Armenian Chernobyl victims receive compensation worth $10
Regnum, Russia
April 23 2006
“The Armenian government did not adopt state program on aid for
relatives of victims of the Chernobyl tragedy this year, and Ministry
of Labor and Social Affairs believed it to be inexpedient to consider
proposals package of liquidators of the catastrophe’s consequences,”
stated assistant to president of Armenian Chernobyl Union Viktoria
Movsesyan, speaking with a REGNUM correspondent.
According to her, liquidators of consequences of the Chernobyl tragedy
have no special privileges. “They are supplied in the framework of
state order for disabled people. Moreover, privilege of paying only 50%
of price for public utilities is replaced by absolutely inadequate
money compensation worth 4,500 drams ($10),” she stressed. Also,
the assistant of Union president informed, state granted 2151,000
drams ($4780) on the occasion of 20th anniversary of the Chernobyl
NPP tragedy to organize events and to render material assistance
to invalids.
According to Viktoria Movsesyan, more than 400 disabled children
are Union members. They do not have the status of disabled people
and receive medical aid like all other Armenian citizens, despite
the fact, that the Republican Center of Radiation Medicine and Burns
receives medicines, which must be delivered to victims of Chernobyl
tragedy for free. “However, nobody of Chernobyl Union members went
to the law,” stressed Viktoria Movsesyan. April 26 is commemorated
as Memorial Day of Victims of Catastrophe at the Chernobyl NPP.

The Moscow Times, Russia
April 24 2006
Armenian Student Killed by Skinheads
By Oksana Yablokova
Staff Writer
An Armenian teenager standing on a crowded metro platform in the
heart of the city was stabbed to death Saturday by an unknown
attacker.
The slaying of Vagan Abramyants, 17, took place around 5 p.m. at the
Pushkinskaya metro station as the boy was en route to an Orthodox
Easter party.
A train heading to Vykhino entered the station, and seven young men
got off. Abramyants, who was with 11 acquaintances, was unexpectedly
attacked.
Interfax, citing police reports, reported that one of the men stabbed
Abramyants in the chest and that all of them fled on the departing
train. Abramyants died on the spot.
Witnesses said the attackers had shaved heads, black clothes and
boots, police said.
Abramyants’ death was the latest in a string of attacks across Russia
on dark-skinned people from the Caucasus, Asia, Africa and elsewhere.
Two weeks ago, a Senegalese student was shot dead with a gun with a
swastika on it. A young man shouting “Heil Hitler” stormed into a
central Moscow synagogue earlier this year, stabbing worshipers.
After the attack on Abramyants, dozens of police officers formed a
semicircle around the body, which lay sprawled in the central
corridor of the metro station, as shoppers, kids and couples streamed
past.
The upper body was covered with a sheet. Abramyants’ hands and feet
were visible; his legs, from the knees down, could also be seen.
The metro branch of the prosecutor’s office has opened a criminal
probe but has not yet classified the attack as a hate crime. No
suspects had been detained as of Sunday.
Ara Abramyan, an Armenian community leader, said Sunday that
Abramyants was a Russian citizen who lived in Tyoply Stan, in
southwestern Moscow.
Abramyants was a student at the Moscow Management Institute, Abramyan
said.
Abramyan, sounding a criticism that has become common among minority
leaders, accused the police of not acting aggressively enough against
skinheads.
“I was there yesterday and talked to the police chief,” Abramyan
said. “I can’t understand how a group of people could simply stab a
person in the metro in the very center of Moscow and get away. How
did the police manage not to arrest anyone? What about their video
cameras?”
Two million Armenians live in Russia, Abramyan said. He added that
Armenians have been advised against riding the metro in the evening
and going out in the outlying districts of cities, where most
racially motivated attacks occur.
A woman who phoned Ekho Moskvy radio Sunday, calling herself
Sharipova, said one of Abramyants’ acquaintances was also slashed on
the face.
Police and prosecutor’s office officials could not be reached for
comment.
Abramyants’ killing was not the only hate crime committed over the
weekend.
