Sunday, May 1, 2022 Armenian Opposition Starts ‘Civil Disobedience’ Campaign Armenia - Opposition supporters demonstrate in France Square, Yerevan, May 1, 2022. Thousands of protesters occupied a square in downtown Yerevan on Sunday at the start of what Armenia’s leading opposition forces described as a “civil disobedience” campaign aimed at toppling Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian. The opposition Hayastan and Pativ Unem alliances pitched tents in France Square, the intersection of four key avenues, as they rallied their supporters there after days of more small-scale protests. They said they will block streets in the city center and other parts of the Armenian capital on Monday to step up the pressure on the Armenian government. “We will not leave this place until we achieve victory,” said Anna Grigorian, a lawmaker affiliated with Hayastan. Addressing the crowd, she and other opposition leaders reiterated that Pashinian’s removal from power would prevent sweeping concessions to Azerbaijan planned by him. Pashinian signaled last month his administration’s readiness to recognize Azerbaijan’s territorial integrity through a bilateral peace treaty. Critics say he is intent on helping Baku regain control of Karabakh. The premier’s political allies deny this. Armenia - Opposition supporters set up a tent camp in France Square, Yerevan, May 1, 2022. “These authorities have no mandate to lead the country to new concessions,” Ishkhan Saghatelian, a Hayastan leader, told the protesters before announcing the “large-scale actions of disobedience.” “This is not a seizure of power,” he said. “This is an exercise of dignified citizens’ constitutional right to come out and oust these pro-Turkish authorities for the sake of Armenia, Artsakh (Karabakh) and the Armenian people.” Saghatelian also urged parliament deputies representing Pashinian’s Civil Contract to use the “last chance to correct your mistake” and defect from the ruling political team. Some of those pro-government lawmakers have publicly denounced the opposition campaign and said it will end in failure. Armenia - Former President Robert Kocharian and members of his family participate in an opposition demonstration in Yerevan, May 1, 2022. The opposition set up the protest camp amid heightened security, with scores of riot police deployed nearby. They did not attempt to disperse the protesters. Earlier on Sunday, Armenia’s Office of the Prosecutor-General warned the opposition against “provoking mass disturbances.” In a separate statement, the National Security Service (NSS) claimed that there is a “real danger” of such violence. It said it will not hesitate to counter “any kind of actions destabilizing Armenia’s internal stability.” Saghatelian, who is also a deputy speaker of the Armenian parliament, dismissed these warnings, saying that the opposition will be staging only peaceful protests. He also urged security forces to defy Pashinian’s “illegal orders.” Reprinted on ANN/Armenian News with permission from RFE/RL Copyright (c) 2022 Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty, Inc. 1201 Connecticut Ave., N.W. Washington DC 20036.
Category: 2022
CivilNet: Gyumri Without Cars: Will the Proposal Pass?
CIVILNET.AM
08:05
Anti-government protests in Armenia
May 1 2022
- In Daily Brief
- May 1, 2022
Anti-government protests are expected to continue today in the Armenian capital of Yerevan.
Since protests began on April 25, demonstrators have been calling for the resignation of Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan. Anger stems from Pashinyan’s consideration of concessions to Azerbaijan over the contested Nagorno-Karabakh region. Many opponents of Pashinyan took issue with his April 13 speech, in which hinted at international pressure to trade territory for peace.
Expect the parliamentary opposition faction Hayastan and Vice President of National Assembly Ishkhan Saghatelyan to be especially vocal in their condemnation. In the short-term, potential for violence between police and demonstrators remains. Many activists have been detained, and several cited the use of force by security forces. Nevertheless, anti-Pashinyan politicians and families of soldiers that lost their lives in the 2020 war will continue to call for his resignation. For his part, Pashinyan will likely insist that his statements were not an indication that Nagorno-Karabakh would be surrendered in any capacity. As more towns and factions plan to participate, the movement’s inevitable escalation is likely.
Thousands rally in Armenia warning against Karabakh concessions
Qatar, May 1 2022
Opposition leader says ‘large-scale campaign of civil disobedience’ will begin this week.
Thousands of opposition supporters have rallied in the Armenian capital Yerevan to warn the government against concessions to arch-foe Azerbaijan over the long-disputed Nagorno-Karabakh region.
