PRESS OFFICE
Armenian Holy Apostolic Church Canadian Diocese
Contact; Deacon Hagop Arslanian, Assistant to the Primate
615 Stuart Avenue, Outremont Quebec H2V 3H2
Tel; 514-276-9479, Fax; 514-276-9960
Email; [email protected] Website;
AN UNPRECEDENTED FUNDRASING DINNER HELD IN VANCOUVER
On June 17, 2004 His Eminence Bishop Bagrat Galstanian flew to
Vancouver city to preside over the meetings of St Vartan Parish
Council as well as Auxiliary bodies in the mid of efforts to
reorganize the Vancouver Armenian Community.
Dedicated to rejuvenating and reenergizing Vancouver’s Armenian
community, Bishop Bagrat Galastanyan attended an unprecedented
fundraising dinner at St. Vartan Armenian Church on June 19. This
event was Phase II of his plan to retire the long term debt of
St. Vartan Armenian Church.
Attendees were entertained by pianist Takuhi Sedefci and her flute
partner Heidi Kurtz as they performed pieces by Babajanian,
Haroutounian and Ganajian. Mariam Matossian sang Armenian favorites
from her recently released CD “Far from Home”. Master of Ceremonies,
ArtoTavukciyan kept the crowd entertained throughout the night as he
gave away gifts and updated the 8-ft fundraising thermometer as the
pledges grew. The evening produced pledges of over $40,000.
Coupled with last month’s event at CinCin Restaurant which raised
$52,000, the congregation is well on its way to retiring its debt of
$150,000.
DIVAN OF THE DIOCESE

The Gazette (Montreal, Quebec)
June 23, 2004 Wednesday Final Edition
>From Bangladesh to Tory candidate: ‘They’re very pleased that one of
their Muslim brothers is running to be an MP’
by JEFF HEINRICH
Mustaque Sarker ran as an independent in the last federal election,
and lost.
Now he’s running for the Conservatives and thinks he can win.
One reason: the ethnic vote, and specifically, the Muslim vote.
“They’re very pleased that one of their Muslim brothers is running to
be an MP,” said Sarker, an accountant from Bangladesh.
“I have had lots of calls supporting me,” he said as he set up his
Papineau riding headquarters this month.
But he’s only willing to play the Muslim card so far.
“I am a Muslim, yes, but I am first a loving, caring human being. And
in this riding, I must represent all ethnic communities.”
The ecumenical approach is the standard line among the federal
political parties these days.
“We don’t ghettoize anybody – every vote counts,” said Marie-Claude
Lavigne, spokesperson for the federal Liberals in Quebec, who have
traditionally counted on immigrants’ votes.
But the Liberals are in a tight race, and immigrant votes are not
necessarily a sure thing.
The Bloc Quebecois, for example, is trying to eat away at Liberal
support by going after mostly north African, francophone Arab voters
who are sympathetic to Quebec nationalism, oppose the war on Iraq and
complain of discriminatory hiring practices, said Francois Rebello,
33, a Bloc candidate in Outremont.
His generation has been more exposed to Muslims and Arabs than other
Quebecers and can better understand their differences, said Rebello,
whose father is a Christian from India and whose mother is
Quebecoise.
“It’s easier to break through into their milieus and segment them out
– Moroccans, Algerian Arabs, Algerian Berbers,” he said.
Sarker’s north-end riding, Papineau, is home to more than a dozen
ethnic communities. It also has the seventh-highest concentration of
Muslims in Canada – 9,630, or 9.3 per cent of the riding’s total
population.
The riding is now held by federal health minister Pierre Pettigrew, a
Liberal who got an “F” on a pre-election “report card” issued in
April by the Canadian Islamic Congress.
Sarker came to Canada 22 years ago. He lives in Cote St. Luc and runs
his business in Park Extension. On one typical campaign day this
month, he stumped to fellow Muslims at the Islamic Turkish Community
Centre on Villeray St. in the afternoon, then moved on to a Hindu
centre in Mile End for an evening speech.
Local Turks back him because of what he isn’t: an MP who voted for a
resolution in April in the House of Commons that denounced the
Ottoman Empire for committing genocide against Armenians in 1915.
That resolution – backed by Liberal backbenchers, some Tories, and
the NDP and the Bloc Quebecois – angered many in Canada’s Turkish
communities who deny the genocide.
In Montreal, local Turkish leader Yilmaz Ekinci said in this election
his community has been told to vote Conservative. It helps that
Sarker is already a known quantity, too – he’s Ekinci’s accountant.
“I don’t care what he is, Muslim or not Muslim,” said Ekinci, who
runs a wholesale meat business.
“He just has to be a good guy. We like people to be honest.”

Aberdeen Press and Journal
June 22, 2004
Wolves set to pounce on opera-loving prey
A Colourful combination of opera, schoolgirls, wolves and a snake
launched Aberdeen International Youth Festival yesterday. Lisa Beare,
16, Anna Maxwell, 17, and Kay Ritchie, 17, launched the festival with
a burst of song from The Magic Flute as they showed off some of the
opera costumes.
The Cults Academy pupils will join a cast from Canada, France,
Belgium, Iceland and Germany, and work with Armenia’s foremost youth
orchestra, a conductor from Calgary, director from Paris and
choreographer from London. With the help of Moira Hunter, their
school’s head of music, the teenagers are learning the roles, which
require them to sing in German, in advance of rehearsals beginning on
July 12.
Festival chief executive Stephen Stenning said the cast and musicians
would have only a few weeks to overcome language barriers and learn
their roles before The Magic Flute is staged on August 9.
Last year’s youth festival opera, Carmen, a pay-what-you-can show,
was a sell-out. Tickets are now on sale at Aberdeen Box Office for
this year’s opera and other festival events.
It was revealed that Big Brother winner Cameron Stout is to host the
festival’s World Music Gala on August 7. It is a celebration of
traditional Scottish and world music and is to be a key part of the
city’s Tartan Day celebrations.

RIA Novosti
June 23, 2004
ESTABLISHMENT JOINTLY WITH RUSSIA OF ANTI-TERRORIST CENTRE IN
SOUTHERN CAUCASUS PROPOSED IN GEORGIA
TBILISI, June 23 (RIA Novosti) – A regular round of the
Georgian-Russian consultations on military questions will be held in
Moscow on June 23-24.
As Georgia’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs reported, the Georgian side
is ready to propose new initiatives, which can speed up the process
of the withdrawal of the Russian military bases from Georgia, to the
Russian counterparts.
Listed among them is establishment of a joint Anti-Terrorist Centre
(ATC) in the Southern Caucasus.
The Georgian delegation will be headed by Deputy Minister of Foreign
Affairs Merab Antadze.
The agreement on withdrawal of four Russian military bases from
Georgia was signed at the summit of the Organisation for Security and
Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) in Istanbul in 1999. In keeping with the
accords reached, the Russian side has already dismantled two of its
bases – in Vaziani and Gudauta (Abkhazia).
As for the remaining two Russian bases in Batumi and Akhalkalaki on
the border with Armenia, the Istanbul agreement provides for holding
additional talks between the Georgian and Russian sides to set the
deadline for their withdrawal.
In the Russian side’s opinion, it will take about 11 years to pull
the above-said bases out, whereas the Georgian side believes that
three years are enough for it.

Agency WPS
What the Papers Say. Part A (Russia)
June 23, 2004, Wednesday
NEO-NAZI GROUPS SUSPECTED OF MURDERING ETHNIC RELATIONS EXPERT
SOURCE: Izvestia, June 23, 2004, p. 5
by Sergei Nekhamkin, Elena Rotkevich
The St. Petersburg Prosecutor’s Office considers that Professor
Nikolai Girenko’s professional activities are likely to have been the
motive for his murder. Girenko frequently appeared as an expert
witness in trials involving charges of inciting ethnic or racial
hatred.
Nikolai Mikhailovich Girenko was killed on the morning of Saturday,
June 19 in his own apartment by a bullet fired through his door from
a sawn-off shotgun. His murder is being investigated by the St.
Petersburg Prosecutor’s Office major crimes directorate. St.
Petersburg Deputy Prosecutor Alexander Zhukov told the media on June
21 that one of the theories for the murder motive involves Girenko’s
professional activities. However, according to Zhukov, investigators
do not rule out the possibility of a random killing either.
Valentina Uzunova, a close colleague of Nikolai Girenko, does not
believe it could have been a random killing. According to Uzunova,
scholars in the group headed by Girenko, working on expert analyses
of nationalist extremist publications, constantly received threats.
One current trial in which Professor Girenko was involved as an
expert witness concerns the toughest nationalist group in St.
Petersburg: Schulz-88. The Schulz case began in spring 2003. While
investigating an assault on an Armenian citizen, detectives
identified a skinhead gang with about 30 members. After Girenko
presented his expert conclusions, it became clear that the gang was
more than a bunch of city hooligans: these were hard-line racists and
neo-nazis. Group leader Dmitri Bobrov (alias “Schulz,” with the “88”
in the gang’s name symbolizing the eighth letter in the alphabet and
standing for “Heil Hitler”) maintained strict discipline in his
organization; physical and “theoretical” exercises were carried out,
with youths being trained to “beat up blacks” and practising
large-scale pogroms. The group published a magazine called “Wrath of
Perun” with instructions for young skinheads.
The group of experts headed by Girenko did an evaluation of the
“Wrath of Perun” magazine. Bobrov and his colleague Alexei
Vostroknutov found themselves in pre-trial detention (four other
Schulz-88 members had to sign an undertaking not to leave the area).
The Schulz-88 investigation continued in May. Group members are
charged with inciting ethnic and racial hatred, and issuing public
calls for the overthrow of the constitutional order. The
investigation into the case is still under way.
Shortly before his death, Girenko started preparing to act as an
expert witness in another trial, involving the Russian National Unity
movement.
Translated by Gregory Malyutin

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
June 23, 2004 Wednesday Home Edition
A QUESTION OF GENOCIDE: Sudan’s killing grounds;
Slaughter of villagers sparks concern, debate
by MARK BIXLER
As one of the world’s longest and most devastating wars nears an end,
Atlanta-based CARE and the Carter Center are preparing to expand
their work in southern Sudan even as other humanitarian organizations
warn of possible genocide in another part of the country.
In the Darfur region of western Sudan, reports of atrocities
reminiscent of mass killings in Bosnia, Cambodia and Rwanda have
created a troubling dilemma for U.S. officials, who have avoided
characterizing the killings as genocide because doing so would
obligate them to act under terms of a treaty drafted in response to
the Holocaust.
The Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of
Genocide, adopted in 1948 and ratified by the United States in 1986,
defines genocide as the “intent to destroy, in whole or part, a
national, ethnic, racial or religious group.” Signatories agree to
“prevent and punish” genocide, though the treaty does not define
prevention and punishment.
“No president wants to say there is a genocide and ‘Oh, by the way,
I’m not going to do anything about it,’ ” said Jerry Fowler, director
of the committee of conscience at the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum
in Washington, which has issued a “genocide warning” for Darfur.
Secretary of State Colin Powell said this month the Bush
administration is trying to determine whether events in Darfur fit
the legal definition of genocide. Other U.S. officials have described
the killings as “ethnic cleansing,” a euphemism conceived in the
early 1990s by the Serbs to refer to their practice of targeting
non-Serbs for killing or forced removal.
In Darfur, aid workers and officials say, Arab militias, often
working with the Sudanese military, have killed 10,000 to 30,000
black Africans and forced 1 million others from their homes to remote
areas where food is scarce. The U.S. Agency for International
Development warns that at least 350,000 could die within months.
The United Nations’ under- secretary-general for humanitarian
affairs, Jan Egeland, has called Darfur the worst humanitarian crisis
in the world.
Past reports of mass killings, however, have prompted a muted
response from the United States.
In her Pulitzer Prize-winning book “A Problem From Hell,” Samantha
Power, who teaches human rights and U.S. foreign policy at Harvard
University, documents a U.S. tendency to avoid decisive action when
confronted with evidence of atrocities.
>From the slaughter of Armenian Christians in modern Turkey in 1915 to
the execution of Bosnian Muslims in the mid-1990s, Power writes,
“decent men and women chose to look away.”
In Rwanda in 1994, the international community did little as members
of the Hutu ethnic majority hacked, shot and burned to death 800,000
members of the minority Tutsis. President Bill Clinton said in Rwanda
in 1998 the United States should have done more to stop the killing.
That experience has informed the U.S. response to the “crimes against
humanity” in Darfur, said Jemera Rone, a Sudan expert at Human Rights
Watch/Africa in Washington.
“I think the U.S. and the U.N. learned a lesson from Rwanda,” she
said. “They’re trying to do the maximum they can without calling it
genocide.”
The United States helped arrange a briefing on Darfur at the U.N.
Security Council. It also made clear it will not improve relations
with Sudan unless conditions change. The Security Council called for
a halt to fighting, and Secretary-General Kofi Annan said he plans to
visit Sudan.
‘Janjaweed rule’
Still, the United States could do more, said John Prendergast,
director of African Affairs at the National Security Council during
Clinton’s second term. He left Washington a few days ago for Chad,
where he plans to meet victims of the Arab militias in Darfur, known
as the janjaweed. He said the United States and United Nations should
threaten war crimes trials for janjaweed commanders and Sudanese
leaders involved in abuses.
“There is a developing consensus that what the militias are carrying
out on the ground is genocide,” he said before leaving for Africa.
Problems in Darfur began last April.
Just as a north-south war that has raged for all but 11 years since
1955 appeared headed for negotiated settlement, a new war erupted in
western Sudan. Two rebel groups in Darfur that had not previously
been involved in the fighting attacked a Sudanese military base in
April.
In response, the Sudanese government turned to Arab militias with a
history of animosity toward black Africans in Darfur, Rone said. The
government armed and trained them, she said, even giving satellite
phones to some janjaweed commanders.
Last August or September, the militias and armed forces began
attacking hundreds of villages in Darfur. Aid workers say attackers
raped many women and branded some afterward to add to the stigma.
They say attackers hurled dead bodies into wells to poison water
supplies.
“They’re going after civilians,” Rone said.
The Sudanese government says the violence is the result of tribal
conflicts over resources. On Sunday, President Omar el-Bashir said
his military will disarm warring parties in Darfur, including the
janjaweed.
The militias and their victims both are Muslims, but the janjaweed
are Arabs while most people in Darfur are black Africans.
Prendergast said he believes the Bush administration was slow to
pressure the Sudanese government on Darfur for fear that it would
scare Sudan away from the negotiating table with southern rebels.
North vs. south
The Sudanese civil war pits a northern government of Arab Muslims
against black Africans in the south who follow Christianity and
animist religions. The conflict is mainly over power and resources.
Fighting and war-related famine and disease have killed at least 2
million people since 1983. The war also has displaced more than 5
million people. Most casualties are from southern Sudan.
The northern government and the main southern rebel group, the Sudan
People’s Liberation Army, have signed accords that call for a
referendum after six years on whether southern Sudan will secede and
form an independent nation. When talks resume Friday, only procedural
obstacles remain before a final peace agreement is reached.
In anticipation of peace, the United Nations and nongovernmental
organizations are building roads to facilitate the delivery of relief
supplies and encourage trade, said Gary McGurk, CARE’s assistant
country director for southern Sudan.
“In order to get peace in southern Sudan, you’ve got to have
infrastructure and development,” McGurk said during a visit to
Atlanta last week.
He said CARE is building or rebuilding 300 schools in southern Sudan.
The Carter Center, meanwhile, has prepositioned filters and medical
kits and hopes to increase distribution in a peaceful southern Sudan
as part of its effort to eradicate Guinea worm disease, said Craig
Withers, who coordinates the center’s health programs in Sudan.
Southern Sudan is home to 63 percent of the world’s cases of Guinea
worm, an affliction in which larvae from contaminated water grow to
worms inside a human body and break through the skin in painful
blisters.
“We’ve been planning this for a while,” Withers said. “We’re ready to
go.”
GRAPHIC: Graphic: WHAT IS GENOCIDE?
The Genocide Convention adopted by the United Nations in 1948 says
genocide includes the following crimes committed with the intent to
destroy a national, ethnic, racial or religious group:
1. Killing members of the group
2. Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group
3. Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group
4. Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated
to bring about its physical destruction
5. Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group
THE SLAUGHTERHOUSES OF THE 20TH CENTURY
1915 to 1923: 1.5 million people of Armenian descent are killed
during a campaign by the Ottoman Empire to expel them from eastern
Turkey. The Turkish government denies it engaged in genocide.
World War II: The systematic, bureaucratic, state-sponsored
persecution and murder of approximately 6 million Jews by the Nazi
regime and its collaborators. Nazis also target other groups because
of their perceived “racial inferiority”: Roma (Gypsies), the
disabled, and some of the Slavic peoples (Poles, Russians, and
others). Other groups are persecuted on political and behavioral
grounds, among them Communists, Socialists, Jehovah’s Witnesses and
homosexuals. The killings are carried out throughout Europe. The most
infamous death camps include Auschwitz, Treblinka and Bergen-Belsen.
1975-1978: An estimated 2 million Cambodians, mainly from the
intelligentsia, die at the hands of the Pol Pot regime in what
becomes known as the “killing fields.”
1982: Syrian Baathists under the direction of President Hafiz
al-Assad destroy the city center in the Sunni Muslim city of Hamah
and murder thousands. Estimates of those killed range from 5,000 to
10,000.
1988: Poison gas attack kills between 3,500 and 5,000 Kurds in
Halabja, Iraq, under the regime of Saddam Hussein.
1994: Ethnic Hutu militants in Rwanda slaughter an estimated 800,000
ethnic Tutsis and moderate Hutus as the world turns away.
1995: Massacre by Bosnian Serb forces of roughly 8,000 Bosnian Muslim
men and boys in the city of Srebrenica. It is ruled as genocide in
April 2004 by the United Nations International Criminal Tribunal for
the former Yugoslavia.
1995: A national inquiry concludes that the Australian government had
knowingly pursued a policy of genocide in regard to the Aboriginal
peoples between 1870 and 1970.
1998: Yugoslav forces under the leadership of President Slobodan
Milosevic execute scores of ethnic Albanian civilians in Kosovo and
are believed to have detained as many as several thousand men whose
fate is unknown; they also engineer the greatest refugee crisis in
Europe since World War II, emptying villages and cities in forced
expulsions that send more than 500,000 ethnic Albanians into exile.
Darfur conflict
The largely Arabic Janjaweed militia, backed by the government in
Khartoum, rampages through the villages of mainly African farmers in
Darfur. Activists say the attacks amount to genocide.
Reason for conflict
Grazing rights; soil in Darfur region is fertile. And for
generations, nomads have fought farmers for soil and cattle rights.
Sources: Armenian National Institute, United Nations, Web Genocide
Documentation Centre, Genocide Research Project, Knight Ridder
Tribune, Photos by Associated Press
Research by ALICE WERTHEIM / Staff
/ MICHAEL DABROWA / Staff; Photo: Arab and African horsemen parade
before Sudanese President Omar el-Bashir last month as a show of
solidarity in Nyala, capital of Darfur. / BERT WESTON / Courtesy of
the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum; Photo: Mukama Tharcisse, 74, one
of the survivors of the Rwandan genocide of 1994, is one of the
guardians of the memorial of the genocide in Nyamata. The memorial
houses remains of 20,000 victims. / Associated Press; Photo: Slobodan
Milosevic / Associated Press; Photo: Armenian deportees in a camp of
makeshift tents inhabited mostly by women and children in the barren
Syrian desert. / Associated Press; Photo: The remains of huts burnt
by militia in Sudan’s North Darfur village of Bandago on April 29.
UNICEF has said the fighting in Darfur has forced 1 million people
out of their homes and into camps in Sudan, while 200,000 people have
taken shelter in cities and towns in the region. About 110,000 people
have taken refuge in neighboring Chad. / Associated Press; Map: Map
pinpoints the location of Darfur in Sudan.

Associated Press Worldstream
June 22, 2004 Tuesday
Protesters break in to a NATO forum attended by Armenian defense
officials
BAKU, Azerbaijan
Several protesters broke into a NATO forum on Tuesday attended by
Armenian defense officials, and called on Azerbaijan to stop
negotiations with Armenia, highlighting tensions over
Nagorno-Karabakh – a territory disputed by both countries.
Several activists of the Organization of Karabakh’s Freedom pushed
through police cordons, broke glass doors and stormed into a
conference hall in Baku’s Europe hotel which hosted the forum. The
conference of 21 NATO member states and partners was being held ahead
of NATO’s “Cooperative Best Effort-2004” to be held in Azerbaijan.
Two Armenian officers were among those attending the conference.
Outside the hotel, about 30 protesters held banners “NATO without
Armenians” and “Shame on those who negotiate with Armenians!” More
protesters were cordoned off by police.
Protesters and hotel security guards suffered minor injuries in the
incident in the hotel and the meeting resumed in several minutes.
Eight people were detained by police.
Armenia and Azerbaijan are at odds over the Nagorno-Karabakh enclave,
which Armenian forces seized from Azerbaijan in the early 1990s. A
1994 cease-fire has largely held, but no final settlement has been
reached. Neither Armenia nor Azerbaijan are NATO members, but both
former Soviet republics participate in NATO’s Partnership for Peace
program.

ITAR-TASS News Agency
TASS
June 23, 2004 Wednesday 11:55 AM Eastern Time
Armenia works out complimentary foreign policy – Kocharyan
By Andrei Yarushin
STRASBOURG
Armenia is working out a complimentary foreign policy, Armenian
President Robert Kocharyan said.
Speaking at the summer PACE session on Wednesday, Kocharyan said the
main goal of Armenia’s policy is that the country “is trying to
benefit from settling disagreements between world and regional great
powers and not from their reinforcement.”
“We should bear responsibility for regional stability and join
efforts to settle disagreements and not aggravate them,” the Armenian
president added.
“It is such approach that has allowed us to build trusty relations
with the United States, the European Union and Iran, as well as
strengthen traditional close ties with Russia. We believe in peace
and cooperation in the South Caucasus,” he stressed.
Kocharyan said Armenia “is ready to develop business cooperation with
Turkey without any preconditions. But Armenian-Turkish relations
should not be conditioned by our contacts with the third country –
with Azerbaijan, for example.”

ANSA Notiziario Generale in Italiano
June 22, 2004
CINEMA: ARMENIA NUOVA LOCATION PER ROBERT GUEDIGUIAN /ANSA ;
IL REGISTA SI RACCONTA AL NAPOLI FILM FESTIVAL
NAPOLI
(ANSA) – NAPOLI, 22 GIU – Nei futuri programmi del regista
francese Robert Guediguian c’ e’ un viaggio in Armenia, dove
girera’ un film: lo ha detto lo stesso Guediguian che oggi e
stato protagonista della terza giornata del Napolifilmfestival.

Nell’ambito della sezione “Parole di cinema”, ciclo di
proiezioni e incontri dedicati ai protagonisti della
cinematografia internazionale, stamani e’ stata proposta la
visione del film di Guediguian, “Marius et Jeannette”. “La
decisione di lavorare con lo stesso gruppo di attori, ormai
amici – spiega il regista – non e’ stata una scelta. Anche
l’ambientazione geografica, la citta’ che fa da sfondo alle mie
storie, Marsiglia, mi accompagna da sempre, e’ come se fosse un
teatro, un teatro di lusso, che con il suo divenire e i suoi
cambiamenti, modifica e accompagna le tante storie e il loro
camminar con i tempi”.

Guediguian, ha sottolineato l’ importanza della storia, non
dell’ interprete. “Quando scrivo una storia per un film e la
sua sceneggiatura – continua il regista – penso al personaggio e
non all’attore che lo interpretera’, questa decisione e
l’ultimo step da affrontare. Gli attori non partecipano alla
stesura, loro vi partecipano solo in conclusione essendo
comunque un gruppo, che ormai dirigo da 20 anni, e con i quali
raccontiamo la storia della Francia”.

Guediguian ha poi posto l’ accento sull’ indipendenza dei
suoi film. “Sono un regista indipendente – aggiunge – nel senso
che produco i miei film. L’indipendenza ci viene dettata dal
fatto che siamo del tutto autonomi sulle varie decisioni che
gravitano attorno agli aspetti collaterali del cinema. L’essere
produttore, inoltre, penso faccia parte di quest’arte
cinematografica. Anche Fellini aveva la sua casa di produzione,
che pero’ ando’ male”. A chi gli domanda le differenze tra il
cinema europeo ed americano, secondo Guediguian “l’unica cosa
da dire e’ che ogni paese dovrebbe proteggere i propri film, e
l’America che noi intendiamo – aggiunge – alla fine e’ solo
Hollywood. Pasolini avrebbe detto che si tratta di disastro
antropologico”.

Tra gli appuntamenti pomeridiani del Napolifimfestival,
quello con la sezione “Svezia: Non solo Bergman”, con la
proiezione di Narvarande di Jan Troell. (ANSA).

Institute of War and Peace Reporting
June 23 2004
Armenia: the Rich Man’s View
Business venture luring diaspora Armenians to live the good life and
play golf against the backdrop of Mount Ararat.
By Alan Tskhurbayev and Sergiu Perju in Yerevan (CRS No. 239,
23-Jun-04)
On the edge of Yerevan with a spectacular view of Mount Ararat, a new
community is being built as a new paradise for the rich and powerful.
Slated to become the first `gated community’ in the south Caucasus,
Vahakni is being designed to combine an Armenian location with all
the comforts available in the West. It will offer high-quality
western-style housing and conveniences to its residents, around three
kilometres from the Armenian capital.
Located in the Ararat valley with the legendary peak in full view,
the 160-hectare housing development is the brainchild of Vahak S.
Hovnanian, a United States millionaire of Armenian extraction, who
owns the construction company Hovnanian Ltd.
`When Armenia gained independence, my first instinct was to build a
city here for Americans from the diaspora to return to,’ explained
Hovnanian. `The idea was to lure people back to their historical
homeland.’
Asked whether for him Vahakni meant business, money, or a personal
dream come true, Hovnanian said it was `a bit of each’.
`First of all, it’s business, but to me, this is a prime opportunity
to create more jobs for Armenia. I have always wanted to help my
people,’ he told IWPR. `If successful international entrepreneurs
move here from abroad, that means millions in direct investment.’
The development, under construction since last year, will consist of
upwards of 500 homes. Of an estimated 25 US million dollars earmarked
for the project, five million has already been invested in
infrastructure. So far only 20 homes have been sold and there is no
final construction date for the community.
`Of course there will be a certain isolation from the rest of
society, a big difference in living standards inside and outside the
community,’ conceded Karekin Odabashian, managing director of the
project.
`But Vahakni is in itself a lifestyle, which makes it different from
others. It is not true that housing here will only be available to
the privileged classes. Everyone is welcome – our prices are quite
normal for Armenia, on a par with apartment prices in prestigious
downtown neighbourhoods of Yerevan. But I always say that Hovnanian
Ltd is building more than just housing, we are building a way of
life.’
In fact, the `Hovnanian lifestyle’ is well out of reach of most
people in Armenia, where it would take someone earning an average
salary many lifetimes to be able to afford Vahakni’s real-estate
prices.
Those who have heard of Vahakni shrug it off as a place for the
fabulously rich. Suren Mikoyan, a taxi driver, said, `Every time I
drive by Vahakni, I look at these huge houses and feel depressed. It
seems to me that a whole different breed of people live there.’
Many of those `different’ people are expatriate Armenians. So far, 20
homes at Vahakni have been reserved for Armenians from France,
Canada, Russia, Switzerland and the UK.
Prospective buyers are free to choose from a great variety of layout
options, or even design their future home themselves with the
assistance of an architect. All homes will be fitted with security
systems, central heating, and fire alarm systems, as well as garages
and basements.
The majority of prospective residents are business people, something
which places high security requirements on the community. The only
vehicle entrance to Vahakni is guarded 24 hours a day.
`Security is one of the main reasons why I decided to move here,’ a
Canadian citizen who lives at Vahakni told IWPR, requesting
anonymity. `Back in Canada, the streets are not safe for my small
children. In that sense, Vahakni is ideal, and Armenia, I think, is a
great place to raise your children. There are security systems here,
but you can’t see them.’
Some residents are taking extra security precautions of their own.
Some have requested no photographing or videotaping around their
homes.
Other facilities intended for Vahakni include an international
school, a day clinic, a fitness centre – and Armenia’s first ever
golf club.
Vahak Hovnanian has high hopes for golf in the Caucasus, which he
says is both an art and a good way of doing business. `Golf is a
disease, and an infectious one, too. It’s a solitary sport: there’s
only you, your ball and your club. Playing golf is like painting a
picture.’
Perhaps not as perfect a picture as the view of Mount Ararat from the
golf course.
Alan Tskhurbayev and Sergiu Perju, from Moldova and North Ossetia
respectively, are graduating journalism students from the Caucasus
Media Institute in Yerevan.
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress