGNUM
correspondent informs.

After the meeting was over, Minister Elmar Mamedyarov stressed at
briefing that the parties had discussed interstate bilateral ties.

According to him, regional projects in economic sphere were considered
at the meeting. Elmar Mamedyarov and Gela Bezhuashvili agreed to
hold joint sitting of state commission on border delimitation and
demarcation next month in Baku.

Responding to question of journalists, Gela Bezhuashvili stressed
that issue of gas transportation to Georgia via Azerbaijani
territory was not discussed at the meeting. "However, the issue was
discussed at power engineering ministries’ level. Georgia is going
to transport Iranian gas via Azerbaijani territory." Speaking about
role of Azerbaijan in Russian-Georgian relations’ normalization,
Bezhuashvili stated that they do not need intermediary services of
other countries. "We will lead these relations up to necessary level
ourselves. Azerbaijan is natural mediator in the process.

Responding to journalists’ questions at the briefing, Elmar
Mamedyarov expressed his attitude to Nagorno Karabakh settlement on
the basis of Kosovo’s model. "Every conflict has its own history and
peculiarities. It is impossible to settle conflicts on the basis of
the same formula."

A PLOT OF ONE’S OWN
By Vasily Uzun

Russia Profile, Russia
Oct 31 2006

Land Reform Shows that Small Farms Can Produce Big Results

The transition from a socialist-style planned economy to a market
economy in Russia involved radical changes in land relations. In
the Soviet era, all land was exclusively the property of the state,
given for free to those who used it in perpetuity. Changes in the
way communal farms used land were permitted only with the approval
of federal and regional authorities.

The 1990s land reforms sought to improve resource use efficiency
through privatization of collective-farm land and liberalizing
the market for land plots. These privatization mechanisms, and
the subsequent trading of land, did have a positive effect on the
efficiency of agricultural land usage.

In the post-Soviet space, the privatization of collective farm land
was done in a variety of ways, depending on the region. In the Baltic
States, the land was returned to its former owners; in Armenia,
the land was allotted to families living in the villages at the time
of the reforms. In Russia, farm land was allocated to farm members
in standard parcels. If farm laborers then chose to leave the farm,
they would receive the same amount of land elsewhere in Russia.

One of the reasons restitution was technically impossible to carry
out in Russia in the early 1990s was because citizens did not have
documents confirming property rights. The idea of giving each family
a land plot was also considered, but was rejected on the grounds that
most communal farmers were unprepared to work on their own.

As a result of the reforms, some 120 million hectares, or 60 percent
of farm holdings, were divided into shares, and 12 million people
became landowners. Owners of land shares had the right to use
their segments to create or expand a farm business or to use them
as private gardens. Shares could also be sold, rented, given away,
used as capital, or passed on to descendants.

Before the reforms, virtually all Russian farmland, some 221 million
hectares, was used by communal farms. Only about 4 million hectares
functioned as private gardens. Following the introduction of reforms,
5 percent of communal farmers, as well as some city dwellers,
pooled land plots, obtained land from the state redistribution fund
or rented land parcels from shareholders in a drive to create their
own agri-businesses. By the start of 2006, this group of people held
19.5 million hectares of farmland.

There were huge variations in the ways in which land reform was
carried out in different parts of the country: many regions were able
to put off introducing private property for as much as 49 years,
according to a 2002 law on land trading; most villagers rented out
their land shares to nascent agribusinesses joint-stock companies
or cooperatives created from reformed communal farms; agriculture is
generally loss-making in northern zones, where not all agricultural
organizations have rental contracts with land-share owners, and
roughly a quarter of all land parceled out is used by agricultural
organizations without a signed agreement.

The method of land privatization adopted in Russia made it possible
for people who live in rural areas to assume land ownership rights
on a voluntary basis while allowing major farms to continue working
by renting land shares. This setup avoided strip farming as well as
the division of all of Russia into 5-by-10-hectare chunks.

But Russia’s agricultural land privatization system had some obvious
drawbacks. For example, land shares are not accurately demarcated:
holders know roughly where their fields are but not the precise
location; agribusiness managers are able to use shared land without
signing agreements with the owners and, to this day, 15 years after
the reforms began, land share owners still do not clearly understand
their rights and responsibilities.

