Author: Kanayan Tamar

EXPERT DEMANDS PROBE INTO LOW-QUALITY SEED IMPORT

tert.am
31.07.12

Hrach Berberyan, the president of the Agrarian-Rural Union of Armenia
NGO, called to set up a special commission to find out why the wheat
stem stop growing after reaching few centimeters.

“The commission should comprise of farmers and not importers.

President of Russian Semena association Kuzmin should also be engaged
in it,” Berberyan said, adding that examination should be conducted
to find those in charge. “A crime has been committed and the guilty
should be punished,” he told at a news conference on Monday.

The expert stressed about the loss of 12-15 percent of wheat,
claiming that farmers have appeared in desperate situation, urging
the government to free them from water tax and the commitment to
return the wheat seeds to the state.

“There are 8 kinds of wheat seeds in Armenia, of which six have not
been tested for correspondence to our climate conditions,” said he.

Berberyan claims the seed imported from Russia does not correspond
to the climate condition of the region. The label on seed packages
states it is intended for North Caucasus. He said the importers were
either not aware of the issue or tried to do other thing.

Berberyan brought with him the labels, showing that there is no
contact and other necessary information on them.

ARMENIAN RESIDENTS OF SYRIAN ALEPPO CLEAN STREETS OF GARBAGE

tert.am
31.07.12

Armenian residents of Syrian town of Aleppo are distributing food to
the Arab people suffered from the recent developments in the town,
according to Aleppo News Network Fecbook page.

Earlier the Armenians were cleaning the streets of Aleppo of the
garbage as it is not being removed and may become a source of diseases.

There is enough food in the town but the prices have comparatively
gone up. There is no shortage of bread, though lines are formed in
front of bakeries. People hesitate to open trade centers, Aleppo News
Network says.

MATEVOSYAN’S NOVELETTES TO BE TRANSLATED INTO SPANISH

11:35 . 31/07

The novelettes Autumn Sun, Buffalo, The Bridge of Nana Princess by
Armenian writer, prose-writer Hrant Matevosyan will be translated into
Spanish. Armenpress was informed from the director of Armenian school
in Uruguay, Hovhannes Polukyan that he first started translating the
works of the Armenian writer in the 90-s.

“At first I translated only Autumn Sun, then I established contacts
with his son, Davit Matevosyan concerning copyright issues. He said
not only Autumn Sun, but all the other works of the writer should be
translated,” Polukyan said.

It is planned to translate Hrant Matevosyan’s works into Spanish
during the coming several years and the readers will be the people
of Spanish speaking countries – Uruguay, Argentina, and Spain.

“I have no doubt people will be interested in reading the works as
Matevosyan created works which are easy to understand” he said.

Earlier, Hrant Matevosyan’s works were translated into Russian,
Lithuanian, Moldavian, Georgian, Ukrainian, English, Bulgarian, German
and Czech languages. The films We and Our Mountains, Autumn Sun,
The Owner were shot based on Hrant Matevosyan’s works.

EUROPEAN YOUTH PARLIAMENT TO OPEN OFFICE IN ARMENIA

Vestnik Kavkaza
July 30 2012
Russia

The European Youth Parliament will operate in Armenia, Armenia Today
reports.

Armenia will be represented by Susan Shamakhyan and Ovsep Patvakanyan.

Armenia will attend the parliament’s session.

The European Youth Parliament welcomes members aged 16-24 to discuss
resolutions. They are then sent to the EU Commission as proposals. The
parliament has office in 35 European states.

A member of the EYP Alan Flaursan will visit Armenia on August 2.

ALL SYSTEMS GO IN ARMENIA

Security Document World

July 29 2012

Biometric passport and ID card issuance systems have now been installed
in more than 10 Armenian police passport divisions, according to
Armenian News – News.am

Polish Security Printing Works (PWPW) is providing Armenia the
booklets for the passports and ID cards as well as the issuance
equipment which is being rolled out at police passport divisions.

Armenian news says that 50,000 biometric passports and 150,000 ID
cards are expected to be issued in 2012. Each passport and ID card
will cost 37.42 and 5.52 euros, respectively.

An estimated 304,000 biometric passports and 1 million ID cards are
planned to be issued by 2017.