Opposition parties have accused Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan of plans to give away all of Karabakh to Azerbaijan after he told lawmakers last month that the “international community calls on Armenia to scale down demands on Karabakh”.
On Sunday, several thousand opposition supporters gathered in the capital’s central Square of France, blocking traffic throughout central Yerevan.
Protesters shouted demands for Pashinyan to resign, with many holding placards that read “Karabakh”.
Opposition leader and National Assembly Vice Speaker Ishkhan Saghatelyan said: “Any political status of Karabakh within Azerbaijan is unacceptable to us”.
“Pashinyan had betrayed people’s trust and must go,” he told journalists at the rally, adding that the protest movement “will lead to the overthrow of the government in the nearest future”.
Addressing the crowd, the opposition leader announced that a “large-scale campaign of civil disobedience” will begin this coming week.
“I call on everyone to begin strikes. I call on students not to attend classes. Traffic will be fully blocked in central Yerevan,” he said.
On Saturday, Armenia’s National Security Service warned of “a real threat of mass unrest in the country”.
Yerevan and Baku have been locked in a territorial dispute since the 1990s over Karabakh, the mountainous region of Azerbaijan predominantly populated by ethnic Armenians. Karabakh was at the centre of a six-week war in 2020 that claimed more than 6,500 lives before it ended with a Russian-brokered ceasefire agreement.
Under the deal, Armenia ceded swathes of territories it had controlled for decades and Russia deployed some 2,000 peacekeepers to oversee the truce.
In April, Pashinyan and Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev met for rare European Union-mediated talks in Brussels, after which they tasked their foreign ministers to “begin preparatory work for peace talks”.
The meeting came after a flare-up in Karabakh on March 25 that saw Azerbaijan capture a strategic village in the area under the Russian peacekeepers’ responsibility, killing three separatist troops.
Baku tabled in mid-March a set of framework proposals for the peace agreement that includes both sides’ mutual recognition of territorial integrity, meaning Yerevan should agree on Karabakh being part of Azerbaijan.
Armenian Foreign Minister Ararat Mirzoyan sparked controversy at home when he said – commenting on the Azerbaijani proposal – that for Yerevan “the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict is not a territorial issue, but a matter of rights” of the local ethnic-Armenian population.
Ethnic Armenian separatists in Nagorno-Karabakh broke away from Azerbaijan when the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991. The ensuing conflicts since have claimed around 30,000 lives.
SOURCE: AFP
Music From Her Homeland
May 1 2022
BY JUDY CARMACK BROSS
“At this time when we cannot ignore the suffering in Ukraine, we also honor through our music the Armenian people, victims of genocide in 1915, by looking at what they lost and what it means to be lost.” –Pianist Marta Aznavoorian
Marta Aznavoorian.
Multiple Grammy-nominated pianist Marta Aznavoorian chose April 24, the 107th anniversary of the Armenian Genocide when 1.2 million women, children, and the elderly were arrested and exiled on death marches from Turkey, as the release date of her album Gems From Armenia. She and her sister, cellist Ani Aznavoorian, will perform music from the album, which spotlights music from their ancestral homeland, at the Music Institute of Chicago’s concert May 15th in Nichols Concert Hall in Evanston.
“We were raised in the Chicago area, but we look back two and three generations to see what it must have been like for those brave people who survived to abandon their own country and enter a new one. We reflect on Ukraine and the Holocaust as well. Even after 100 years, the Armenian community still feels the impact of that genocide,” she says.
Aznavoorian with sister Ani.
The Cedille Records’ album marks the recording debut of her and her sister’s joint ensemble, the Aznavoorian Duo. She describes the Armenian music chosen for her CD as “very melancholy, very passionate, all in a minor mode.” Among the works that the Aznavoorian Duo have chosen will be by the Armenian priest, Komitas, the composer, musicologist, and singer thought to be the founder of the Armenian national school of music.
During the genocide, he was one of the many Armenian intellectuals arrested and sent to a prisoner of war camp by the Ottomans. A few years before the genocide, Komitas spent summers in the Armenian countryside, developing a close relationship with villagers, transcribing and preserving rural Armenian songs that became his book of 50 songs. In saving and recording so many of these folk songs, Komitas is thought to have saved the cultural heritage of Western Armenia.
