Category: 2022

The Caucasus Heritage Watch (CHW) is closely monitoring earthmoving adjacent to the St. Yeghisha Church of Mataghis, a village in Nagorno-Karabakh.

“As of July 5, the basilica appears structurally unchanged since the 2020 war. But the proximity of earthmoving raises concern,” it said on Facebook on Monday.

According to the inscription engraved on the lintel of the southern entrance, the construction of the church took place in 1892-1898, the Artsakh Monument Watch says in its historical overview.

The inscription says: “The Church of St. Yeghisha was built by the united people of Mataghis. It was started in 1892 and was completed in 1898” (Fig. 2). During the visit of M. Barkhudaryants in 1894-1895, the church was still half-built and unconsecrated (Barkhutaryants 1895, 231).

Architectural-compositional description

The church is a three-nave basilica, built of local light brown rough and hewn stones. The dimensions of the monument are 15.07 meters long and 8.16 meters wide (Figs. 3-4). It is completely plastered inwardly. The semi-circular bema is high, has two vestries, it is vaulted, the roof is covered with earth (Fig. 5).

The entrance is from the south, three windows open from the east, two from the south and one from the west.

The condition before, during and after the war

Before the war the church was completely standing. Hot battles took place in the village of Mataghis during the Second Artsakh War and it is not known to what extent the monument was damaged. After the war, a video was spread by Azeris on social media, where it was visible how several men in military uniforms enter the church and break the icons. The video also shows that various broken objects are scattered on the floor (Cultural vandalism in St. Yeghisha Church of Mataghis – Monument Watch).

The Artists' Union of Armenia is preparing to mark its 90th anniversary this year. In an interview with Panorama.am, the chairman of the union, Suren Safaryan, said that the jubilee celebrations would take place in autumn.

"We have two salons a year: the Spring Salon and the Autumn Salon. The latter will mark the 90th anniversary of the Artists' Union. The event will feature an exhibition, and surprises are also expected, but I won't go into the details," he said.

Safaryan states artists are highly enthusiastic about joining the union, and its commission is set to select new members among numerous applicants in late 2022.

According to the Artists' Union chair, artists living both in Armenia and around the world are today facing a number of problems, adding they just need to “have patience and work on solving problems one by one, by priority.”

"The problems are related to workshops, sales of artworks, seniority… We do not have a law on artists and are working on it. There are countries where such a law has been passed. We hope that we will be able to bring it in here too," Safaryan said.

The full interview in Armenian is below.

A first instance court in Yerevan on Tuesday started hearings in the trial of opposition activist and politician Avetik Chalabyan.

Chalabyan, a co-founder of the Arar Foundation and a member of the Consolidation Movement, was arrested on 12 May for allegedly trying to pay students of the Armenian National Agrarian University to participate in anti-government protests in Yerevan.

The criminal case against the politician is based on a leaked audio of parts of conversations he and an Agrarian University lecturer had with the chairman of the university student council, Tornik Aliyan. The Investigative Committee claims he was offered 2 million drams in return for ensuring the presence of 2,000 students at opposition protests.

Chalabyan has denied any wrongdoing, calling his prosecution politically motivated.

Addressing the court, he stated that the trumped-up charges against him had been ordered by Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan. Also, he accused the premier of persecuting his family members.

“There is this regime leader, Nikol Pashinyan, who is persecuting me and my family. All evidence will be provided during the hearing,” Chalabyan said.

The oppositionist accused the law enforcement authorities of making every effort to illegally hold him in custody.

“Everyone clearly realizes that there is no corpus delicti and the case is fabricated,” he said.

The second quarter of 2022 saw a surge in the cases of physical violence against journalists and other media workers in Armenia, a new report of the Committee to Protect Freedom of _expression_ shows.

The CPFE recorded 11 cases involving 12 victims, 10 of which (11 victims) were registered during opposition protests in Yerevan and one in the National Assembly.

“It is worth noting that the number of such cases is 3 more than in the same period last year, when the country was in a hot post-war and pre-election political struggle, which, in turn, was accompanied by an increase in attacks on journalists and cameramen,” the report says.

During the period under review, 11 more cases of various kinds of pressure on the media and its representatives were identified. Eight new lawsuits were filed against journalists and media outlets, all based on insult and slander under Article 1087.1 of Armenia’s Civil Code. Half of them were brought by current and former officials.

Meanwhile, violations of the right to receive and disseminate information almost halved in April-June from the previous quarter. 24 such cases were registered, the CPFE said.