The authorities in many post-Soviet countries including Ukraine,
Moldova, Georgia, Azerbaijan, and Kyrgyzstan have already divided
up their land into plots. But these countries now face the problem
of consolidating the divided parcels into optimal-sized units. This
process is also slowly getting underway in Russia, but lacks the
necessary political or legal infrastructure.

In recent years, Russia has seen relatively active trade in
agricultural land. It is being bought up, rented out long-term or
added to the charter capital of agribusinesses. As of Jan. 1, 2005,
legal entities in the Moscow Region mainly agribusinesses and other
investors held more than 300,000 hectares of land, or roughly 25
percent of farm holdings in the region. Agribusinesses have also taken
control of most of the agricultural land in the regions around Moscow,
including Belgorod and Oryol regions.

Land can be transferred from a share owner to an agribusiness or
other investor based on buy-sell agreements (as is the practice
of Inteko holding in Belgorod Region) by absorbing the shares into
charter capital (a procedure applied by Stoilenskaya Niva, also of
Belgorod), or by oligarchs buying up the land and property of bankrupt
agricultural firms. Agribusinesses have been created in Oryol and
Rostov using long-term agreements for land shares, as well as in
Stavropol and Krasnodar territories.

But investors in all regions are pumping money into agriculture and
creating larger business structures. In cases where sizeable farms
broke apart due to their inability to deal with competition from
domestic and foreign producers, rural residents left without jobs
were obliged to take care of their own gardens. Eventually land
share owners on such farms expanded their plots, a process that
has intensified over the last few years. In early 2006, roughly 10
million hectares of shared land had been added to market gardens,
and people were farming it themselves.

It was widely supposed that once land reforms took hold, large
Western-style organizations would replace collective farms. Although
such farms have appeared, they make up just 6 percent of gross
production. However large agribusinesses have developed rapidly,
and range from 10 to a 100 times the area of former collective farms.

On the other hand, most production over 50 percent is concentrated
in private market gardens, most of which comprise less than half a
hectare of land with one or two cows.

Although most Russians think farming has neither taken off in Russia
nor has a future, the dynamics of land redistribution suggest that
less and less land is being used by major agricultural organizations,
while the share of family farms in cultivated land is increasing. In
1990, these farms accounted for less than 2 percent of agricultural
holdings, but by 1995 this figure was 18 percent and by 2006, it had
risen to 28 percent.

In the socialist economy, the state set targets for agricultural
holdings and new area cultivation regardless of the suitability of
the plot. For example, land that eroded barely produced any crops,
yet was included in targets.

With the transition to a market economy, agricultural producers
stopped using 22 million hectares of available terrain. Between 1990
and 2006, the area used by agricultural businesses dropped by 72
million hectares, or 34 percent, while the proportion used by private
cultivators and farmers increased from 4 to 54 million hectares
(more than 13 times).

Much has been written about the drop in land use by agricultural
organizations, but few studies have analyzed which lands were abandoned
and in which regions. Published in 2003, Tatyana Nefyodova’s book,
Fragmentation of Rural Russia, showed that such areas were located
mostly in the "non-Black Earth periphery," in other words, outside
Russia’s most fertile agricultural region.

One study examined Russia’s administrative districts by looking
at percentage change in land planted by agricultural organizations
between 1995 and 2003. Regions with a low bio-climactic potential
suffered reduced plowed and crop areas and low grain yield.

Similarly, the higher the yield and bio-climatic potential, the
smaller the reduction in cultivated land. It also became obvious that
agricultural organizations reduced the amount of land in use in an
attempt to produce higher return from their inputs.

The usage efficiency of agricultural holdings fell until 1998, but has
risen in recent years. However, this process has taken different forms
depending on the size of the producer. Agribusinesses have continued
to reduce the size of their plots while simultaneously boosting gross
production, leading to an increase in return of 35 percent in 2003
compared to 1998.

Despite different tendencies in return rates, family farms are using
land much more efficiently than agribusinesses. Each hectare used
by small landholders produces 4.5 times more gross product and 10
times more added value. Of course, such a difference in efficiency is
only partially explained by better land quality or by more intensive
cultivation and greater cattle density per area.

Besides these factors, another considerable influence is that people
make unlicensed use of land officially registered to agribusinesses, as
well as a significant amount of feedstock produced by agribusinesses
given to rural residents as part of the rental costs for their
land shares.

"MUASIR MUSAVAT" PARTY LAID BLACK WREATH IN FRONT OF FRENCH EMBASSY
Author: J.Shahverdiyev

TREND, Azerbaijan
Oct 31 2006

On October 31 at 15:00, "Muasir Musavat" Party laid a black wreath
in front of the French Embassy in Azerbaijan after holding a picket,
Trend reports.

The police did not allow the participants of the picket to approach
the Embassy. The picket was held to protest the French Parliament’s
adopting the law penalizing the denial of so-called "Armenian
genocide". The resolution of the picket was presented to the Embassy,
and a black wreath was laid in front of the embassy.

Oppositional "Muasir Musavat" Party was created in 2002. The picket
finished without any incidents.

YEREVAN-BAKU DIALOGUE NOT EXHAUSTED

PanARMENIAN.Net
30.10.2006 16:41 GMT+04:00

/PanARMENIAN.Net/ "Any meetings and talks – are already boon even
if they bring no result. Much worse if the sides have no wish and
possibility to meet and hold talks, let us take Georgia and Russian,
for example," Chief of the Department of CIS Countries of the Russian
Institute of Strategic Research, Candidate of Historical Sciences
Alexander Skakov said in an interview with PanARMENIAN.Net. In
his opinion the potential of the Armenian-Azeri dialogue has been
exhausted. "Meetings at the presidential and ministerial level are a
positive phenomenon but expecting the leaders to make halfway would be
impracticable now. In my opinion, the problem of the Armenian-Azeri
relations is the ill will of the peoples heated up by the history
and patterns of the politicians. At the same time we are neighbors
and will remain such," he said.

"The task of the peaceful process is to establish dialogue between
the publics. In this case the terms of the Karabakh settlement, let it
be 3 or 30 years, becomes not so important. The security zone and the
actual front line can be maintained until they become unnecessary. May
be it seems fantastic but I do not see any other way of settlement
at present. I do not think that the leaders of the two states should
dedicate their meetings to the search of a universal compromise. They
have better improve the atmosphere of the Armenian-Azeri relations. For
example, establishment of transport communication should precede the
conflict settlement," the Russian analyst said.

GAS PIPELINE IS A PROBLEM FOR RUSSIA

A1+
[06:34 pm] 30 October, 2006

RA President Robert Kocharyan has arrived in Moscow on official
duty. Today he will meet RF President Vladimir Putin.

According to Russian Mass Media, during the meeting alongside with
other issues the Presidents will discuss cooperation in gas supply
field.

They will particularly refer to the gas pipeline Iran-Armenia which
will be exploited in December.

"First the gas pipeline was supposed to supply Armenia with as
much gas as the population of the country needs, that is to say,
1.1 billion cubic meters per year. But now Yerevan and Tehran speak
about doubling that number. It is obvious that they are interested
in transporting Iranian gas to Europe. This can’t be favorable for
Moscow", news.ru reports.

The control over this gas pipeline is important for Russia, especially
from the point of view of the relations with Georgia. The economy of
Armenia already suffers losses because of the tension in the relations
of Russia and Georgia.

Now Moscow can stop the gas supply of Georgia without harming their
"strategic ally", as the Iranian gas pipeline will be exploited in
less than two months.

Like the other CIS countries, Armenia buys Russian gas for 110 USD
for 1000 cubic meters. But Russia compensated for the different in
price supplying Armenia with weaponry, news.ru reports.

WHAT IT TAKES TO BE ARMENIAN IN BULGARIA
A report by Dafina Boshnakova

Sofia Echo, Bulgaria
Oct 30 2006

PRESERVANCE: Priest Kusan from Holy Virgin Mary church keeps faith
and language alive for the Armenians in Sofia.A look at the past,
present and future of a community that has become an integral part
of Bulgarian life.

"I remember my childhood days in Varna when my family visited
relatives. Having guests is a ritual for Armenians. There would
always be a meal prepared and everybody would sit at the table eating,
drinking and talking. Sometimes we would go there at noon and leave
at late evening.

"The funniest part of the visit would start when someone would say
it was about time we had left. Then, all of a sudden, the hosts would
bring one more dish or start pouring coffee. In this fashion we would
spend another hour. When we would manage to get up and start for the
door, our relatives would stop us at the top of the staircase (for
the dining room in their house was on the first floor) and everybody
would continue chatting as if they hadn’t met for ages. Half an hour
more would pass.

"When we would finally get to the door on the ground floor, our
hosts would keep us there 30 minutes more, talking incessantly. So
traditionally it would take us about two hours to be actually able
to leave our relatives’ house."

This story is one of the numerous memories of Mishel Gutsuzian, 27,
a representative of the youngest generation of Bulgarian Armenians.

Despite that his mother is a Bulgarian and that he presently lives
in Sofia, away from his relatives, Mishel feels proud of his Armenian
origin.

But what does it mean to be Armenian in Bulgaria? One general thing
could be said – Bulgarians don’t consider them different. They are
so well integrated, that usually only their surname ending with the
typical -ian gives them away. It strange but true – Bulgarians don’t
fancy Turks too much and they quite dislike Roma people. At the same
time, Bulgarians feel Armenians to be part of their nation and have
no negative stereotypes about them.

It could be the result of the hundreds of years of peaceful
co-existence. Protobulgarians and Armenians had their first interaction
1900 years ago, and Armenians have lived on the Balkans for more than
1500 years. Throughout this time, political changes have obviously
strengthened all the more the relationship between the two nations.

Armenians have a unique fate that probably could be likened only to
that of Jews. This talented nation has put its grandest historical
achievements not in its own state and culture, wrote English
Byzantologist R Genkins.

Centuries of trial Although Armenia is one of the most ancient and
still-existing countries, it has suffered numerous dominations and vast
parts of its territory were torn apart by its neighbours. In 387 the
Roman Empire and Persia finally divided Armenia in two parts. Since
then, over 1600 years now, the state of existence of two Armenias –
East and West – has continued. Their sovereignty and their belonging to
one or another foreign country changed through the centuries depending
on the geopolitical situation in the region and the world as a whole.

One sole fact speaks for itself – the present Armenian country is
fully within the borders of East Armenia. The rest of the historical
Armenian lands are in Turkey.

Armenians might very well be called a nation of fugitives. Today
there are about three million people living in Armenia, and another
10 million scattered all around the world. Migrating has become their
fate – Armenian mercenary armies were first settled in the lands of
nowadays Bulgaria by the Byzantine emperors in the sixth century.

With each new conqueror, new groups of Armenians were displaced and
very often sent to the Balkan Peninsula. Armenians left their lands
not only because of the oppression of foreign rulers. The unfavourable
natural resources and conditions in their territory were one more
reason that besides foreign occupations that urged Armenians to find
other places to live.

Even bigger were the migration waves during the period of Ottoman
domination. At that time, both Bulgaria and Armenia were within the
borders of the Turkish empire. Travelling for the purposes of trade
and crafts fostered the relations between the two peoples. Probably
that is the time when the Armenians realised they would stay in
Bulgarian lands for good. So they started building churches and
founding schools. The common faith – Christianity – also helped
Bulgarians and Armenians to grow closer.

The sad events in the history of the Armenian nation at the end of
the 19th and the beginning of the 20 century turned Armenians and
Bulgarians into close friends once and for all. Armenians still fight
for a worldwide recognition of the genocide inflicted on them.

Bulgaria is one of the few countries that openly accepted the refugees
from that period, and that is why Armenians are ever thankful to
the Bulgarians.

A nation of fugitives But let’s give it a clear explanation. By the
end of the 19th century, Bulgaria was already a free country. Its
liberation had been acquired through a war between Russia and the
Ottoman Empire, the battles held on Bulgarian lands with the active
participation of many Bulgarian volunteer detachments. Although
unstable and just starting to make its way through the complicated
situation of the day, Bulgaria was free. At the same time, the Ottoman
Empire was already on the deathbed, striving to survive and crumbling
under the pretence of its own ruler.

The sultan Abdul Hamit II feared to death that someone might undermine
his unlimited authority. Hence he had become hostile to every kind of
national-liberation movement in the empire. Armenians were first on his
list of culprits. During the 1880s, a vast plan for their genocide was
developed. It included depriving Armenians of the protection of law,
seizing by force of Armenian property, organisation to systematically
massacre them. Of course, everything was carried on unofficially. The
aim of the sultan was that Armenians revolt against such treatment,
which reaction would be the perfect pretext to officially use armed
force against them.

The result of the sultan’s 1894-1896 campaign: 300 000 victims and
500 000 refugees. Bulgaria reacted immediately: the ships Bulgaria,
Knyaz Boris and Istanbul transported Armenians to the Bulgarian Black
Sea ports for free. The government granted the refugees money and
exempted from taxation all petty tradesmen, craftsmen and those who
had managed to receive agricultural land.

Like everybody, Armenians hoped that the downfall of the Ottoman Empire
would mean end to the oppression. Wrong. The Young Turks proved to
be more barbaric even than the retrograde sultan had been.

Only one generation, 20 years, had passed. Armenians had fresh memories
of the loss of friends and relatives. And everything repeated all over
again, but on a grander, more horrifying scale, from between 1915-1916
and until there was mass Armenian deportation to the most distant
desert parts of Turkey. People were simply left out there and were
told they had to find a way to survive. Men, who were more likely to
fight against the Turks, were collected from around the towns and shot.

That period saw the loss of 1.5 million Armenian lives and the flight
of another 800 000 people. The fact that Bulgaria officially opened
its borders for the refugees is a credit to the state. Actually,
Bulgaria had just gone through three wars (two Balkan wars and World
War 1) that had exhausted its resources to the utmost extent.

Nevertheless Knyaz Boris III ordered with a decree that all Armenians
should be accepted into the country. They numbered about 20 000.

Nowadays, Armenians from all over the world celebrate April 24 as a
memorial day to the victims of the genocide. The date is used to launch
campaigns for recognition of the genocide, appointed by the respective
country’s parliament. Although the UN had acknowledged the genocide
back in 1945, many states still have no official standpoint on the
topic. The greatest problem probably is with Turkey, which stubbornly
continues denying that something like that had ever happened.

According to the official census from 2001, presently in Bulgaria
there live about 13 000 Armenians. Unofficial data of the Armenian
church gives even a larger number – about 20 000. Almost all of them
(about 95 per cent) live in towns and their occupation is very often
connected on trade, crafts or arts. There even exists such a stereotype
in Bulgarian minds about Armenians – that they are goldsmiths (or
other craftsmen, who are skilful in producing exquisite things),
and that they have never practiced hard physical work.

"Usually when I say my name, people recognise my Armenian origin,"
Anton Hekimian, 22, a student at Sofia University, explains. "Next
thing that happens is that everybody starts talking about us being
goldsmiths and so on," he smiles. As a matter of fact, his grandfather,
one of the refugees from 1915-1922, had been a shoemaker. The other
curious fact is that only when his father married a Bulgarian,
did he "discover" the difference between the various agricultural
implements. "So it’s not true that Armenians never worked in the
fields. My farther did. Because of his love for my mother," said Anton.

The role of faith There is one thing most characteristic of the
Armenian communities outside their home country. They keep tight
relationships, support each other and do their best to preserve their
cultural identity.

Their solidarity is so popular that Bulgarians started joking that all
you need is put three Armenians together and they will immediately
build a church, found a school and start publishing a newspaper. At
the same time, Armenians are not insular and they actively co-operate
to establish connection between themselves and the "host" peoples.

That is how Armenians in Bulgaria have both managed to keep their
traditions and still be active citizens, bringing prosperity to
the country. According to Kusan Hadavian, a priest at Sofia’s Holy
Virgin Mary church, the Armenian minority alone stand closest to the
Bulgarian nation. And that is why they have never created problems
for the government. "We have come here knowing clearly that we need to
obey local laws. But meanwhile we are called to preserve our language,
religion and culture. We shouldn’t allow what we call ‘djermak chart’
to happen – that means we shouldn’t give our traditions up," Father
Kusan explained.

