Author: Manouk Vasilian

“The Cut” – a historical epic about the Armenian Genocide directed by Turkish-German filmmaker Fatih Akin will screen in Tbilisi today within the framework of the Russian Movie Festival held in the Georgian capital from November 4 to 8.

The festival features 30 films from Georgia, Russia, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, Ukraine, Turkey and Iran.

Beginning in Armenia in 1915, “The Cut” follows one man’s journey through the Ottoman Empire after surviving the Genocide. Nazaret (Tahar Rahim), a young blacksmith from Mardin, Turkey, is ripped from his family and is forced to work as a slave laborer. Years later, he begins a continent-crossing quest to reunite with his twin daughters.

Asbarez – “Happy Armenians,” the newest play by award-winning playwright and director Aram Kouyoumdjian, has captured a Best Sta ge Play (Drama) nomination from the NoHo Fringe Festival.  Its competition includes revivals of classics and contemporary fare, ranging from “Cat on a Hot Tin Roof” by Tennessee Williams to “This Is Our Youth” by Kenneth Lonergan.

The world premiere production of “Happy Armenians,” staged by Vista Players at the NoHo Arts Center, played 12 performances in October to sold-out audiences and garnered rave reviews from critics.

Reviewers called the play “captivating” with “a brilliant job” by the cast (Monica Astacio); its “smart, fun, fresh” script was “cleverly executed” by “an amazing technical and artistic team” (Lorenzo Marchessi).

Asbarez featured two reviews of the play.  Apo Boghigian, writing in Armenian, deemed it “meticulously staged” and “performed by an expert cast.”  Ishkhan Jinbashian’s review in English hailed it as “a sure-footed expedition into the fantastical, with a storyline that whisks your imagination away for a thrill ride across time and space, and a deft, nuanced ensemble performance that leaves you hankering for more.”

Dates are currently being finalized for the production’s tours in Northern California (in late February) and New York (in early March).  The original L.A. cast – led by Daniel Hubbard and featuring the talents of Heather Lynn Smith, Tavis L. Baker, Jade Hykush, and Gregory DePetro – will remain with the production on tour.

“Happy Armenians,” a dramedy, tells a “parallel world” version of history in which Armenia has become a global empire, upending the world order as we know it.  A humorous, imaginative, and poignant rumination on love, war, and the burdens of history, it boasts an original music score by Ara Dabandjian.

Kouyoumdjian is the winner of Elly Awards for playwriting (“The Farewells”) and directing (“Three Hotels”).  Vista Players is the acclaimed theater ensemble he co-founded and that “set the standard by which others were judged” (Sacramento News & Review).

From reinforced trenches reminiscent of World War One, Azeris and Armenians watch each other intently through binoculars. Separated by 300 meters of ground dotted with land mines, they’ve recently witnessed mounting casualties caused by ever-more powerful arsenals of weapons, Bloomberg writes.

“Their shooting is increasing,” said Simyon Sarayan, a 25-year-old front-line soldier from Nagorno-Karabakh. “We’re always on alert and ready to give a proper response.’’

While fighting between Armenia and Azerbaijan would bring more turmoil to the region – and potentially disrupt a new energy corridor between Central Asia and Europe – analysts say the risks of a full-blown war dragging in other powers are limited.

“A calculated escalation to a full-scale war is still unlikely at this point,” Laurence Broers, co-editor-in-chief of the Caucasus Survey journal, told Bloomberg.  “The various constraints and risks are too great.” The international interests at stake in the region and “the exploitation of Caspian oil and gas militate against a fully-fledged military campaign.”

The agency reminds that the confrontation dates back to the dying days of the Soviet Union and adds that military spending in Azerbaijan increased 30-fold in the past decade and is planned at $4.8 billion in 2015, more than Armenia’s entire state budget.

That doesn’t deter Nagorno-Karabakh’s defense minister, Levon Mnatsakanyan, who says one of the first targets of any new war will be a BP-operated oil pipeline that’s less than 50 kilometers from the conflict zone and carries as much as 1.2 million barrels daily from Baku to Turkey’s Ceyhan.

“This is a very serious financial resource for Azerbaijan and we need to deprive them of these means,” he said in an interview in the capital, Stepanakert. “If we’d known the situation would be like this today, we’d never have signed that truce 20 years ago.’’

Azerbaijan has begun “a new stage of escalation of the situation with the use of heavy artillery,” and “violates fundamental international obligations” of resolving the conflict peacefully, Armenian President Serzh Sargsyan said at a conference in the capital, Yerevan, on Friday.

“The risk is that there will be a really bad incident and we’ll end up with a small war by miscalculation,’’ Tom de Waal, senior associate at Carnegie Europe, said by e-mail. While mediators “are trying to maintain the cease-fire” and keep talks going, “few believe in the chances of genuine conflict resolution.”

Nagorno-Karabakh President Bako Sahakyan equated weapons sales to Azerbaijan with similar supplies to Islamic State, now facing Russian air strikes in Syria. Even so, Armenians don’t want fighting to escalate and “we’ll do everything possible to secure our state,’’ he said in an interview last month.

Stretching out the status quo may be the Armenians’ best strategy. “Time is working for us,’’ Karen Mirzoyan, Nagorno-Karabakh’s foreign minister, said in an interview last month. “The more time passes and the more successful we are in strengthening our statehood, the closer we are to international recognition of our independence.’’

With Azerbaijan vowing Nagorno-Karabakh “will remain an inalienable part of’’ it, increased violence remains possible. Greater use of heavy weaponry has led to the “worst casualty rate since the 1994” truce as Azerbaijan seeks to challenge the outcome of the war, though “the conflict remains politically choreographed,” IHS Jane’s Intelligence Review reported on its website Tuesday.

In the Armenian trenches, senior-lieutenant Gegham Grigoryan points to evidence of that challenge left by shrapnel in the wall of a hut used by soldiers. “A mortar from a Turkish-made howitzer landed just behind here last night,” he said. “The types of weapons used here and their caliber has changed. They’re getting bigger.”

Judith Farnworth, the newly-appointed ambassador extraordinary and plenipotentiary of the United Kingdom (UK) to the Republic of Armenia, handed over today her credentials to President Serzh Sargsyan.

The president congratulated the ambassador on her appointment and wished her success, stressing that there are all the prerequisites to strengthen interstate ties and broaden cooperation with the United Kingdom, as well as to elevate bilateral relations to a qualitatively new level.

Serzh Sargsyan expressed the hope that the newly-appointed ambassador will make every effort to push forward the Armenian-British interstate agenda and enrich it with new initiatives.

During the meeting, the parties attached importance to inter-parliamentary cooperation in which, they were certain, the two countries’ parliamentary friendship groups have played a major role. President Serzh Sargsyan expressed the hope that the parliamentarians will continue their close contacts and the dynamics of holding regular consultations on issues of mutual concern after the establishment of a new friendship group in the UK parliament. Armenia’s president stressed the key role of Baroness Caroline Cox in the development of inter-parliamentary and Armenian-British ties on the whole, adding that she has also created a good tradition of Nagorno Karabakh visits.

The RA president and the UK ambassador also spoke highly of the level of Armenian-British cooperation in the defense sphere and in that regard, emphasized the discussions held in Yerevan in September 2014 and the conclusion of the Defense Cooperation Plan.

Serzh Sargsyan and Ambassador Farnworth placed great importance on cooperation in the trade and economic sphere and within the frames of international organizations, e.g. the UN, OSCE etc.

Judith Farnworth underscored that Great Britain closely follows the OSCE Minsk Group’s activities and seeks to support the given peace process format by all possible means.

The president thanked Great Britain for its impartial position on the resolution of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, as well as on other issues which are of vital importance to Armenia.

The UK ambassador noted that her country is ready to take a leading role in the issue pertaining to the development of a new legal framework regulating the cooperation between Armenia and the European Union which, she was sure, could become a driving force to promote and enhance cooperation between Armenia and Great Britain both in bilateral and multilateral formats.

President Serzh Sargsyan sent today a congratulatory message to the Chairman of the Government of the Russian Federation, Dmitry Medvedev, on his birthday.

“Dear Dmitry Anatolyevich,

Accept my most sincere congratulations on the occasion of your 50th birthday.

Your statesmanship has earned you the respect of your compatriots, has made a weighty contribution to the development of Russian statehood and to the reinforcement of country’s positions in the international arena.

Armenians hold you in high regard and greatly appreciate your consistency aimed at the development of allied collaboration between Armenia and Russia.

I honestly value our mutual understanding and trust, and I am ready to continue our constructive dialogue to further enrich the Armenian-Russian strategic partnership with new initiatives and mutually beneficial programs in the interests of prosperity of our countries and brotherly peoples.

I cordially wish you good health, happiness, well-being and further success in all of your undertakings,” reads the RA president’s congratulatory message.

Gita Elibekyan
Public Radio of Armenia
Tbilisi

Armenian Genocide survivor Harutyun Masumyan is 101, but healthy and vigorous. He has one dream – to see Erzrum, his homeland.

Speaking to , Masumyan told the story of his survival.

Harutyun Masumyan was just one-year-old, when he was sent to death together with his father. Aware of what could happen, the father left him in the bushes.

“Turks killed my father. A relative of mine found me and returned to my mother,” he tells, while leafing through the family album.

Harutyun’s mother Satenik manages to survive on the grueling path of exile thanks to a few pieces of gold she had hidden under her youngest daughter’s dress.

“My mother was a heroic woman. It took her a year to pass the road of exile and reach Aleppo with her son and four daughters,” he says and shows the mother’s photo.

In Aleppo Satenik keeps Harutyun and the youngest daughter and takes the three other children to an orphanage.

“We spent five years in Aleppo. Then the refugees were given the freedom to leave. My mother chose Krasnodar, as she had relatives there, who had left Erzrum before 1915.

Harutyun then settled in Tbilisi. He participated in the World War Second and received a number of awards and medals.

He has been living in Russia for the past ten years, but has decided to move to Georgia again.

Speaking about the secret of his longevity, Harutyun, who says has never been ill, advises everyone not to smoke.

The 101-year-old survivor has one dream – to see Erzrum one day.

The Azerbaijani side has intensified the shelling at the line of contact between the armed forces of Nagorno Karabakh and Azerbaijan.

On June 14 the rival used 60mm mine throwers as it fired in the southern direction on July 14.

The front divisions of the NKR Defense Army mostly remained committed to the ceasefire regime and resorted to response actions only in case of extreme necessity.

A start-up carrier hopes to establish a sustainable aviation business in Armenia. Taron-Avia, named after a canton of the Turuberan province of the historic Greater Armenia, aims to begin scheduled passenger flights to Russia this autumn, according to .

Although the carrier has almost ten years experience in the cargo business, this will be its first growth into scheduled passenger operations. It intends to launch operations from September 2015 using a small fleet of three Boeing 737-500s that have already been acquired and are currently undergoing pre-service maintenance in Jordan.

“We will be based in Yerevan,” confirmed the airline’s chief executive officer, Garnik Papikyan, in a recent interview. “From the Armenian capital, we mainly want to fly to Moscow, St. Petersburg, Nizhniy Novgorod, Rostov, Krasnodar, Adler/Sochi, Volgograd, Voronezh and others,” he told ATO news in the interview.