This year Youth Sambo World Championship will be held in Yerevan.
The decision was made by the Executive Committee of the International Sambo Federation, according to the official website of the organization.
The championship will be held from 14 to 16 October.
Yerevan will host Sambo World Masters Championship in 2023.
In the 30th round of Armenian championship Van suffered a home defeat from Alashkert 0-1.
The Ivorian forward Fofana scored the only goal of the match in the 10th minute.
Alashkert have 41 points and are in third place while Van are in the 8th place with 18 points.
Armenian Championship, round 30
Van vs Alashkert – 0-1
Fofana, 10
In 30th Armenian Championship match Ararat celebratd 2-1 away win over Urartu thanks to goals from midfielders Edgar Malakyan and David Manoyan.
Ararat are in the third place with 43 points while Urartu are in the 6th place with 30 points.
Armenian Championship, round 30
Urartu vs Ararat 1-2
Artur Miranyan, 72 (penalty kick) – Edgar Malakyan, 41, David Manoyan, 76
Red cards: Edgar Grigoryan (“Urartu”), 7, Hovhannes Nazaryan (“Ararat”), 62
“The city has been devastated countless times, its children scattered and orphaned, its walls and streets torn down, its gardens made fallow, only to rise through its ashes, like the legendary phoenix, more enchanting than ever. It never ceases to amaze and delight throughout the centuries; it has been courted and celebrated by people of all faiths in song and dance, prose and poetry.”
When Arthur Hagopian returned to Jerusalem about 10 years ago as a consultant for a film about the city, it had been 15 long years since his last visit to his birthplace. A journalist living in Sydney, Australia, Hagopian had not been back for years, yet as he reveals in his book The Cobblestones of Jerusalem, his memories of his childhood home remained vibrant and detailed. Hagopian, an Armenian Christian, grew up in the Armenian Quarter of the Old City of Jerusalem.
The Cobblestones of Jerusalem is a collage of colorful stories, part memoir and part history. As the author returns to the Armenian Quarter after 15 years, he describes walking through his childhood neighborhood, and his prose weaves vignettes from his reunions with people and places into the memories of his childhood. Throughout his stories, Hagopian shares his extensive knowledge of the Armenian people who make Jerusalem their home.
“I was born in the heart of a labyrinth of quaint, serpentine streets and alleys, where one of the most dynamic people of the Middle East, the Armenians, make their home. Claiming their descent from the conquering armies of Dickran (Tigranes) II, King of Kings, Armenians have been living in Jerusalem for over 2,000 years.”
The Old City of Jerusalem has four quarters – Jewish, Muslim, Christian and Armenian. If you are like me, you may have visited Jerusalem countless times but never learned very much about the Armenians who make their home in the Old City. The Cobblestones of Jerusalem will fill in some of the gaps in your knowledge.
THE ARMENIAN monastery compound in the Armenian Quarter. (credit: AMMAR AWAD/REUTERS)
In the first chapter “The Religious Tapestry,” the author writes:
“Jews form a majority in the Holy Land but the wide range of minority communities, principally Muslim, Christian and Druze, provides a rich diversity that is without parallel anywhere else in the world.”
The majority of Armenians are Orthodox Christians, although there are small numbers belonging to other churches such as the Catholic or non-Chalcedonian churches.
During the Armenians’ long history in the Old City, they were caught in the middle of the continuing conflict between Arabs and Jews many times. Some of them even lost their lives. During the 1948 war, Hagopian was a child living in the Armenian Quarter, and he remembers taking refuge in the St. James Cathedral. He remembers the sights and sounds of the bombs, and the feelings of terror, while at the same time, being a child, he and his friends continued to play their games close to their parents.
“Thousands of souls, the young and the old, were cramped together in the vast bosom of the cathedral while consternation reigned outside, with Arabs and Jews lobbying their horrent armaments across the Old City walls, the Jews on the outside wistfully looking in, the Arabs manning the higher ground of the walls, the war claiming countless innocent Armenian casualties, among them my grandfather’s brother, Vahan Hovsepitan.”
Living in Australia, Hagopian decided he wanted to share his extensive knowledge of the Armenian community in Jerusalem. “In 2007, I started an online project called ‘Armenian Jerusalem’ aimed at preserving the community’s heritage, incorporating a comprehensive family tree that would encompass the ‘kaghakatsi’ (after ‘kaghak,’ town) clans and families in the Armenian Quarter.” It was through Hagopian’s website that Daniel Ferguson, the Canadian director of a unique IMAX 3-D film about Jerusalem, contacted Hagopian and hired him as a consultant.
