Category: News

– 70-year-old Armenian ArArAt brandy was sold at a Sotheby auction in London for 80 thousand pounds—over $120,000.

The special auction was dedicated to the 50th anniversary of former United Kingdom Prime Minister Winston Churchill’s death.

The auction was sponsored by Albert II, Prince of Monaco. The organization of the auction was supported by Monaco’s Ambassador to the UK Evelyne Genta, Armenia’s Ambassador to the UK and former prime minister of Armenia Armen Sargsyan, and Saudi Prince Al Waleed.

Churchill’s favorite drinks, cigars and, clothing brands and various other items were put up for the auction.

During the auction, special attention was paid to Churchill’s bust by sculptor Oscar Nemon and 70-year-old brandy from an exclusive collection of the Yerevan Brand Factory, which was donated by Armen Sargsyan.

The amount raised at the auction will be donated in its entirety to charities supporting Prince Albert’s initiatives to reduce the impacts of climate change, biodiversity preservation, and combatting desertification.

In remembrance of 100 years since the Armenian Genocide, professors from four different universities spoke out against denial of the genocide as part of “Denial and Memory,” a conference held at Northwestern on Friday, reports.

Held by the Buffett Institute of Global Studies’ Keyman Modern Turkish Studies, history Prof. Ipek Yosmaoğlu introduced the event to an audience of about 30 people.

“Denial of violence is even more serious,” said Yosmaoğlu. “The most terrible thing is not about the suffering, but the erasure of its memory.”

Mustafa Aksakal, who teaches about Turkish history at Georgetown University, was the first speaker. He began by telling the story of five young Armenian boys who struck an undetonated shell that fell during World War I, killing two and injuring three. Aksakal used this as an example of the destruction war brought to Armenian communities.

“In short, the first World War devastated the Middle East,” he said. “Violence begets violence, but more violence begets violent identities.”

Rachel Goshgarian, a professor at Lafayette College, spoke about Armenian historical monuments and how since the 20th century, hundreds have either been destroyed or are vanishing.

“Does this destruction, this continued use of destruction, act as a byproduct of the Armenian Genocide?” she asked the crowd.

Some of these buildings had been used for demonstrations of explosive power, or target practice for the military, Goshgarian said. Other times these places lose parts of their structures for people to repurpose them for homebuilding.

“These have been the fate of these structures” she said. “Even when the ministry recognizes these buildings have some sort of historical importance, some buildings get turned into a children’s playground.”

Kerem Ӧktem, a professor at the University of Graz in Austria, discussed memory versus recognition of the genocide and ideas like the Turkish government’s denial of the genocide. He also talked about the connection between societal power groups and recognition of the genocide.

“With very little reach out in society, it is important to see how many sides can exist in society,” he said. “Denialists are losing ground.”

Barbara Lyons, an Evanston resident who was at the event, said she is interested in the topic of the Middle East and the Armenian Genocide.

“Everything they told me were things I didn’t know,” she said. “I read about the West carving out the East arbitrarily, forming countries, and that is how this whole thing got started.”

She also commented on the shock factor of the lecture.

“The destruction of Armenian culture is what surprised me,” she said. “They didn’t just get rid of the Armenians, they wanted to get rid of remembering they were there.”

From artistic renderings of the splendor of the Armenian countryside to the stark beauty of ancient fortresses, heritage sites and cultural treasures hold deep meaning for the Armenian people.
On November 9, 2015, U.S. Ambassador to Armenian Richard Mills, Jr. had the opportunity to visit important pieces of Armenian cultural heritage in Gyumri and Dashtadem, where he unveiled two of the latest projects funded by the U.S. Ambassador’s Fund for Cultural Preservation.

“We are all connected by our shared history, our shared human story. By understanding and respecting Armenian history, we can celebrate our present connections and build our common future,” Ambassador Mills said.

This year, work is being completed on three major projects selected by the U.S. Ambassador’s Fund for Cultural Preservation (AFCP): the renovation of Rafayel Atoyan’s “On the Way to the Watermill” mural, the excavation and restoration of the Dashtadem Fortress complex, and work to safeguard significant archeological finds in the Areni Cave. In total, the AFCP provided almost $200,000 for all three projects.