In the past, because of the numerous dominations that the people
of Armenia had suffered, the church played the role of a uniting
centre for all Armenians. It substituted the government, the court,
the schools. Today, with Armenians living abroad, the church again
plays as the centre of their universe.

It is at church service where most of the Bulgarian-Armenians talk
their native language. There people meet not only to pray to God,
but to socialise and to find out what’s new with their friends.

"Conditions of life have changed," admits Father Kusan, "and they
have become more difficult". That’s why the regular-goers have grown
fewer. But at least for tradition’s sake, the temple fills up on
Sundays and major feasts like Easter and at the Nativity.

Maybe preserving the Armenian consciousness is truly in their genes, as
a man from the congregation said. Religion, Christianity to be exact,
is a vital part of that consciousness. It is very unlikely that you
meet an Armenian who doesn’t know how Christianity was spread in his
country. Everybody you ask surely takes pride in the fact that the
religion had been widely popular in Armenia from the very beginning of
its existence in the first century CE. Another thing that you might
hear very often is the fact that the country officially accepted
Christianity even before the Roman Empire did, in 301.

Even though, at present, the Armenians in Bulgaria are less religious
than they were some 20 years ago, they still feel hurt if you neglect
the ancient history of their church. They also insist on making its
actual name clear. Officially it is the Armenian Apostolic Orthodox
Church, and they call it such because the first people to spread
Christianity in the lands of Armenia were two of Jesus’ disciples –
Thaddeus and Bartholomew. One other name for it is Lusavorchagan, after
the most-honoured Armenian saint. He is Krikor Lusavorich (257?-337?),
or Gregory the Illuminator, a reformer of the church during whose
time Christianity was proclaimed the official religion of the country.

Unfortunately, a misunderstanding about these names appeared. In
the 19th century Echmiadzin – the spiritual centre of Armenia – fell
within the borders of the Russian empire. The Russian constitution
demanded that the church bear the name of its founder. That’s why
Armenians started calling it Lusavorchagan, Russians – Enlightener’s,
and in Western Europe it became popular as Armeno-Gregorian. In truth,
the last name created a lot of confusion. Although it was attributed
to Gregory the Illuminator, Western people tend to believe it has
a relation to the Roman Catholic pope Gregory. Armenians deny this
concept as absolutely untrue. Actually this is one main reason why
they insist hard on the name Armenian Apostolic Orthodox Church.

The other reason, of course, is the fact that they want to uphold
their 2000-year-old heritage, starting with Thaddeus and Bartholomew.

Language during service turns out to be both a privilege and a
problem. For many Armenians, the church is the only place where they
can speak it in their otherwise Bulgarian habitat. On the other hand,
it’s so rich and complicated that sometimes it’s hard to understand
the words and chants of the priest. "In order to make ourselves clear
and to attract more pilgrims to service, we ought to use plainer
vocabulary," Father Kusan admits. In his view, another tactic that
could bring more people to the church is publishing a booklet with
the order and texts of service in both Armenian and Bulgarian. That
could also stimulate people to learn the Armenian language better.

Recent challenges During the communist period, in the 1960s,
Armenian schools in Bulgaria were closed. The effects were all
negative. The interest in the study of Armenian language was lost to
a great extent. Twenty years later, when teaching could be resumed,
there were neither qualified professors, nor adequate books, which
created a lot of problems. The contemporary young prefer to study
Bulgarian because they live and work among Bulgarians. While in
past years, 76th elementary school William Saroyan in Sofia has
had classes full of Armenian children, now things have changed:
"There are more than 300 kids here," said Headmistress Stefanova,
"but out of them only about 20 study Armenian language. I believe the
reason is the difference between the generations. The grandparents
insisted much more on knowing the traditions and language. Nowadays
parents are not so much up to that". And there are some the adults,
too, who don’t speak Armenian even at home with their relatives.

