Author: Garo Vardanian

Armenia also in favor of de-dollarization in the countries of the Eurasian Economic Union, Armenia’s Prime Minister Hovik Abrahamyan said at a meeting of the Eurasian Intergovernmental Council in Grodno, BelTA reports.

According to the Prime Minister, Armenia endorses the draft documents that cover different areas of cooperation in the EEU. “We fully support the steps to strengthen and expand the industrial cooperation. Our countries have potential for efficient collaboration,” he said.

Hovik Abrahamyan also backed the earlier reached agreements on the regulation of the financial market. “The EEU needs measures to expand the use of national currencies in mutual transactions and reduce dollarization. Sharing the experience in the implementation of the coordinated macroeconomic policy is of utmost importance as well. In this respect the Russian ruble should be made an anchor currency in the mutual strategic trade in the EEU,” the Armenian Premier believes.

Close cooperation with the European Union is equally important, he added. “Keeping in mind our rich experience of negotiations in the trade and economic cooperation with the European Union, we are ready to assist the Eurasian Economic Commission in establishing such a dialogue and, if necessary, take the corresponding commitments of a negotiator in certain issues,” the Prime Minister said. Such cooperation should be based on the principle of mutually beneficial development of integration processes aimed at securing free movement of goods, workforce, services and capital.

The Prime Minister also informed the meeting participants that Armenia is ready for the fulfillment of all the commitments it has undertaken and for the active cooperation with partners in the EEU. “The Armenian side will soon present its candidate for the post of the Chairman of the Board of the Eurasian Economic Commission,” the Premier said.

Hovik Abrahamyan suggested holding the next meeting of the Eurasian Intergovernmental Council in Yerevan.

Russian businessman German Sterligov does not plan to cut ties with Nagorno Karabakh and intends to return there from time to time.

“The fact that we have returned to the Motherland, does not mean we’ll not go back to Nagorno Karabakh. It’s sort of native home to us now,” Sterligov told Interfax agency.

The businessman said he has got a small farm in Nagorno Karbakah, which his local friends will look after.

“We now have a small farm, we have a mill and grind flour there. Besides, I have a partner there, a local guy,” he said.

“Therefore, nothing is cancelled. My elder sons will look after the farm and I’ll visit there from time to time,” he added.

Last week the businessman returned from Karabakh, where spent a couple of months. Upon his arrival in Moscw, Sterligov was detained at Domodedovo Airport, but was released after a two-hour talk.

The Azerbaijani authorities blame the Russian businessman of launching ‘illegal’ activity in Nagorno Karabakh.

Armenian international Aras Ozbilis has turned down an offer from Turkish Bursaspor, sportscaster Nobel Arystamyan has said in a TV program aired on Russian NTV.

The 25-year-old midfielder with a transfer value 3.5 million euro is currently playing for Spartak Moscow.

Ozbilis has just returned to the pitch after an injury that forced him out of action for nearly a year.

Traveller who intervened to disarm gunman youb El-Khazzani is an Armenian-American academic named Mark Moogalian, has revealed. 

According to the report, Mark Moogalian, a 51-year-old professor at the Sorbonne, tackled Ayoub El-Khazzani during Friday’s bloody incident aboard an Amsterdam-Paris international service.

As travel packages to Armenia are becoming popular day by day,  Travel Blog provides 5 tips for traveling to Armenia. The website notes that “Armenia is one of the most ancient and unique countries in the Caucasus. Despite its small territories, this country has so much to offer to its foreign guests: picturesque mountainous landscapes, ancient sights, delicious cuisine, exciting places for active holiday lovers! We must also note the hospitality and kindness of locals who warmly welcome their foreign guests.”

What to take

The answer to this question depends on the season and the purpose you decide to go to Armenia. Just take into consideration that summer in Armenia, especially in the capital, is hot and rather dry with average temperature – 28-35 °C and few rainy days. Thus, it is better to take comfortable clothing suitable for hot Armenian days. However, if you decide to visit the countryside of Armenia in summer, consider that the temperature there is lower than in the capital and in the evening you may need some warm clothes.

The winter in Armenia varies from region to region. In the capital it is not very cold, however, sometimes is very snowy. The temperature ranges from +2 to -10 °C. In countryside and ski resorts the weather is much colder so without warm clothing in winter you won’t get along at all.

The most pleasant season in Armenia is the beginning of autumn, as the weather is so mild, pleasant and warm with few rainy days. In spring you should be ready for changeable weather and some rains, so prepare appropriate thing and clothing.

What concerns the style of clothing, Armenians dress like in Europe, so there are no any special warnings or tips.

What to see

Armenia is of а great interest for cultural tourism lovers. And that’s no wonder: the country with its 3500 year- old history has so many unique historical and cultural attractions, that it is sometimes called “the museum under the open sky”. Most of the sights here are connected with Christianity: ancient monasteries and churches with their amazing architecture, unique cross-stones.

Among religious sights the website recommends not to miss and necessarily visit Khor Virap with its breathtaking view to Mount Ararat, Geghard known for its amazing rock architecture, Tatev, which is the best example of medieval architecture, Haghpat and Sanahin included into UNESCO world heritage list, Echmiadzin Cathedral – the religious center of all Armenians.

Armenia amazes not only by its architecture masterpieces but also by the beauty of its unique nature. So if you want to relax and feel in harmony with nature we recommend visiting the following natural sites. Firstly, of course, we should mention azure Lake Sevan, the beauty of which will not leave anyone indifferent. It is one of the highest fresh water lakes in the world and the largest in the Caucasus. It is impossible not to admire the picturesque landscapes surrounding the lake: hills covered with forests, rock cliffs, grasslands turning into alpine meadows. It is no accident that travelers choosing a tour to Armenia, try not to miss this wonderful and unforgettable place. Sevan is the best choice for those who prefer beach vacations, want to swim, sunbathe, play active games and have a good time.
For those who would like to relax in nature’s lap and improve the health, the best choice will be a cozy town of Jermuk with its healing mineral waters and high- quality sanatoriums.

The trip around Armenia will not be full without exploring its heart – the ancient city of Yerevan. Yerevan delights with its cozy atmoshphere, unique architecture, lots of educational museums, and well-designed cafes and restaurants. Visit the city center with its majestic Republic Square, Opera and Ballet Theater, and modern Northern Avenue, have a good time in one of the national restaurants and order national dishes like tolma, horovats, harisa, stroll around the night Yerevan with its friendly lights and singing fountains and you will get lots of positive emotions and impressions!

What to do

Armenia is not only popular for its cultural tourism but also is an excellent destination for adventure travel lovers. Mountainous landscapes of Armenia are very favorable for different extreme sports and it has good conditions for paragliding, mountaineering, ski sports, snowboarding, rock climbing, trekking and others.

The most popular ski resort of Armenia is Tsakhkadzor which offers great eqipment and well-developed ski trails. The rope-way built on the slopes of Mount Teghenis ensures maximum safety for the visitors.

For paragliding, one of the most favorite places is a small village Tsovagyugh near Lake Sevan and Mount Hatis. By the way, paragliding tours to Armenia are gaining popularity day by day.

The favorite destination for trekking is Mount Aragats – the highest one in Armenia (4090 m).

What to buy

Buying souvenirs that will remind of the trip is an important ritual for any tourists visiting any foreign country. So what to bring home after the trips to Armenia as a souvenir or a gift to relatives and friends? That’s an easy question if you know what are the national symbols of Armenia and what has this country been famous for over centuries. In this list without any doubt we can include Mount Ararat and an apricot as living symbols, and brandy, carpets, duduk and jewelry as national treasures.

The best choice for buying souvenirs will be an open-air fair “Vernissage” that opens its hospitable doors every weekend and offers lots of unique work of crafts and souvenirs. Here you will find paintings, jewelry, woodwork, magnets, musical instruments, national souvenirs, carpets, costumes, semi-precious stones, rarity, and many-many other unique things.

Armenia is also known for its tasty national products, pastry and dried fuits. Want to buy something like that? Visit the famous market at the intersection of Mashtots and Khorenatsi streets.

For buying or degustating Armenian brandy you can go straight to the cognac factory “Ararat” which is one of the most popular brands in the country.

How to communicate

Armenians are very kind and open-hearted people who warmly welcome the tourists and try to make them feel as comfortable as possible in Armenia. Any tourists after the journey around Armenia mention the warm attitude of the locals. So there will be no difficulties in communication at all. And it is also important to mention that residents of Yerevan have a good command of Russian language and youth generation speaks not bad English. So you can easily approach them in case you have any questions and they will be glad to help. However, out of Yerevan there may be some difficulties concerning the language barrier as not all the provincial residents speak English.

The Armenian national team has dropped five positions and is currently placed 89^th in FIFA World Ranking released today.

Argentina are the new leaders of the ranking, followed by World Champion Germany and Belgium.

Armenia’s rivals in Euro-2016 qualification round are placed as follows: Portugal – 7th, Denmark – 24th, Serbia – 43^rd and Albania – 36th^st.

Asbarez – Last week, articles appearing in various Lebanese press outlets, in several languages, reported that the historic Bird’s Nest Orphange was being sold to make room for a beach-front development.

One of the last vestiges of the Armenian Genocide, the Bird’s Nest facility, which was run by the efforts of Near East Relief and founded by Danish missionary Maria Jacobson, was a refuge for orphans who survived the Genocide and today continues to operate as a safe-haven for underprivileged children under the auspices of the Catholicosate of the Great House of Cilicia.

The Board of Directors of Bird’s Nest issued an announcement on Sunday refuting those claims, with its executive director Seta Khedeshian, in an interview with CiliciaTV, also criticizing the press for irresponsible reporting that has created furor in the community, as well as on social media.

The focus of the controversy is a beach front portion of the Bird’s Nest property that has not been is use for decades. Given the rising costs of maintaining the facility, the board has leased that portion of the property, which will be developed by the lessee. After the completion of the lease, the ownership of that developed property is slated to revert to the Catholicosate.

Currently, an old building on the soon-to-be-leased portion of the property, which was a dining hall, is being used as a church. That building, which is in poor condition, will be demolished and a new Armenian church will be constructed, through a $1 million pledge by the lessee on the perimeter of the current facility.

The development on this portion of the property will provide Bird’s Nest with much-needed income to continue to serve the children of the community.

“The income generating project currently under construction at the bottom half of the orphanage (under the supervision of the Lebanon’s directorate of antiquities) is to help with the maintenance of the Orphanage, the Museum, the Armenian Church and the community as a whole,” said the Bird’s Nest announcement.

“The project was carefully selected out of many proposals, because the maintenance of our space (30,000 square meters of land) needs special attention and funding. The financial income will serve to repair many of the old buildings within the orphanage that would cause a threat to the inhabitants as well as visitors. Furthermore, the land in question is not public, it is private and not located within the perimeters of the Byblos archeological site. All claims that this land is public and that the implementation of this project restricts the public access to the sea, are absolutely false and intended to create problems,” added the announcement.

Khedeshian clarified that no edifice within the facility will be demolished. In fact, she pointed to additions and renovations to the current facility, which will greatly enhance Bird’s Nest and make it a focal point for community service, as well as it historic significance.

One of those improvements is related to an abandoned cemetery on the site of the proposed development. The remains of those interred at the cemetery, which include some orphans of the Genocide but mainly of Bird’s Nest staff members, will be exhumed and transferred closer to where founder Maria Jacobson—known as Mama—is interred, making it a focal point of the facility.

“The abandoned cemetery which is currently in very bad shape and in an insecure location, is carefully planned to be relocated next to Miss Maria Jacobsen’s grave (The founder of the Orphanage) and the new Museum, in order to showcase the importance of the cemetery,” said the announcement.

A decade ago, the board of directors of the Bird’s Nest embarked on a project to build an Armenian Genocide orphans’ museum on the site of the orphanage to memorialize the surviving orphans and pay tribute to the founders of the orphanage. The museum will have its official opening next week, with an inauguration ceremony to be presided over by His Holiness Aram I, Catholicos of the Great House of Cilicia.

“The museum design consists of artifacts, photos and a collective cemetery of the children and employees buried within the Bird’s Nest compound to portray to the world the daily life of the orphans,” explained the Bird’s Nest Board announcement.

Khedeshian also discussed the refurbishing of the dormitories, which is being sponsored by benefactor Aleco Bezikian. The completed dormitories will be named for the benefactor’s son, Zareh.

The Bird’s Nest board clarified in its announcement that recent press headlines “are deliberately false, manipulative and intentionally omitting facts intended to provoke unjustified emotions against both projects. Far from being under any threat, the historical Bird’s Nest orphanage is thriving and becoming more important.”

Khedeshian also echoed similar sentiments in her interview.

The fourth fight between WBO super middleweight champion Arthur Abraham (42-4, 28 KOs) and former WBO 168lb champ Robert Stieglitz (47-4-1, 27 KOs) is only two and a half weeks away for their fight on July 18th at the Gerry Weber Stadium in Halle, Germany,  reports.

Abraham’s trainer Ulli Wegner has been bragging about how Abraham has been dropping bigger cruiserweights left and right during training camp. 

Wegner is saying that he’ll stop training Abraham if he loses to Stieglitz, and he’ll tell him that he needs to retire from the sport. Abraham says he’s not going to lose to Stieglitz, even though he’s already been beaten once in their three fights.

Abraham wants to keep his WBO 168lb title for another two years before he retires from the sport. He’s 35 now, and is coming off of two back to back wins over England’s Paul Smith.

“I have already beaten him twice, and in our second fight I was beaten by injury,” Abraham said. “I can guarantee that the fourth fight will be our last. Robert throws a lot of punches, but he has no killer punch. Although I cannot promise a KO, I will leave the audience in no doubt over who the better boxer is.”

President Serzh Sargsyan attended today a ceremony in memory of great Armenian philanthropist Kirk Kerkorian, National Hero of Armenia, at the Mother See of Holy Etchmiadzin. The president took part in a session devoted to the great Armenian philanthropist at the Vatche and Tamar Manoukian Library where he delivered a speech. Afterwards, the president attended the requiem service for the rest of Kirk Kerkorian’s soul at Etchmiadzin Cathedral which was led by His Holiness Karekin II, Supreme Patriarch and Catholicos of All Armenians.

Remarks by President Serzh Sargsyan in honor of Kirk Kerkorian

Your Holiness, Your Eminences, Ladies and gentlemen,

We have gathered here today to honor the memory of great philanthropist Kirk Kerkorian, National Hero of Armenia, who passed away one week ago.

Kirk Kerkorian deceased in the year of the Armenian Genocide Centennial when Armenians all over the world commemorated the innocent martyrs who had fallen victim to that crime. It is known that history does not admit “ifs.” But perhaps Kirk Kerkorian might have really become a businessman of another, different Armenia, one who pushes life forward, or an Armenian boxing champion, or, let’s say, a heroic pilot of Armenia’s air force. Perhaps he might have been an ordinary worker earning his family’s bread with dignity in that another, different Armenia.

Today nobody can answer this question, but like many Armenian girls and boys who have been destined to live in a foreign land, Kirk Kerkorian shows the Armenia which could have been real. He embodies the Armenia which was stolen from us with the aim of utterly annihilating the name of Armenians on the earth.

Honoring Kirk Kerkorian’s memory, we should also appraise America and its people at their true worth. It was exactly there where his business talent revealed itself, making it possible for him to promote his multifarious activities. And he was not the only one. The United States of America became home to hundreds of thousands of Armenians, which gave them the opportunity to survive the Armenian Genocide and start a new life.

He earned his bread since he was nine years old so that he could help his parents. He was a boxer and a pilot, a major player in the machine and entertainment industries. He never forgot his Armenian roots, which was easy to do in that atmosphere of immigrants.

Since the devastating earthquake in 1988, Kerkorian lent a helping hand to Armenia, thus supporting his sisters and brothers. He was so modest that he never allowed anything in Armenia and another place to be named after him. Such proposals were made everywhere where he sponsored charitable projects, but Kirk Kerkorian remained adamant about that fundamental position.

A man lives as long as people remember and talk about him. We will not forget our hero, Kirk Kerkorian. We will remember that thanks to him, numerous roads, infrastructures and cultural centers of Armenia were built and renovated, thereby giving fresh impetus to Armenia’s economy.

We are grateful to our great Armenian-American compatriot for his major contribution to Armenia’s life, and we will never forget it. Kirk Kerkorian’s memory will live forever in his mother country of Armenia.

It will live so that another great Armenian-American’s words to be become a reality again and again: “Try to destroy Armenia, and see whether you can do it. Drive them out from their houses to the desert, do not forget to snatch out their bread and the last mouthful of water, set on fire their and their God’s houses. See that they are going to revive again. See that when two of them meet and laugh in their mother tongue after 20 years, the nation will rise again.”

Throughout the last hundred years, one Armenian met another one and started to build a new Armenia.

Kirk Kerkorian and the new Armenia met each other, talked to each other and made fun of the mean ideas of hangmen.

On behalf of all of us, I express my thanks to you, Kirk Kerkorian. Rest in peace.