“It has been more than a year of painstaking, detailed restoration work at all three sites. Now the Armenian people will see the benefit of this investment,” said Ambassador Mills as he unveiled the Atoyan mural and opened the Dashtadem complex. The work at Areni Cave will be unveiled at a later date.

The public presentation of these AFCP sites coincides with Ambassador Mills’ month-long focus on rural development. By preserving such sites, he said, tourists will be more likely to visit areas outside of Yerevan and help build a more diverse rural economy.

“There are so many great examples of cultural and historical heritage in rural Armenia. By working with our Armenian partners to preserve these sites and this mural, we are helping to promote tourism in the regions, which will boost economic development,” Ambassador Mills emphasized.

“ON THE WAY TO THE WATERMILL”

Rafayel Atoyan’s “On the Way to the Watermill” was in danger of disintegration, as the abandoned building was slowly crumbling around it. Now, thanks to the U.S. Ambassador’s Fund for Cultural Preservation, it has a new home in Gyumri’s Youth Palace.

The painstaking restoration and relocation of the mural was conducted by the Minas Avetisyan Cultural Foundation, led by Arman Avetisyan, with the participation of Fabrizio Iacopini, a renowned expert from the Restoration Institute in Florence, Italy.

During the unveiling, Ambassador Mills announced that the preservation proposal for another mural, Hakob Hakobyan’s “In the Mountains/Milkmen,” won funding in this year’s highly competitive AFCP selection process. When complete, that mural will find a new home in Gyumri’s Achemyan Drama Theater.

“I look forward to returning once work on that mural is complete,” Ambassador Mills said. “Gyumri has such a unique character and flavor, and I think these two artists truly capture what makes this corner of Armenia unique.”

DASHTADEM

After unveiling the Atoyan mural in Gyumri, Ambassador Mills traveled to the Dashtadem fortress complex. One of the largest medieval fortresses in the Caucasus, the site has great historical and architectural significance. It is the home to the 7^th century Saint Sargis Church, the 12^th century Khan Palace, and 9^th century Christian gravestones.

The U.S. Embassy partnered with the Government of Armenia, the Ministry of Culture, and the AMAP Human Development NGO to make the Dashtadem preservation project a reality.  Thanks to this project, the compound was first cleared of rubbish and the remnants of modern structures, allowing for excavation work on the inner citadel and the surrounding wall. 35 meters of the outlines and foundations of the medieval defensive walls have been uncovered, including two semicircular towers. The excavations also uncovered remnants of late medieval dwellings and items used in commerce, such as ovens.

“Armenian history is rich and long. It is also multi-layered, as different cultural eras came into being, intermingled, and declined,” said Ambassador Mills said. “Preserving this Fortress will help future generations understand the story of how the modern Armenian people came to be.”

Recognizing that celebrating our shared cultural heritage is a way to bring countries and peoples together, the U.S. State Department established the U.S. Ambassadors’ Fund for Cultural Preservation (AFCP) in 2000. Through the fund, the U.S. State Department each year provides financing for a number of projects around the globe that protect unique cultural heritage sites.

The U.S. Ambassadors’ Fund for Cultural Preservation has been providing support for Armenian cultural sites since 2005, funding projects such as the mapping and cataloging of items at the Noratus medieval cemetery and its collection of khachkars, preservation of a medieval masonry bridge in the Garni Gorge, and documentation of traditional Armenian music and dance.

Russia’s foreign minister says the next round of Syria talks expected to be held this weekend must not focus squarely on demands for Syrian President Bashar Assad’s resignation, AP reports.

Sergey Lavrov, speaking on a trip to Armenia on Monday, said some of the participants in the talks have kept pushing for Assad to step down, in what he described as a “simplistic approach.”

The first round of Vienna talks on Oct. 30 left open the thorny question of when Assad might leave power.