It all seems to be connected – the young Armenians in Bulgaria tend
to break the dogmas of their ancestors. You should go to church,
you should speak Armenian, you shouldn’t marry a person who is from a
different nationality… Keeping the "purity" of the blood used to be
an obligation out of question for every Armenian in the country. But
some of its validity was lost 30 years ago, when intermarriages
started.

"A cousin of my father’s fell in love with a Bulgarian girl," gave
Anton as an example. "After the wedding his parents didn’t speak
a word to him for 10 or more years. They were really mad that he
neglected the tradition."

You might think that that’s the natural way for a development of
a nation – where young people revolt against the rules created by
their predecessors. And still there are interesting exceptions from
that like mixed families, where the Bulgarian partner speaks Armenian
perfectly. Anyway, the Armenian people have been put to the test of
time and have survived, keeping their identity intact. Massacres,
emigration, insecurity and assimilation proved weak and couldn’t wipe
them out. In spite of their having lived in Bulgaria for so long,
they keep their face and traits. But then again, they have managed
to integrate so well that no one considers them foreigners. That is
a life approach worth envying.

-room-what-it-takes-to-be-armenian/id_18374/catid_ 29

Hürriyet, Turkey
Oct 27 2006

Ankara disturbed by Romanian appointment to EU Commission

Ankara is reportedly uncomfortable over the decision by Romania,
which will officially become an EU members starting January 1, 2007,
to appoint an ethnically Armenian government member, Senator Varujan
Vosganian, to represent it on the EU Commission. Vosganian, who
belongs to the Romanian Liberal Party, played a critical role in his
country’s decision to declare April 24 "genocide remembrance day."

The 48 year old Vosganian, who presided over the Romanian Senate’s
Budget and Planning Commission, will began his job representing
Romania in Brussels on the first day of the new year.

Rompres news agency, Romania
27 Oct 06

Romanian EU commissioner nominee denies collaborating with Securitate

Bucharest, 27 October: Liberal Senator Varujan Vosganian, who was
nominated for European commissioner from Romania, on Friday [27
October] rejected accusations of having collaborated with the
Securitate, the communist-era secret police. "I never had any kind of
collaboration with any Securitate bodies," said Vosganian, adding
there is no document to prove the accusations levelled against him.
He said the whole affair was a manipulation stirred amid his having
been nominated for European commissioner.

Vosganian stressed that his post-1990 incomes came from the senator’s
pay, the Armenians’ Union, the Romanian Authors’ Union where he is a
vice-president, and from the two micro-enterprises where he is a
major shareholder.

VARTAN OSKANIAN: SPEKING OF THE PRESIDENTS’ MEETING STILL UNTIMELY

ArmRadio.am
26.10.2006 10:12

At this point there is no need for the meeting of the Presidents of
Armenia and Azerbaijan. Speaking of it is untimely, said RA Foreign
Minister Vartan Oskanian, noting that after the November 14th meeting
with the Azerbaijani Foreign Minister in Brussels the OSCE Minsk
Group Co-Chars may visit the region, after which it will be decided
whether the meeting of the Presidents in necessary.

The Minister clarified that the Co-Chairs had suggested several
new ideas at the meeting in Moscow. During the past two weeks
the Armenian side has been discussing these ideas, NKR opinion
has also been considered. The complete position of the Armenian
side was presented October 24 in Paris during the meeting of the
Foreign Ministers of Armenia and Azerbaijan held under the auspice
of the OSCE Minsk Group Co-hairs. Vartan Oskanian noted that there
are no common edges so far, but it is not ruled out that during
the next meeting it will become possible to bring the positions
somehow closer. The Foreign Minister noted also that the document
on principles is quite compete and envisages all the questions,
including the right of self-determination of Arsakhi people and the
status of Nagorno Karabakh. According to him, the document may be
accomplished phase by phase. The question of return of territories is
also part of the common package. The question will be discussed when
there is certain clarity connected with the self-determination aright
and the status of NKR. In Oskanian’s word, by saying "territories"
we mean all the territories – Northern parts of Artsakh, Martakert,
Martuni and Shahumyan. All of these are matters of dispute.