Armeniapedia.org wins econtent awards!

Folks, I'm quite proud to say Armeniapedia.org, my other big Armenian site, has won 2 awards at the Armenian econtent awards! The awards ceremony was quite a sight with a huge audience - literally hundreds of people, with a decked out stage and a very polished show, including performances and a young cute couple with the head microphones and the back and forth scripted banter... I had to keep reminding myself this was an awards show for websites.

Anyway, the 2 awards I got were for the Armenology category, and also a second award for placing in the top 20 websites overall. I hope this gives the site more exposure, especially in Armenia, where if people get into the spirit of the wiki (a site which anybody can edit/add to), the site can grow at a ridiculous speed.

Teachers versus Doctors

Apparently yesterday the Armenian goverment approved the draft state budget for the upcoming year. Some of the newspapers are reporting that average salaries for teachers and doctors have increased. As an American it was odd to read that teachers will have an average salary of 74,000 AMD while doctors will have a considerably smaller salary of 42,600 AMD.

Chillin’ with Chileans

I’ve been having so many adventures lately, I don’t know where to start writing, about what…

What’s been really fascinating is hanging out with four young journalists from Chile, on an interesting documentary project, exploring Armenia, Georgia and Azerbaijan fifteen years after the collapse of the Soviet Union. They’ve been interviewing common people and officials on the changes in politics and society, the youth, the future. Interesting and fun.

So, we needed to get a cellphone recharge card the other day, for which we go to one of the better-equipped stores in the centre of Yerevan. Following the general direction of the little poster advertising the cards, past the meat and sausages, we reach… the fruits section. Hmm… this can’t be right, they wouldn’t be selling cellphone cards next to apples and bananas. Doubling back, we approach the money changer, who, it seemed, would be the rational choice for this sort of thing. Wrong again. The check-out counter ? No. It turns out the cards are sold (some of you may have guessed it) alongside the sausages…! Claro. At least they weren’t in the fridge… ;-)

But yesterday’s adventure was quite incredible. The Chileans needed a special kind of battery for their video camera, which they had to order online, to arrive only after they would leave Santiago. So, they had it sent over here via a big courier service (which will go unnamed). The place calls to say it’s arrived, so we go there, only to discover that we have to go to the airport’s cargo terminal to pick it up in person. Sigh…

Off we go, behind and quite a bit beyond those dazzling casinos en route to Zvartnots, completely uncertain of how to go about this. All we have is some airway bill or whatever it’s called. We had a somewhat unpleasant experience there my first year in Armenia, so I wasn’t expecting a smooth ride, but I didn’t know what we had to do at all; all we saw when we got there was just a big bunch of people, standing around some windows.

We approach one lady. She says we have to go upstairs. We go upstairs. The building itself is pretty nice, I’d even say impressive for Armenia, but all we have to work with is a long corridor with doors. We get to the right door on our third or fourth try. This room has even more windows to approach, and is brimming with people. We catch hold of an official, tell him our situation. He gets us krantsvadz (“registered”), tells us to wait. So we wait…

There’s already, as I say, a ton of people there. Waiting. One of them befriends us and informs us, in flawless if accented English, how flawful and awful the place is. It’s his second day there, he says. First there’s this window, then one has to move on with some paper and such-and-such document here, pay 5500 drams in costs, plus 20% of the item’s value there… In a word, quite the hassle.

So, what does a young Armenian do in such circumstances ? I promptly took out my phone and called my dad. No, he did not have any friends or acquaintances there, but he advised me to catch hold of an official, speak strongly, make sure he knows I know that anything less than 500 dollars in declared value can be brought in tax-free, take down names, call back if necessary, etc., etc.

So, I go up to the same guy as before and explain our situation to him again. “They’re young journalists from Chile, this seems like it will take long, we have an interview at the UN soon [which was perfectly true, by the way], could you please lend us a hand ?”.

With a slight sigh, this guy gets up, takes our documentation, orders another guy, who takes us downstairs and out, straight to the large cargo area. He brings in a third guy, who, maybe five minutes later, gets us our little package.

“What now ?”

“Now ? Go. El inch es ouzoum ?”

:-)

So we went. Not a singly penny in fees or bribes, no extra paperwork, nothing. I’d like to say that the system works and/or I beat the system, but it was neither, really. We just got ourselves a couple of officials with good enough spirits to help out some spiurkahay and odar strangers. Getstsen!

Just a shameless plug ...

If you have access to the state channel H1, check out the premiere of the new HAYQ song this THURSDAY on the Rubicon show.

If in Armenia, it will air on the Nor Aliq channel at 21:30.

I might also participate in the show.

Hope you guys enjoy it! If you hate the video, remember, I had NOTHING to do with the video, I just did the song :-)

Who done it? Murat Mamedov?

I suspect I know who hacked my page. Why? Well he signed the hacked page "Muradik", and used the password "Mamedov70", which would lead me to believe we have a fellow by the name of Murad Mamedov born in 1970. The first hit when you google Murat Mamedov lists a fellow searching for a job, who went to university beginning in 1988 - in other words, he would have likely been born in 1970, and this would have been just when the Karabakh issue was flaring up. He graduated in 1993, so he does not appear to have been fighting... the google search brought up this information on him:

Job seeker - Murad Mamedov

City: Baku
Address: S. Rahimov 195/15
Phones: 50 343 51 96
E-mail: murad.mammedov@tkaz.net
Education:
Education period: 07.1988 - 06.1993
Institution: State Oil Academy
Degree: Master
Major: Project/Construction Mechanical Engineer

Another hit that appears could be him is: murad_m@hotmail.com Or it could all be a coincidence - this is not exactly an uncommon name.

I dunno, but in any case whoever did it has way too much time on his hands and way too much hatred...

Armenia on CNNi

I forgot to mention that at the tourism roundtable, I saw the 2 commercials that are going to be shown on CNN International for the next few months. They were FANTASTIC! I mean, really really well done and they'd make anyone in Europe do a double-take and ask, where? Armenia? Why haven't I heard of it... and then do a google search. I'm actually going to watch CNNi (shown worldwide, but not in the USA) once in a while now in hopes of catching it... hopefully they'll put it on the web for ppl to watch as well... I'll suggest it.

Conference over

So the conference is over. This year there is no big party at Sardarabad afterwards, but the independence day kef looks to be a big one - and then Aznavour and Chirac are coming, plus there will be an Armenian Navy Band performance at Cascade, so the month should end with a bang!

I went each day for various things. The tourism booth I helped organize looked good. That was part of an "expo" of sorts going on at the conference, plus they had food and drink stands. It was perfect. Since, in reality, many people come to socialize, plus they can get bored at the conference itself, this gave them all an outlet to usefully spend their time when they were not listening to speeches - which were being shown on TV near the food in any case. Then today I helped organize the tourism roundtable with the Ministry of Trade and Economic Development, plus the Armenian Tourism Development Agency (which I helped set up 5 years ago). The presentations focused on Diaspora Investment, what has been done, and what especially needs investment. Unfortunately, only 3 Diasporans turned up - and interestingly some 50 locals. It was at the massive new Latar Hotel complex on the fringes of Yerevan.

Me, Armenia, and the World

Sad to say I fell to the mercy of some bug that had my temperature through the roof for days. Though I prepared a lot of work for the Armenia Diaspora Conference, I have not attended any of the sessions , nothing at all, though I hear I didn’t miss much. Newspapers the next morning had a spread of photos of people sleeping at the conference. Not sure if I would want to be called out like that, but it says a lot. However, I heard the fireworks, I better be recovered in time for all the 15th Anniversary celebrations. Yay, Good for us!

I’ve been glued to my couch watching CNN for days (poor me, but there are only so many DVDs in the house). Someone please tell whoever manages the local advertising on CNN that the middle of Bush’s address to the UN is not an ideal time for a commercial break for Viva Cell I’ve seen 100 times before.

That gets me to my next topic. There’s a Cu in Thailand, riots in Budapest against the Prime Minister, Muslims killing Nuns in Somalia in response to the Pope’s comments on Islam, continuing riots in Baghdad, Bush and Ahmadinejad playing word games at the UN General Assembly as if US is about to invade Iran, Sudan is becoming an exact replica of Rwanda as UN peacekeepers are being kicked out, Saddam is walking out of court as the new judge resumes the trials, am I missing anything? I’m sure. WHAT IS GOING ON IN THE WORLD. There were like 3 Breaking News topics overlapping last night. The world is turned upside down. This is of course discluding old but recent news of the Isreal invasion of Lebanon, the terrorist attempts in London, I’m getting tired of thinking about the state of the world. Oh, and all the stocks are dropping around the world like crazy too it seems. The housing market is in trouble, Germany is seeing a record low in years, Sony’s batteries are lighting on fire, this all certainly makes you appreciate the things in life that are not falling apart. Things in Armenia feel like a vacation compared to the world. When people start complaining about their life, I’m gonna start talking about the world problems, maybe they’ll snap out of it.

Just curious, how much of this news is reaching America(ns).

Third Armenia-Diaspora Conference

Today saw the first day of three of the Third Armenia-Diaspora Conference at the Hamalir, near the Dzidzernagapert Genocide Memorial. I must say, as per speculation, as per pessimistic, sceptical Armenianism, it lived up to being more show and talk, less action thus far, although it's probably too soon to come to such a conclusion.

Honestly, though, the opening ceremony was really cool. I mean, EVERYONE was there. Two Presidents, two Catholicoses, all the Ministers, noteworthy, money-rich and hoki-rich Armenians from all over... All under one roof! Hey, I was impressed with the security measures, with the general organised nature of the event. I thought it was being managed well. Of course, we started late (what else is new ?), but when everyone stood up when the Mer Hayrenik rang, and then we all prayed the Hayr Mer together, I couldn't help but well up just a teeny bit, houzvadz, proud. :-)

If there are people in town, I'd highly recommend coming over tomorrow and the day after; the speakers' list seems interesting, some more than others, doubtless, and there are a fair few informative and attractive stalls, featuring this organisation or that, doing work in Armenia which may be of interest to some of you. There are a good few food stalls, too. ;-)

All of this will culminate with the big military parade at the Hrabarag and concert on Thursday, the 21st, when we celebrate 15 years of re-re-re-re-re...-independence. See you there.

Traffic jam... (there's gonna be a parade)

Wow, what a scene tonight as everything from artillery and armored personnel carriers to rockets went past my apartment - clearly there's going to be a military parade to mark 15 years of independence. I am quite a peace lover, but I must say seeing this stuff go by was pretty damn cool! As usual, see the pics on flickr.

Progress

The websites appear to be secure again, and they should hopefully be back to pretty much normal shortly. What a waste of time. On the positive side, I'm finally upgrading Armeniapedia to the latest version of the script which will have a few nice additional features like easy to put together photo galleries. It also should attract less spammers for reasons entirely too dull to explain, but which will make my life easier.

This coming week will see the opening of a tourist information office in Dilijan which I've been working on. It should be a nice little place, though I'm not totally happy with the location. The government here really needs to allocate prime spaces to this sort of thing. In town there will also be a bike path, rentals, signage and likely a hiking trail from Parz Lich to Goshavank. That the info center will have pretty good internet too, something routine for us maybe, but a really big deal for a town with virtually none. It will be available to tourists and townspeople for a fee.

And finally, I'll mention that the third Armenia-Diaspora Conference takes place Monday to Wednesday. There are a slew of accompanying expos, roundtables, events, all topped off with the independence day holiday on thursday. The dram has already shot up in anticipation of all the dollars. A good time should be had by all...

New Documentary?

Just got word that there is a documentary film being screened at Georgetown about the small Jewish community living in Sevan. Has anyone seen or heard of it? If not here is some more info:

Jews in Armenia : The Hidden Diaspora
A documentary film by Vartan Akchyan

Documenting for the first time the existence of the Jewish community in Armenia , the film presents a journey never taken before. While breaking on its way many myths about the relations between Jews and Armenians and discovering many new realities from the past and the present, the film looks at the traces of a 13th century Jewish community of Armenia; listens to the story of perseverance of a tiny, yet devoted group of Subbotniks living on the shores of Lake Sevan; and follows the personal journeys of the younger generations of Jews of Armenia. It is a story about the harmonious and sincere coexistence of two cultures, who at times, had to find refuge in each other's lands.

Hacked...

Yes, this site and Armeniapedia were hacked. Yes, it was no fun. No, it is not clear if it is over. Yes, I think I know the name, address and phone number of the guy who I suspect did it (in Azerbaijan).

Ambassador John Evans is gone...

US Ambassador Evans left Yerevan on Saturday night - one year early. As followers of this blog know, he was fired for speaking openly about the Armenian Genocide. I worked at USAID for 2 years, during both Ambassador Ordway and Evans' terms, and watched the verbal acrobatics as Ordway avoided saying the "g" word in public, even during 15 minute answers about questions about genocide recognition. Ambassador Evans couldn't do it. He couldn't face genocide survivors and their descendants and play word games with them. He knew he could lose his job for it, and he did it anyway. I have so much respect for him, I just can't express it. If people just did the right thing, instead of playing these ridiculous games and calling it "realpolitic", the world would be a better place. I tell you, this entire massive threat of terrorism would not exist if the US would be a fair and evenhanded player in the region, instead of supporting terrorist states like Israel and Turkey, while lecturing Arabs and Iran about democracy. When you support a country (Israel) that is constantly bulldozing Arab homes and building Jewish homes on their land, when you support a country carte blanche which is suppressing an entire people and keeping countless Palestinians as refugees in other countries (Jordan and Lebanon especially) you are creating entire generations of really pissed off people, people who feel completely powerless, completely screwed, both by Israel AND the US. This is how you create people who strap bombs to themselves and blow up themselves AND innocent people. It usually does not happen by accident, and I just wish the US government would learn, and just do the right thing.

Ambassador Evans now joins Ambassador Morgenthau on the list of people who have earned the love and respect of the Armenian nation.

He's gone, and now we look stuck with this Hoagland who obviously is going to toe the State Department line. How sad...

Armenians most successful in UK!

I mean, we always say it, but here are actual statistics :-)

The Times, UK
Sept 10 2006

ARMENIAN immigrants and their descendants are the most successful ethnic group in the country, according to an analysis of "melting pot" Britain.

...

Of the 2,651 people of Armenian descent in Britain, more than 1,600 run businesses and a high proportion live in expensive parts of west London.

Among the most successful is Bob Manoukian, property developer and former agent for Prince Jefri of Brunei. He has a family fortune of £300m, according to The Sunday Times Rich List.

Other successful people with Armenian roots include David Dickinson, presenter of the BBC's Bargain Hunt, and Ara Palamoudian, chairman of the Armenian community & church council of Great Britain.

He said: "Armenians have always tried to be self-sufficient and not to be a burden on any country. It could be the history of the Armenian people, the way their lives have been over centuries. They had to find shelter around the world."

Many Armenians fled to England after the first world war, during which up to 1.5m died, amid allegations of genocide by the Turks.

Other waves arrived in the 1970s and 1980s.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2087-2350633,00.html

New arrival terminal at Zvartnots Airport...

Anyone flying to Armenia next week apparently will be coming in the brand spanking new terminal that has been built. The Lragir.am article says the new departure terminal will open next spring...

:On September 14 the new arrival lounge of Zvartnots Airport will open. On September 12 news reporters will visit the new arrival lounge.

:The new terminal of the airport with the departure and arrival lounges will be operated in the spring of 2007. The new terminal was designed for an annual 2 million passengers, and costs about 63 million dollars.

Turkish troops in Lebanon

Some of you may have read that Turkey wants to have it's troops in Lebanon as "peacekeepers". Well, that is a bit of a joke, as it can't keep the peace in it's own Kurdistan. The Armenians in Lebanon (and abroad) have been vocal opponents of Turkish troops entering a primary country of refuge for Genocide survivors. This is understandable, but I think the focus has been too narrow. To only bring up the Genocide misses the point that Armenians continue to be harassed in a country with poor human rights which still doesn't recognize its crimes of 91 years ago. That Armenians are put on trial to this day for basically being Armenian. And being found guilty of insulting Turkishness by the very virtue of their being Armenian. Then there is the whole Kurdistan issue, and the other human rights issues.

There was a CNN (in Europe anyway) piece on the Armenians - a good 4 minute piece, but as I said it focused only on the Genocide. We need to draw the line into the present. There was also footage of an old woman waving her walker at the camera in anger. Good stuff. But Armenians need to emphasize again and again, that if the Turks come to Lebanon, they will not be fighting for peace between Hezbollah and Israel, they will be fighting a new Armenian militia specifically formed to rid the country of Turkish troops. The mere prospect of that ought to bring anyone putting peacekeeping forces together to their senses...

I'm Alive

Ama, I haven't posted anything in over two months! But thanks to the complaints of friends back in Canada, here I am :-)

Life hasn't been the same since Qami Pchi. Honestly, well at least as far as my career is concerned with the Armo music industry.

I just finished up the long awaited follow-up for HAYQ (wrote the music + arranged/produced/engineered/mixed/mastered). The group also just shot a video for the new song. The single (along with Qami) plus a couple of club remixes I did should be out this month. I've been told there will be distribution in North America as well.

The video they shot looks quite nice, but there are things I can definitely complain about. Sorry for being prejudice, but tell me, why do so many Hayastantsis love this whole "gangsta" garbage? Bathing with whores and carrying a gun ... what does that have to do with a love song? ANYWAY ... you'll soon see what I'm talking about.

Other than HAYQ, tonnes of other projects have come up. Juggling between work and the annual summer entertaining of tourists was really hectic this year. The weather didn't help, but it's finally starting to change. Actually, still over 30 celsius in the daytime, but nights have been quite cold.

By the way, check out Armenian Comedy's rendition of Qami Pchi = Taxi Hasi.

More bad news for Patrik... (Soccer)

Patrik seems devastated by just about anything I post these days (see his comments) - so I'm afraid this news just might be too much for him... Armenia lost 1-0 against Belgium in the Futbol match tonight. It was a fun game though with the crowd going wild most of the time...

And again, my pics.

Bomb...

This morning a bomb blew up a car with someone who works in the tax department on Byron Street. That's the first time I've heard of such a thing happening here. I guess most of the people in Armenia (including me) are pretty cynical, since our first thoughts seem to have been - I wonder who he was trying to screw?? Not a good commentary on our ol' civil service. Tax collectors have a habit of wanting big bribes, in return for even bigger reductions in your tax bill. A win-win situation for both parties, except that the whole country pays the price... some companies are fighting this sort of thing (similiar things go on at the Customs dept - you should see the mansion of the guy running customs, and the two military police guarding his house every night). Royal Armenia coffee is a great example. I wonder if this was someone resisting a bribe??? Who knows, we probably never will....

Music Everywhere

It seems I'm surrounded by music these days. It all started when I started hanging out with some very interesting people, one being Araz Artinian, director of "Genocide In Me." Others include Lucy from LA, Artyom (bassist for the Armenian Navy Band), Mher from the Yerevan rock band Sakvoyage, and a few others who come and go... other local musicians, other familiar faces, and of course the remaining visitors from the US who apparently don't have to start school until October.

We have been making regular visits to the Stop Club as many of these guys play there... either jazz, rock, blues, whatever they are feeling that night apparently... and whoever is available to play. The highlight of my week was that a few of us went to Gyumri over the weekend to visit Mher's family and see people Araz knew from filming her documentary on the Earthquake.

Mher's parents turned out to be TOTAL characters. It's no wonder he's a musician as both his parents are. His mother plays for a Symphony, and his father also plays folk rock and is close to the original members of Bambir. Mher himself was in the offspring of Bambir until he started his own band. The family has photos of The Beatles, Jimi Hendrix, Keith Richards, and of course their beloved son's band Sakvoyage all over the walls. The father built a guiltar by hand, and as seen in this photo, made me a leather bracelet. Infact, their home is right next to the music school and they are staying there until their house is finished being remodeled. Not your typical family. There's respect for each other. The mother dished back whatever the men threw at her... verbally of course. Everyone was equal. I needed to see this after months of seeing everything but equality.

We also went to visit the people Araz met through her documentary and they were a lovely family of dentists and intellectuals. But it was then that I realized the continuing effects of the earthquake. The trauma endured is still being felt as people who lost limbs find it hard to work, stress builds and the loss is still felt. Though Gyumri is in constant "rebuild" mode, there's no escaping the damage.

Google books...

I've been reading about it forever now... Google's threat to digitize every text in the planet. They are making some inroads on their promise... check this out. Entire books on or related to Armenia online and free... (I searched only for books that are wholly in the public domain).