On Friday, four Chinese students from Kostroma State University were
beaten by three attackers near their dormitory in Kostroma, a city on
the Volga, RIA-Novosti reported.
The students were treated for minor injuries but did not require
hospitalization.
Police detained and charged three suspects in the attack, including
one who was also charged with an attack on an Azeri girl on Thursday.
Also, a Zambian student was attacked Saturday in St. Petersburg,
Interfax reported, citing police.
Police are not listing the attack on the student, whose name and age
they declined to disclose, as a hate crime, saying he was simply
robbed.
The student was on his way to visit an acquaintance on Shkolnaya
Ulitsa when an attacker hit him with a bottle on the head from
behind, and he fainted. When he regained consciousness, his wallet,
with 1,000 rubles, was missing.
In recent years, skinheads and other fascist groups have celebrated
April 20, Adolf Hitler’s birthday, by attacking dark-skinned people.

Azerbaijan Leader, Under Fire, Hopes U.S. Visit Improves Image
By C. J. CHIVERS
The New York Times
April 23, 2006 Sunday
Late Edition – Final
Next week, after years of waiting for an unequivocal nod of
Western approval, President Ilham H. Aliyev of Azerbaijan will
fly to Washington to be received at the White House, a visit his
administration hopes will lift his stature.
Being a guest of President Bush has been billed in Mr. Aliyev’s circle
as a chance for the 44-year-old president — dogged by allegations of
corruption, election rigging and repression of opposition figures —
to gain more international legitimacy.
“We have long waited for this visit,” said Ali Gasanov, a senior
presidential adviser. “Now it has been scheduled, and we hope that
we will be able to discuss global issues.”
For President Bush, who has made democracy promotion a prominent
theme of his foreign policy, Mr. Aliyev’s visit could prove tricky.
Mr. Aliyev’s invitation arrived during a period of increasing
diplomatic difficulties between the United States and both Russia
and Iran, countries that border Azerbaijan.
But while Azerbaijan’s strategic location could hardly be better and
its relations with the United States have mostly been warm, no leader
in the region more fully embodies the conflicting American objectives
in the former Soviet Union than its president.
Mr. Aliyev is a secular Muslim politician who is steering oil and gas
to Western markets and who has given political and military support to
the Iraq war. But his administration has never held a clean election
and has used riot police to crush antigovernment demonstrations.
The invitation, made last week, has raised eyebrows in the former
Soviet world, where Mr. Bush’s calls for democratization have increased
tensions between opposition movements and the entrenched autocrats.
Opposition leaders have long said the United States’ desires to
diversify Western energy sources and to encourage democratic growth
have collided in Azerbaijan. By inviting Mr. Aliyev to the White
House, they say, Mr. Bush has made a choice: oil and location now
trump other concerns.
Ali Kerimli, leader of the Popular Front of Azerbaijan, noted that
when Mr. Aliyev was elected in 2003 in a vote deemed neither free nor
fair, the White House withheld an invitation, awaiting improvement
by Azerbaijan in promoting civil society and recognizing human rights.
“It is difficult for Azerbaijan’s democratic forces to understand
what changed,” said Mr. Kerimli, who was beaten by the police as were
several thousand demonstrators during a crackdown on a protest over
fraudulent parliamentary elections last fall. The demonstration had
been peaceful until the police rushed in with clubs.
“I think the White House must explain what has happened when three
years ago Aliyev was not wanted for a reception in the White House, and
now he falsifies another election and is received,” Mr. Kerimli said.
American officials insist nothing has changed, and say Mr. Aliyev
has been invited for what they call a “working visit,” during which
he will be urged to liberalize his government and its economy, which
is tightly controlled by state officials and clans.
“If we are going to elevate our relationship with Azerbaijan to
something that is qualitatively different, then there has to be
progress on democratic and market reforms,” a senior State Department
official said. “I am sure we will talk in these clear and blunt terms.”
The United States’ relationship with Azerbaijan rests on three
principal issues: access to energy resources, international security
cooperation, and democratic and economic change.
