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07/22/2005
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1) Azerbaijan Urged to Loosen Grip on Media Ahead of Polls
2) Bayramians’ Will Record $7.3 Million to CSUN
3) Dr. Oskanian, Wife of Armenia’s FM Visits Montebello ARS Daycare &
Preschool
4) Glendale Tennis Team Wins the USTA Southern California Championships
5) ACYA Makes Strong Showing at Navasartian games
6) Massaging the Chancellor’s Spine Fleeing from guilt: Germans, Turks and the
genocide of the Armenians
7) In the Mountains of Karabagh
1) Azerbaijan Urged to Loosen Grip on Media Ahead of Polls
BAKU (AFP)–Europe’s top election monitoring body, the Organization for
Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), voiced concern Friday at the Azeri
government’s continued grip on the media in the run-up to parliamentary
polls.
Miklos Haraszti, the OSCE’s representative on media freedom issues, told
journalists the government was stalling on legislation needed to liberalize
the
media ahead of the November 6 polls in this former Soviet republic.
“It is worrying that the legal transformation…is not happening before the
elections,” Haraszti said.
In the lead up to November’s vote Azerbaijan has seen the killing of one of
its most prominent opposition journalists, Elmar Huseynov, who was shot in
March, as well as a number of libel suits filed against independent
journalists
by government officials.
The government, meanwhile, is at loggerheads with the non-governmental sector
over the ownership and management structure of a planned public television
channel that had been expected to cover the election impartially.
Haraszti said he regretted that there were still “very few outlets that would
in an authoritative and impartial way provide information to the public.”
The vote comes against a backdrop of continued tension since a riot after
President Ilham Aliyev’s election to office in 2003 in which two people died.
Opposition groups have threatened to stage protests similar to those seen in
Ukraine’s “orange revolution” if the government does not ensure a fair vote.
2) Bayramians’ Will Record $7.3 Million to CSUN
Donation to expand student scholarships, aid Performing Arts Center
NORTHRIDGE–In July 2005, a former San Fernando High School art teacher who
graduated from CSUN, and her husband bequeathed their entire $7.3 million
estate to California State University, Northridge. The gift, which will expand
student scholarships, marks the largest cash and alumni gift in the
university’s history.
The endowment created by longtime San Fernando Valley residents Mary and Jack
Bayramian–who passed away in November 2002 and January 2005,
respectively–will fund two major new university scholarship programs,
including a $2.3 million portion to launch student scholarships for the future
Valley Performing Arts Center project on the campus.
“This remarkable gift from Mary and Jack Bayramian will empower the
university
to support outstanding students,” said Cal State Northridge President Jolene
Koester. “The Bayramians, who were devoted to each other during more than 60
years of marriage, now have extended that caring to improve the lives of
hundreds of our students.”
To honor the gift, the California State University Board of Trustees, meeting
July 20, in Long Beach, approved renaming the university’s Student Services
Building as Bayramian Hall. President Koester called the dedication a fitting
tribute, because the building houses the university’s scholarship, financial
aid and other student support services offices.
3) Dr. Oskanian, Wife of Armenia’s FM Visits Montebello ARS Daycare &
Preschool
LOS ANGELES–During her visit to the West Coast to attend the Armenian
International Medical Conference held in San Francisco, the wife of Armenia’s
Foreign Minister, Dr. Nani Oskanian, took a side trip on June 27 to pay a
special visit to the Montebello Nairy Chapter of the Armenian Relief Society.
Dr. Nani Oskanian, who is extensively involved with the welfare of
children in
Armenia, is the head of the “After School Boys and Girls Daycare and Community
Center” and founder of the “Children First” organization, which provides free
health care for children of all ages. Dr. Oskanian is in the process of
opening
an orphanage in Yerevan and was interested in seeing how the Montebello Nairy
Daycare and Preschool functions.
The Nairy Daycare, under the direction of Lilit Barsegyan, welcomed Dr.
Oskanian with the cultural bread and salt, as the children entertained her
with
songs and dances.
