GIFT OF KNOWLEDGE: ACTIVISTS DONATE BOOKS TO LIBRARIES IN ARMENIAN BORDER VILLAGES
By Gohar Abrahamyan
ArmeniaNow.com
25.10.12 | 10:42
A group of young activists have visited two Armenian villages situated
near the country’s northeastern border with Azerbaijan to bring new
books donated to the local libraries through an internet-assisted
campaign.
The Tavush region’s rural communities of Nerkin Karmiraghbyur and
Aygepar, situated about 200-220 kilometers from capital Yerevan
suffered greatly during the war with Azerbaijan in the 1990s. They
continue to bear the consequences of the conflict even today as the
situation along the border remains volatile. The two villages have been
in the news particularly in recent months as major ceasefire violations
occurred there. Local civilians and infrastructure were also targets
of Azeri sniper attacks when tensions escalated last summer.
The idea to donate books to the libraries in the border villages
first occurred to popular blogger Karen Vrtanesyan.
After one of his recent visits to the area two months ago he left
an entry in his Live Journal blog calling for help in supplying the
libraries in Nerkin Karmiraghbyur and Aygepar with new books as the
two communities experienced their shortage.
On Wednesday, a group of young people, who had responded to the call,
visited the communities, bringing with them about 300 books, including
encyclopedias, literary works by Armenian classics, etc.
With internet access increasingly available even in remote rural
communities of Armenia like Nerkin Karmiraghbyur and Aygepar, local
schoolchildren often forget about such a prime source of information
as books. Still, people in the village say their children read much
more than their coevals in urban communities. The problem, they say,
is the shortage of books.
Nerkin Karmiraghbyur’s school currently has 120 students. The school’s
librarian Asya Galstyan remembers how they were rescuing books from
under the ruins after a shelling by Azeri forces that hit the library
in 1992. She says even now some books they keep bear the traces
of shrapnel.
“The library building was destroyed during the years of war and most
of the books were burned or damaged otherwise. We managed to save only
a small number of our books,” says Galstyan. “Today we even don’t
have most of the books needed by students as part of their school
curriculum, which, of course, is an obstacle to their education.”
The school of Aygepar attended by 56 students has more books, but
most of the 3,000 or so books kept in the library, according to the
local librarian, are ideologically “outdated” as they haven’t had
any new supply since the Soviet times.
“We have more than 2,000 books that aren’t good for use now; dozens
of the books are related to Marxism-Leninism and no one reads such
books anymore. At the same time, we don’t have a lot of books that
are needed as part of the school curriculum today,” says Aygepar
librarian Eleonora Vardanyan.
Blogger Vrtanesyan, who initiated the book donation, says that it is
not the first time they collect books to be donated to libraries. In
the past they, in particular, helped school libraries in areas near
Karabakh.
“Liberated lands and border villages are of primary importance and
need prime attention. In the near future we also plan visits to
other villages situated near the border,” says Vrtanesyan, adding
that besides individuals, among those who donated the books were also
organizations such as Biographers’ Club and ArmenTel.