THE PORTRAIT AND THE HAWK
Paolo Martino

Osservatorio Balcani e Caucaso

July 30 2012
Italy

Armenia. A gigantic red-bricked raptor stands over the highway
between the capital Yerevan and the holy city of Echmiadzin. The
bus pulls in front of a sign with the name of the village close
by. One does not need to speak Armenian to understand what it says:
the huge perching hawk is the symbol of the Musa Dagh combatants,
the Armenians who in 1915 opposed the Ottoman troops that were here
to deport them. This village and the monument that towers above it
represent the historical continuity of that human community: escaped
a first time to Egypt in 1915, returned home in 1919, transferred to
Lebanon in 1939, partially repatriated to Soviet Armenia in 1946. The
bus starts again, leaving the place to the whistling of the wind:
I open my backpack, take out the portrait I have had with me since
leaving Lebanon and enter the dirt roads lined up with low houses.

“Angel is ten years older than me; she already had a son, when our
parents decided to leave Lebanon to come here to Armenia. We split:
we were the first to leave, while Angel stayed in Anjar, waiting for
our signal. I was nine”. Vartuhi’s calloused hands do not let go of
Angel’s picture. She has not seen her sister since 1946. All her life,
Vartuhi has never been anything other than a farmer in this village,
a citizen of the poorest state in the Caucasus. “But that signal was
never sent. Our father forbade Angel and her family to join us. Here
we found hunger, cold and the ghost of Siberia”.

All thoughts are channeled on the table by the portrait of her lost
sister, recalling distant memories, like a Grail from another time.

“We left Beirut on board the Pobeda to the Black Sea, then on a train
from Batumi to Yerevan. We had big dreams, finally an actual homeland.

We were encouraged by the newspapers, by the propaganda, by hope”. The
afternoon slides quickly on Vartuhi’s stories, while the sun rushes
to make room for a freezing night, making the distance from Lebanon
even harsher. Before it gets completely dark, I take out my camera
while the old woman settles down for a picture. In her eyes, the same
light that a few days earlier lit up her older sister’s; on her face,
the same sternness. “Do you think Angel will recognize me?”

Before leaving the village, I go into the belly of the raptor, where
a small museum gathers heirlooms, documents, memories of the Musa Dagh
refugees. The plywood shrine glorifies the sacrifice of the ancestors,
trying to turn a scar of the past into a historical challenge to pass
on through the exiled generations. A pre-printed tag tells the story
of the migration of Sarkis Penenian and family, who have remained in
history thanks to the now yellow boarding pass on the Pobeda. “Family
traveling with person in charge: five. Port of departure: Beirut. Port
of arrival: Batumi. Issued in Beirut, 19 September 1946. Signed: the
Committee for the repatriation of the Armenians of Lebanon and Syria”.

Price: 50 Lebanese Liras. A one-way trip to the unknown was somewhat
cheap.

>From my journal.

What does the destiny of refugees depend on? On the ship they board
or miss, on the advice they follow or ignore. The Palestinian refugee
camp where I live is in Beirut simply because in 1948 the refugees
were able to escape on a train that ran between Palestine and Lebanon
right before the tunnel on the tracks between the two Countries was
blown up. And so it is that Vartuhi and Angel, the Armenian sisters
divided only by a short trip on a ship in 1946, have gone through a
whole century without ever meeting again. The diaspora is the land
of circumstances. The only homeland of the refugees is memory, and
war is their true mother.

The fog trapping Yerevan dissolves on the first flights of stairs
leading up to Tsitsernakaberd, the Armenian genocide memorial. Up here,
Armenia and diaspora blend, symbolically re-establishing the unity of
the two souls of the Armenian people. A flame on the top of the hill
is there to remind of the million and a half victims, while down below,
the capital is covered by a white carpet of silence and low clouds.

‘Diaspora and genocide are two sides of the same coin. One issue leads
to the other’. Hayk Demoyan, director of the memorial, is waiting for
me in the hall’s half-light, where pictures and documents reconstruct
the steps of the tragedy that hit the Armenian people a century ago.

‘Acknowledging the genocide is the necessary step to show understanding
for the history of the diaspora’. Turkish State politics denies the
genocidal purposes of the massacres and deportations carried out by
the Ottoman empire against the Armenians, undermining the chances of
normalizing relations between the two Countries.