The kaghakatsi community in the Armenian Quarter of the Old City claims that they are the descendants of the Armenians who came to the Holy Land in the early years of Christianity, more than 2,000 years ago. The first Armenians who came to the Land of Israel were idol worshipers or mercenaries who came with the army of Tigranes. In the fourth century CE, Armenia adopted Christianity and pilgrims began to make their way to Jerusalem, where they built monasteries and shrines. Among them were Arthur Hagopian’s ancestors. The other main body of Armenians who came to the Holy Land is known as the “vanketsi” (the word “vank” means convent) and they are the survivors of the Armenian Genocide, which took place in the Ottoman Empire during World War I.
As a Jew who had a traditional Jewish education, I learned about the special place Jerusalem has in the history and traditions of the Jewish people. The Cobblestones of Jerusalem reminds the reader that Jews are not the only ones who have this type of historical and spiritual connection to Jerusalem. Other groups feel the same way and no matter where you stand on the political or religious spectrum, this is a reality of Jerusalem. The four quarters of the Old City reflect this truth, and the challenge for all of us, of course, is how to live side by side with respect and without conflict.
Hagopian explains Jerusalem from the unique standpoint of a person who is not an Arab and not a Jew. He is determined to stay apolitical and not side with either group in the ongoing conflict, so, for example in his description of the 1948 Arab-Israeli war, he explains that while the Jews called it the “War of Independence,” the Arabs called it the “Nakba” (catastrophe). Growing up, he and his family had friendly relationships with both Jews and Arabs, always remaining a distinct religious and ethnic group, while sometimes picking up various cultural nuances from both, which is what often happens in a multicultural society.
I noticed this in the following paragraph:
“In the shtetl that was the Armenian Quarter, where everybody knew everybody else no one bothered about the notions or niceties of privacy.” This amused me, as shtetl is a Yiddish term for the small towns in Eastern Europe that had large Jewish populations before the Holocaust. On another page, the author writes, “Who can doubt that of the portions of beauty God bestowed on the world, He reserved nine for Jerusalem.” This line comes from the Babylonian Talmud (he also adds “and of the 10 portions of sorrow, Jerusalem’s gift numbered nine?”).
The Cobblestones of Jerusalem is overflowing with stories and information and has many tangents and side stories. The author writes about his journalism career, the years he spent as a journalist in Kuwait and the time he spent as an English teacher, in addition to discussing Armenian and Israeli history, life in Jerusalem in different periods, and much more. All of these different themes can make the book confusing at times and somewhat challenging to read.
For example, the author writes about a visit to a man he remembered from the Armenian Quarter, and in describing the visit, he delves into his memories of the man, and then suddenly takes a tangent, describing something indirectly related to the man and his visit with him. When he returns to the story of his visit later in the chapter, or suddenly mentions his work on the Jerusalem film, it is disorienting. I think that with more organization and better editing, The Cobblestones of Jerusalem would flow better and be a more pleasurable read.
Amazon Publishing published the book and (in my humble opinion) this is not the first book published through Amazon that needs more editing. Despite this flaw, the book has a lot to teach us and I recommend it to anyone interested in learning about Jerusalem from a perspective that is not often heard, written by a man who knows it well.
“It is said that you can never go back home. But when Jerusalem is your home, you never leave it, because you carry it in your heart.”
The Cobblestones of Jerusalem By Arthur Hagopian 349 pages; $20.84
This year marks the 100-year commemoration of the failed Greek war against the Kemalists of the now Republic of Turkey. It also marks the subsequent final phase of the genocide against the remaining Greek population of Eastern Thrace and Asia Minor once the Hellenic army was forced to withdraw amidst a large-scale counteroffensive by the Turkish military that did not spare soldier or civilian in their wrath. Though the war is largely known in history as the Greco-Turkish War, other factors came into play that brought about the end of 3,000 years of Hellenism in the region. Those factors were the Great Powers of World War One; the allies who attempted to carve up their own regions of the Ottoman Empire. Countries such as Britain, France, and Italy now held territory in Asia Minor after the Treaty of Sevres while the United States and Soviet Union also looked on and played a major role later. These powers promised to protect the already persecuted religious minorities such as the Greeks and Armenians, but instead played a larger role in the Catastrophe. Many descendants to this day still ponder over the wounds.
