Reporters of “Radiolur” news program of Public Radio of Armenia present a photo report from Mataghis. Unlike , the village of Mataghis is returning to normal life. People are returning to their homes.
Both settlements came under heavy shelling in early April, when Azerbaijan unleashed large-scale military actions against Artsakh.
The interior of the Armenian Taverna needs to be spot listed as The Manchester Museum of The 1970s, Jonathan Schofield writes in an article published by .
The Armenian Taverna carries all the tropes of the ’70s and much more with a big fat extra dollop of wonderfulness.
An absurd muralt stretches around much of the Albert Square basement dining room. You also get signed pictures across other walls of ‘celebs’ who visited the Armenian.
Thing is with the Armenian Taverna there are no recent pictures of celebs and there are a few obvious gaps where perhaps the pictures of Jimmy Saville, Stuart Hall and Rolf Harris have been removed.
“I want the Armenian Taverna to still be around in another 48 years – with the same murals. If not, I want a museum to buy the decor and exhibit it, to show off the utterly bizarre taste of the late sixties and early seventies. Remember this isn’t some kitsch recreation of the period from some jaded marketing team, this is the real crazy and crazed deal,” Jonathan Schofield writes.
Andrew E. Kramer
On a crystalline spring morning, Iosif Adamyan sipped coffee on the veranda of his guesthouse, overlooking a pear orchard in bloom and, in the distance, a range of snowy mountains.
In this picturesque spot, he entertains guests from England, France and Russia; in fact, people from “the whole world,” wind up here, he said, with the peculiarity that many of them speak Armenian.
At the stately Hotel Armenia, which caters to the diaspora visiting the capital of the disputed mountain enclave of Nagorno-Karabakh, dear to the hearts of Armenians everywhere, the dining room clings to the traditional starched tablecloths and, of course, aged Armenian cognac.
“Karabakh is the cradle of Armenia,” said Lyudmila A. Oganyesyan, the director of School No. 3, beautifully restored in a facade of tan, locally quarried stone and paid for, naturally, by a wealthy Armenian benefactor, in this case an insurance executive from Moscow.
For being the capital of a war-afflicted former Soviet splinter region, a category of places better known for mud and misery, Stepanakert, with a population of 50,000 or so, is surprisingly livable.
Throughout the city, which went onto a war footing this month during three days of fighting with Azerbaijan’s military, signs of the careful attention and largess of a wealthy diaspora are everywhere: a new hospital rising on a hillside; smooth new asphalt on the road into town.
This support from the broader world of Armenian émigrés, not least from the large community in Southern California, adds an improbable metropolitan flair to the tiny republic of Karabakh and its capital.
The city still has some rough edges, beginning with the six-hour drive to get there on endless switchbacks that take you past a parade of burned and abandoned villages of the Armenians’ enemies, the Azerbaijanis, and terrifying thousand-foot cliffs. In its mountain perch, the region is surrounded, marooned in Azerbaijan, with this road the only supply route. No airport functions.
The sustenance from the diaspora makes all the difference. Funds flowed in from the late Kirk Kerkorian, the California financier. A Swiss-Armenian built a sturgeon farm called the Golden Fish. California and six other American states have recognized the splinter republic, though the federal government and in fact no other country have.
During the fighting, Stepanakert’s main square — immaculately paved, with stunning views of an alpine valley — became a hub of excitement for young and old alike.
Jeeps wheeled about, screeched to a stop for soldiers to hop in. An old veteran from the 1991-94 war stood nearby to see them off, the empty right sleeve of his jacket carefully ironed and tucked into a pocket.
David Agamalyan, 14, stood with two friends gaping at the armed men and bustle. In this city, any boy on the street has two numbers on the tip of his tongue, his age and his best time for disassembling and reassembling a Kalashnikov rifle, a skill that is taught in schools from age 13.
David’s best time is 27 seconds, certainly a feat considering all the springs and rods and sheet metal parts involved. Girls are taught first aid. Both boys and girls are taught to march and stand at attention.
At School No. 3, children’s drawings adorning the walls show in crayon and colored pencil the smoldering fight that is all they have ever known: a tank in a mountain landscape; men marching with rifles.
All boys join the army. Asked whom he would fight in four years when he signs up, David shrugged at the ridiculous question. “Our neighbor, of course,” he said.
Photo: Getty Images
Photo: Getty Images
Oil prices have fallen below $40 a barrel after Saudi Arabia said it would freeze production only if other major producers did the same, the BBC reports.
The comments by deputy crown prince Mohammed bin Salman are seen as a challenge to Iran.
It has vowed to increase oil production following the lifting of Western sanctions.
In the Bloomberg interview, the prince also spoke about his plan for a giant public investment fund.
Worth more than $2 trillion, it would be designed to reduce Saudi Arabia’s reliance on income from oil.
Part of the plan would be a sale of shares in the state-owned oil firm Aramco, which could start as soon as next year, according to the interview.