On the first two issues, the United States has made clear it is
satisfied. Mr. Aliyev has supported new pipelines to pump Caspian
hydrocarbons away from Russia and Iran to Western customers, and
provided troops to United States-led military operations in Afghanistan
and Iraq.
Azerbaijan also grants overflight rights to the American military and
is cooperating with a Pentagon-sponsored modernization of a former
Soviet airfield that could be used by American military planes.
Mr. Aliyev often welcomes foreign delegations to Baku, the capital,
describing in smooth English his efforts to push his nation toward
Western models of democracy and free markets.
But Azerbaijan has remained undemocratic. No election under Mr.
Aliyev or his late father, Heydar Aliyev, has been judged free or
fair by the main international observers. Instead, fraud and abuse
of state resources for chosen candidates have been widespread.
Ilham Aliyev’s government maintains a distinctly Soviet-era state
television network and has elevated Heydar Aliyev to the status of
a minor personality cult figure.
Moreover, Azerbaijan’s government is often described as one of
the world’s most corrupt. A criminal case now in federal court in
New York against three international speculators describes enormous
shakedowns and bribes in the late 1990’s at Socar, Azerbaijan’s state
oil company. Mr. Aliyev was a Socar vice president at the time.
Last year the Azerbaijani government showed signs of paranoia,
arresting several people shortly before the parliamentary election
and accusing them of plotting an armed coup.
Public evidence for the charges has been scarce, and a lawyer for two
of the men held in solitary confinement for months since — Farhad
Aliyev, the former minister of economics, and his brother Rafiq —
has urged Congress to raise issues of their treatment when Mr. Aliyev
comes to Washington. (The president is not related to the accused men.)
American officials say that Azerbaijan has been liberalizing slowly,
and evolving into a more responsible state. But given Mr. Aliyev’s
uneven record and the allegations against him, his visit has raised
fresh questions about the degree to which American standards are
malleable.
“Russian public opinion, when it looks at the United States policy in
Azerbaijan, cannot ignore the fact that the United States has a desire
not in favor of democracy but in favor of profits and geopolitical
domination,” said Sergei Markov, director of the Institute for
Political Studies here and a Kremlin adviser.
Mr. Markov and others have noted that the West has penalized Belarus
for police crackdowns after tainted elections last month.
“This is one of the reasons that Russian public opinion is very
suspicious of United States policies in the former Soviet political
sphere, and its propaganda about democracy,” Mr. Markov said.
“Ilham Aliyev will be in the White House not because he promotes
democracy,” Mr. Markov said. “He will be in the White House because
he controls oil.”
In Armenia, Mr. Aliyev’s invitation has also generated interest.
Armenia fought Azerbaijan over Nagorno-Karabakh, a wedge of territory
within Azerbaijan’s boundaries that each country claims. The conflict
has been frozen for several years, but Mr. Aliyev’s recent statements
have often been bellicose.
“The visit at this time should not be viewed as appreciation of their
democratic or other policies,” Vartan Oskanian, Armenia’s foreign
minister, said via e-mail.

The Brockville Recorder and Times (Ontario)
April 22, 2006 Saturday
FINAL EDITION
REMEMBERING 20TH CENTURY’S FIRST GENOCIDE
BY SALIM MANSUR
In the spring of 1915 with Europe at war, the Turkish rulers of the
Ottoman Empire ordered the deportation and killing of the Armenian
population within their territory.
Between April 1915 and the end of the war in November 1918, the
organized destruction of a people identified by ethnicity and
religion was conducted by a government that ruled an empire in the
name of Islam.
The nationalist Turks who succeeded the defeated power-holders in
Istanbul continued the massacres of Armenians in eastern Anatolia and
into the Caucasus. Some 1.5 million Armenians perished during this
period between 1915 and 1923.
This destruction of the Armenian people was the first genocide of the
20th century, a prelude to what would come later under Hitler’s Third
Reich as the “final solution” for the Jews.
