Author: nina hovnanian

RUSSIA SEIZES SUBSOIL OF ARMENIA AND KARABAKH FROM OLIGARCHS

The parliamentary hearing called by Vardan Aivazyan to discuss issues
relating to the subsoil was a signal of a big redistribution of
property. Most probably, this is related to Serzh Sargsyan’s decision
on joining the Customs Union, which was followed by new processes in
both the Armenian economy and politics.

The Armenian economy used to be largely “Russian” but it has been
diversified over the past few years. Both local oligarchs and
some major western investors have emerged. Now apparently both the
western companies and oligarchs are ousted by Russian and pro-Russian
businesses.

Recently a Russian company has been said likely to mine in Kajaran.

The people of the villages adjacent to the mine were said to oppose,
and Vardan Aivazyan has been asked to call the hearings to deprive
the Council of Elders of the village of not only a voice but also
the right to dividends.

The Armenian subsoil is exploited uncaringly and without observing
environmental requirements. The national wealth is extracted from
soil and run into the pockets of a group of people whom more Russian
companies will be joining. Unlike the Western companies, which cherish
public opinion, Russian companies tend to walk across the society.

The process of active exploitation of mines has affected Karabakh as
well. The region of Karvachar has been dug far and wide. A new road is
being built between Karvachar and Sotk to facilitate transportation of
ore from the mine to the enrichment facility. NKR deputy prime minister
Arthur Aghabekyan thinks that soon mining will comprise 10% of the GDP.

Whose pockets will the astronomical profits from mines in Armenia
and Karabakh go to? Experts say that the Armenian exports to Europe
are dominantly the products of mining industry. They say that after
Armenia joins the Customs Union, customs duties will rise, and the
cost price of products exported to Europe will grow respectively. Or
not, in case the Russian companies export those products, which means
that mining in Armenia will be dominated by the Russians.

The Russian parliament is likely to draft a law enabling the
government to protect Russian economic interests abroad. “The law
would vest in the head of state the right to undertake answering
steps where appropriate without additional agreements and resorting
to “fig leaves” in case of anti-Russian political actions aimed at
discrimination of Russian economic interests,” the information note
on the draft law states.

It means that Russia reserves the right to take “adequate steps”
in case the Armenian state or one of the local oligarchs and western
companies wishes to end the monopoly of Russian companies and promote
its own interests. So why are you calling occupation integration?

Naira Hayrumyan 14:40 11/10/2013 Story from Lragir.am News:

ARMENIAN CHURCH MAY BE BUILT IN PRAGUE

October 11, 2013 | 11:52

YEREVAN. – Tigran Seyranyan, Armenia’s Ambassador to the Czech Republic
and Slovakia, on Thursday paid a visit to the Diocesan Seat of the
Roman Catholic Church in the Czech Republic.

Seyranyan met with Dominik Duka, Archbishop of Prague and Cardinal
of the Roman Catholic Church in the Czech Republic.

The interlocutors reflected on the Armenian-Czech cultural and
spiritual relations, discussed the prospects for interaction between
the Armenian Apostolic Church and the Czech Catholic Church, and
spoke about the avenues for implementing joint cultural projects,
informs the Armenian MFA press service.

They also examined matters concerning the Czech-Armenian community,
specifically the chances of building an Armenian church in Czech
capital city Prague.

On his part, Cardinal Dominik Duka expressed willingness to provide
feasible assistance to the Armenian community in the Czech Republic.

DIYARBAKIR MAYOR PLACES FLOWERS AT ARMENIAN GENOCIDE MEMORIAL IN PROVIDENCE

By Weekly Staff // October 11, 2013

PROVIDENCE, R.I. (A.W.)–Mayor of the Diyarbakir Sur Municipality
Abdullah DemirbaÅ~_ placed flowers at the Armenian Genocide Memorial
in Providence on Oct. 10.