Italy
Italian roots of having their own zone of control in Asia Minor date to 1915. The Entente (British, French, and Russian Empires) promised the Italian Empire a piece of the Ottoman Empire in return for fighting alongside them. Italy had taken the Dodecanese isles in the Aegean after the Italian-Turkish War of 1912 and they looked to expand their Mediterranean foothold in the Antalya region, in which the economically rich southwestern ports of Anatolia were promised to them after the Great War. The Hellenic Kingdom was not supportive of Italy’s claims to Antalya, which had a large Greek minority as Greece looked to expand into ancestral homelands along the Anatolian coastline (the ‘Magali Idea’). Italy had also wanted Smyrna, which was now a Greek mandate and had an overwhelmingly Greek population for 3,000 plus years. As diplomatic tensions between the two states rose, the Venizelos attempted to mend diplomatic tensions by proposing more Italian influence in Albania in return for more Greek influence in their mandate and the Dodecanese. Though Venizelos’ offer was enticing, Italy decided to back Mustafa Kemal’s insurgency against the mandates and the subsequent Greco-Turkish War, which led to Turkish forces later taking the mandate areas and expelling and killing the remaining Greek population of Antalya.
France
In order to entice France into supporting a partition of the Ottoman Empire, Britain would lay the seeds of the Sykes-Picot Agreement, giving France large portions of Cilicia, Alexandretta, and the Levant. As the Kemalists had vehemently rejected the Treaty of Sevres, they started their war for control of Asia Minor with the French mandate of Cilicia. The mandate had a large Armenian and smaller Greek population, but France had proposed an Armenian homeland in the area for the remaining Christians. France was beaten and slowly withdrew from their positions, leaving many Greeks and Armenians to flee by ports along Mersin to the French mandates in Syria and Lebanon. Feeling they weren’t given enough for being a part of the Entente, France signed a separate document with the Turkish National Assembly, recognizing their claims on all of Asia Minor, superseding the Sevres document Sultan Mehmed Hadi Pasha signed. Paris’ breakaway from the mandates and subsequent withdrawal from the Dardanelles left the British overextended and sealed the fate of any type of aid going to the Hellenic Kingdom in the Asia Minor campaign.
Britain
As the British were largely responsible for the capitulation of the Ottoman Empire, using marginalized ethnic groups to fight for them from Gaza to Damascus, they now had figure out how to maintain security in the Middle East. The British maintained administration in the international demilitarized zone of Constantinople and much of the Dardanelles. They also now had administration in Mandatory Palestine and Mesopotamia. As nationalist forces inside of Asia Minor began their insurgency for full control over the Anatolian plateau, the British decided to back local forces, such as Greek irregulars and the Hellenic military in their quest to quell Kemal’s insurgency. These plans changed largely thanks to the British Parliament and Prime Minister David Lloyd George who refused to reinforce British forces in the region due to political tensions at home, but also for other nefarious purposes. Originally, the Russian Empire was the third half of the Entente but they found themselves in a civil war in 1917 against the communists led by Vladimir Lenin. The communists won the civil war and revolutionary fever was growing around the world from it. The Bolsheviks poured in weapons to not only the Kemalists, but also instigated conflicts in the Middle East and revealed the British betrayal of ethnic groups in the region, and Lloyd George’s cabinet was on the verge of collapse. In order to keep the highly prized Asia Minor region out of communist influence, the UK had quietly allowed the Kemalists to continue their rampage when they saw that the nationalist forces were most likely going to win. As highlighted in the book ‘A Peace to End all Peace,’ the British even went as far as to block the overextended Hellenic forces from entering Constantinople, their gamble on an alliance with London a failure.
Soviet Union
The Bolsheviks arguably played the greatest role in the Asia Minor catastrophe. Looking to secure a permanent foothold in the Caucasus and absorb the newly independent states there, Vladimir Lenin sent nearly endless amounts of weaponry to the Kemalists in their war against the Greeks. Both the Turkish nationalist forces and the Soviets jointly invaded the Caucasus, with the Soviets fully incorporating Georgia, Armenia, and Azerbaijan into their control. The Kemalists annexed Western Armenia after Kemal realized the Americans wouldn’t be able to protect their proposed mandate, as the U.S. Senate voted against it and Washington’s policies were to continue being isolationists. Ideologically different, both the Soviets and Kemalists had similar interests in their quest to expel western forces – Mustafa Kemal in order to establish his own authoritarian republic and Vladimir Lenin to spread the influence of communism. This caused panic, primarily in the British Empire as the Soviets attempted to uproot British colonial rule thought diplomatic efforts.
After all this, the Hellenic Kingdom was now doomed to fail. For Lenin’s unwavering support, Mustafa Kemal ordered a bust to be made of him which was set up in Taksim Square, Constantinople, which to this day, can be seen as a provocative act in the historical Greek Orthodox city.
Allied Abandonment at Smyrna
Once the Hellenic army was pushed back by the Kemalists into Smyrna on September 1922, many Greeks and Armenians of the city, along with Greek refugees from Asia Minor, expected evacuation before the sack of the city. The allied command of the United States, British, French, and Italian forces were given strict orders from their high command not to dock their ships into Smyrna and save the hundreds of thousands of people trapped in the city. The U.S. High Commissioner of to Turkey, Admiral Mark Bristol did not even try to hide his racist views towards Christian minorities in the region and was very pro Kemalist. He was one of the officers in charge who gave the orders to his men not to intervene in the slaughter of Smyrna and evacuation of refugees. The British, French, and Italians at this time realized Mustafa Kemal had won and the only way to placate the new Turkish nation was to stay idle and not intervene in Smyrna, even if they would be responsible for the blood of 100,000-120,000 Greeks and Armenians of the rich port city. Out of the nations present with naval ships to save refugees, only the Hellenic Kingdom and Imperial Japan docked their ships in the port to evacuate as many people as possible. The great powers of the world had effectively left their Christian ‘brethren’ to die and one of the first Greek colonies in Asia Minor founded 3,000 years ago, was set ablaze. The Burning of Smyrna marked the end of 3,000 plus years of Hellenism in Asia Minor.
As the descendants of the Greek Genocide survivors reflect on the centennial of the collapse of the Asia Minor campaign, we remember who stood for the plight of the Greeks and who watched over a million being butchered. To this day, the Turkish government refuses to acknowledge the Greek, Armenian, and Assyrian Genocide but many groups in diaspora today still fight for recognition so their ancestors may have some closure in the afterlife.
Julian McBride is a forensic anthropologist and independent journalist born in New York. He’s the founder and director of the Reflections of War Initiative (ROW), an anthropological NGO. He reports and documents the plight of people around the world who are affected by conflicts, rogue geopolitics, and war, and also tells the stories of war victims who never get their voices heard.
For a long time, the Armenian leadership attempted to ignore new realities in the region by refusing to accept Azerbaijan’s peace proposals in the hope of resuming negotiations under the auspices of the OSCE Minsk Group co-chairs.
However, the Minsk Group’s demise denied official Yerevan this opportunity. The conflict between the co-chair countries of the Minsk Group over the events in Ukraine buried all hopes for the resumption of this format, especially since the co-chairs were unable to propose anything new that reflected modern realities.
Simultaneously, during a recent meeting in Brussels, Pashinyan’s government finally accepted Azerbaijan’s peace proposals and agreed to begin negotiations to reach a peace agreement, open transport corridors, and delimit and demarcate borders. All of this has resulted in a rapid escalation of Armenia’s internal political situation.
Pashinyan’s decision, predictably, elicited a mixed reaction in Armenia. The parliamentary opposition, represented by the blocks “Armenia” and “I Have Honour”, as well as representatives of separatists, the foreign diaspora, NGOs and associations, former diplomats and officials, and a number of representatives of the Armenian Apostolic Church, categorically opposed the start of peace talks with Azerbaijan, normalization of relations with Turkey, and the opening of transport corridors.
The next anniversary of the 1915 events, which is used by radical Turkophobes to present territorial, moral, and material claims to Turkey and Azerbaijan, prompted the start of protests against the current Yerevan authorities. For a long time, Armenian radicals have used this date to hold mass demonstrations and marches under the banners of retribution and revenge. They seize every opportunity to smear Azerbaijan and Turkey in the eyes of the international community, accusing them of racism and “armenophobia” through racist propaganda and erroneous interpretations of historical events.
For many years, Armenian politicians have used the events of 1915 to justify their territorial claims to neighboring states. It is worth noting that Turkey has repeatedly offered to open archives and form a joint commission to investigate the history of those tragic events, but Armenia has rejected these offers each time, demanding unconditional recognition of Turkey’s responsibility for them.
It’s interesting how Armenian society always treats April 24 as a “day of mourning”, but on that day, all demonstrations and marches of Armenians are held with Turkophobic slogans and calls for vengeance. This year, at the initiative of the foreign diaspora and opposition leaders, they added slogans condemning the government’s policy and Pashinyan personally, accusing them of betrayal and readiness to surrender “Artsakh”.
Thousands of people who marched with torches through the streets of Armenia and other countries found themselves embroiled in an internal political struggle for power. Toward the end, the organizers of the procession burned the flags of Azerbaijan and Turkey on the square in Yerevan, as if to symbolize their desire to fight to the end for the capture of foreign territories.
For several days now, the Armenian opposition has been organizing marches and pickets to demand the overthrow of the prime minister. At the same time, the Armenian law enforcement agencies switched to preventive measures to prevent anti-government demonstrations.
The situation in Armenia day by day resembles very much of the events of 1998-1999 when the first president Levon Ter-Petrosyan was ousted from power for being ready to sign a peace agreement to withdraw troops from the occupied Azerbaijani territories.
Armenia is constantly trying to delay the implementation of trilateral statements. While Azerbaijan has already built almost a third of the railway and road of the Zangazur corridor, Armenia has done almost nothing in this direction.
There is no doubt that the new intra-political escalation in Armenia has begun to exacerbate the country’s already tense situation, but Armenia has only one way out of this situation: to take concrete steps toward normalizing relations and signing a peace agreement with Azerbaijan.
ISTANBUL
The third meeting of envoys from Turkiye and Armenia for normalization of ties is set for May 3, foreign ministries of both countries confirmed Thursday.
“The next meeting of the Special Representatives of Turkiye and Armenia in the Turkiye-Armenia normalization process, Ambassador Serdar Kilic and Deputy Speaker of the Armenian Parliament Ruben Rubinyan, will take place on May 3 in Vienna,” the Turkish Foreign Ministry announced in a statement, while spokesperson for the Armenia’s Foreign Ministry also confirmed it on Twitter.
Kilic was named as Turkiye’s special envoy to discuss steps towards normalization with neighboring Armenia on Dec. 15, 2021. Three days later, Armenia appointed its own special representative Rubinyan.
The first round of talks was held in the Russian capital Moscow on Jan. 14, where both parties agreed to continue negotiations without any preconditions, according to a statement released after the meeting. Turkish and Armenian envoys met for the second time in Vienna on Feb. 24.
Also, a historic bilateral meeting took place between the foreign ministers of Turkiye and Armenia on the sidelines of the Antalya Diplomacy Forum on March 12.
As part of the efforts, Turkiye and Armenia have also resumed commercial flights as of Feb. 2 after a two-year hiatus.
The two countries have been divided on a range of issues, including Armenia’s occupation of Nagorno-Karabakh, and 1915 events between the Ottoman Empire and Armenians, and the border between the two neighboring countries has been closed since 1993.
Ara Abrahamyan
The president of Union of Armenians in Russia, Ara Abrahmyan, played a key role in the release of American prisoner Trevor Reed, who was being held in Russia since 2019.
Former New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson, who was also the U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. mediated a the release when he secretly traveled to Moscow hours before the Russian military offensive against Ukraine began back in February.
Richardson, through his eponymous Richardson Center, has been working behind the scenes to secure Reed’s release.
Freed American prisoner Trevor Reed
Richardson personally thanked Abrahamyan “for his help in support of the efforts to release Trevor and others.” He also praised Abrahamyan during an interview with CNN on Thursday.
It was announced on Wednesday that Reed was being released through a prisoner swap between Moscow and Washington, which exchanged convicted Russian drug dealer Konstantin Yaroshenko.
Richardson told CBS News that he is also working on the release of Paul Whelan, another American being held prisoner in Russia and said Whelan and WNBA star Brittney Griner, who was detained in Moscow shortly after the Ukraine offensive should be released.
“Over the last two years we have been working closely with Trevor’s parents, Paula and Joey, as well as their trusted representative, Jon Franks, trying to secure Trevor’s safe return home. In this effort, we have had many engagements with our Russian counterparts, and have recently travelled to Moscow, on a private humanitarian mission, to meet with Russian leadership and discuss Trevor’s and Paul Whelan’s release,” said a statement by the Richardson Center on Wednesday.
Abrahamyan has had a prominent role in developing and advancing relations between the Armenian community in Russia and Armenia. As president of the Union of Armenians in Russia and also the chairman of the Armenian World Congress, Abrahamyan has also led efforts to secure Russian investments in Armenia. As a philanthropist, Abrahamyan personally, as well as the Union of Armenians in Russia have helped efforts in various sectors of development in Armenia.
LOS ANGELES—The Armenian National Committee of American-Western Region has endorsed incumbent Governor of California Gavin Newsom for his reelection.
“Governor Newsom has been an incredible friend to the Armenian community throughout his years in public office,” said chair of the ANCA-WR Board of Directors Nora Hovsepian, Esq. “Governor Newsom has been a committed advocate for justice for the Armenian Genocide, a true ally in the strengthening of ties between California and Armenia, and has been committed to honoring the contributions of the Armenian-American community to the State of California. We are grateful for the Governor’s principled leadership on issues of importance to our community, and look forward to continuing to work with him to strengthen ties between the State of California, Armenia and Artsakh,” Hovsepian concluded.
Governor Newsom has been a stalwart friend of the Armenian-American community, advocating for its interests from his time on the San Francisco Board of Supervisors, through his tenure as Mayor of San Francisco, and then during his eight years as Lieutenant Governor before being elected as Governor in 2018.
As Governor, Newsom remained unwavering in his commitment to representing the voice of California’s Armenian community at the State Capitol. Governor Newsom has issued annual proclamations declaring April 24th as a “Day of Remembrance of the Armenian Genocide” in solemn remembrance of the 1.5 million innocent victims of the grave crime against humanity.
Newsom has also been dedicated to pursuing justice for the victims and survivors of the genocide, signing AB1320 – the Divestment from Turkish Bonds Act – into law in 2019. This was the culmination of years of advocacy spearheaded by the Armenian Youth Federation, Armenian Students’ Associations along with the ANCA-WR to divest public funds from Turkish government-owned investments and securities in response to Ankara’s enduring denial of the Armenian Genocide.
As a further demonstration of his commitment to historic justice for the Armenian people, in 2021 Newsom launched the Governor’s Council on Holocaust and Genocide Education — an initiative spearheaded alongside Senator Henry Stern with the backing of the ANCA-WR which aims to support and promote education on the Holocaust and other genocides by providing schools, educators and students with the necessary resources and training materials to do so. The Council, which will include representatives of the Armenian-American community, will play an integral role in bringing Armenian Genocide studies to schools across the state.
As Governor, Newsom has demonstrated a commitment to honoring and celebrating the contributions of Armenian-Americans to the State of California and the United States as a whole – allocating $8 million from the California budget to the construction of the Armenian American Museum. Newsom has also made significant contributions to the strengthening of ties between California and the Republic of Armenia, signing an agreement to create a Trade and Services Desk in Yerevan that was formally inaugurated in 2021.
Governor Newsom has also been outspoken in support of the Armenian-American community during its most trying times. The Governor forcefully condemned the abhorrent hate crimes perpetrated against the Krouzian-Zekarian Vasbouragan (KZV) Armenian School and the Armenian center adjacent to the St. Gregory Armenian Apostolic Church in San Francisco. Newsom also indicated his support for the global Armenian community during the horrific invasion of Artsakh by Azerbaijan in 2020.
“I am humbled by the Armenian National Committee of America – Western Region’s endorsement for my re-election as Governor of California,” remarked Governor Newsom. “Throughout my years in public service, I have been a proud friend and enthusiastic advocate for the Armenian community of California. I look forward to continuing to support projects like the Armenian American Museum to highlight the incredible contributions of the Armenian-American community to the Golden State – as well as to deepen ties between the State of California and the Republic of Armenia through the Trade and Services Desk in Yerevan. I also stand committed to the cause for justice for those innocent lives cruelly taken from us during the Armenian Genocide – and to honor their memory through the recently established Governor’s Council on Holocaust and Genocide Education. We must remain ever-vigilant in the face of bigotry and genocide denial so as to ensure these crimes are never forgotten – and never repeated. I will always be a proud friend and ally of the Armenian people, and look forward to continuing to represent your community’s voice at the State Capitol.”
California is home to the largest Armenian diaspora community in the world, with up to a million residents of Armenian ancestry across the state. The Armenian-American community of California has made an indelible impact on the social, cultural, political, and economic fabric of the state.
With primary elections approaching on June 7th, Armenian-Americans have an important opportunity to ensure our community’s collective voice is heard, and are poised to play a significant role in shaping the future of the state.
The ANCA-WR will continue to announce its endorsements as it works tirelessly to ensure issues of significance to the Armenian-American community are addressed by candidates ahead of the upcoming elections.
The Armenian National Committee of America-Western Region is the largest and most influential Armenian-American grassroots advocacy organization in the Western United States. Working in coordination with a network of offices, chapters, and supporters throughout the Western United States and affiliated organizations around the country, the ANCA-WR advances the concerns of the Armenian American community on a broad range of issues.
GLENDALE—Glendale Fire Chief Silvio Lanzas has officially announced his retirement after a 30-year career in public service, with 26 years as a career Firefighter.
Chief Lanzas started his career in the fire service 30 years ago as a Fire Explorer at the Grand Terrace Fire Station. He was hired as Firefighter two days before graduating high school. He has served in all ranks from firefighter to Fire Chief.
“Chief Lanzas is an exemplary public servant who saw us through the global Coronavirus pandemic and worked tirelessly to keep our community safe during the most critical time in our recent history,” said Glendale Mayor Ardy Kassakhian. “Time and again he went above and beyond making sure that our residents were well informed about various health measures while making sure that our city’s fire services were fully engaged in handling the pandemic.”
“I’m grateful for all the work he has done for our city and wish him and his family nothing but the best in retirement. Obviously, the Chief’s departure will leave a major gap in our organization but one that I am confident we will be able to fill by working together with my colleagues on City Council, our City Manager Mr. Golanian and the Chief himself,” added Kassakhian.
Chief Lanzas has been with the City of Glendale for four and a half years. He was hired by the City in 2017 as a Deputy Fire Chief, and promoted to Fire Chief in 2018.
Throughout his time in Glendale, Chief Lanzas has been a dedicated public servant and exhibited extraordinary leadership during extremely challenging times. He has helped to improve the fire departments response times, diversity, and overall community impact. He has worked to build relationships with Glendale Firefighters Local 776 as well as worked with Glendale Community College to make improvements at the Department’s training center which supports not only the GFD but also is the main training site for the Verdugo Fire Academy. In addition to his role as Fire Chief, Chief Lanzas serves as the Region 1, Area C Coordinator, the LA Area Fire Chief’s Association Vice President, the Foothill Fire Chief’s President and the CALCHIEFS Southern Division Director.
Throughout the pandemic he has been instrumental in keeping the community safe and healthy, having led several efforts in support of vaccination availability and access for residents. Chief Lanzas also serves on several community boards including the YMCA and Dignity Health, Glendale Memorial Hospital Board. Prior to coming to Glendale, Chief Lanzas worked for CALFIRE for over 2 decades having risen through the ranks from Firefighter I to Division Chief. “Throughout my career, I have had the good fortune of working with some of the very best firefighters and fire professionals on the planet. Having served in the City of Glendale as the Fire Chief for almost 4 years and in an expanded role as the Deputy City Manager has been the highest honor of my career and an experience of which I will forever be proud”, said Chief Lanzas.
Chief Lanzas has been offered and accepted a leadership position in the private sector at M-FIRE Technologies as its Chief of Operations.
“Chief Lanzas has provided tremendous leadership of our Fire Department and displayed extraordinary care and concern for our community during an unprecedented pandemic and during our State’s most destructive wildfire years,” said Glendale City Manager Roubik Golanian.
“Time and time again, Silvio has demonstrated his dedication to public service by helping the most vulnerable members of the community. He is an excellent team member who’s “can do” spirit has forged partnerships with other service providers and agencies across the region. He will be truly missed. We will begin a nationwide recruitment for Fire Chief immediately and have asked that Silvio fully participate in the process and remain in his role until a replacement is found,” added Golanian.