It took nearly 90 years for the Canadian parliament – by a vote of
153 (yeas) to 68 (nays) on April 21, 2004 – to pass a resolution
acknowledging the Armenian genocide and condemning it as a crime
against humanity.
Neither the passage of time required for such an acknowledgment nor
the number of parliamentarians voting on record against it came as a
surprise, since the mass murderers of our age well understand that
the human capacity to deny evil is far greater than our inclination
to oppose it.
A mere 24 countries around the world have acknowledged the facts of
the Armenian genocide, and with the exception of Lebanon – possessing
a sizable Christian population – there is a wall of silence on this
subject from the Muslim-majority member states of the United Nations.
On April 24 every year, Armenians remember their dead. It was on this
night in 1915 the Turkish government ordered arrests of Armenian
community leaders in Istanbul, marking the start of the genocide.
Turkey continues to dispute what occurred. It is a sensitive issue,
and Turks willing to critically examine the events relating to the
Armenian genocide face persecution from authorities for “insulting
Turkishness.”
Orhan Pamuk, the widely translated and respected Turkish writer, was
charged last year with the crime of insulting Turks when he told a
Swiss newspaper that “30,000 Kurds and one million Armenians were
killed in these lands, and nobody but me dares talk about it.” The
case was dropped in January this year under heavy pressure from the
European Union.
That the world is a cynical place is not news, however, nor is the
fact that human nature is flawed.
Even as I write this column, the systematic depredation of the
wretchedly poor in Darfur remains unabated – while the United Nations
and its grandees, led by Kofi Annan, quibble over the meaning of
“genocide.”
Historians and philosophers struggle to find lessons from the tales
of human wickedness, and teach future generations to do better.
It is in vain, for the collective ears of humanity remain stuffed
with wax. Prophets have admonished, as Amos of the Old Testament did:
“They drink wine in bowls, and anoint themselves with the finest
oils; but they are not grieved over the ruin of Joseph.”
The lesson of history is that, to paraphrase Santayana, there is no
lesson.
Each generation gets tested by the evil of its time and, in learning
nothing from the past, fashions its denial of crimes witnessed.
The present generation, not to be outdone in ingenuity, incessantly
speaks of being history’s victim and denies bearing any
responsibility or accountability for the ruin of Joseph.
Salim Mansur is a columnist with the Toronto Sun.
The lesson of history is that, to paraphrase Santayana, there is no
lesson. Each generation gets tested by the evil of its time and, in
learning nothing from the past, fashions its denial of crimes
witnessed.

Las Vegas Sun
April 22 2006
Armenian left a ‘lasting legacy’
Genocide commemoration will go on, even though last survivor is gone
By Ed Koch
Las Vegas Sun
At last year’s 90th annual Armenian genocide commemoration ceremony
in Las Vegas, Malvine Papazian Handjian, a frail and ailing
92-year-old genocide survivor, passed four lighted candles to four
local youths.
It was symbolic of lighting the way so that future generations will
not forget the horror she witnessed as a 10-year-old Armenian refugee
on the streets of Izmir, Turkey, during the first genocide of the
20th century.
Between 1915 and 1923, 1.5 million Armenians were killed as the
Ottoman Empire tried to rid the nation of Armenians.
Handjian died a month after the ceremony.
“She left a lasting legacy,” said her son-in-law John Dadaian,
chairman of the local genocide commemoration ceremony. “She was
motivated and articulate, and she long stood as a symbol of the truth
against those who say the genocide never happened. She survived to
tell her story over and over.”
Handjian told of atrocities – an Armenian priest being pulled out of
his burning church by his long beard before he was brutalized;
teenage girls carried off by Turkish soldiers to be raped and killed.
“We must never forget – never forget,” Handjian told the Sun in an
April 24, 2004, story. “I saw these things with my own eyes. And I
will never forget.”
Commemoration services this year begin at 1 p.m. Sunday at Christ
Lutheran Church, 111 N. Torrey Pines Drive. Dadaian called for
recognition of the genocide, which has become a political hot potato.
While Armenians have pushed for such recognition, Turks have argued
against it and in many cases denied it.