DemirbaÅ~_ with members of the Kurdish and Armenian communities of
the U.S. (Photo: The Armenian Weekly)

Speaking at the memorial, DemirbaÅ~_ said, “We bow in memory of all
those who lost their lives.”

Kurds had a role in the massacres of 1915, DemirbaÅ~_ noted. He
stressed the importance of confronting the past. He called on the
Turkish state to apologize and make amends. “Asking for forgiveness
is a sign of maturity,” he concluded.

The mayor was accompanied by members of the Kurdish and Armenian
communities of New England.

Last month, DemirbaÅ~_ apologized in the name of Kurds for the
Armenian and Assyrian “massacre and deportations” during theofficial
inauguration of the Monument of Common Conscience. “We will continue
our struggle to secure atonement and compensation for them,” he added.

DemirbaÅ~_ placing flowers at the Armenian Genocide Memorial in
Providence

DemirbaÅ~_ and the Metropolitan Mayor of Diyarbakir Osman Baydemir
have adopted a policy of reviving the multiculturalism of the city in
recent years, embarking on a series of initiatives that include the
renovation of the Sourp Giragos Church, the offering of Armenian and
Assyrian language courses, the return of confiscated Armenian property,
and the opening of the memorial. Diyarbakir is also the only city in
Turkey with a sign greeting visitors in Turkish, Kurdish, and Armenian.

“Today, we are not simply asking for forgiveness in a dry fashion,”
DemirbaÅ~_ noted in an interview with the Weekly editor Khatchig
Mouradian in Diyarbakir in 2011. “I am a Kurd. And I want for Armenians
what I want for the Kurds.”

The Armenian Weekly conducted a follow-up interview with the mayor
after the visit to the memorial. The interview will be published
next week.

ANCA: AZERBAIJAN’S PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION A POORLY STAGE-MANAGED SPECTACLE

13:43 11.10.2013

Armenian National Committee of America (ANCA) Executive Director
Aram Hamparian offered the following comment regarding yesterday’s
presidential elections in Azerbaijan and the State Department’s
assessment issued earlier today:

“The State Department says Azerbaijan’s election ‘fell short of
international standards,’ while, in truth, it didn’t even come close.”

“This wasn’t an election at all, but rather a poorly stage-managed
spectacle, designed to provide some semblance of political cover for
an international community that, sadly, long ago chose to stand aside
as the Aliyevs consolidate their private ownership of Azerbaijan and
push their one-family rule into a second half-century.”

“The citizens of Azerbaijan – and their neighbors in Armenia and
Artsakh – deserve better than a petro-monarchy that siphons off the
nation’s wealth, abuses its own citizens, is driving the region toward
renewed war.”

The complete State Department statement on the Azerbaijani Presidential
Elections is provided below.

GERMANY WORKING GROUP WORKS TO ACHIEVE ARMENIAN GENOCIDE RECOGNITION

14:22 11/10/2013 ” TOPIC OF THE DAY

Our working group has been acting for 15 years. Its members are
representatives of various nationalities and our goal is to achieve the
international recognition and condemnation of the Armenian Genocide,
Zhirayr Kocharyan, member of the working group on the Armenian Genocide
recognition in Germany, told a press conference in Yerevan.

Kocharyan said that the working group cooperates with the Greek and
Assyrian communities in Germany and organizes rallies, demonstrations
and commemorative events in Berlin every year on April 24.

“We try to cooperate with German politicians as well as with Assyrians
and Greeks as both the Assyrians and the Greeks were also subjected
to genocide in Turkey,” he said.

The speaker noted that in 2005, the German Bundestag passed a
resolution on the Armenian Genocide, which did not recognize the
Armenian Genocide, but attempted to reconcile the Armenians with
the Turks.

Kocharyan added that the Armenian lobbying in Germany is weaker
than the Turkish one and therefore they try to balance the forces,
cooperating with other national minorities living in Germany.