‘In 2009, we were a step away from reaching an agreement but,
as of today, the signing of the protocols has led to nothing’. The
agreements referred to by Demoyan provided for the re-opening of the
Armenian-Turkish border, closed since 1993, reducing the isolation of
the small Caucasian State. Indeed, along with the issue of the Western
border, Yerevan is faced with a 20-year-long conflict on the Nagorno –
Karabakh with the Eastern neighbor, Azerbaijan. ‘Times are not ripe,
yet, but time is in our favor. In just a few years we will be able
to gather the fruits of our politics of openness’.

>From the hall’s picture windows, Mount Ararat, a symbol of the
Armenian saga, fills the sky as the haze makes room for a cold and
clear color. The white giant lays over the border, on Turkish soil,
entrusted by history to the sovereignty of the obtrusive neighbor.

“But Armenia does not have land claims, we have stated it over and over
in all international venues’. After a year spent with the Lebanese
diaspora, Demoyan’s approach to relations with Turkey may sound
very pragmatic, far from the fierce rhetoric and dreams of revenge
spreading in the Armenian quarters of Beirut. ‘The diaspora has paid
the highest price of the Ottoman genocidal madness. That is why it
has internalized an emotional approach. As citizens of this Country,
though, we also have to adopt a realistic approach’.

The brief appearance of the sun winds up behind the Ararat curtain,
leaving the alleys of Yerevan to the long autumn night. The old town
of the Armenian capital has been the stage of a desolate show since
the ’90s: the overseas diaspora, strong with its economic power and
anxious to mark the land, invades every inch with reinforced concrete.

Lines of deserted apartments, deserted store windows, summer
residences, solitary private police agents in the corners of the night:
the legacy of the laissez faire politics the Armenian government
reserves to its diaspora. The ruthless stretch of concrete holds the
same punishment the Lebanese diaspora inflicts on its Beirut.

Tired, I seek refuge in the pictures gathered in the lands where,
in spite of themselves, Armenia and Turkey meet. The pen runs over
the page of my journal:

The barbed wire breaks the absolute continuity of the plateau. An ant
runs over a segment of the zinc-coated weave, until a gust of wind
blows it to the ground. Beyond the barbed wires, Mount Ararat attacks
the horizon, close as only the things that cannot be touched seem.

This is the limes from which Turks and Armenians have been screaming
at each other for a century: ‘Hic sunt leones’. These are the Pillars
of Hercules that hold the last standing stretch of the Iron Curtain.

The ant, unaware, zigzags for long between the two Countries, before
disappearing in the loneliness of the prairie. What if, instead of
flying to Beirut, I went by land?

‘ORPHANS OF THE GENOCIDE’ TO BE SCREENED IN WATERTOWN

Armenian Weekly
July 30, 2012

WATERTOWN, Mass (A.W.)-The documentary “Orphans of the Genocide”
will be screened in Watertown on Aug. 1. Four-time regional Emmy
Award-winning filmmaker Bared Maronianwill present the film to
the public. The event, organized by the ARF Boston “Sardarabad”
Gomideh, begins at 7 p.m. at St. Stephen’s Church Hall, 1 Artsakh
St. in Watertown.

“The stories of these genocide orphans are told by the orphans
themselves, backed by expert opinion from scholars like Deborah Dwork
and Keith Watenpaugh.”

In an interview with Weekly editor Khatchig Mouradian, Maronian said,
“‘Orphans of the Genocide’ tells the story of hundreds of thousands
of Armenian Genocide orphans. It is a posthumous tribute to the memory
of those Armenian children victimized by the horrors of a systematic,
concerted process of annihilation and a celebration of their survival
against all odds.”

Talking about the sources and resources he tapped into, Maronian
said, “The stories of these genocide orphans are told by the orphans
themselves, backed by expert opinion from scholars like Deborah Dwork
and Keith Watenpaugh.”

Maronian has made use of archival photos and documents from the
Rockefeller Archive Center, Das Bundesarchiv (German National
Archives), Statens Arkiver (Danish National Archives), the
Library of Congress, U.S. National Archives, the Armenian Genocide
Musem-Institute, AGBU Archives, Noubarian Library, Houshamadyan
Archives, ARS Archives, and other private archival collections.

In an exclusive camera interview, 105 year old Almas Boghossian
of Whitensville, Mass., tells how she became a genocide orphan,
walked from Husseinig to Der Zor on foot and how she was adopted by
an Arab family, then admitted to an Armenian orphanage in Aleppo and
eventually claimed by a relative in the States. Almas’s grandson,
Bruce Boghossian, the current president of American University of
Armenia, continued Almas’s story from where she left off.

In turn, the late Dr. Jack Kevorkian, a pioneer American, tells us the
story of his Genocide orphan mother, whose foot was deformed while
walking barefoot on the hot dessert sand on her way to Der Zor. The
documentary also depicts how doctor Kevorkian’s artwork was directly
impacted by the Genocide.

“Besides personal accounts, the documentary also examines one of
the largest orphan relief efforts of mankind that was spearheaded
by American Near East Relief Society (NER). Robert Wirt, US Special
Forces Green Beret, based on his great grandfather, Loyal Lincoln
Wirt’s memoirs, tells us how Loyal witnessed the herculean task of
NER in establishing 212 orphanages for 200,000 orphans scattered from
Constantinople to Aleppo,” explains Maronian.

A special segment is dedicated to Alexandrapole, currently Gumri,
Armenia, where once stood an orphanage housing 22,000 Armenian
Genocide Orphans. Another special segment of the documentary deals
with the Antoura Orphanage in Lebanon, where 1,000 Armenian orphans
were stripped of their identity and were being Turkified. Independent
researcher Missak Kelechian and world renowned journalist Robert Fisk
delve into the details of this operation masterminded by Jemal Pasha.

In 2010, the short version of “Orphans of the Genocide” was nominated
for a Regional Emmy Award, won a Telly Award, and was screened at
the NYC Filmmaker’s Festival. The long version is at its final post
production stage and the producers are in negotiations with a number
of TV stations for possible broadcast dates as early as October 2012.

The documentary is written by Maronian and Jackie Abramian and Directed
by Maronian. It is a production of Armenoid Productions Inc.

Maronian notes, “Our extensive research of the topic that extended
over two years lead us to believe that we could not fit everything
we found in an hour and a half documentary, so we decided to publish
a 120 page companion book called ‘Orphans of the Genocide’ featuring
175 uncirculated or rarely seen photos depicting the daily lives of
Armenian Genocide Orphans.”

MUSURLIAN NOMINATED FOR TWO EMMYS

ASBAREZ
Saturday, July 2nd, 2011

Peter Musurlian and his wife Szilvia, at the 2007 Los Angeles Area Emmy

BURBANK-Peter Musurlian, the Station Manager and Senior Producer for
The Burbank Channel, received two Los Angeles Area Emmy® nominations,
announced on June 30 by John Schaffner, Chairman and CEO of the
Academy of Television Arts and Sciences.

The nominations are Musurlian’s third and fourth over the past decade,
and come on the heels of his achievement of winning five Golden Mikes
in January at a Universal City awards banquet sponsored by the Radio
and Television News Association of Southern California.

The Los Angeles Area Emmy® Awards, which will be handed-out in North
Hollywood on August 6, are given for broadcast achievements produced or
solely financed and controlled by the Los Angeles television stations
or cable television systems.

One of Musurlian’s nominations is in the category “Information/Public
Affairs Series (more than 50 percent remote).” It was for his
quarterly news and feature program, Burbank Magazine, which Musurlian
single-handedly produces, shoots, writes, reports, anchors, and edits.

Burbank Magazine is up against an NBC4 program, LX.TV Open House,
as well as the powerhouse KCET program, SoCal Connected, which has
a budget 10 times that of Burbank Magazine.

The other nomination is in the category, “Public, Municipal and
Operator Produced Cable,” for Musurlian’s mini-documentary called,
“Seeing Beyond Borders,” which traced the steps of Burbank Lions Club
members, participating in a program that brings free eyeglasses to
remote and impoverished areas around the world.

Musurlian also worked solo on that piece, which included shooting
video & interviews in Northern California and Chihuahua, Mexico.

Musurlian has been with The Burbank Channel, the City of Burbank’s
government access station, since 1998. Prior to that, he spent 8
months in Central Europe, reporting for American Forces Network,
as a member the United States Army. In the 1980s, he reported for
television stations in Montana, Texas, and Washington, D.C.

Musurlian is a graduate of USC’s School of Journalism, and holds
master’s degrees from Baylor University, American University and the
University of Redlands.

Musurlian is a former ANCA-WR Board Member; a 1983 ABC News intern,
as part of the Armenian Assembly Summer Intern Program; and is married
to a high school Social Science teacher at AGBU-MDS in Canoga Park.

SERZHIK LEAVE IS A UNIVERSAL BRAND
Siranuysh Papyan

Story from Lragir.am News:

Published: 18:04:59 – 30/07/2012

Interview with Manvel Sargsyan, ACNIS director

Mr. Sargsyan, only a few months are left till the presidential election
but there seems to be no interest in the elections. Why?

Either the political forces have nothing to say, or the proposed
approaches are not interesting. Today there is an internal dispute in
the opposition on the direction declared and followed by the ANC. This
dispute has acquires such expressions that one cannot understand
whether it serves the decaying process or is the result of the
decaying process. Generally, it is very difficult to understand what
is happening as long as one hears people’s opinion on the conducted
police some of which seem to be outside the ANC but others declare
themselves part of the ANC and say the same. This declared direction
is the direction of relying on Tsarukyan’s party. The former or
maybe present opposition force offers some ways of achieving change
but this appearance is not convincing, and if it is not convincing,
people become indifferent.

However, the idea of a joint opposition candidate is so abstract that
nobody wants to touch upon it unless there is concreteness. After
all, there must a proposal for people to discuss. Besides, the idea
of change through elections was attached after the parliamentary
elections. Convincing expressions, the only form, the only truth does
not convince even those people who declared that. I can see people
scare the public that revolution is death and now they state calmly
this is a lie, no elections, only revolution. I don’t think these
people are honest, simply these people have understood that these
statements are void. There is an ideological vacuum, false beliefs
have been revealed for people with with these beliefs. The lack of
ideology explains the indifference.

What is the reason of this ideological bankruptcy of the past 20
years? There is an opinion that we must develop procedures. We knew
what we wanted but did not know how to get it.

Any activity for political issues must produce a result. If we put
forth a problem, independent from its scope, we must solve it, if you
do not ever solve it, it means, on the one hand, that you are unable
to do that, your mentality, your experience are not enough for the
solution of the problems, on the other hand, people start filling
their heads with false ideas that no issue can be resolved. Mainly
those people uphold it who are unable to solve problems. When you put
forth an issue and are unable to resolve it, then you start preaching
the public that it did not resolve because one cannot solve anything in
Armenia. This is expansion of false ideas. Over 20 years no problem put
forth by the political forces has been solve, the political forces have
always found an excuse for why it was not resolved and no political
force claimed responsible. I remember Levon Ter-Petrosyan say in
one of the rallies that he cannot resolve a problem alone. This is
interesting this something like this was uttered in Armenia but it was
not convincing why he could not because later different interpretations
came that “we need several hundred thousand people”.

No convincing explanation was given which weakens the society,
people are made believe that 500,000 will never get together, and
these problems will never be resolved. We must understand that if the
problems are put forth, solutions must be found, if no solutions are
found, the society finds itself in such a situation. Some of them
leave in despair, others reconcile with this state, including the
political forces, and the only hope is the other part of the society
which does not accept all these things and tries to put forth goals,
figure out the objectives and find solutions. This small part of the
society is in an interesting state because the subdued part sheds its
jealousy and wickedness on the small percent, teaches them that they
are wrong and disturb them.

Finally, who is the cause of this situation? This is one of the most
important issues, and one must try to find the reasons, see why people
are in this situation.

First of all, it is related to the category of lie. In the past 20
years people and especially the political forces have developed a
growing belief in the lie, it is a very powerful political mechanism,
it is justified that lie mobilizes, lie helps solve a lot of problems.

Now I can see the crisis of the policy of lie. There are other reasons
as well. There are populist approaches which persisted over the past
20 years, people believed that this is the way of solving issues.

Those were wrong beliefs which led to this crush, people cannot
believe but try to keep from other perceptions. Hence, another surge
of lie comes, a belief that lie can justify your situation. People
must understand why man constantly appears in lie, why reality is
falsified all the time, success is denied. There is success, people
say there is nothing like this, it is a lie because for decades this
situation was part of private life, they live like this all their
life and cannot say that they lived all their life in a wrong way.

But, Mr. Sargsyan, there is a civil sector which is not living in a
false reality. Is it possible to have this sector self-organize and
create a new reality? What are the ways out?

Since civil initiatives are something new, it is natural that the
society living in the way I described tries to understand what this is,
and still a lot of things are not clear. When we consider the political
scramble in Armenia, we must speak about the race of parties. Beginning
from the Armenian National Movement, all the parties led an organized
and controlled race which was usually in the pre- and post-election
periods. This was the philosophy of the struggle.

We had a civil struggle, the Karabakh movement but we did not have
one in the past 20 years. The civil movement is not the duplication of
the party struggle, they are so different that this time they can be
antagonists. We can see that now the parties are mainly jealous and
wicked because the citizens are the civil struggle. Classic civil
struggle is for an urgent issue, the problem is put forth for the
society, it takes part, is interested, pursues the solution of the
problem, this problem can be change of the government, the citizens
put forth the issue, come together, solve it and go home. This is
the logic of the civil struggle which the present parties cannot
understand. Since we lacked social consciousness for years, people
were told that only the parties are entitled to solve the problems,
and nobody has the right to solve them. And it became a belief
for the parties. But the parties can never solve it because they
are political institutions whose functions are defined by law. The
parties do not need to put forth the issue of change of government,
the citizens must come together and decide whether it is urgent or not,
and we still do not have this certainty.

It is often asked whether the civil initiatives will transform to
political forces.

These are questions which have the right to be raised. It comes
from the understanding of the problems that the parties may be
the problem which do not have the necessary qualities to be able
to resolve systemic issues. The parties in Armenia operate in a
climate where they can never do anything. They go beyond their their
functions and thus become weak, remaining within their competencies
they cannot solve any issue because the electoral mechanism is not
operational, if there is no competition among parties, the activity
of parties becomes meaningless. Therefore they try to walk into the
civil field, assume the functions of citizens and solve issues but
they are not successful because in their consciousness the struggle
is for power. There is not a matter of coming to power for any
civil initiative which pursues change of the system therefore they
are powerful. As soon as the civil movement pursues power, it is
annihilated, and never succeeds, you must remove this issue to be
able to resolve a distinct issue. There was something similar in 2008
because it was impossible to do a systemic change by bringing a group
to power. If politics were based on truth and not lie, we could have
avoided those mistakes but it was said that by bringing some people
to power a systemic issue would be solved. It was a barefaced lie
which could not last long and now we can see the decay.

A lot of people see the decay of the criminal and oligarchic pyramid.

Is the pyramid in crisis?

We must ask the question what will replace it when it decays.

Otherwise it may decay for one hundred years. In the criminal world,
if there is a problem, and the system of agreements does not work,
they will make a new agreement, and then the same thing will repeat on
and on. Now it is complicated by the civil activism. The government,
as well as the political forces, is jealous and full of hatred because
they feel the danger. See what severe punishment the youths of the
ANC got. This is the hatred of the government. Remember how the young
people in Mashtots Park were treated for a single tent. The system
can see young people who disobey it. It indicates that the system
feels the change in the country but issues are not solves. Listen
how the oligarchs are speaking, their false excuse me-s. The society
has put them in this situation, and this might be the beginning,
and tomorrow the society may speak in a different language, and they
have understood that other masters are coming who dictate their will.

Mr. Sargsyan, do you agree with Aghasi Tadevosyan that our goal must
not be removal of the oligarchy?

We must understand that this system is genetically linked with the
consciousness and development of the society. The oligarchy which was
established and becomes stronger is directly linked with the quality
of the society. This phenomenon will disappear as soon as we change our
quality. We must treat the sick body. Look how everything is perverted
in the political struggle when a person does not hope that he or she
can put forth an issue and solve it. The brand “Serzhik leave” is a
universal almighty device. When a person has nothing to say, it can
use it and speak for an hour, these are the stages of development of
new false ideas which weaken every movement and complicate the ways
f solving problems.

Città Nuova, Italia
27 luglio 2012

San Lazzaro degli Armeni

27-07-2012 di Oreste Paliotti
Fonte: Città Nuova

La laguna veneta ospita uno dei principali centri mondiali di fede e
cultura di questo popolo venuto da lontano

In questo quinto centenario della stampa a Venezia del primo libro in
lingua armena (1512), è d’obbligo, per chi visita la città lagunare,
recarsi a San Lazzaro degli Armeni col vaporetto n. 20. Questa piccola
isola ad ovest del Lido, che si annuncia da lontano col caratteristico
campanile dalla copertura a bulbo orientaleggiante, è occupata in
parte dalla chiesa-convento dei padri mechitaristi (un complesso di
edifici risalenti ad epoche diverse) e in parte da un giardino ricco
di pini, cipressi, cedri e ulivi. Che sia un lembo d’Armenia
trasferito in Italia, lo si intuisce, già accostandosi
all’imbarcadero, dallo yacht sul cui fianco spicca la scritta
`Armenia’ e, una volta sbarcati, dal melograno (l’albero nazionale
armeno) e dal khatchkar in basalto (la tipica croce armena) sul
piazzale dell’approdo. Qui si è accolti anche dalla statua bronzea
dell’abate Mechitar di Sebaste, fondatore della congregazione che da
lui prende il nome e grande sostenitore dell’unità della Chiesa.

Oggi la guida del piccolo gruppo di cui faccio parte è affidata ad una
giovane signora armena, Zoya Karapetyan: durante la visita alla
chiesa, al bellissimo chiostro porticato, al refettorio e alle sale
museali, ci illustra con gestualità e partecipazione vivaci gli inizi
lagunari di questa comunità, risalendo al 1717, anno in cui il Senato
della Serenissima donò questa briciola di terra, già sede di un
lebbrosario, ai monaci armeni esuli dalla Morea invasa dai turchi,
giunti aVenezia al seguito dell’abate Mechitar.

L’isola rifiorì grazie ai lavori di restauro, ristrutturazione e nuove
costruzioni intrapresi dai religiosi, che riuscirono a ingrandirla
quattro volte con terra di riporto fino all’attuale estensione di tre
ettari. Non pago di ciò, quest’uomo dotato di una fiducia assoluta
nella provvidenza divina avviò una intensa attività editoriale,
dedicandosi lui stesso a tradurre da diverse lingue testi scientifici,
letterari e religiosi. Anche dopo la sua morte, l’ambizioso progetto
continuò a svilupparsi grazie alla fondazione in loco di una
tipografia poliglotta (1786). Fucina di spiritualità e cultura, San
Lazzaro operò in prima linea per contribuire, dopo secoli di
decadenza, alla rinascita armena. E solo perché la congregazione venne
considerata un’accademia letteraria il monastero scampò alle
soppressioni napoleoniche degli ordini religiosi.

Testimoniano questo glorioso passato la biblioteca monumentale di
circa 200 mila volumi, la sala climatizzata contenente 4500 preziosi
manoscritti antichi, anche miniati; la pinacoteca con dipinti di sommi
artisti quali Palma il Giovane, il Ricci, il Longhi, il Tiepolo; le
altre numerose opere d’arte disseminate nel monastero, cui vanno
aggiunti reperti arabi, indiani ed egiziani raccolti dai monaci o
ricevuti in regalo: tra questi non passa inosservata la singolare
mummia di Nemenkhet Amon, racchiusa in una sontuosa guaina di perline
di vetro colorate.

Qui viene mostrata la stanza ancora intatta dove soggiornò nel 1816
lord Byron per imparare l’armeno. Pare che il poeta gradisse molto la
profumatissima marmellata di petali di rosa che i monaci producono
tuttora grazie ai rosai coltivati nell’isola.
Oggi è domenica. Rientro nell’armoniosa chiesa di origine gotica, ma
ricostruita nel XIX secolo, dove riposa l’abate Mechitar, per
partecipare alla messa delle 11. Il suggestivo rito cattolico armeno
prevede, in alcuni momenti, la chiusura dell’ampia tenda rossa che
delimita il presbiterio. Tra nuvole d’incenso, risuonano sotto la
volta stellata gli inni cantati dai monaci. Una struggente nostalgia
del Cielo.