Lavrov said the talks should focus on reaching consensus on who should represent the Syrian opposition and who should be considered extremists. He said the Organization of Islamic Cooperation and the Arab League should be invited to join the following round of Vienna talks.

About 130 cases of ceasefire violation by the Azerbaijani side were registered at the line of contact between the armed forces of Nagorno Karabakh and Azerbaijan over the weekend.

The rival used artillery weapons of different caliber and 60mm mortars as it fired more than 2,000 shots in the direction of the Armenian positions.

The front divisions of the NKR Defense Army keep control of the situation at the line of contact and confidently continue with their military duty, the NKR Defense Ministry said in a statement.

Armenian President Serzh Sargsyan received today Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov.

President Sargsyan hailed the dynamically developing bilateral relations, which, he said, are enhanced by frequent high-level meetings and reciprocal visits.

According to Serzh Sargsyan, the intensive contacts are an evidence of the interest of the to countries to develop the allied relations and the willingness to discuss joint issues within the framework of the existing formats.

The interlocutors agreed that the Armenian-Russian relations are steadily developing in the economic, military-technical and humanitarian fields.

President Sargsyan praised Russia’s role in the process of settlement of the Karabakh conflict and establishment of security and stability in the region.

Sergey Lavrov also hailed the progress registered in all directions as a result of Armenian-Russian cooperation and praised the dynamically developing relations within the framework of integration processes.

According to him, Armenia’s membership in the Eurasian Economic Union will certainly have a positive impact from the viewpoint of further deepening and development of economic relations.

Referring to the negotiations on the Nagorno Karabakh conflict, Minister Lavrov reiterated that there is no alternative to the peaceful settlement.

During the meeting the interlocutors exchanged views on urgent international issues and challenges.

Photo by JOSEPH EID/AFP/Getty Images

 

While we come together to remember fallen soldiers, the remains of orphaned survivors of the Armenian genocide are about to make way for a luxury hotel

By Robert Fisk 

Do we honour the dead or the corpses? I’m not talking about those poppy fashion accessories worn by the BBC’s clones, or PR Dave’s obscene bit of crimson Photoshopping, but the real, actual remains of the human beings slaughtered in the Great War of 1914-18. And, in this particular case, I’m talking not of the soldiers but of the civilians buried in 33 graves which I looked down upon last week from a windy hilltop beside the old Roman city of Byblos in Lebanon. Beneath those tombstones lie the bones of some survivors of the greatest war crime of that titanic conflict, the genocide of a million and a half Armenian Christians by the Turks in 1915. They died in one of the huge orphanages opened for thousands of children amid cholera and disease by European doctors and NGOs after the Great War ended, and were buried in the orphanage grounds.

Many of them saw their parents slaughtered in front of them, but escaped the massacre only to die in Lebanon. Some lived on to work among the orphans and died of old age. But they are the “honoured” dead, as surely as the soldiers who lie today in the cemeteries of the Somme and Verdun and the graves of those who endured the conflict. Or are they? For these individual Armenian graves, most of them bearing the names of the survivors, are soon to be disinterred and buried – mixed together – in a “common grave” beside the nearest Armenian church. Their names already appear on a marble stone near the hole where their bones will be placed – but their individuality will disappear, skulls and backbones and femurs jumbled together. What is left of their bodies will have lost their uniqueness.

Worse still, their own Armenian church which “protects” the old orphanage site, is to rent the land to a company that plans to construct a beach-front boutique hotel of wooden villas and, while the land where the graves now stand cannot be used for construction – it is too near the ancient Roman city – it will be landscaped and used, it now seems, for wedding photographs. The brides and grooms will not know whom they have displaced.

But Vartan Avakian will know. He took me to Byblos to show me the tomb of his own great-grandfather Hagop in this very cemetery, and Hagop’s remains will be among those disinterred. “Those who escaped the mass graves of our genocide should not be moved into another mass grave,” he said bitterly. Vartan and seven other Armenian friends have been hunting through local construction documents and discovered that the exclusive resort will be called the Diplomatic Club. So poor old Hagop, who witnessed but survived the genocide at the age of 21, must make way for the wealthy company that will rent this land from the church for its privileged hotel guests.

The Armenian church can say – justifiably – that the names of the dead will be more greatly honoured, because their cocktail of bones will lie beside an Ottoman building that now houses a magnificent museum of the genocide, containing a photographic record of the Armenian Holocaust – the first holocaust of the 20th century. Pictures of the dead hang in corridors haunted by most beautiful Armenian liturgical church music. “Remember!” it says in Armenian on a nearby wall. “Life is short, death is real, eternity is immortal.” Which, I suppose, is the Armenian version of our own remembrance of those who grow not old as we grow old.

But moving the dead worries me. True, in 1918 the Armenian survivors carried some of the bones of their own dead from the Syrian desert to a chapel at Antelias, north of Beirut, where they can be seen to this day. I have myself dug the skulls of dead Armenians from the killing fields of northern Syria – originally left by their Turkish murderers to be covered by the waters of the Khabur river – and given them to the priests of the genocide memorial church at Deir Ezzor. But these bones had been lying unknown, without any Christian grave. They were placed in the crypt amid other remains where, alas, they were discovered by Islamist fighters last year – and hurled into the street before the church was dynamited.

True, graves of British soldiers on the Somme were removed to another cemetery when a new French motorway route to the Channel was under construction not long ago. But they were reburied with honour under their own individual tombstones and their disinterment was in the interest of a project that would benefit a new generation of humanity. Besides, when tens of thousands of soldiers “known unto God” were simply atomised into the fields of the Somme by shellfire during the war itself, should bones really carry the same power as our historical memory? And didn’t we ourselves bring back an “Unknown Soldier” to lie in state for ever in London?

But to stand on the Somme and know that a dead man, often named, lies just below the ground a few feet from us provides a most unique reflection on humanity’s cruelty and tragedy. Hagop was a survivor but his bones, albeit unseen, and his tombstone possess an individuality that recovers the dead and brings them back, in our consciousness, to the world of the living. A common grave may be a place of prayer – surely that is what the ash pits of Auschwitz have become – but it cruelly destroys the unique identity of each human being who died there – which, in the case of Auschwitz, was, alas, the Nazis’ intention.

Time matters, of course. We do not weep for the dead of Agincourt and Waterloo. They were routinely thrown into mass graves. And our world is for the living, not the dead. Ashes do return to ashes. Yet in the shadow of the last century’s Golgotha, I suspect that bodies, corpses, human remains – however decayed – should still be important to us. Their identities are more important than poppies – and certainly more profound than the profits of a boutique hotel

Armenia appreciates Russia’s efforts to reach a solution to the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, Armenian Foreign Minister Eduard Nalbandian said on Monday following talks with his Russian counterpart Sergey Lavrov.

“We discussed the issue of the Nagorno-Karabakh settlement,” he said. “Armenia highly appreciates Russia’s efforts aimed at resolving the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict by peaceful means. We will continue working in this vein.”

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov noted that Russia is opposed to discussing Nagorno-Karabakh settlement at international venues not designed for that purpose.

“We, the co-chairmen of the Minsk process – Russia, the United States and France – speak out against the attempts to raise this issue at various international venues, which did not engage in the settlement,” he said, when commenting on a report by the PACE Committee on Political Affairs and Democracy on the situation around  Nagorno-Karabakh.

The Russian foreign minister noted that the co-chairmen of the Minsk group maintain regular dialogue on the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict. “This is a very complex issue with its own history,” Lavrov said.

Nalbandian also expressed condolences over  the Russian plane crash over Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula and thanked Lavrov for the assistance in transporting home the bodies of Armenian citizens who lost their lives in the air crash in South Sudan.

“Today’s meeting was another good opportunity to discuss the implementation of the agreements reached at the level of heads of our states,” Nalbandian said.

Hayastan All-Armenian Fund affiliates in the United States of America (Armenia Fund, Inc./Los Angeles and Armenia Fund USA/New York), have announced the launch of their joint fundraising campaign “Our Home,” Massis Post reports.

This innovative campaign will culminate with the live 12-hour broadcast of the 18th Annual International Thanksgiving Day Telethon which airs on November 26, 2015.

Having become a Thanksgiving Day tradition for Armenians around the world, the Telethon will air from Los Angeles and be broadcast from coast to coast and internationally on cable and satellite television as well as online:

This year’s flagship ground-breaking project is the construction of single family homes for families in Artsakh who have 5 children or more and lack adequate housing. There are already 466 families identified in Artsakh who fit the criteria and 211 are known to live in unacceptable housing conditions.

“This is truly a humanitarian project and we have received a great deal of positive feedback from our donors. It is not easy to raise 5 or more children even in the United States, let alone Artsakh. We all should pitch in to help the parents who are raising the next generation of Armenia’s scientists, doctors, statesmen and artists by providing them adequate housing. These are parents who work hard, who do their absolute best to provide for their children, but, unfortunately, they cannot save enough money to build a home big enough for their children,” explains Antranik Baghdassarian, President of Armenia Fund, Inc. the U.S. Western Region affiliate of Hayastan All-Armenian Fund.

The homes that Armenia Fund constructs will have land plots of 10,000 sq. ft. each, where the families can grow fruits and vegetables. Armenia Fund will provide furniture for every room in the house as well as provide household appliances, including water heaters, refrigerators, washers, stoves and vacuum cleaners.

“Coming off the heels of the 100th Anniversary of the Armenian Genocide, we reflect not only on our survival but our future – our children, the beneficiaries of this year’s Telethon’s target project. I am glad we are combining our efforts with our Western Region affiliate this year. It projects unity and highlights the importance of this year’s project. By streamlining our efforts and joining our unique talents and resources, we will better serve Armenia and Artsakh by reducing costs and operational expenses, thus allowing more funds to be allocated for projects. We call on all Armenians in the United States and around the world to watch the Telethon and donate generously for this noble program,” stated Khoren Bandazian, President of Armenia Fund USA, the U.S. Eastern Region affiliate of Hayastan All-Armenian Fund.

According to the program, priority will be given to low income families, as well as the families of active duty officers of the armed forces, families of veterans of the Artsakh Liberation War and to the survivors of soldiers who lost their lives defending Artsakh.

“This is a great partnership benefiting the children of Artsakh. Their parents do the heavy-lifting of providing for the children through their hard work, the government of Artsakh does its part by providing subsidies and allowances for every child, and we will build them new beautiful homes. The Fund will only be able to do this with the support of our donors, who we cannot thank enough for their generosity and caring. Today, when we hear about Azerbaijan’s unprecedented aggression against the peaceful population of Artsakh, it is important for all of us to send a powerful message to our brothers and sisters that our support for Artsakh is stronger than ever,” explains Ara Vardanyan, the Executive Director of Hayastan All-Armenian Fund, Yerevan.

The Telethon airs for 12 hours on U.S. Thanksgiving Day, November 26 beginning at 10:00AM Pacific Standard Time.

 

 

 

There is no inconsistency between Armenia’s membership in the CSTO and its cooperation with NATO, Steffen Elgersma, representative of NATO’s International Staff, said at an international conference in Yerevan on “NATO-Armenia Cooperation: New Objectives and Perspectives.”

The event was organized by the Analytical Centre on Globalization and Regional Cooperation (ACGRC) with support from the German Embassy in Armenia, the Friedrich Naumann Foundation and the NATO Public Diplomacy Division.

“We have good cooperation with Armenia and welcome Armenia’s participation in NATO missions both in Afghanistan and Kosovo. We have also launched a successful dialogue in the field of security,” Steffen Elgersma said.

Speaking about Turkey’s aspiration to play a greater role in the South Caucasus, he said “it’s natural for NATO member Turkey to be interested in the South Caucasus, as it is situated closest to the region.”

“We do hope that the relations between Armenia and Turkey will improve over time,” he added.

According to Koryun Nahapetyan, the Head of Armenia’s delegation to the NATO Parliamentary Assembly, the relations between Armenia and NATO are developing dynamically.