His Excellency Serzh Sargsyan will arrive in Boston and deliver messages at MIT, Harvard’s’ Kennedy School and the Fletcher School of Diplomacy beginning on March 29th, prior to traveling to Washington, D.C. for an International Nuclear Energy Summit, according to
New England is the home of the second largest Armenian American Community in the country and the President will also be visiting major Armenian institutions and churches in Watertown, the community boasts a number of churches, schools, organizations and the Armenian Museum of America and two weekly newspapers. Watertown and Worcester Massachusetts were the first communities settled by Armenians before and after the Armenian Genocide. The first Armenian Church is America is still in existence in Worcester Massachusetts.
This is the 25th Anniversary of the Independence of Armenia which was established in 1991 subsequent to the breakup of the Soviet Union. Sargsyan has served as the countries civilian defense minister before becoming President. Armenia shares a warm relationship with the United States, the European Union and is part of NATO’s Partnership for Peace and participates in U.N. Peace Keeping deployments around Armenia is strategically important as it also shares a border with Iran, Turkey, Georgia and Azerbaijan in the South Caucuses.
On the 29th of March, the President will begin by visiting the Old North Church in Boston with an ecumenical prayer service hosted by the Massachusetts Council of Churches and presided over by Archbishop Khajag Barsamian, of the Eastern Diocese of the Armenian Church and Archbishop Oshagan Chaloian, of the Eastern Prelecy of the Armenian Church, the service will be hosted by Rt. Rev. Gayle Harris, Suffragan Bishop of the Episcopal Church.
The Armenians share a long standing relationship with the Episcopal Church as Christians coming to America they were offered a place to worship in the Episcopal Church. Also on April 23rd, Cardinal Sean P. O’Malley will host the first Armenian Genocide Commemoration at Holy Cross Cathedral in the south end. His Holiness Pope Francis celebrated Mass last April in Rome and commemorated the 100th year of the Armenian Genocide.
The Armenian Presidential will also make his first visit Heritage Park on the Rose Kennedy Greenway and place a wreath at the Armenian Genocide Memorial. He will then make an official visit to the State House and have lunch with Governor Charlie Baker and constitutional officers.
President Sargsyan will then travel to Washington, D.C. with heads of state for the Nuclear Energy Summit energy summit hosted by President Barak Obama. Armenian-Americans number over 1,000,000
There is no alternative to the recognition of the Nagorno Karabakh Republic by the international Community, Armenian Deputy Foreign Minister Shavarsh Kocharyan says.
“The Resolution adopted by House of Representatives of Georgia proves the very fact that amid Azerbaijan’s destructive policy the international recognition of the Nagorno Karabakh Republic has no alternative,” the Deputy FM said in a Twitter post.
The State of Georgia honoring and recognizing the independence of the Nagorno Karabakh Republic.
The Swedish Royal Court says that Crown Princess Victoria has given birth to a son, her second child, the Associated Press reports.
The court says the baby boy was born at the Karolinska University Hospital in the Swedish capital at 8:28 p.m. (1928 GMT) Tuesday. Both mother and child are well, the court said, adding that Victoria’s husband, Prince Daniel, was at the hospital during the entire birth.
The royal baby is third in line to the thrown after his mother and elder sister, Princess Estelle.
Victoria’s father, King Carl XVI Gustaf, has been the monach since 1973. His duties are largely ceremonial in the Scandinavian country, a constitutional monarchy.
Armenia has welcomed the Russia-US agreement on Syria ceasefire.
“We welcome the Russian-US agreement on ceasefire in Syria,” reads a statmenet by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
US and Russia announced yesterday that a planned cessation of hostilities in Syria would come into effect at midnight on 27 February.
According to the data of the NKR Defense Army, the Azerbaijani side fired more than 1,500 shots from weapons of different caliber in the direction of the Armenian positions over the weekend.
The front divisions of the NKR Defense Army keep control of the situation all along the line of contact and resort to retaliatory measures, when necessary.
The social network’s 1.5bn users will soon be able to respond to posts with ‘love’, ‘haha’, ‘wow’, ‘sad’ and ‘angry’ buttons, reports.
Facebook is to expand its “like” feature with five new emoji options called Reactions. The social network’s founder and chief executive, Mark Zuckerberg, said the buttons would be pushed out to the site’s 1.5 billion users “pretty soon”.
The “love”, “haha”, “wow”, “sad” and “angry” buttons are being tested in several countries, Zuckerberg said. Each one has an emoji-style face and will appear underneath users’ posts.
A button called “yay” which featured a smiling face with rosy cheeks had been trialled. Facebook said this was removed during testing because it was not fully understood by users.
The “like” button that appears beneath each post on the site is one of its most prominent features. For many years a “dislike” button has been one of the most requested additions that users would like to see on the site.
Zuckerberg, speaking during a conference call after the release of Facebook’s latest earnings report, said that introducing a range of options rather than just an opposite to the like button added “a little bit of complexity” to a user’s reaction. “When you only have a like button, if you share a sad piece of content or something that makes you angry, people may not have the tool to react to it.”