«Member of the European Parliament Frank Engel wants Europe in Nagorno-Karabakh». A video with this claim appeared recently on Facebook. It refers to an appeal that is aimed at initiating EU engagement with Nagorno-Karabakh.
«Nagorno-Karabakh’s isolation is unique. The EU provides aid to 150 countries around the World. It also provides aid to people in many unrecognized territories such as Abkhazia, Transnistria and Northern Cyprus regardless of their status. This policy is called “engagement without recognition”.
We call on the EU to engage with Nagorno-Karabakh and support projects to improve the living conditions of its population because EU policies should contribute to the welfare, not to the hardship of populations in Europe and in its periphery», the appeal states.
At historic Aleppo hotel, nostalgia for a Syria lost
Angus McDowall
6 MIN READ
A view of a damaged room at the Baron Hotel in Aleppo, Syria July 14, 2017. Picture taken July 14, 2017.Omar Sanadiki
ALEPPO, Syria (Reuters) – On the terrace of the Baron Hotel in Aleppo, the owner’s widow, Roubina Tashjian, sorted through old photographs of its happier past in a more peaceful Syria.
Founded by an Armenian family in 1911, the Baron played host to adventurers, writers, kings, aviators, Bedouin chiefs and presidents until war forced it to close five years ago.
Tashjian sees the Baron as part of a Syria that values religious and ethnic diversity, openness to the outside world, culture and respect for the country’s great antiquities.
“A Syrian is a mixture of all these ethnic groups and cultures … this is a big pot and it’s all mixed up. But we cook the same kibbeh,” she said, referring to a Levantine dish.
Trying to revive that vision of Syria amid a war that has aggravated social fractures would involve reconciliation between political opponents, religious sects and economic classes.
But with hundreds of thousands dead, more than half the country’s pre-war population displaced and fighting ongoing, there seems little hope of that for now.
For the Baron, whose business depended on stability, safety and the draw of Syria’s cultural treasures, the 2011 uprising was a catastrophic assault on everything that allowed it to thrive.
During most of the fighting, Aleppo’s government-held western districts were subjected to shellfire, an influx of refugees and shortages of water, electricity and food.
East Aleppo, held by rebels until December when the army swept through it after months of siege and air raids, was left all but a wasteland.
The Baron, in west Aleppo near the front line, was hit by mortar bombs, including one that sprayed shrapnel across an upper floor and another that crashed through the window of its “Oriental Room” onto delicate floor tiles but failed to explode.
The tail fin from that round now sits in the Baron’s cabinet of curiosities alongside such relics as pottery given by visiting archaeologists and T.E. Lawrence’s hotel bill.
In the upstairs room she always took during her frequent stays in Aleppo stands the glass-topped wooden desk where Agatha Christie wrote part of Murder on the Orient Express.
For supporters of President Bashar al-Assad it is the fault of rebels they describe as terrorists, viewing them as Islamist militants who despise diversity and criminal gangs who loot cultural treasures.
Assad has cast his state as a secular protector of Syria’s minorities and cultural heritage against Sunni rebels backed by hostile foreign states whose ranks include many hardliners.
It was a view shared by some of the audience at a concert in an Old City church, fluttering fans in the summer heat of the open basilica, its roof ruined by shelling, as they listened to Mozart’s Mass in C Minor.
A view shows the interior of the Baron Hotel in Aleppo, Syria July 14, 2017.Omar Sanadiki
But any characterization of Assad’s Syria as diverse, secular, open and tolerant is rejected by the opposition, as well as some Western countries and rights groups. Critics say Syria’s government has long been one of the most oppressive in the Middle East and this was a root cause of the war.
The privileged position of Assad’s Alawite sect under him and his father, the late President Hafez al-Assad, fed grievances among many in the Sunni Muslim majority even as other Sunnis including urban elites backed the government.
While the government has promoted the idea of a secular Syria throughout the war, the conflict’s sectarian edge has been hard to miss.
As rebels rallied around Sunni Islamist slogans, Assad drew on allies including Shi’ite Islamist militias backed by Iran. They played a big part in the campaign to retake eastern Aleppo.
In the city, the conflict’s socio-economic dimensions are readily apparent. Areas where the rebellion was strongest included places bypassed by economic growth and poor quarters to which rural people flocked.
One west Aleppo resident, who had driven through devastated eastern districts after the fighting ended, said the inhabitants had brought ruin upon themselves by consorting with rebels.
Slideshow (4 Images)
“Those people were the cause. Yes, it’s sad, but…” the person said.
In the Baron, the wood-panelled dining room, the bar stocked with antique bottles, the pink furniture of the high-ceilinged smoking room and the bedrooms all seem worn and tired.
It stopped taking paying guests in 2012 – bar a few old friends – when Syria’s civil war came to Aleppo and mortars and sniper fire began to plague the streets around.
Tashjian, a 66-year-old former teacher, chases away street kittens that creep through broken french windows into the dining room and tries to keep the mostly deserted hotel from falling further into disrepair in a city with little electricity or water.
Her husband, Armen Mazloumian, the grandson of the hotel’s founder, died in 2016, two years after they married following a 30-year friendship. The Baron now belongs to his sisters, who left Syria years earlier, she said.
On the terrace from which Egypt’s nationalist leader Gamal Abdel Nasser once addressed a huge crowd, the boxes of old photographs were surrounded by other detritus recently hauled from a basement after the fighting abated.
Kilims, antique sewing machines, a set of 1950s towels, and moldering linen imported from Europe and embroidered with the hotel’s name, cascaded from large rattan trunks.
During the fighting, the hotel took in refugee families from east Aleppo. While they were there they used so much water cleaning the floors of their rooms each morning that the elegant geometric tiles were damaged, Tashjian said.
In the late afternoon heat, the hotel is cooled by a breeze that drifts in through broken windows on the ground floor and up the grand staircase.
“Syria was the most comfortable, the most secular country in the Arab world,” said Tashjian. “It was embarrassing if people asked if you were a Christian or a Muslim.”
The Armenian Chamber Choir (ACC) is set to perform an open-air concert in front of the Temple of Garni, the Service for the Protection of Historical Environmentand Cultural Museum Reservations reported in a press release.
According to the source, the concert is scheduled on July 30 at 21:00 “Garni” Historical-Cultural Museum-Reservation. The Choir will conduct headed by Artistic Director and the Principal Conductor Robert Mlkeyan.
Notes in Azerbaijani and Armenian (Armine Avetisyan/OC Media)
Learning Azerbaijani is becoming more and more popular in Armenia. While the two countries remain in a near-war-like state, some emphasise the strategic importance of ‘know thy enemy’, while others seek a better understanding of their disconnected neighbours.
For the first time in 2012, an Azerbaijani language textbook was published in Armenia. The book was the initiative of the Chair of Turkish Studies at Yerevan State University. It has been certified to be of an academic level by the university’s Academic Council. The textbook is in great demand today, as the desire to learn Azerbaijani is increasing day by day in Armenia.
Twenty-eight-year-old economist Ashot Asatryan has been attending private Azerbaijani lessons for two months. At first he tried to learn the language on his own, but was unable to master it through online programmes alone.
‘I read news written on Azerbaijani websites a lot. At one point it was just a hobby. Then I began to actively follow developments in Azerbaijan, whether political or military. I translated the most interesting parts of the news into Armenian and posted them on my Facebook page. My notes were quickly reprinted on Armenian websites. Over time, I went from being a consumer to a distributor of information, and started to study the Azerbaijani-language articles. At that time I realised that I should learn the language, because the translations from Google Translate cannot always be trusted’, Asatryan told OC Media. Previously, he read mostly Russian-language articles, but is now able to read and translate from Azerbaijani.
During his two months of study, Ashot has gained a solid grasp of Azerbaijani grammar, and is now working on enriching his vocabulary. The entire course lasts six months, for which he will pay $300.
‘I am attending individual classes, but there are also a few groups learning the language through another programme. I know many young people who are interested in Azerbaijani like me. I aim to open a specialised language group after learning the language properly, which will teach Azerbaijani’, says Asatryan.
Ashot Asatryan and his teacher, Ashot Movsisyan (Armine Avetisyan/OC Media)
Interest in Azerbaijani has intensified in Armenia — especially after the 2016 Four-Day War. Interest in news from Azerbaijan has spiked, with many people wishing to get a clearer image of what is going on in the ‘enemy country’. People are interested in any kind of news about Azerbaijan, social, political, or military.
‘Our countries are on opposite sides of the conflict, so the presence of experts knowing each other’s language is of strategic importance. Besides, I always say that you need to know your neighbour’s language to communicate and talk with them — it will give you an advantage. The more I talked with Azerbaijanis, the more I felt their discomfort, because I was always one step ahead of them — I have mastered their native language’, Ashot Movsisyan, Asatryan’s Azerbaijani teacher told OC Media.
Movsisyan, 24, is a Turkologist by training. He graduated from Yerevan State University’s Department of Turkology. From an early age, Movsisyan showed an interest in Azerbaijan and its language. After showing an interest, he began to learn a few words.
‘My first “teacher” of Azerbaijani was my grandmother, from whom I learned the numbers. Then my father helped me a lot, thanks to which my knowledge of the language steadily increased over the years. I remember one day, my father was watching a programme about the Azerbaijani army on Azerbaijani TV and I asked many questions. My questions were so numerous that my father refused to continue translating and changed the channel. On that day I promised to myself that I would learn the language to understand and communicate with my Azerbaijani counterparts. At first, I learned the language as a linguist without textbooks — TV channels helped a lot. Studying Turkish at university has also helped me learn Azerbaijani faster, because these two languages are very similar’, he says.
According to Movsisyan, it is easy for Armenians to learn Azerbaijani, as there are a number of linguistic similarities. It was easier still for him, he says, because there are many words of Turkish and Persian origin in his dialect (the Artsakh dialect of southern Armenia and Nagorno-Karabakh).
‘It also helped me to master Azerbaijani more easily. For some Armenians, some of the sounds are bit of a challenge, and learning it requires hard work’, says Movsisyan. It takes years to master the language and to be able to apply it practically, he says.
For the latter, the problem is complicated. Azerbaijanis and Armenians, as warring sides in the conflict over Nagorno-Karabakh, have practically no contact.
Yerevan State University’s Faculty of Oriental Studies has offered courses in Azerbaijani language since 2008. When they first began, Azerbaijani was taught as a second eastern language in the department of Turkology, and for the last two years, an Azerbaijani Studies programme has also been offered.
‘In 2 years, the first students will graduate from this programme. I’m happy to say that many people are interested in it, and we are implementing it together with the Ministry of Defence, providing four free places with this funding. We are teaching at a high level. While in the past there were no appropriate textbooks, for the last five years we have had a specialised book which is purely educational. The course includes the situation of the national minorities in Azerbaijan, politics towards them, as well as domestic policy in Azerbaijan’, Ruben Melkonyan, deputy rector of the Faculty of Oriental Studies told OC Media.
According to Melkonyan, the strategic significance of studying Azerbaijani goes without saying, as Azerbaijan is both a neighbour and enemy of Armenia. He says that the study and teaching of the Azerbaijani language also has important scientific and political significance.
The Chair of Turkish Studies at Yerevan State University was founded in 1991. In 2010, the Chair was reorganised into the Chair of Turkic Studies, which teaches the literature, culture, and history of Turkish, Ottoman, Azerbaijani, Kazakh, and other Turkic peoples.
All place names and terminology used in this article are the words of the author alone, and may not necessarily reflect the views of OC Media’s editorial board.
65 years ago, ten men created what would prove to be a clean, safe and loving home for Fresno area seniors. The California Armenian Home on East Kings Canyon Ave. originally served only the local Armenian population, but that soon changed and now it’s a home for all.
George Juarez has worked at the Armenian Home for 42 years. He started as a dishwasher as a teen, and most recently served as Director of Operations. He started at a time, when the majority of its Armenian residents had immigrated to the United States as survivors of the Armenian Genocide. “They went through time and survived the Genocide and I couldn’t figure out why they were having tattoos on their wrists and the side of their ears. So they explained to me they were escaping from camps,” says Juarez.
But Juarez will soon have a new role. He set to be Executive Director of the Villas, a big expansion at the home.
Lucy Kazanjian Grayson serves as Board President of this non-profit Home. She says the expansion was a part of the original plans 65 years ago, and the board has worked hard to raise the funds to make it happen. “When I drive into the parking lot, I’m just like ‘Oh my gosh. I can not believe this is happening ‘,” Grayson says. “We did market studies and we found there really is a need for it in Fresno.”
The home which now provides independent and assisted living housing for its nearly 150 residents, will soon expand to include 110 more housing units, 12 villas and a 36 bed memory unit. “If you come here .. You can stay for whatever your life is. And the whole idea is that you’re not coming here to die– you’re coming here to live,” Grayson says.
Trend News Agency (Baku, Azerbaijan)
Distributed by Tribune Content Agency
Thursday
Baku: Lapshin getting sentenced is triumph of justice
by Seba Aghayeva, Trend News Agency, Baku, Azerbaijan
July 20--Spokesman for the Azerbaijani Foreign Ministry Hikmat
Hajiyev, commenting on the court decision against blogger Alexander
Lapshin, said that Azerbaijan is a rightful state and court's decision
requires respect.
In line with the decision of the court of first instance, Lapshin was
sentenced to three years in prison, Hajiyev told Trend and noted that
justice has been done.
During the investigation and the trial, all the rights of Alexander
Lapshin were ensured, according to him.
"Taking this opportunity, we urge citizens of foreign states not to
become a tool of Armenian propaganda, to refrain from illegal visits
to the occupied Azerbaijani territories and illegal actions in those
territories," Hajiyev said.
"Azerbaijan will continue to take decisive and necessary steps to
prosecute in line with national and international law, in order to
prevent activities against the territorial integrity and sovereignty
of Azerbaijan, and illegal actions in the occupied territories."
Alexander Lapshin is a citizen of several countries and had a criminal
collusion with Armenians in the occupied Azerbaijani territories. He
also illegally visited these territories.
Lapshin was accused of violating Azerbaijani laws on state border in
April 2011 and October 2012. On Jan. 17, Alexei Stuk, deputy
prosecutor general of Belarus, issued a ruling on Lapshin's
extradition to Azerbaijan. Lapshin was brought to Azerbaijan on Feb.
7.
On July 20, Lapshin was sentenced to three years in prison by the Baku
Court on Grave Crimes.
The Promise is an important film shining a light on the Armenian Genocide.
Love story: Oscar Isaac and Charlotte Le Bon star as Mikael and Ana in The Promise, set during the Armenian Genocide. The film is in cinemas now and rated M.
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The Promise is a love story – on its surface.
But the romance is merely the entry point for the real story of the film: the Armenian Genocide.
Believed to be the first modern genocide, and in fact the mass killings which spawned the very word ‘genocide’, the systematic killing of Armenian people in the Ottoman Empire from 1915 is not something that has been regularly made into films.
In comparison, there are countless films that deal with the Holocaust, but only a handful which delve into the deaths of 1.5 million Armenians.
The Promise follows Armenian medical student Mikael (Oscar Isaac, Star Wars: The Force Awakens) as he takes to his studies in Constantinople at the start of World War I.
He meets Ana (Charlotte Le Bon, The Walk), a French Armenian, and her American war correspondent partner Chris (Christian Bale, The Fighter) and the three fast become close.
Mikael, already betrothed to a woman back in his hometown, is attracted to Ana but does his best not to act on his feelings.
Ana, frustrated with Chris’ drinking, is also drifting away from her boyfriend and toward Mikael.
But their love story fades into the background once Mikael’s uncle is rounded up by authorities, simply for being Armenian.
This is just the start of the devastation, as more and more Armenian people are deported and slaughtered.
The Promise is directed with heart and compassion by Terry George, who has previously shown his skill at handling extremely tough subject matter with the immensely superb Hotel Rwanda.
The tragedy of The Promise is shocking and heart-wrenching and could move even the most stoic of viewers to tears.
It is, as cases of genocide are, unfathomable that such atrocities could be inflicted upon innocent people.
The love story is fictional, but the backdrop is historically accurate. The Promise is an important film, well conceived and perfectly acted.
Film fans who use IMDb.com ratings as a guide to good films should be advised to ignore this film’s current 5.9 score – a breakdown shows significant scores of both ‘1’ and ‘10’, from people of Armenian and Turkish heritage skewing the votes.
In an interview with the paper, a vice speaker of the Armenian National Assembly addressed Azerbaijan’s recent attempts to escalate the situation around Nagorno-Karabakh, emphasizing the urgent need of enforcing international sanctions against the side violating the truce.
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Eduard Sharmazanov said he is sure that the OSCE Minsk Group co-chairs (who act as a peace mediator between Armenia and Azerbaijan) will inevitably issue their evaluations sometime in the nearest future.
“For many years, the co-chairs of the OSCE Minsk Group refrained from specifically addressed statements, a fact Armenia was all the time vocal about, but as you saw, the mediators did eventually issue such a statement, highlighting the side responsible for proactive raids. So if Azerbaijan holds on to its policy of offensive behavior, the OSCE, the Minsk Groups and the international organizations in general will, I think, establish clear-cut sanctions against that country. What the international practice requires is to avoid offering the meadow to pigs. Hence if a conflicting side blatantly ignores the norms in a negotiation process, continuing to disrespect the presidential commitments agreed in Vienna and St Petersburg, it should naturally incur sanctions,” he added.
New York—On June 7, Swann Galleries’ held its biannual auction of Maps & Atlases, Natural History & Color Plate Books. Approximately two thirds of the lots offered fell into the category of maps and atlases, with strong results in both subheadings. Of the 265 lots, 86% percent found buyers, exceeding the low estimate for the section by more than $100,000.
The first world atlas in the Armenian language topped the sale, reaching more than five times its $6,000 high estimate to sell for $37,500*, a record for the work. Hovhannes Amira Dadian created the atlas in the Armenian monastery on the Venetian island of San Lazzaro in 1849 in an effort to bring Western knowledge to his home country. The atlas boasts ten hand-colored double-page maps, including one of the solar system, all of which were printed in Paris and based primarily on contemporary French models.
Another highlight was the Speciel Land Charte von Pensilvanien, Neu Jersey, Neu York, a 1750 map by Lewis Evans published in Frankfurt, whose alluring designations such as “The Endless Mountains” may have been responsible for the subsequent German emigration to the state. The map sold for $27,500, far exceeding its high estimate of $15,000. The only other known copy is in the collection of the Library of Congress.
Multiple bidders on a manuscript logbook that recounts two voyages from England to the Mediterranean, replete with records and delightful watercolors by Captain William Hodgson, sent the price flying past the high estimate of $5,000 to a price realized of $20,800. Specialist Caleb Kiffer notes, “The log book is one of those unusual items that rarely comes to market and that gets people really excited.”
Other items he noted included a mysterious early twentieth-century chalkboard globe that tripled its modest high estimate to sell for $1,625, and a rare map detailing the proceedings of the Revolutionary War near Charleston, SC ($21,250).
Mr. Kiffer added, “I was glad to see a mix of collectors, dealers and institutions actively bidding.”
The next sale of Maps & Atlases, Natural History & Color Plate Books at Swann Galleries will be on December 5, 2017. For more information or consign quality materials, contact Caleb Kiffer at .