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Yerevan Journal – April-May 2008
April 2003 May 2003 June 2003 July 2003 August 2003 September 2003 October 2003 November 2003 February 2004 March 2004 May 2004 June 2004 July 2004 August 2004 September 2004 October 2004 November 2004 December 2004 April 2005 May 2005 June 2005 July 2005 August 2005 September 2005 October 2005 November 2005 December 2005 February-March 2006 April 2006 May 2006 June 2006 August-September 2006 October 2006 November 2006 March 2007 April 2007 May 2007 June 2007 October 2007 November 2007 December 2007 April-May 2008 During Shoghaken’s six-week winter tour of the US and Canada, it sometimes seemed we hadn’t left Armenia at all. I suppose this was partly because of the daily calls one or another Shoghaken member made or received, often about the then-upcoming election and then the follow-up protests and clashes in Yerevan and elsewhere. One call revealed an observer in Gyumri who said that Serge Sargsyan had come in third, behind Ter Petrosyan and Artur Baghdasaryan. . . . Our connection with Armenia was maintained also by our meetings, both planned and by chance, of Hayastantsi friends and relatives living in and near cities where Shoghaken had concerts. Although most longed to visit or return permanently to Armenia, there was the girl in Chicago who marveled at my moving to Armenia from the West. And there was the fellow who avoided his Hayastantsi friends in Shoghaken, until one of them said, “Aren’t you the same person whom we shared a drink with in Tsakhadzor that day . . .” when it turned out the reason of his reluctance to acknowledge anyone from Armenia was that his relatives in Armenia still thought he was in Europe somewhere, not knowing he had made it to the US, Wisconsin of all places. Another Hayastantsi originally from Charbakh complained about the Hayastantsis living in Glendale, saying very few were willing to work for their money, or at least be willing to conduct some sort of work or business that might take time to develop, wanting instead to make money instantly, showing their friends their BMWs and jewelery, even though often paying huge rent for some mediocre apartment. A pleasant meeting in Santa Barbara, turned out to be with a close relative of Mihran Tumajan, a student of Komitas who recorded songs from Pontus that Hasmik sang during the Shoghaken performances. All in all, our trip/tour was both successful and enjoyable, with good reactions by Armenian and non-Armenian audiences everywhere. As our return to Armenia is imminent, Yerevan Journal will resume soon after April 24 commemorations in Yerevan. Our return trip to Yerevan took an interesting turn in London, returning by the British airline BMI. I won’t go into our problems with British Air, just to say that after our BMI flight, we won’t be using either airline again. Not only was the gate where we boarded off in a no-man’s land reserved for Central Asian and other flights, but seeing the water served in the airplane labeled “Azerbaijan” and Azeri music on the plane’s music system, not to mention an Azeri steward, we thought enough was enough. After receiving our suitcases, we headed home, almost immediately hearing about the policitcal situation in Armenia, namely the rumors, if they are that, about what the police did to people during the events in early March . . . beatings of already injured protesters, etc. But the truth behind these rumors is hard to certify. Apparently, though, two journalists, both quite well known and respected, recently announced on “Kentron” television that there was no way Serge Sargsyan won on the first round, as was announced. Be what it may, the mood of the people is one of uncertainty, stretching into the business world, where no one really knows what to do, to invest or not, etc. Time will tell. . . . Reaching home, we talked with relatives and opened our suitcases, while we watched the local news. Finally, we saw the new video featuring Sirusho and her song written especially for Eurovision. Realizing it’s a pop song, we still couldn’t help but notice the Arabic-style dancing she did, fine for Arabs but not what an Armenian should be doing, especially with the whole world watching. It would be nice, I thought, if for once Armenians didn’t blindly vote for someone just because they were Armenian, as this might force future contestants to not perform such songs. Wishful thinking. Playing with the remote, I came across Turks dancing a traditional sword dance, similar to one danced by Armenians, the only difference being Turks were doing theirs on television, with an offical political delegation present, while Armenians were promoting Sirusho. . . . Afterwards, we watched part of the two-year-old Vardan Petrosyan performance about the life of Komitas, in which he gave a memorable speech about Armenians and how they blindly trust foreigners, this time especially Europeans, saying that after the Lausanne meeting, each European delegation walked by the Armenians kind of shrugging their shoulders, while the Turks said to them, “For centuries we lived side by side. We always hated you, but respected your intelligence. That’s why we’re surprised you believed this blankety-blank Europe.” Now, another April 24, with Turks still denying, but holding their intentions to themselves, while their Azeri brothers pull no punches. Only the future will tell what comes of it all. On the evening before April 24, all the way to midnight, “Armenia” had one of their tasteless comedy shows, which Armenia’s youth, and doubtlessly Armenian youth elsewhere, are eating up. One line had someone saying he had taken video with his cell phone camera of his grandmother taking a bath, afterwards putting it on the Internet. And Armenians, no doubt, will fail to protest such stupidity. A sad result of all this, and the music now being promoted in Armenia, will someday be a youth unwilling to take up arms for Armenia, should the need arise, as why should someone take up arms for a country with no culture, no morals? For now, though, Armenians haven’t all reached that stage, shown by the huge turnout on April 24, far more than previous years. Perhaps the silent movement going on here, beginning after falsifications of the presidential election, has helped move people in other positive directions. Also, on the 24th, at around three p.m., thousands had gathered on Northern Avenue, the meeting lasting for some time, till it was dispersed or participants went to Tsitsernakaberd. Word also has it that the daily silent protests are continuing on Northern Avenue, with some 200 gathering every day, with occasional arrests and videoing of those participating. At the first sanctioned demonstration, several days earlier, thousands gathered at Kirov Park, before being dispersed after their two hour time limit had been reached. Part of the throng then moved to Northern Avenue before finally completely dispersing. Also, a foreign ministry worker was fired after signing a petition stating the election results had been falsified. Obviously, the situation, although quiet, is far from settled. “Snipers were placed on top of buildings,” the Yerevantsi said. “Without doubt, more than ten were killed that day. There were bodies in the morgues that they wouldn’t turn over to the families unless they signed that the person was killed in an acccident or had had a heart attack, this way keeping the official total low. It’s good that the US and Europe are putting some pressure on the rulers here, or there would be no hope. One thing, if the current president stays in power, for five years, Armenia will cease to exist. I think he’ll leave on his own, though, as he understands that there is a serious movement this time, not like in the past. All seems quiet and peaceful now, but that’s an illusion. I’m telling you, it would be better to have Attaturk in power than these people.” As the freedom fighter put it: “This is the first time I wouldn’t blame someone for leaving Armenia. I might even take my family from here. But I’m going to wait, to see if the new authorities stay in power. If they do, for another five years, I’ll be forced to leave Armenia.” A manager at a restaurant continued: “For the first time, I’m thinking about leaving the country. The day after the killings I had to go to work, and my children were crying, saying ‘Don’t go to work, they’ll kill you too.’ There was nothing on television. We didn’t know what to do.” An HSBC worker echoed similar thoughts, saying several of his friends were now talking about leaving Armenia. “For now I’m staying,” he said. “But I won’t wait forever.” Another person, a professor, said she wasn’t worried about the political situation, saying things would somehow correct themselves. “On the other hand,” she said, “I’m worried about what they’re doing to the environment. In Lori, they’ve cut 475,000 square meters of forest, and given the remaining 50,000 to villagers to take care of. And, they’re talking about opening the uranium mines in Zangezur, the same mines the Soviets declared too dangerous to exploit, and then shut down. What that would mean to the environment, not only in Zangezur but all of Armenia, is disastrous beyond words.” A trip to a furniture maker to buy chairs turned into another lesson about the new tax laws and how they’re affecting average businessmen, small and large. “When we sell our last chairs and tables, we’re going to close down, maybe permanently. The new laws are bad. At a time when the authorities should be encouraging business, they’re doing just the opposite. Who is this clan working for? Not for Armenia or Armenians, that’s for sure. In a year, we might be living in Russia, working there. Sad, but if we’re forced to do this, we will.” Concerning culture, while listening to 106.5 radio, a station doing the work National Radio should be doing, presenting music ranging from Komitas to old recordings of Akunk and Maratuk to Ophelia Hambartsumyan, Glakho, and Raffi Hovhannisyan to modern groups such as Shoghaken, a quite interesting recording was presented of Islamicized Armenians living in Turkey singing “Hambartsman Yerkushabti,” a humorous song still sung in Armenia by traditional folk groups. The singers sang in Armenian, backed by clarinet and dhol, adding a little Turkish mugham, but maintaining an authentic sound somewhat hard to find even in current Armenia. The subject of Armenians living in Turkey, Islamicized or not, was then discussed, with the number of Armenians said to be in the hundreds of thousands. On the subject of Islamicized Armenians in Turkey, Turkish television repeated a show filmed in Ordu several years ago in which several men danced to kyamani and dhol with a renovated Armenian church in the background. The men were likely Hamshen Armenians, although the slight possibility exists they were Pontic Greeks. Ordu is a city and province near the Black Sea, where some Hamshen Armenians still live. The dance the men were performing was quite similar to what Hamshen Armenians dance in the Crimea and in Armenia. While watching the show, I was reminded of what Writer’s Union president Levon Ananyan said on a morning talk show on National Television this week, saying he was disgusted that Armenian television was propagandizing mainly soap operas and shows, or music competitions featuring Armenia’s stars. Amusingly, the hostess of the program was none other than Nazeli, who is involved in nearly every one of the shows Ananyan was referring to, not to mention movies sponsored and produced by National Television. In any event, Ananyan went on to say that Armenians, not wanting to miss out on the soap opera fad, and refusing to rise above it all, have started to produce their own soaps, most of them featuring hoodlums known in Armenia as “goghakan.” Sad, I thought, that while Turks are out filming such things as Hamshenis doing their traditional dances, Armenians are producing soap operas. On the lighter side, if one can call it that, a friend purchased an expensive Fifth Avenue perfume from the Duty Free section of the Armenian airport, only to find out at home that it was a fake. Also, rumor has it that before the airplane from Europe lands, Armenians remove the expensive vodka, Finlandia for instance, and replace it with cheap vodka, then sell it at Duty Free. The latter is only a rumor, yet with the Fifth Avenue experience, who knows. On the subject of Arshile Gorky, now that plans for celebrating the anniversary of his birthday are underway, a television show here refuted the common belief that he committed suicide, saying that if he did, it was due to unbearable pain caused by a car crash set up by his wife and her sister. According to the show, when his non-Armenian wife found out he was going to gift all his paintings to Armenia, thus realizing she would lose out on future sales, etc., she set up a car crash in which the side of the car Gorky was sitting was smashed into by another car, with the wife emerging without a scratch. Today’s activities began with a meeting in the Cinema House with Ruben Gevorgyants, Davit Mouradyan, of the Writer’s Union, and Grisha Harutyunyan, in connection with a new film being produced about William Saroyan. The film promises to be different, not merely about the writer’s life and works but about the writer himself, his family, his relatives, in other words, all of what made him what he was. Hopefully this and other works being created on the occasion of the writer’s 100th birthday are worthy of Saroyan, whom I knew both as a relative and as a writer. Leaving the building, I ran into Movses, of the Malyan Theater, who led me into a room where other Malyan actors were meeting, leading to an hour of reminiscing about our first meeting at the Armenia Festival in France in 2000 to several Shoghaken people traveling to Paris with the Malyan actors early last year, as well as about the recent Shoghaken tour in the US. After agreeing to meet again during the Saroyan year festivities, I left and went to the sixteen-story Press House, where I met with an old friend who produces various computer software and DVD and Internet materials. We began talking about the Karabagh situation, and how Seyran Ohanyan, the new Defense Minister, had been on television talking about how Armenian armed forces are guarding the border in northeast Armenia in the Tavoush province. I remembered how farmers there had told me how Azeri tanks had crossed into Shamshadin during the Karabagh war, and how they had somehow repelled the attacks, thus protecting Armenia from eventual doom. I also remembered walking through fields in Shamshadin that I knew were within range of Azeri soldiers in their trenches along the border. I then told my friend how a large number of Armenians from the US had planned to take part in a bike-a-thon in Armenia this year, but backed out after hearing about the events of early March. “Sad,” he said, “that Armenians from the Diaspora only come here if all is peaceful and nice, while they expect us to do the dirty work, the fighting, whatever is needed, when times get tough. I wonder about these Armenians, who might help with their pocketbook, which is nice, but keep their distance when the going gets tough. Just think what strength we’d have if our foreign brothers joined us in good times and bad.” A truck driver told us he had applied for a tourist visa several times in recent months, and plans to continue until he can join his relatives in Los Angeles. The reason, he said, was the killings on March 1, not to mention the resulting bad business climate here. A worker who helped us with a few new items we bought for our house said pretty much the same thing. A store owner said he notices the tension in people’s faces. “None of us are free of it,” he said. “Anybody normal here is living in stress. Yet, I pity those without patience, who plan on leaving the country. These people, who are running the country, won’t stay in power. They’re here today, gone tomorrow. They have no tie to anything Armenian, our land, our water, our people, nothing. I don’t know if they’ll leave on their own, or be run off. I just know they won’t be here forever. We’re here to stay; they’re not.” Another friend, once an official in one of the ministries, said he resigned to save his conscience. “I couldn’t be part of this system any longer,” he said. “Everything you hear about March 1 is true. I was here. Were there snipers on top of buildings? Of course. Did they give different reasons of death to some killed that day, so the numbers wouldn’t be too high? Definitely. They attacked people while they slept that morning. Innocent people who had done nothing. And our so-called stars. One said, ‘Anybody that was there deserved what they got. They shouldn’t have been there.’ And I was there one day with several cultural figures, the minister, and others, watching as thousands marched passed a certain street. One of our movie people said, ‘Only five thousand have passed.’ Then, ten minutes later, with people still marching by, he said the same thing. We all knew a hundred thousand had walked by. He then shocked us all by saying, ‘They should all be mowed down.’ Later, after they opened fire, at a spot near the St. Sargis church, locals took in several of the wounded. Would you believe it, the next day security people knocked on doors asking who had taken in these wounded people. Even Turks didn’t do that during the massacres. These people are Fascists. What can I say?” Victory Day passed with the usual fanfare in Yerevan, with concerts and speeches as well as plenty of television shows honoring participants in both the Great Patriotic War, as it’s called here, and the Karabagh war, especially those who participated in the liberation of Shushi. On the morning news, it was announced that some twenty war veterans who had lost limbs, etc., during the Karabagh war were receiving new automobiles. Those who received automobiles were all Karabaghtsis, living in Karabagh. The reaction by some here was that it would have been nice if some of the recipients had been Hayastantsis, as plenty here who fought in the war ended up in the same condition, with many living, or barely living, from hand to mouth. Not that the Karabaghtsis weren’t brave, they say, they just don’t appreciate being forgotten for their deeds, with only Karabaghtsis remembered and honored. . . . In the evening, we were invited by a participant of the Shushi victory for khorovadz, which he made in his well planned fireplace. After discussing various happenings during the war and at Shushi, he talked about how sad it was that the leaders here, who are from Karabagh, lost a great chance at uniting Hayastantsis and Karabaghtsis due to their bad governing and favoritism. “Several Karabaghtsis have told me they no longer like Kocharian or Sargsyan. They say the reason Hayastantsis don’t like Karabaghtisis is because of these two, that if they had run the country normally, the anti-Karabaghtsi sentiment wouldn’t exist.” From his house, we went to an apartment where a painter both works and lives. As I hadn’t seen this painter’s works, I was in shock on entering his studio. There, I saw portraits that, if they didn’t reach those of Rembrandt, weren’t far off. “This is of me, ten years ago,” he said. “Here’s another, of an Englishman. Here is Komitas, and Mashtots. The woman in this picture is a Yerevantsi. She is very good on the violin. She wanted to have a concert here, at the opera house, but they wouldn’t let her. When she told them that if Sirusho wanted to have a concert, they’d never say no, they were silent. This other picture is of another violinist, also excellent, but now living in Europe, and doing quite well there. They wouldn’t let her into the symphony here. I guess she didn’t know the right people.” The painter then went on to tell us that he had planned and made arrangements for an exhibition of his paintings, at the Painter’s Union, but at the last minute, after a year of planning, they called and said his name had been taken off the list of those having exhibitions. I knew a certain sort of cultural mafia controls the music scene here, but didn’t know it reached other branches of culture. Top of Journal |
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