Dr. Oskanian also visited the Ararat Adult Day Health Care Center in
Glendale.
4) Glendale Tennis Team Wins the USTA Southern California Championships
GLENDALE–The Glorietta Park youth tennis program, under the direction of
Coach
Vigen Khanlarian and team coordinator, Vartan Aghabegian, cruised to glorious
victory when both team divisions won the San Fernando Valley League, against
teams from La Canada, Northridge, Toluca Lake, Westlake, Van Nubs, Valencia,
among others.
During the June 25-26 Championships, the “14 and under” team won 1st place,
while the “18 and under” team won 2nd place by competing against League
winners
from Orange County, San Diego, Riverside, Santa Barbara, San Gabriel Valley
and
Ventura County.
The next stop will be USTA West Regional Championships to be held in Texas in
October 2005, where both teams from Glendale will be representing Southern
California to compete against teams from Hawaii Pacific, Pacific Northwest,
Southwest and Northern California.
The Southern California Champions 14 and under intermediate Team Roster
consists of: Highbert Davtian, Michael Astorian, Eric Khanlarian, Victoria
Shumakova, Illene Suleymanyan, Alex Abramian and Tenny Soleymani.
The Southern California Finalists 18 and under intermediate team Roster
includes: Ynna Aghabegian, Alina Sookasian, Meldia Hacobian, Beina Azadgoli,
Sevana Suleymanian and Sona Karakasian.
5) ACYA Makes Strong Showing at Navasartian Games
ENCINO–The Holy Martyrs Church of Encino Armenian Church Youth Association
(ACYA) made its presence felt at the 30th Annual Homenetmen Navasartian Games.
With a booth that informed onlookers of religous materials and the
Association’s meetings, the ACYA sparked the interest of new members to join
its ranks as it works to bring young people and the Church together.
Both young and old came to view the pictures of how Holy Martyrs was first
erected and how the Armenian Church Youth Association was first founded. Many
members of the community and dignitaries visted the booth, including Father
Razmig Khatchadourian, pastor of the Holy Martyrs Church of Encino, who
blessed
the booth. “Young people are the future of our Church…our ACYA is playing an
important role in the community,” stated Father Khatchadourian.
The ACYA is an organization which was founded under the auspices of the
Western Prelacy of North America. Through the guidance and direction of
Western
Prelate Archbishop Moushegh Mardirossian, the ACYA has grown tremendously
within the past year and continues to grow month by month.
“Our Youth is our asset today and tomorrow and they have the resposibility to
carry to torch to the coming generations” stated Knar Kortoshain, Chairperson
of the ACYA Board. The Holy Martyrs Church ACYA consists of an Executive Board
and an Advisory Committee. There is also a Central Executive committee under
the Western Prelacy of North America. The ACYA at Holy Martyrs consists of
young professionals who are active in either college or the business world.
They are between the ages of 18-35 and each bring a unique flavor to the
group.
“It is a glorious day today, because we see that the Armenian Church Youth
Association is strong and moving forward,” continued ACYA Central Executive
Board Member Gregory Martayan. The Holy Martyrs Board of Trustees President
Zeron Titizian stated, “We are behind our ACYA 100% and we wish them the best
of success and a bright future.”
6) Massaging the Chancellor’s Spine Fleeing from guilt: Germans, Turks and the
genocide of the Armenians
By Mihran Dabag
Just as the commemorations of the sixtieth anniversary of liberation have
been
symbolically drawn to a close with the opening of the “Memorial for the
murdered Jews of Europe” in Berlin, the remembrance of a quite different
genocide is unexpectedly raising some general questions about forms of
remembrance in Germany.
The genocide in question is that of the Armenians in the Ottoman Empire in
1915-16, for which 2005 marks the ninetieth anniversary. It is tightly
interwoven with the history of Europe and in particular, that of Germany–for
before the very eyes of the European public, this systematic genocide,
committed in the shadow of the First World War, marked a turning point in the
history of the twentieth century. With this genocide, it became apparent that
the extermination of a whole population group is not only conceivable, but is
also realizable.
Public discussion was triggered last year by the removal of the history of
the
Armenian genocide from the Federal state of Brandenburg’s school
curriculum–and this, through the intervention of the diplomatic
representation
of Turkey in Germany.
In April, the Bundestag addressed this genocide for the first time, with a
cross-party agreement that Turkey, which to this very day continues to
emphatically refute the facts of the genocide, should be asked to finally face
up to this issue. Specific mention was also made to Germany’s share of the
responsibility–for as an ally of the Ottoman Empire in the First World War,
Germany was informed early on about the extent and goal of the deportation
measures. At the same time, the discussion also implied a way out, by
establishing a Turkish-Armenian commission of historians to devote itself to
this question.
And yet the Brandenburg schoolbook affair had only just demonstrated that
Germany’s responsibility does not lie in initiating reconciliation between
Turks and Armenians–irrespective of the fact that such a reconciliation would
lend legitimacy to the German endorsement of Turkey’s entry into the EU–but
rather in bringing an end to its own tolerance of the denial.
Finally, a Bundestag motion carried by all parties was accepted, which
exerted
a rhetoric of obeisance towards the victims.
However, this rhetoric was only tacit, as the motion passed without any
debate
in which regret, lament, and the call to recognize the act could have been
articulated.
Nevertheless, the resolution of this motion, supported as it was by all
parties, still incited Turkish unrest.
With a sea of Turkish flags yesterday in Berlin, the stance of Turkish
politics, as rigid as they are resolute, was expressed. The Turkish Prime
Minister Erdogan accused Chancellor Schroder of “spinelessness” and having
“false and ugly politics.” He himself, on the other hand, claimed to have
politics “full of backbone,” open to seeing a country’s work on its own
perception of history as superfluous.
What is notable in this very context, however, is also the consensus of
academics and intellectuals in Germany, who–with few exceptions–kept the
issue grandly cloaked in secrecy. How can this silence be explained? Is there,
quite simply, no need for intellectual discourse if “way back there in Turkey
people are attacking each other?” Are we to think of the extermination of the
Armenians as an event on the periphery, an Asian act that does not belong to
the history of Germany, Europe, and the civilized world? Or could it be,
perhaps, that the refusal to engage in a discussion of this genocide, which is
challenged by the culture of remembrance in Germany, has something to do
precisely with the specific forms of this remembrance–and its goals?
Nowadays, remembrance is preferably brought into play when the question is no
longer of a specific inheritance, but rather of what history, experience, and
identity have in common, and indeed of the common ground of globalizing
societies. As a foundation of such a remembrance, designed to create identity,
the “experiences of the totalitarian regime of the twentieth century” and the
Holocaust are defined, as laid down in a joint article in May 2003 by Jürgen
Habermas and Jacques Derrida on the future of Europe (FAZ, May 31, 2003).
The focus in this regard is no longer first and foremost on the National
Socialist policy of violence, but rather on the status of the Holocaust as a
shared symbol for the whole of Europe. The goal is the constitution of a
consensus memory, whose task is to lead to humanization: In a formula that is
Holocaustbased, and a policy of remembrance that can be universally
followed–the aim is for all experiences of violence to be put aside and
future
acts of violence to be prevented.
But what does such a universalization of the Holocaust actually mean? What
does it mean for the future of remembrance; what does it mean for the
remembrance of other experiences of violence; and above all: what does it
entail for the remembrance of the Holocaust itself? Is there not a danger that
in the process of universalization, the remembrance of the Holocaust will be
removed from its own direct context, from its underlying experience, and thus
ultimately drained? For with this universalization, a remembrance that is
preserved through a dynamic, living process of reconstruction is replaced by a
formulated commemoration.
Memory is always a narration founded on experiences, both direct and
indirect.
Memories are orientations, and they are always associated with identification.
Memory is always tied to its bearers.
Commemoration, by contrast, follows settings of history and identity; it
should not first and foremost preserve, but rather integrate and harmonize
under shared universal values. Memory as a whole cannot be universal–and a
remembrance can only be universal when it is free of memories, when it removes
itself from those experiences that are preserved in the narrations.
A generic, universal commemoration of the Holocaust, detached from the
experiences of the victims and from those of the perpetrators and the
following
generations, would therefore have to be free from any experience and any
ability to experience. As a universalized singularity, congealed to an
abstract
commemorative emblem for collective violence, this formula of Holocaust would
refer solely to a moral imperative. In the vanishing point of this
commemorative formula, which has surely also been cemented in the Berlin
monument, one no longer finds the victims–nor even the perpetrators–but
rather the act alone. Thus the universalization of a Holocaust free of victims
and perpetrators could ultimately prove to be an empty formula, which is,
however, well suited for the–intended–overcoming of the memory of the
Holocaust itself.
It is this remembrance policy, urging as it does homogeneity of the contents
of memory, that is today being destroyed by other experiences of persecutions,
collective violence and extermination. And these experiences appear all the
more disturbing the more closely they are linked with the contents of the
official German remembrance itself. The intensive focus on the Holocaust and
the exemplary way in which Germany came to terms with its own history has
changed the view of Germany with lasting effect, and this surely applies both
for Germany’s own self-image and for the perception of Germany held by others.
The fact that the Federal Republic so explicitly placed itself into a position
of historical
responsibility has contributed to the emergence of a different Germany and has
recently also legitimized a new role and a new strength for Germany in
international politics.
Now, with the genocide of the Armenians forcing its way into the field of
discussion, the challenge is on for Germans to once again unearth –finally
laid to restits history, and to also put pressure on current politics.
Perhaps the German intellectual community’s reticence to discuss the place of
the genocide of the Armenians in the European or global culture of remembrance
can also be explained by a fear that the painstaking efforts to prove that
Germany has faced up to its past may not be sufficient–and that one might
once
again be faced with the task of having to confront German guilt.
Up to now, it has been possible to use the word “guilty” without actually
meaning it, because politics had ritualized and institutionalized an admission
of guilt that acted as a basis of legitimization of a post-war Germany. After
the building of the memorial in Berlin, the hope was that it would be possible
to finally and comfortably use the word “guilty,” without belonging to a
generational cycle that bears historical responsibility for that history–the
concern was now with a passing, concluded history, in the remembrance of which
the Germans could finally include themselves (as victims).
Now Germany must confront the fact that once again a right of remembrance is
being called for. And this new demand shows that remembrance can no longer be
pushed away as a subjective, interest-fuelled notion; the question of the
place
of remembrance becomes a legitimate one directed at the current constructs of
society.
For the question of remembrance is linked with the knowledge of present-day,
global society, questions of concepts of community, minorities and tolerance.
Thus the remembrance of the genocide of the Armenians also represents a
challenge for current politics. Of course, Germany’s stance on the integration
of Turkey into the European Union, is a considerable issue.
Can the Federal Republic really support the admittance of a Turkey that
assumes an attitude towards its own history that is diametrically opposed to
facing up to violence and crime–even though this has become mandatory in
Germany and now also Europe in the remembrance of the Holocaust?
A policy under the postulate of linking one’s own interests with an action
for
a “future of Turkey” like that pursued from the 1890s by Wilhelmine Germany,
appears to be continuing today.
Thus, other population groups in Turkey–in the past the Armenians and
Aramaeans, today the Kurds, are either neglected or perceived as a mere
disturbance.
Today, too, we are merely bargaining for a future that sacrifices the call of
Armenians for their history to be recognized, for the interests and the future
of the Europeanized nation states.
An intellectual discussion on the remembrance of the genocide of the
Armenians
would call for a reappraisal of the policy towards Turkey, a policy that
finally takes into account a perspective of Europe that has been developed
against the background of the experience of the Holocaust and the
obligation of
remembrance.
Thus the appeal to allow this remembrance shows that remembering does not call
for an identification with the victims, but rather accepts the victim as a
victim: as a witness of persecution as well as a voice of the right to one’s
own accepted position, an accepted political place in the world.
The meaning and workability of a European culture, and subsequent global one
of remembrance will ultimately be gauged according to whether a plurality of
remembrances is allowed–indeed whether one is prepared to base this
remembrance on the plural nature of memories. The way in which the Armenian
experience is dealt with will therefore also be a touchstone for whether
discussions on remembrance, recollection and commemoration have been more than
an academic exercise, more than a virtuoso piece of rhetoric on the
politics of
remembrance.
Mihran Dabag The author is the Director of the Institute for Diaspora and
Genocide Research at the Ruhr University of Bochum.
Translated by Sarah Mannion
7) In the Mountains of Karabagh
A war–ravaged former Soviet region tries to recover its winemaking roots
By Matt Kettmann
(Wine Spectator Magazine)—-A skinny sprig of Khindogny grapevine, freshly
plucked from warm and nourishing soil, is clinging to life on a short knob of
rootstock. The sprig, growing inside a dark barn where the smoky air is
pierced
by rays of light shining through walls riddled with bullet holes, symbolizes
hope for the future of the isolated and war–torn region known as Mountainous
Karabagh.
Stuck in geographic and political limbo between Christian Armenia and Muslim
Azerbaijan, Karabagh’s ethnic Armenian population is trying to revitalize the
ancient traditions of winemaking that were almost destroyed by a bloody war
for
independence from Azerbaijan in the early 1990s.
As he spins the sprig of Khindogny, a variety traditional to the high
southern
Caucasus Mountains, Vladimir Zakiyan’s eyes well up with tears. He speaks in a
village called Kheramot, which was destroyed during the war and occupied by
Azeri soldiers for nearly two years before being liberated by Karabaghi
troops.
“We started from zero,” says Zakiyan. “This village lost 31 young men and
had a
lot of people injured. It was destroyed to the ground. … We started to
rebuild our lives. Everybody can destroy, but not everybody can rebuild.”
Inside the formerly bombed-out barn in Kheramot, where wood fires keep the
temperature warm to accommodate early vine sprouting, Zakiyan shows how the
Karabagh grape shoots are being spliced onto rootstocks from the United States
that are resistant to phylloxera. The voracious root louse has recently
devastated native Karabagh grapevines and threatens to eliminate entire
strains
of endemic grape varieties.
But the young vine represents a collaborationof foreign aid and local
perseverancethat could eventually put the region back on the world wine map.
The boisterous in–country director of the Fresno, Californiabased nonprofit
Armenian Technology Group (ATG), Zakiyan is aware that the struggle has just
begun. “It’s not a time to be proud,” he reminds the local villagers. “Our
reconstruction is still in progress. But maybe in some time, we’ll be proud.”
But pride is strong among Armenians, an ancient people who, in the early part
of the fourth century, became one of the first to proclaim Christianity as a
national religion. An Armenian tale recounts how the biblical Noah walked down
from the slopes of nearby Mount Ararat, where the Ark had come to a rest after
the Great Flood, and ventured into what is today Armenia, where he planted the
seed of the world’s first vineyard. In so doing, he established the lands
between the Black and Caspian seas as a winemaking epicenter.
One of the region’s viticultural fonts is called Artsakh by the Armenians,
who
have populated its remote, mountainous terrain for the past two millennia.
Situated in the misty mountains of the South Caucasus, Artsakh is an ancient
place of both natural beauty and almost constant war. Farmers of this bucolic
enclave became adept at growing high altitudefriendly varieties in fertile
soils at some 3,600 feet.
Local lore has it that the people of Artsakhbenefiting from a climate cooler,
wetter and more variable than that of their more arid lowland neighborswere
known to produce the best fermented grape juice around and to keep barrels and
jugs full even during the repeated invasions of Turks, Mongols, Persians and
Russians.
In the 1920s, the Soviets took control. The mostly Armenian Artsakhofficially
renamed Nagorno Karabagh, which translates to “mountainous black garden”was
separated from Armenia as a result of Stalin’s machinations, becoming part of
Azerbaijan. In the following decades, grapes from the mountainside
vineyards of
Karabagh supplied the Soviet Union with red wine and brandy. Eventually, 14
wineries made wine from the 200,000 tons of grapes harvested annually.
All of that changed in 1991. With the Soviet Union in its death throes, the
mostly Armenian population of Karabagh voted to become independent. War
between
Azerbaijan and Karabagh (backed militarily by Armenia) quickly ensued. For
three years, the battles raged, killing close to 30,000 soldiers and civilians
and ravaging the countryside. Agricultural fields, including acre upon acre of
grapevines, were destroyed or left unusable due to unexploded ordnance and
mines.
Though 1994 brought a cease–fire, it did not bring closure. The war is
officially unresolved, and the Mountainous Karabagh Republic sits in
international limbo as diplomatic talks continue. Following the war, the
economy collapsed. It looked as if one of the world’s first major winemaking
regions was lost forever, a doom hastened by the onset of phylloxera in the
late ’90s, which nearly finished the job the war had begun.
But Armenian pride wouldn’t let that happen. Today, as the future of Karabagh
is debated by the leaders of Armenia and Azerbaijan as well as ambassadors
from
the United States, France and Russia, grapevines are growing once again.
The road to Karabagh’s wine country mirrors the reality faced by the
struggling republic: It’s uphill and rocky once you leave Stepanakert, the
slow–paced capital of Karabagh. It traverses a breathtaking landscape whose
features range from snowcapped peaks to rolling pastures in luminous shades of
green. It can be hard to remember that one wrong step could prove deadly,
inasmuch as many meadows are minefields and the seemingly quiet villages are
littered with shrapnel.
About an hour’s drive from Stepanakert, the road passes the relatively
bustling town of Karmir Shuka, which means “red market” in Armenian. At one
end
of town stands an impressive steel gate adorned with an oversize cast–iron
cluster of purple grapes. How fitting: It’s the entryway to the wine– and
spirit– processing plant owned and operated by Karabagh Gold, one of only two
alcohol–producing companies still operating today.
This gritty factory is no wine boutique, and visitorsespecially
non–Armeniansare few. Yet the workers proudly relate the history of the
factory, which was founded in 1927 to process mulberry wine (a celebrated
elixir in the region) and was operational as a producer of various spirits,
wines and brandies until the war began. It reopened after the 1994 cease–fire
and managed to maintain production until 1998, when the postwar economy
faltered and phylloxera hit.
This downward spiral speaks to the dramatic decline of grapegrowing in the
entire region over the last two decades. In the 1980s, Karabagh had more than
42,000 acres of vineyards. Today, the total acreage under vine is less than
3,000, and grape harvests are down to less than 5,000 tons.
In 2002, Karabagh Gold’s investors purchased the factory and took
advantage of
the new government’s economic policies, which provide investment incentives
and
tax breaks as the means of invigorating a stagnant economy still under
blockade
from both Turkey and Azerbaijan. Production started again after extensive
repairs, with 400 tons of grapesnamely a white Georgian variety called
Rkatsiteli and the domestic red grape Khindognycollected from neighboring
villages.
In 2003, the company began cultivating wheat to make vodka, which now
constitutes most of Karabagh Gold’s output, and expanded production to include
pomegranate wine, blackberry wine and the traditional mulberry blend. Most
promising was Karabagh Gold’s signing in 2003 of a contract to sell grapes to
the Yerevan Brandy Company, which is owned by the large French firm Pernod
Ricard.
The new bottling plant for Karabagh Gold is a few dozen miles away in
Martouni, separated from that district’s war–ravaged capital of the same name
by a large minefield. Inside, the very busy Vladik Alibabyanwho graduated
nearly 20 years ago from Yerevan’s Agricultural Academy with a specialty in
winemakingplays consummate deal maker, constantly barking orders to his
various
assistants and jabbering on his cell phone.
Between sips of the semisweet white Rkatsiteli and of the dry, jammy red
Khindogny, which he prefers with barbecue, Alibabyan explains that last year,
only 3,000 tons of grapes were processed by Karabagh Gold, but the goal is to
reach 20,000 tons soon.
“We aren’t being controlled by the number of grapes,” he explains, visibly
frustrated that he sells exponentially more vodka than fine wine. “It’s the
market demand.” But with the involvement of Pernod and the marketing potential
of the rare and tasty Khindogny grape, Alibabyan is confident that the balance
will shift.
Karabagh’s only other winemaker represents the sort of collaboration that
could lift the region out of its current depression. It’s a partnership
between
the Karabaghi–owned company Artsakh Alco and Zakiyan’s California–based ATG.
Artsakh Alco is headquartered just a few miles east of Stepanakert in the town
of Askeran, a community framed by an ancient fortress that has repelled
numerous invasionsincluding Azeri advances in the most recent warand survives
as a symbol of Karabagh’s strength.
Like Karabagh Gold’s factory, Artsakh Alco’s facilitiesinitially constructed
in Stalin’s era and rebuilt around 2000, with production beginning in
2001aren’t finely polished. Yet the science of wine is taken seriously here,
where lab coatwearing technicians work under the watchful eye of winemaker
Karian Akopian. She, like Karabagh Gold’s Alibabyan, graduated from the
Agricultural Academy in Yerevan, the capital of Armenia.
Artsakh Alco makes a variety of alcohols, but Akopian, like Zakiyan, is most
interested in making quality wines. When provoked, they each rattle off an
impressive list of traditional Karabagh grape varieties, ranging from
Khindogny
to Haghtanak, a red whose name translates to “victory,” and Kagun, a white.
Artsakh Alco does not make any sweet wines, both in deference to Akopian’s
tastes and because they don’t sell well.
During the war, the front lines were little more than a mile away, and
Askeran
was regularly shelled. The oak barrelmaking factory next to the Artsakh Alco
plant was a tank–repair warehouse, so it’s no wonder that hollowed husks of
Russian tanks still sit behind the property. But these days, the imported
technology on the premises consists of Italian bottling equipment, German
hardware and French filters, all acquired in the company’s determined attempt
to produce the best Karabagh wines.
East from Askeran, toward the current front lines, where sniper fire is often
exchanged between young Azeri and Karabaghi troops, Zakiyanflamboyant in a
bright yellow shirt and grape–cluster bolero in a land stylistically
dominated
by plain black suitsoversees ATG’s grapegrowing operations in Kheramot.
These young vines are then sold at half–price to villagers–around 50,000
were sold last year–or planted by ATG employees from Kheramot in a site once
vineyard, then minefield, now vineyard again. The ATG vineyard was cleared by
the Halo Trust, a British nonprofit involved in mine–and bomb–removal
projects across the republic. Unfortunately, the ATG vineyard is a rarity;
most
of the cleared vineyards are being turned into wheat fields because, as one
Halo Trust officer put it, “You can’t live off wine.”
Zakiyan oversees an ATG winery in nearby Chartar as well. When fully
operational, it will likely become the face of Karabagh wine for the growing
number of tourists.
Yet even as the sun begins to shine on Zakiyan and his colleagues through the
region’s thick fog, nature is unrelenting. The 2004 crop was almost totally
destroyed by an unexpected spring frost, with temperatures dropping to 28°
F in
April. Close to 80 percent was lost. Will they bother picking the rest or just
call the harvest a total loss?
“We will pick the grapes no matter what,” says a smiling Zakiyan, his
optimistic spirit as formidable a force as the weather and the constant
challenges that hamper him and his countrymen. “The future of Karabagh is in
good wine production. It’s our national tradition.”
Matt Kettmann is the pop culture editor for the Santa Barbara Independent and
a freelance correspondent for Time magazine. He journeyed to Mountainous
Karabagh last spring.
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