Hurriyet Daily News, Turkey
Oct 12 2013

Istanbul’s schools under the Ottomans

by Niki GAMM
Hürriyet Daily News

>From an educational system that was religiously denominated to a
secular system in the 19th century, Istanbul’s schools provided an
education that was often lacking until it became one of the major
reforms initiated to meet the challenge of westernization

Education in the Ottoman Empire was primarily carried out in mekteps
(primary schools) and medreses (higher schools) usually attached to
mosques, the palace school and various bureaucratic offices. These
institutions basically produced graduates who ran the government and
these graduates were counted among the elite in the empire as “highly
successful administrators, lawyers, commanders as well as physicians
and architects,” according to Prof. Dr. Ekmeleddin Ýhsanoðlu in his
two-volume “History of the Ottoman State, Society & Civilization.” He
adds that most of these graduates were frequently connected with one
or another of the mystic sects that flourished throughout the Ottoman
Empire and this training led them to be liberal and tolerant.

Many, if not most schools that still exist today in Istanbul were
established in the nineteenth century because of the importance that
the sultans of the time gave to the provision of education that would
be on a level of that in Europe. There was at the same time
recognition that the system that had stood the empire in good stead
since the fourteenth century was no longer providing the quality
needed, especially for students to go on to technical studies. Sultan
Mahmut II (r. 1808-1839) undertook a number of reforms regarding the
law and taxation in addition to abolishing the Janissary troops. He
also introduced a second educational system while leaving the
mosque-attached system in place.

Mahmut II established a system whereby young men could graduate from
primary school and continue with classes that would prepare them to
enter technical schools that belonged to the military. Two such
schools were opened at Süleymaniye and Sultan Ahmet mosques. Similarly
three schools were opened for bureaucrats who wanted to serve in the
government or were already doing so and were looking for ways to
advance in their departments.

The sultan also reinvigorated the schools that were responsible for
higher technical education, such as the Naval and Army Engineering
Schools. In addition, he had a number of promising students sent to
European schools to study and these were expected to return to Turkey
to work as instructors and/or officers in the army. The sultan also
urged these students to create words in Ottoman Turkish which would
correspond to the terms used in European schools. A medical school was
also established that was expected to provide education more along
European lines although it lacked textbooks and equipment. There was
even a new school for military sciences. While there were still
serious shortcomings, at least these changes laid the basis for more
important reforms in the ensuing years.

Many of the men who wanted to reform the Ottoman Empire in the
nineteenth century had studied abroad, usually in France or Germany.
This period in time has been called the Tanzimat (Reorganization of
the Ottoman Empire) following a proclamation in 1839 that instituted a
whole series of reforms, including a Council of Public Instruction
(est. in 1845) and a Ministry of Education (est. in 1847). However,
the educational system only developed haphazardly since school systems
were run in different ways by the state, the religious minorities
various foreign institutions and schools were built with local funds.

Abdulhamid II took education in hand

Sultan Abdulhamid II took the educational system in hand with his
reform program of 1879 although results were obtained until tax
revenue was directed at education starting from 1883 and an effort was
made to spread these funds throughout the entire empire. Nor were
there many qualified teachers even for elementary schools so students
in these didn’t learn enough to benefit from the higher education
offered in technical schools.

By far the largest number of elementary schools in the empire was
Greek Orthodox and consisted of 4390 schools out of a total of 5982
non-Muslim schools in 1897. Foreign missionaries ran 246 elementary
schools. Over time the system as a whole improved, especially when
local educational councils which knew their own situation were given
control over their schools rather than having to deal with directives
from Istanbul.

“Perhaps the most serious damage came from the fragmented nature of
the system. The state schools, the millet (religious minority)
schools, and the foreign schools gave their students entirely
different ways of thinking, with different methods and objectives, and
produced several educated classes, parallel to one another yet
hostile, unable to understand or appreciate each other, preventing the
kind of national unity and cohesiveness needed to hold the empire
together.” [Shaw and Shaw, “History of the Ottoman Empire and the Rise
of Modern Turkey”]

Shaw and Shaw also provide interesting statistics for the number of
minority students in the second half of the nineteenth century. “The
desire for education among the Christian minorities is also evident
from their occupying 52 percent of all the student openings available
in the city despite their smaller numbers. Forty-one percent of the
Greeks and 38.6 percent of the Armenians, while only 36 percent of the
Muslims and Jews were occupied in this way.”