Dadaian says no U.S. president since Ronald Reagan has formally
recognized the mass slayings as a genocide.
Congress has twice passed resolutions – once in 1975 and again in
1984 – recognizing the Armenian genocide, but not recently. Sen. John
Ensign, R-Nev., has introduced a resolution in the Senate that would
recognize the genocide.
Gov. Kenny Guinn issued a proclamation recognizing “the 91st
anniversary of the genocide of the Armenians by the Ottoman Empire.”
Among those scheduled to attend Sunday’s commemoration ceremony,
sponsored by the Armenian American Cultural Society of Las Vegas, are
Ensign, Rep. Shelley Berkley, D-Nev., and Las Vegas Mayor Oscar
Goodman, who met with local Armenian-Americans who want to build a
genocide monument on city land.
An estimated 20,000 people of Armenian descent live in Southern
Nevada .
Handjian was the last known genocide survivor in the Las Vegas
Valley. She and her late husband, Kourken, also a genocide survivor,
were the subject of the 2002 documentary film “The Handjian Story: A
Road Less Traveled,” produced and directed by their granddaughter,
Denise Gentilini. The movie, which won an award at the Moondance Film
Festival in Denver, is used in classrooms to teach about the
genocide.
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

Western Daily Press
April 22, 2006 Saturday
We’ve been nuked!
All they want to do is cycle to China – but yesterday an intrepid
West adventurer and his two pals became the latest casualties in the
ongoing nuclear row between the US and Iran.
Presidents George Bush and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad won’t have heard of
Chris Taylor from Little Somerford, Wiltshire. But the 21-year-old is
certainly cursing them.
For Mr Taylor and his two friends George Wallis and Dave Wilson have
been barred from entering Iran, after cycling all the way to the
border and waiting two weeks for their visa applications to be dealt
with.
And now the trio – who are cycling about 10,000 miles to China to
raise money for Oxford’s Children’s Hospital and Medicins Sans
Frontiers – have had to redraw their plans considerably.
Instead of cycling straight on through Iran, into central Asia and on
to Beijing, they have had to turn left and head north around the
Islamic Republic.
And their woes don’t end there – for the border between Turkey and
Armenia is closed.
That means the cyclists will have to go that little bit further to
Georgia, skirt round Armenia and head instead for Baku, the capital
of neighbouring Azerbaijan, on the shores of the Caspian Sea. Then
the three will have to catch a ferry across the world’s biggest
inland sea, to continue their journey from the other side.
The ferry crossing actually means that – despite the delays – the
trio will have to cycle 500 kilometres less, thanks to President
Ahmadinejad.
The trio found themselves stuck in the eastern Turkish city of
Erzurum while waiting to cross the nearby Iranian border.
“Our visa agency strung this saga out for four days, ” explained Mr
Taylor. “After resolving to camp in a phone box until we had an
answer, we finally received the bad news: unless we wanted to be
accompanied by a guide, the Alien Affairs Bureau stated that we could
not travel to Iran.”
He added: “We are obviously disappointed at not being able to
experience Iran, as our planned route would have taken us through
some of the major, historic Silk Road towns.
“Iran is also widely regarded as a very hospitable country, although
judging by our experience so far, I am sure both Georgia and
Azerbaijan will be equally friendly towards us.”
As the Western Daily Press reported last month, the three have had a
series of adventures on their travels through the Balkans and Turkey.
When the trio cycled through eastern Turkey they became instant media
stars, with camera crews and reporters following their every move.
The trio are now setting off for Georgia, and hope to arrive in
Beijing in August. For more information on their adventures, log on
to

Thousands of Armenians mark anniversary of 1915 genocide
Agence France Presse — English
April 23, 2006 Sunday 6:54 PM GMT
YEREVAN, April 23 2006 — More than 2,000 Armenians marched through
the streets of Yerevan Sunday evening to mark the 91st anniversary
of the 1915 genocide carried out under the Ottoman empire.
The demonstrators gathered on the eve of the anniversary of the
1915 massacre and set light to a Turkish flag to protest against the
Turkish government’s refusal to recognise the killings as genocide.
Yerevan claims 1.5 million people died in 1915, while Turkey puts
the death toll at between 300,000 and 500,000.
The demonstrators, most of them young, also carried the flags of
those countries that recognise the Armenian genocide, among them most
European nations.
They marched towards the town centre monument built to commemorate
the victims of the 1915 genocide.
The protest is organised every year by the youth wing of the
nationalist Dachnaktsoutioun party.
“We have to continue our struggle,” said Armenian MP Armen Rostomian,
who demanded that Ankara recognise the massacres as genocide.

ITAR-Tass, Russia
April 23 2006
Russian Armenians indignant at student’s murder in Moscow.
23.04.2006, 18.49
MOSCOW, April 23 (Itar-Tass) — The Union of Russian Armenians is
indignant at the murder of Vigen Abramian, 17-year-old freshman of
the Moscow Management Institute, at the Pushkinskaya metro station in
downtown Moscow.
The young man was killed in a Saturday brawl. Eyewitnesses said that
a skinhead wearing high boots lethally stabbed Abramian.
“We, the same as all citizens of the Russian Federation, are alarmed
and concerned about the unpunished series of ethnic hatred violence
in Russian cities of Moscow, St. Petersburg, Voronezh and others,”
says a statement signed up by President of the Union of Russian
Armenians and the World Armenian Congress Ara Abramian received by
Itar-Tass.
The right to live is the main human right, the statement said. “We
strongly urge law enforcement agencies to find and put to justice the
murderers of Vigen Abramian,” he said.
“The attack by skinheads is obviously a provocative act and an
attempt to cast a shadow on the image of our fatherland. The outbreak
of actions by fascist elements must be stopped,” the statement runs.

Russian Armenians indignant at student’s murder in Moscow
ITAR-TASS News Agency
April 23, 2006 Sunday 12:16 PM EST
The Union of Russian Armenians is indignant at the murder of Vagan
Abramiants, 17-year-old freshman of the Moscow Management Institute,
at the Pushkinskaya metro station in downtown Moscow.
The young man was killed in a Saturday brawl. Eyewitnesses said that
a skinhead wearing high boots lethally stabbed Abramiants.
“We, the same as all citizens of the Russian Federation, are alarmed
and concerned about the unpunished series of ethnic hatred violence in
Russian cities of Moscow, St. Petersburg, Voronezh and others,” says
a statement signed up by President of the Union of Russian Armenians
and the World Armenian Congress Ara Abramian received by Itar-Tass.
The right to live is the main human right, the statement said. “We
strongly urge law enforcement agencies to find and put to justice
the murderers of Vagan Abramiants,” he said.
“The attack by skinheads is obviously a provocative act and an
attempt to cast a shadow on the image of our fatherland. The outbreak
of actions by fascist elements must be stopped,” the statement runs.

Boston Globe, MA
April 22 2006
Armine Dedekian, 93; survivor of 1915 Armenian genocide helped others
realize American dream
By Gloria Negri, Globe Staff | April 22, 2006
Armine (Kailian) Dedekian, who survived the 1915 Armenian genocide as
an infant, came to this country on a seven-day voyage from Greece in
1929. When she arrived at Ellis Island, a sick and bewildered
teenager, there was no one to meet her because of a mix-up over her
arrival time.
”I waited at Ellis Island for one week,” she told a Globe reporter
on the 90th anniversary of the genocide last year. ”Finally one day
my name came up and I went to the office.”
And she met her mother for the first time since she was a baby.
”Every time the door opened and a woman came in, I wondered if it
was my mother because I didn’t know her. That’s how I met her.”
Mrs. Dedekian, one of a handful of Boston-area survivors of the
Armenian genocide, died April 19 at Mount Auburn Hospital in
Cambridge following a massive stroke at her Watertown home. She was
93.
Her story is one of survival and hope. After she achieved her own
American dream, she spent much of her life helping other immigrants
realize theirs.