“Komitas documented thousands of songs, which have survived. Even though he survived the genocide and was finally moved to a hospital in Paris, the atrocities that he saw were too much for him,” Aznavoorian explains.
The program also features selections from the CD, including works by Alexander Arutiunian, Arno Babajanian, Aram Khachaturian, Serouj Kradjian, Vache Sharafyan, and Avet Terterian.
Aznavoorian grew up in Barrington in a family that loved classical music: “I often performed at church as I was growing up, and I think my father always hoped that my brother, sister, and I would perform as a trio. I began my classes at the Music Institute as a young child and studied there until college.”
She continues, “The Music Institute has really expanded in recent years and offers education at a very high level. There are many more live performances and efforts to make its music accessible for all. I love exploring music with my students, both children and adults. I am teaching most of the day, with travels to performances usually every other weekend.”
Having performed internationally as an orchestral soloist with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, The Sydney Symphony Orchestra, the New World Symphony, and many other acclaimed institutions, she is a founding member of the celebrated Lincoln Trio, which has toured the world with its performances.
A faculty member in the Music Institute’s Piano Department since 1999, she recently was named to the prestigious position as Artist in Residence. This position, made possible by the support of Jim Stone, encourages, promotes, and rewards excellence in musicianship and instruction while acknowledging excellent faculty contributions to their field, the Institute, and the community. She is expanding her ambassadorial work for the Music Institute to support performances, master classes, community outreach, and fundraising activities.
Aznavoorian, also a lecturer at the DePaul School of Music, has recently founded Keynote Productions, a non-profit which awards scholarships to underserved students wanting to further their musical education.
On teaching online during the pandemic, she says, “In that dark and lonely time, I discovered that this was a very nice alternative. I still have students who prefer to study online and if someone is feeling a little sick, you don’t have to worry. I love to teach and this is a great opportunity for me too, so even when I am on the road, we have been able to carry on with my students’ love of music.”
Though she feels she is not yet at the “finish line” of her career, Aznavoorian is enjoying all that she does and the close relationships she has with places like the Music Institute: “I have great admiration for Mark George, the Institute’s president and CEO, who with all his other accomplishments has made the faculty feel like family to one another. As Artist in Residence, I am asked to represent the Institute whose mission is very compatible to my own. I now have more opportunities to make decisions, be more of a presence in my master classes, and cultivate our mission.”
The Aznavoorian Duo will perform Sunday, May 15, at 3 p.m. at Nichols Concert Hall, 1490 Chicago Avenue, Evanston. The performance also will be available online streaming live. For more information, visit nicholsconcerthall.org.
https://classicchicagomagazine.com/music-from-her-homeland/
Ukraine Says Georgia, Armenia, Azerbaijan Aid Russia Evade Sanctions
Civil Georgia
May 1 2022
Ukrainian Defense Intelligence has accused Georgia, as well as Armenia and Azerbaijan of negotiating with Moscow over the reexport of Russian products to international markets.
“The supply is planned to be made in the form of Georgian, Armenian and Azerbaijani products and export them to third countries,” the Defense Intelligence of the Ukrainian Ministry of Defense said on May 1.
It asserted that more than 200 companies have already been established in the South Caucasian countries.
The Ukrainian defense intelligence further stated that Armenia creates favorable conditions for Russian companies to do business, especially in the IT sphere.
“Since the beginning of Russia’s large-scale aggression against Ukraine, some 85,000 Russian citizens and 113 IT companies came to Armenia,” it noted.
“Russian citizens created nearly a thousand private enterprises and about 250 limited liability companies on the territory of Armenia, which pay taxes to the budgets of both countries — Armenia and Russia.”
Earlier in April, Ukraine’s Defense Ministry Intelligence alleged that Moscow was establishing a channel for smuggling through the Georgian territory, an accusation denied by the Georgian authorities. It said Georgia’s political leadership instructed security services not to interfere with the activities of Russian smugglers.
- Tbilisi Denies Ukraine’s Claims Over Aiding Russian Smuggling
- Georgian Dream Accuses Ukraine Officials of Hybrid War
- Tbilisi: Ukrainian Chargé Unable to Back Up Smuggling Claims
The State Security Service of Georgia then urged Ukraine to “immediately relay evidence” on its claim, warning that the failure to do so “will be considered premeditated disinformation.”
Prime Minister Irakli Garibashvili also rebuffed Kyiv’s allegations, saying “Georgia will never allow the transit of sanctioned goods.”
But the Georgian Government has reiterated since the early days of the war that Tbilisi would not impose bilateral sanctions against Moscow, hit by massive international sanctions.
Ukraine’s renewed accusation comes amid already strained relations between Tbilisi and Kyiv, after President Volodymyr Zelenskyy recalled Ambassador from Georgia over the “immoral position” of Garibashvili’s cabinet on “not joining” sanctions and for barring Georgian volunteers from flying to Ukraine.
Amid growing criticism from Kyiv, Georgian Dream leadership has repeatedly claimed that former United National Movement officials “occupying some quite high positions in Ukraine” are influencing the decisions of the Ukrainian authorities.
Georgian FM, Armenian President discuss “close friendly ties”, positive cooperation dynamics
AGENDA
Georgia – May 1 2022
Georgian-Armenian friendly ties and positive dynamics in “all areas of bilateral cooperation” were discussed on Saturday in a meeting between the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Georgia Ilia Darchiashvili and the President of Armenia Vahagn Khachaturian.
Darchiashvili thanked the Armenian President for the “high interest and actions” expressed concerning further deepening of relations between the two countries, the Georgian foreign office said.
Darchiashvili and Khachaturian praised the “close friendly relations” between the two countries in the meeting.
The top Georgian diplomat extended his gratitude to the President for his “unwavering support” for Georgia’s sovereignty and territorial integrity, and stressed the importance of peace and stability for the “sustainable development” of the South Caucasus region.
https://agenda.ge/en/news/2022/1522
Time for Israel to not fear Turkey and Russia and recognize genocide – editorial
Published: APRIL 30, 2022 20:05
Updated: APRIL 30, 2022 20:57
As recently as April 2021, current Foreign Minister Yair Lapid stated:
‘I’ll continue to fight for an Israeli recognition of the Armenian genocide.’
Last week, Israel marked Yom Hashoah, Holocaust Remembrance Day, to commemorate the genocide and murder of six million Jews by the Nazis.
Newspapers, TV shows and radio airwaves were filled with stories of the survivors – and the country paid attention.
It makes sense. The story of the establishment of the State of Israel is intertwined with the Holocaust. Survivors flocked to the country after the war, helped build it, fought for it in subsequent wars and deserve a large deal of credit for Israel’s spectacular success.
Last Sunday, though, a day was marked around the world, that went largely unnoticed in Israel. It was the 107th anniversary of the start of the Armenian Genocide that commemorates the 1.5 million Armenians who were deported, massacred or marched to their deaths in a campaign of extermination by the Ottoman Empire.
US President Joe Biden issued a statement to commemorate the massacre, which he termed a “genocide” for the first time last year, in line with a promise he made on the campaign trail.
“We renew our pledge to remain vigilant against the corrosive influence of hate in all its forms,” the president said. “We recommit ourselves to speaking out and stopping atrocities that leave lasting scars on the world.”
Turkey, as expected, responded angrily, calling Biden’s remarks “statements that are incompatible with historical facts and international law.”
Israel was noticeably quiet, and it is a silence that is a stain on the Jewish state. It shows how once again Jerusalem is preferring diplomatic and security interests over standing up for what is true and right, especially being a people that knows genocide firsthand.
As Prof. Israel Charney, one of the founders of the International Association of Genocide Scholars, wrote in these pages last month, Israel should not fear Turkey.
“Is it so beyond our imagination as Israelis to be able to say to Turkey at this time, ‘We have every respect for you as an important country and are happy to work closely with you, but we owe our own culture the clear cut responsibility to identify with a people whose historical record shows that they were subject to governmental extermination’?” Charney asked.
The continued Israeli refusal to recognize the Armenian genocide comes as Jerusalem is renewing diplomatic ties with Turkey. President Isaac Herzog recently visited Ankara and Israel obviously does not want to undermine those efforts.
What makes this wrong is that even when Israel’s ties with Turkey had hit rock bottom due to Erdogan’s vile antisemitism, the government also refused to recognize the Armenian genocide then. The reason was that it was better not to do something that would derail the chance for rapprochement. In other words, when ties are bad the timing is bad – and when ties are better the timing is also bad.
In 2019, after the US Senate recognized the genocide, Yair Lapid – then in the opposition – called on Israel to follow suit. He even proposed a bill that would obligate Israel to mark the day.
“It’s time to stop being afraid of the Sultan in Turkey and do what is morally right,” he tweeted at the time.
If it’s time to stop being afraid of the “Sultan in Turkey,” then why did Lapid not put out a statement last week? Why did he not order the Foreign Ministry to publicly mark the day?
Is doing “what is morally right” no longer the right thing to do?
The answer is obvious. What is easy to push for in the opposition is harder to do when you are foreign minister.
This is wrong. Israel’s approach to the Armenian genocide is too similar to the way it has managed its position on the Russian invasion of Ukraine, on the one hand offering support to Kyiv but on the other hand holding back from sanctions against Russia and public condemnations of President Vladimir Putin.
Policy on Ukraine has been dictated by security interests and the need to be able to continue operating in coordination with Russia in Syria. With the Armenian genocide, Israel is again letting diplomatic and security interests get in the way of what is the right and moral stance to take.
It is time for Israel to stop being afraid of Turkey and Russia. Standing up for what is moral and right strengthens nations. It is Israel’s time to do so.
https://www.jpost.com/opinion/article-705543
Here’s How the West Can Help Facilitate Reconciliation Azerbaijanis and Armenians
THE NATIONAL POST
May 1 2022
In order to bring lasting peace to the region, along with different reconciliation initiatives, the West should think seriously about addressing the criminal elements lurking in Nagorno-Karabakh.
Despite all its military advantages during Forty-Four Day War two years ago, the Azerbaijani army did not enter areas in Karabakh where Armenians are densely populated—avoiding unwanted casualties among civilians was an operational requirement. Military operations were narrowed focused only in those areas where, historically, Azerbaijanis were in the majority from where they were expelled twenty-eight years ago. Likewise, no critical infrastructure or residential buildings where Armenians are densely populated were seriously damaged. As was previously noted in this publication, these and other factors helped ensure that the Forty-Four Day War had the astonishingly lowest civilian casualty rate in comparison to all other wars in recent decades. This unusually low casualty rate might end up being one of the more important elements that can contribute to the speedy reintegration of both sides.
Last September, a desperate thirty-two-year-old Armenian woman, Izaura Balasanyan, who lives in Karabakh with her four children, was pushed past breaking point by mounting needs and a greedy landlord, and decided to try to escape the Armenian enclave out of desperation. She tried to reach the Azerbaijani-controlled areas, where things are better, but Russian peacekeepers arrested her and handed over back to the Armenian security services. Behind the Russian military and the armored remnants of Armenia’s forces, there are thousands like Izaura— hostages to a decades-long radical nationalism and three-decade-long conflict. The Azerbaijani government cannot reach, communicate, nor help them directly now.
The economic conditions of people living in this grey zone under Armenian control was already dire even before the war, and things have only gotten worse since. Objectively, Azerbaijan, with its rich natural resources and strong economic conditions, can offer more support to individuals in comparison to any country in the region. Azerbaijan’s president, Ilham Aliyev, said in one of his interviews that Armenian residents of Karabakh approached the Azerbaijani military several times to ask if they could take part in the ongoing massive reconstruction works in the liberated territories. Recently, an influential Telegram channel in Azerbaijan noted that Armenian residents in Karabakh, under the condition of anonymity, have sent emails to the Ministry of Labour and Social Protection of the Population of Azerbaijan to ask about their retirement savings. There are even those who have applied to restore their Azerbaijani citizenship. On numerous different occasions, Azerbaijani officials have repeatedly declared that Azerbaijan considers the residents of Karabakh to be Azerbaijani citizens, and that the state is ready to provide all the social-economic rights and privileges enjoyed by every other Azerbaijani. For this, they only need to restore their formal Azerbaijani citizenship and accept that they are under Baku’s jurisdiction. Those who don’t want to accept this situation are entirely free to peacefully leave the territory of Azerbaijan.
With the war still fresh in the minds of many, we will need time, patience, and enormous efforts to heal wounds, to create reconciliation, and to open a new chapter in the relations between both peoples. However, there is also another, even more serious stumbling block ahead that may yet prevent the reintegration of the Armenian residents of Karabakh into Azerbaijan. This obstacle is crime. More specifically, the radical, criminal elements, including illegally armed groups, that committed crimes against the civilian Azerbaijani population. These elements continue to terrorize the ordinary civilian Armenians of Karabakh, who wish to express their own views and even reintegrate to Azerbaijan. It is almost impossible to create the necessary environment for the speedy and effective reintegration of the Armenian residents without neutralizing these elements. Additionally, the cases of Donbas, Luhansk, South Ossetia, Abkhazia, and Transnistria clearly demonstrate that people under the control of illegal entities are zombified, terrorized, and unable adequately express their free will. The people in the illegal entity in Karabakh are currently in the grip of people like Vitaly Balasanyan. To illustrate what sort of individual we are dealing with here, in the documentary Parts of a Circle: History of the Karabakh Conflict, made by the UK-based Conciliation Resources, Vitaly Balasanyan confessed that it was he himself who first fired upon a peaceful demonstration of Azerbaijanis that killed two victims of the First Nagorno-Karabakh War in February, 1988.
According to the Article IV of the Trilateral Declaration signed between Azerbaijan, Armenia, and Russia on November 10, 2020, the military units of the Russian Federation—the aforementioned peacekeeping contingent—should have been deployed to Karabakh and the internationally recognized territories of Azerbaijan in parallel with the withdrawal of the all illegal armed forces. In other words, it was, and remains, the obligation of the Russian military to clean the area of any illegal armed groups. Instead, what we have seen is that the Russian military has chosen to protect and enable their activity, help build military fortifications, engage in borderization, and even provide illegal militant groups with military equipment and logistic support. In fact, the activity of the Russian military in the region very much resembles to attempts of implementing Lugansk, Donbas, Abkhazia, or other such projects in the post-Soviet area.
After recent important talks between leaders of Armenia and Azerbaijan, initiated by the EU in Brussels, on April 13 Armenian prime minister Nikol Pashinyan made groundbreaking statements. In his speech, which was praised by the EU, Pashinyan, warned of the dangers of being the only country in the world that doesn’t recognize the territorial integrity of Azerbaijan. These, along with many other promising statements, are a welcome development for all who desire reconciliation and reconstruction. Later, President Aliyev said that Armenia accepted the basic five principles of Azerbaijan for the normalization of relations, which stipulates mutual recognition of respect for sovereignty, territorial integrity, inviolability of internationally recognized borders, and the absence of any territorial claims against each other.
What is likely to come next is resistance and sabotage efforts against these initiatives, carried out by the aforementioned radical and criminal elements in Karabakh hiding behind the Russia military. The experience of the Balkan Wars, among other conflicts, has taught the world that punishing war criminals and removing them from political scene are necessary steps before reconciliation efforts can truly take off. In order to bring lasting peace to the region, along with different reconciliation initiatives, the West should think seriously about what to do about the radical and criminal elements that still reside within Karabakh.
Fuad Chiragov is Head of the Regional Security Department at Azerbaijan’s Center of Analysis of International Relations (AIR Center).
Armenian Labor Migrants Reassess Work in Collapsing Russian Economy
May 1 2022
Despairing of the economic options in her home country, Marine Khachatryan found work at a flower shop in Moscow’s outskirts in 2020, while her husband got work in construction.
But then came the invasion of Ukraine, which has resulted in punishing Western sanctions and a crisis in Russia’s economy.
“We came here to make money and up until the war, we were fine. Now, nobody wants to buy flowers and the owner [of the shop] keeps losing money,” said Khachatryan. “I thought about trying to get another job, but Russia is getting more expensive.” So instead she has decided to move back to Armenia. “It’s a nightmare. I can go back to working in beauty salons, but I don’t know what my husband will do.”
Every year, tens of thousands of Armenians — especially men from smaller towns and villages — travel to Russia for seasonal labor, particularly in construction.
Estimates of exact numbers vary widely. Armenia itself reports that about 80,000 go to Russia for seasonal work every year. But Russian data puts the figure at 300,000, which would be more than 10% of Armenia’s population.
Unknown numbers of other recent migrants from Armenia live in Russia more permanently, some even gaining Russian citizenship, but still send money back to family in Armenia, a critical part of the country’s economy.
In 2021, remittances from Russia amounted to $865 million, according to Armenia’s central bank. That was equivalent to nearly 5% of the country’s GDP.
That figure is now set to drop dramatically. “It could be up to a 40% decrease,” Finance Minister Tigran Khachatryan told the Armenian state news agency on March 28.
Armenian labor migrants say that many jobs in Russia are disappearing, and in the ones that remain, the salaries – once converted to Armenian drams – are unpredictable. In the early days of Russia’s invasion and the sanctions that were swiftly imposed in retaliation, the ruble lost half its value, though it has since recovered.
“Salaries have shrunk, and it’s possible that employers are not going to be able to pay at all,” said Tatevik Bezhanyan, an expert on migration at the charity group Armenian Caritas. “For now they can still pay, but if the situation doesn’t get better there definitely are going to be issues,” she told Eurasianet.
Remittances “are likely to decline with weaker economic activity in Russia, the depreciating ruble, and restrictions on financial flows from Russia,” the World Bank said in a report last month. “Under a more severe contraction in Russia, many migrants may be forced to return to Armenia putting pressure on labor markets and fiscal spending.”
Before Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the World Bank had projected Armenian GDP growth of 5.3% in 2022. Now it’s revised that down to 1.2%.
Russia has not released figures so far this year measuring migrant flows and how they might have changed. Usually the Interior Ministry publishes data by April, but this year the release is late, Bezhanyan said. “My Russian colleagues say that there is just a big outflow out of Russia and so maybe they are being cautious about this,” she said.
Seasonal migrant laborers typically start arriving in Russia in March, when the weather begins to allow construction work. So it is still early to judge the impact of the new situation on labor migration, but Bezhanyan said that initial indications are not good.
“We have already received notices that employers are having difficulties paying,” she said. One practice employers have been trying, in order to save money, is to ask workers to work off the books. “But we always advise not to agree to that, since it can result in getting deported. And if there is no contract specifying the amount of the salary, they can forget about getting paid. We have already been seeing problems like this.”
Arsen, a construction worker (who asked that his last name not be used), has been working in Russia’s Urals region since February.
“When the ruble collapsed we talked to our foreman, since we would be making half of what we were getting before,” he said. “After two weeks, they told us that we could get higher pay if we terminated our contracts and worked off the books. We did it, and now we haven’t been paid in two months.”
Because of international financial sanctions against Russia, transferring money back home also is more difficult, with the Russian Zolotaya Korona service now the only option for sending money to Armenia and new restrictions on the amounts that can leave Russia.
As a result, many regular migrants are staying home this year. “Some found jobs here and are not complaining about the pay, given the costs in Russia. They can live in their houses in Armenia and see no reason to go to Russia,” Bezhanyan said.
So far, the Armenian government has only come up with an indirect way to address the issue. Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan has introduced a proposal to boost the construction sector by offering subsidized loans for home renovations that include improving energy efficiency.
“Due to well-known circumstances, uncertainties have arisen regarding our citizens going abroad for work,” he said at аn April 15 cabinet meeting. “We have decided to launch a state program, within the framework of which we offer citizens to take subsidized loans to rebuild their apartments. […] We hope that with this we will make a significant contribution to housing, the economy, small business, and poverty alleviation.”
Bezhanyan is skeptical. “This is definitely an indirect approach,” she said. “It’s clear that these people see the danger [in staying in Russia] and they are creating a foundation for themselves to be able to move to Armenia, but we need to take steps so they don’t come back to Armenia and then leave for another country. There has to be a more systematic approach.”
This story was first published by Eurasianet.org.
https://www.themoscowtimes.com/2022/05/01/armenian-labor-migrants-reassess-work-in-collapsing-russian-economy-a77545
ALSO AT
https://eurasianet.org/armenian-labor-migrants-reassess-work-in-collapsing-russian-economy