Kültür AÞ has recently published an illustrated book entitled
“Istanbul’un 100 Okulu (Istanbul’s 100 Schools) by Derya Bas that
provides information on the many schools over the years that belonged
to minority communities, foreign missionaries and even to tribes. Each
entry, in alphabetic order, tells about the founding of the school,
their educational system, their history and their architecture. The
book serves as a guide to the city’s heritage in the educational field
and the various changes that have occurred over time.

Time of Tanzimat

At the time of the Tanzimat, there were the medreses, the Özel Fener
Rum Lisesi, Istanbul University and the Davutpaþa Lisesi, which had
been established as a privately endowed primary school in 1485.

The Özel Fener Rum Lisesi was originally established in 1454 with the
permission of Fatih Sultan Mehmed. It was known as the Patriarchate
Academy and continued to serve the Greek Orthodox community until 1861
when it was converted into a classic lycee. The school moved several
times until 1883 when it settled in the so-called “Red School” that
distinctively commands a view of the Golden Horn – the building is
made of red brick.

The Armenian community, on the other hand, only had a primary school
in the 1860s when it was decided that there should be a high school
during the term of Armenian Patriarch, Nerses Varjabetyan. So the Özel
Getronagan Ermeni Lisesi was finally established in 1886.

Boðaziçi University for instance was started by missionaries as a
modest college in 1863 and 150 years later is considered among the
best universities in the world. Its journey over time is related in
the book as are the journeys of 99 other schools.

The author has provided snippets of information for all the entries
that are in alphabetic order in easy-to-read Turkish. It readily
serves as a guide for those who are curious about the non-Muslim
schools of earlier times.
October/12/2013

Rant Sports
Oct 12 2013

Armenia Fans Back Their Team Up In Win Against Bulgaria

October 11, 2013 5:54 pm EDT by Juan Pablo Aravena

Sometimes, all that a team needs is support from their fans to achieve
great things.

The Armenian side don’t have much international experience, but they
do submit their opponents to a lot of pressure both on and off the
field as the fans really get behind their team. They show continuous
support as they always believe the team can pull an upset. Armenia
already delivered a stunning surprise when they defeated Denmark by a
four-goal margin, and they did it again as they got past the challenge
of Bulgaria.

The visitors needed the three points to put themselves in a good
position to take another step towards a possible World Cup
qualification, but the road got steep when Minev was sent off for a
hard foul on the verge of halftime. One minute later, Ozbiliz netted
the opener for an Armenian side that, surprisingly, was leading at the
break.

The experience of Bulgaria appeared in the second half, and they
evened things up after a sensational strike from Popov. However, they
suffered another dismissal when Dyakov saw another red card for the
visiting team. The crowd noticed that it was the time to get louder to
push their team forward, and Armenia were able to answer the fans with
another shocking result.

Movsisyan found the back of the net near the end of the match, and
Armenia got a shocking win. It’s a win that could now change the
scenery in Group B after the Denmark-Italy match is played later
today. Bulgaria, on the other hand, will need to wait until next week
to heal their wounds as they will host Malta. Maybe the cheering of
their fans can help them to get the positive result they might need.

Aravot newspaper, Armenia
Oct 10 & 11 2013

Russian official mulls Armenia’s membership of Customs Union, raps EU

[Translated from Armenian]

The Armenian Aravot newspaper published in its two consecutive issues
on 10 and 11 October an interview with the Russian president’s advisor
on regional economic integration within the framework of the Customs
Union and the common economic area Sergey Glazyev, who commented in
more detail on Armenia’s joining the Russian-led Customs Union.

Commenting on the economic effects of Armenia’s membership of the
Customs Union, Glazyev admitted that they will be limited, but noted
that Armenia might be interested in cheaper prices of energy resources
offered by the union.

“Most experts agree that, yes, Armenia might be part of the Customs
Union, but one cannot expect much economic effect from it,” Russian
official said adding: “The common economic area enables to receive gas
at the prices of the internal market in the Customs Union. That means
that Armenia will have guaranteed stable and cheap gas resources”.

Speaking on the transit of energy resources, he said that improved
relations with Georgia would also provide “better prospects” on the
way of “solving a number of problems in the Caucasus”.

Glazyev also flayed the EU policy towards Armenia, putting it in the
context of other Eastern Partnership countries. “Armenia was offered
to become a ‘carriage’ of the EU’s train on discriminatory conditions,
like in case of Ukraine,” he said.

Glazyev also said that Armenia had to take the decision to join the
Customs Union to “maintain its independence”. “In fact, it was not us
who pushed Armenia to take the decision on joining the Customs Union,
but the European Union with its stubborn determination to deprive
Armenia of its sovereignty,” he said, adding: “In order to maintain
its independence and balanced relations with Russia, the Armenian
president had to take an appropriate political decision under that
kind of pressure”.

Reminded that Armenian Prime Minister Tigran Sargsyan held a different
opinion on the Customs Union, considering it as detrimental to
Armenia’s national interest, Glazyev reprimanded Sargsyan for not
having thoroughly read the text of the association agreement with the
EU. “With all due respect towards the Armenian prime minister, I would
like to advise him to read more attentively the agreement that he
wanted to sign with the EU,” he said.

Asked on prospects of setting customs checkpoints on the border with
Armenian-populated Azerbaijan’s breakaway Nagornyy Karabakh after
Armenia’s joining the Customs Union, the Russian official said that
that there would be no checkpoints. “I think the status will remain
the same there. Are there any customs checkpoints there or not? If
there are no such checkpoints on the Armenia-Nagornyy Karabakh border,
they will not be there. It is a domestic issue of Armenia,” he said.

Arts & Book Review
October 12, 2013
First Edition

‘I believe in the object. It is through the object that I discover myself’
IN THE STUDIO Daniel Silver Sculptor

by Karen Wright

Daniel Silver works in a “barn in the middle of Hackney”. I can see
why he calls it a barn, its lofty wood ceiling resembling an alpine
village cow barn. Ranged around the light space are shelves full of
sculptures, kin to the objects in Dig, Silver’s impressive
proto-archaeological installation in Euston, central London.

Silver was born in England in 1972. His parents decided to emigrate to
Israel in 1973, arriving just before the war. His father, a doctor,
was immediately in demand. He claims he has memories of his mother, a
painter herself, and himself in a concrete “adjustment” shelter. His
grandparents remained in England and Silver returned to do his art
studies at the Guild School, the Slade and the Royal College. He
mentions that he studied with Phyllida Barlow and Mike Nelson,
respectively, and I can see their ghostly influences brushing by me in
the studio.

Silver sees himself as a sculptor, saying, “I believe in the autonomy
of the object. It is through the object that ‘I discover myself’.”
With his analytical style of discourse, it is unsurprising to find
that he discovered this rich bank of images at Freud’s house in
Hampstead where Silver managed to convince the then-director to open
the cabinets of curiosity housing part of Freud’s collection. He
photographed the images and blew them up to “understand more about
them and the man who collected them.”

Silver moved into the space two years ago, sharing the building with
fellow artists Francis Upritchard and Martino Gamper, living nearby in
Dalston with his wife, Tali and young son, Irah. He uses his modest
canopied outdoor space to carve marble that he sources in Italy.
Silver has one assistant, Klaus, an amiable carver from the south
Tyrol who is engaged today with a large marble work that will
eventually be capped with a bronze head loosely based on an Armenian
monk, an image retrieved from Silver’s childhood in Israel. When he
was “a five year old, I went with my father, then a young doctor, to
the old city, and we sat and ate pigeons in this huge workers hall
with one of his patients, an Armenian”.

Silver found in Oxfam a book of photographs of Jerusalem taken in the
1970s, with an image of an Armenian monk, and they have become layered
in his mind. It is this conglomeration of multiple images that makes
Silver’s sculptures mysterious and hard to pin down. Collaged of
materials – marble, clay, rubber and fabric – and ideas of present and
past: “The fact that something comes from 3000 years ago and some from
150 years ago. I see everything now”.

Recently, Silver has been working on a project in Jerusalem and
determined to find the place of his encounters with the Armenian and
his father. “I found it, and it’s not so big any more – that is
interesting in relation to perception.” The archaeology of ideas is
embedded in the work but in the end, “I think it is about telling a
bigger story.”

Daniel Silver: Dig, Artangel, London EC1 () to 3 November

Patrick J. Buchanan: Secession talk is trending across America

Oct. 10, 2013 |

Written by patrick j. buchanan

In the last decade of the 20th century, as the Soviet Empire disintegrated
so, too, did that prison house of nations, the USSR.

Out of the decomposing carcass came Russia, Belarus, Ukraine, Lithuania,
Latvia, Estonia and Moldova, all in Europe; Georgia, Armenia and Azerbaijan
in the Caucasus; and Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, Kyrgyzstan and
Kazakhstan in Central Asia.

The Slovaks seceded from Czechoslovakia. Yet a Europe that plunged straight
to war after the last breakup of Czechoslovakia in 1938 and 1939 this time
only yawned. Let them go, all agreed.

The spirit of secession, the desire of peoples to sever ties to nations to
which they have belonged for generations, sometimes for centuries, and to
seek out their own kind is a spreading phenomenon.

Scotland is moving toward a referendum on independence from England, three
centuries after the Acts of Union. Catalonia pushes to be free of Madrid.
Milanese and Venetians see themselves as a European people apart from
Sicilians, Neapolitans and Romans.

What are the forces pulling nations apart? Ethnicity, culture, history and
language – but now also economics.

And separatist and secessionist movements are cropping up here in the
United States.

While many Red State Americans are moving away from Blue State America,
seeking kindred souls among whom to live, those who love where they live
but not those who rule them are seeking to secede.

The five counties of Western Maryland – Garrett, Allegheny, Washington,
Frederick and Carroll, which have more in common with West Virginia and
wish to be rid of Baltimore and free of Annapolis, are talking secession.

The issues driving secession in Maryland are gun control, high taxes,
energy policy, homosexual marriage and immigration.

Four of our 50 states – Maine, Vermont, Kentucky, West Virginia – were
born
out of other states.
Ten northern counties of Colorado are this November holding non-binding
referenda to prepare a future secession from Denver and the creation of
America’s 51st state.

In California, which many have long believed should be split in two, the
northern counties of Modoc and Siskyou on the Oregon border are talking
succession – and then union in a new state called Jefferson.

Folks on the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, bordered by Wisconsin and the
Great Lakes, which is connected to lower Michigan by a bridge, have long
dreamed of a separate state called Superior. The UP has little in common
with Lansing and nothing with Detroit.

While the folks in western Maryland, northern Colorado, northern California
and on the Upper Peninsula might be described as Red State secessionists,
in Vermont the secessionists seem of the populist left. The Montpelier
Manifesto of the Second Vermont Republic concludes:

`Citizens, lend your names to this manifesto and join in the honorable task
of rejecting the immoral, corrupt, decaying, dying, failing American Empire
and seeking its rapid and peaceful dissolution before it takes us all down
with it.’
This sort of intemperate language may be found in Thomas Jefferson’s
indictment of George III. If America does not get its fiscal house in order
or our elites dragoon us into another imperial war, we will likely hear
more of such talk.

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