”She was an immigrant who helped other immigrants and needy people
throughout her life,” said a niece, Michele Simourian of Dover.
Mrs. Dedekian was a newborn when the Turks came to her parents’ home
in Bandirma, Turkey, and took away her father, Onnig Kailian.
”They came in and took all the young men,” Mrs. Dedekian’s daughter,
Sona Aslanian, of Belmont, said yesterday. ”They took them into the
desert and killed them.”
Armine’s mother, Kerakoun, then about 16, took her child and fled
with her parents and in-laws.
”Everyone had to keep going,” Mrs. Dedekian told the Globe. ”We
were walking towards the desert . . . to Syria. My mother got a job
in a hospital there. Then, this young man, he also was Armenian, was
working there, too.”
The young man, Levon Tufankjian, married Kerakoun. Somehow, the
family got separated.
Mrs. Dedekian told the Globe: ”The Turks chased us three times; we
had to abandon everything. We didn’t know where my mother was. We
didn’t know who had died and who hadn’t. We found a way of finding
each other by writing to the Armenian papers.”
They placed an ad seeking her mother.
”My mother’s cousin saw the ad and he knew my mother was in
America,” she said.
Mrs. Dedekian was 15 and living in Greece with her extended family
when she embarked alone on her journey to the United States. She was
on the ship seven days, feeling ill, on her mission to find her
mother and stepfather who had settled in the Boston area.
With no knowledge of English, the teenaged Armine was placed in a
kindergarten class, her daughter said, but she quickly learned the
language and was advanced, eventually graduating at the top of her
class at Roxbury Memorial High School in the 1930s.
Armine and Sarkis Dedekian met while both were singing in the choir
of the Armenian National Church. They were married in 1936.
Mr. Dedekian, who died in 1991, was an artist who made his living as
a house painter.
Mrs. Dedekian had an excellent business mind and was ”a dynamo,” her
daughter said. In addition to all her community work, her daughter
said, Mrs. Dedekian ran an electrolysis business for many years in
her home.
”My grandmother was the most remarkable woman I’ve known,” said Aram
Aslanian of Watertown. ”She lived in a traditional Armenian
household where women were expected to stay at home. She was ahead of
her time in terms of what she did with her life.”
Astor Guzelian of Dedham, a family friend, recalled how Mrs. Dedekian
”found a motel she liked on the Cape, decided to buy it, and then
told her husband.” The motel, the Gaslight Resort Motel in Dennis
Port, was successful and is still owned by the Dedekian family.
Mrs. Dedekian was just as much a dynamo in her volunteer work, both
in Watertown and in Manomet, where the family spent summers.
She and her mother were both charter members of the Armenian Relief
Society, and she was a member of the Armenian Renaissance
Association, which also assisted immigrants in settling here.
Sona Aslanian remembers many late-night calls that sent her mother to
the airport or bus terminals to meet new arrivals and her efforts to
find them homes and jobs.
Mrs. Dedekian was also involved in her church, sewing vestments for
priests and cooking Armenian delicacies for special events.
She remained active until recently, her grandson said, insisting on
living on her own as long as she could. ”She had a 93-year-old body,
but a 25-year-old mind,” he said.
Had she been here yesterday, he said, she would have made it to the
State House to attend the annual Armenian Martyrs Day ceremony in
honor of the victims of the genocide.
Though she had only been a baby at the time, she had suffered for
years afterward.
Last year, in a Globe interview, Mrs. Dedekian’s memory of her
childhood was still vivid. ”I remember coming back to Turkey when I
was 6 or 7,” she said. ”We were in a village and if we found a piece
of bread we would put some salt on it and eat it. That’s how we
survived for a few years. By 1920, we decided we had to leave Turkey
forever so we boarded a boat and went to Greece.”
In addition to her daughter and grandson Aram Aslanian, she leaves a
son, Ara of Newton; four additional grandchildren and four
great-grandchildren.
Funeral services will be held at 11 a.m. Tuesday at St. Stephen’s
Armenian Church in Watertown. Burial will be in Mount Auburn Cemetery
in Cambridge.
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress