In April 2008, Serzh Sargsyan took office as the newly elected President of Armenia. In September 2008, Abdullah Gül (President of Turkey) created a serious debate in Turkey because he visited the new President of Armenia during a World Cup qualifying match between the two countries. He was the first Turkish leader to visit bordering Armenia and hoped that it could be the beginning diplomatic normalization. The Turkish border has been closed from Armenia since 1993 and now with the ever changing world, we might see that border open soon.

In October 2007, George Bush (current US President) vetoed the bill that would have recognized the Armenian genocide in the United States because he wanted the Turkish airspace for the Iraq war. Now that Barack Obama is our 44th President, he has openly stated that he will be the President that will recognize the Armenian Genocide.

I believe that many Turkish intellectuals are now realizing that if the US recognizes it on the federal level, there is nothing stopping other countries from following. The Turkish people would deny it as long as the US doesn’t recognize the genocide, but since everything in the world will be changing, they will have to adapt.

Finally, the 1.5 million Armenian-Americans can receive recognition for their family member who were murdered by the Ottoman “Young” Turks in 1915. In my family tree, there are 17 family members who were killed by the Turks in 1915 and only 5 of the survived which included both my great-grandparents.

The Armenian government will seek help from the United States if it is pressured to give up Azerbaijani territories without obtaining guarantees that the Nagorno-Karabakh Armenians will be able to hold a referendum on their future status.

Some experts in Azerbaijan and Armenia believe that Russia might try to secure a substantial military presence in the conflict zone as part of the future peacekeeping force that is to be deployed once a peace agreement is signed. Azerbaijan will most probably seek support from the United States in ensuring that Russian troops do not return to Azerbaijan.

The Georgian experience has demonstrated that once they come, they are unlikely to leave peacefully.

Peace is a good thing between all countries and if Obama can resolve this conflict through politics and not war, I believe that other countries will follow and hopefully find some peace for us Americans. This is something that Obama stated to the Armenian-American community and I believe that he will follow through.

The 3.6-3.8 GHz frequency range was allocated for the network on the territory of 9 regions of the Republic of Armenia. The network has a high data transmission capacity and enables the provision of a full range of telecommunications services, such as data transmission, digital telephony, high speed internet access, conference calling, creating virtual private networks (IP VPN), for residential and corporate subscribers. – source

Now when I go back to Armenia, I should have a better internet connection from 2001. It was good that I had internet that the government provided us, it wasn’t much. Armenia is a great country, it just needs a little help financially.

– source

When I was reading up about them, it says:
“English is our primary language. We also speak Spanish, Japanese, Swedish, Korean, Polish, Russian, Romanian, Armenian and a few other languages.” – source

That’s awesome, but out of all the other languages, Italian or German would be next on the list, I would think. It must be since they are located about 30 miles away from Glendale, CA which has the largest concentration of Armenian-American population. Just thought that was pretty funny.

Speaking of jQuery, I am heading to the jQuery Conference in Boston in the am

The only reason the US won’t recognize it is because of George Bush and his need for war allies. Turkey is a important base to take off from and he doesn’t want to upset them. If they are alright with it then the US government won’t have any reason not to. The two Presidents met in Armenia for a world cup soccer game and made it known that they want to change the current relationship.

Turkey and Armenia decided to improve relations, including raising the level of regular consulting mechanism to foreign ministers, speeding up efforts to form a joint commission and opening the border for humanitarian aid. – source

I don’t know if you have heard of the Members Project, but it is by American Express and they are giving 2.5 million dollars to plant more trees in Armenia. I know that there are enough problems in the US, but if we help Armenia’s ecosystem, it might help out our situation in the long run. Our struggles will go away in the near future (a few years maybe), but Armenia 80% of Armenia’s territory is at risk of deforestation.

Nominate Armenia Tree Project Here

Cornet-AM, an Internet services provider and part of the Comstar Group, has finished building the Republic of Armenia’s first mobile WiMAX network.

The completed wireless broadband network (which is based on the 802.16e standard) consists of 24 base stations which are connected to each other via radio relay lines and rented telecommunications channels; US-based Airspan Networks provided network equipment.

The 3.6-3.8 GHz frequency range was allocated for the network on the territory of 9 regions of the Republic of Armenia. The network has a high data transmission capacity and enables the provision of a full range of telecommunications services, such as data transmission, digital telephony, high speed internet access, conference calling, creating virtual private networks (IP VPN), for residential and corporate subscribers.

Victor Koresh, Vice President of Comstar for Regional Development, commented: “We have implemented the first part of our strategic project aimed at expanding our presence in Armenia. The next step involves the development of the voice services in the Republic. Earlier this year, Cornet-AM applied to the Public Service Regulation Committee of the Republic of Armenia to obtain the numbering capacity of 60,000 telephone numbers”.

They are also at odds over the question of whether ethnic Armenians killed by Ottoman Turks during World War One were victims of genocide. Armenia and Turkey broke off diplomatic links in 1993, when Ankara closed the border and backed Azerbaijan during its war with Armenia over the Nagorno-Karabakh region, a mainly ethnic Armenian enclave within Azerbaijan.

“The improvement of ties between Armenia and Turkey is mutually beneficial,” Sarksyan told a news conference on Monday. “I think we should improve our relations.”

“The important thing is that in relations between Armenia and Turkey a trend is taking shape for being ready to start a healthy discussion of the existing problems,” he said.
- source

How can they claim that they want to discuss the 1915 situation in more detail when they don’t allow another country to make its own laws about facts that you are talking about. It seems that it is a little to close together.

Ponder that!

His father, Ruben Mkoian, ran a general store and worked as a police officer in the then-Soviet Republic of Armenia, where he was threatened by former Soviet government workers as the Soviet Union was breaking up, Arthur’s mother has said.

Mkoian, who spells his name differently than does his son, applied for asylum but was rejected. He lost an appeal to the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals and is being held at a detention center in Arizona.

He is pleading for a student visa so him and his family can stay in the country longer. He hasn’t been back to Armenia since he was two, but they are sending him back after doing very well for himself in America.

Democratic Sen. Dianne Feinstein, who has introduced such so-called private bills in the past, is gathering Arthur’s information to introduce a bill on his behalf, her Washington office said.
Long shot

If introduced, the bill would halt the deportation. If it passes, he would receive a green card. But private bills rarely pass, Feinstein’s office said.

On Thursday, Arthur visited the office of U.S. Rep. George Radanovich, R-Calif. The congressman sent a letter to Feinstein supporting her legislation on behalf of Arthur, Radanovich spokesman Spencer Pederson said Friday.

The letter notes that such a bill was unlikely to pass in the House, but that previous legislation of this nature has been successful in the Senate.

On Monday, Radanovich plans to meet with the Armenian ambassador to the United States to ask that, if deportation can’t be prevented, Arthur be allowed to apply for a student visa to return to the United States, Pederson said.

– source

Write to her if you feel that he should stay in this country:

Senator Dianne Feinstein
United States Senate
331 Hart Senate Office Building
Washington, D.C. 20510

or email: webmail@feinstein-iq.senate.gov (email retrieved from her website, not sure if it will work)

Elections in Armenia had nothing in common with democracy. It is not even possible to call them elections. The working powers, just declared themselves winners, ignoring the results of elections.

The due announcement was made by Vardan Arutyunan, chairman of Armenia’s Center of Rights and Liberties and former political prisoner.

He said opposition is not going to give up. According to him, the people of Armenia have a recognized and decisive leader in the person of Levon Ter-Petrosyan.

“Strong protest actions have already commenced. We will see what happens next”….

-source

The plane, a Canadair CRJ-100, was heading for Minsk, Belarus, when it flipped over on the runway at Zvartnots Airport and burst into flames, Artiom Movsesian said.

He said there were 18 passengers and three crew members aboard. Ten people were hospitalized with injuries. A spokesman for the airport, Gevorg Abramian, said none of the injuries appeared to be life-threatening.

After the crash, it lay upside-down at the airport, much of the fuselage blackened and gutted by fire.

Here is the promo for it from Wiked Local.

Surprisingly, the soul of this land-locked country is in an instrument called the “duduk,” a double-reed lute carved from the root of an apricot tree. You’ll hear that, along with the “kanoon” and the “kamancheh,” when the Shoghaken Ensemble performs. The group is the country’s premier folk ensemble, playing haunting lullabies and a “thrillingly exotic” sound. This sounds scary and sexy. I’m intrigued. The group recently performed with Yo-Yo Ma, which gives them some coveted world music street cred. Respect…

There are three songs in this play list which will play automatically back to back.

So far, Jassem Mohammed, has been in custody for “two years, two months and 10 days,” he says. “They feed us ‘fassoulia’[beans] and rice every single day,” he laments. “Is it possible for a man to survive the winter on such a diet?”

I understand that it would be tough eating the same food every day, but Fassoulia and Rice are amazing. Fassoulia is a great Armenian dish consisting of Green Beans, tomato sauce and Onion with some other seasonings which I love to have. Every time there is a celebration at my church, we have some main dish (chicken, lamb), fassoulia and rice pilaf. Good Eats!!!

The 2008 overall package, known as the omnibus bill, envisions providing $58.5 million in economic assistance to Armenia within the Freedom Support Act. The omnibus aid bill includes $19 million for Azerbaijan. Also, the US will render $3 million in foreign military financing (FMF) assistance to Armenia and Azerbaijan in equality. The 2008 budget items infuriated the US-based Armenian organizations.

I don’t understand why Bush keeps on aggravating the Armenian Americans by passing bills that take away from Armenians around the country. The last time was when he told congress not to vote on the Armenian Genocide recognition bill so that he could keep good standing with Turkey. George Bush needs to be out of office and 370 days can’t come quick enough.

“Turkey praised the United States on Wednesday for providing intelligence in support of attacks against Kurdish rebels in northern Iraq, as it confirmed its third such air strike in 10 days.” – source

Why is it that George Bush loves the Turks? Is it because he is an idiot and doesn’t really care about what he is doing as long as he doesn’t have to take responsibility for anything.

That’s about it, just thought I would add my own comment.

documentary, mountain, ararat, turkey, armenia

The front cover of the box is a picture of Holy Etchmiadzin where the Catholicos resides and the birthplace of the Armenian Church.

On the inside cover is a picture of Khor Virap where St. Gregory was held captive in a pit for 13 years.

matches, commermorative, 1700, armenia, armenian, khor virap, Etchmiadzin

Facts:

• Feburary 2006: 72% of active troops in Iraq think we should leave within a year (almost two years later, still not out)
• Feburary 2006: 1 out of 4 said the troops should have left in the beginning of 2006
• March 2007: 69% believe the presence of U.S. forces is making things worse
• March 2007: 51% of the population consider attacks on coalition forces “acceptable”

Besides the people that George Bush has killed (yes, he has killed), he has also put this country in horrible debt. At the time of this post, the cost of war is at $462,300,000,000 (over 4.5 Billion dollars) and rising drastically. Here’s an interesting tidbit of information, Bush has spent more dollars in the war than the age of the earth which is 4.54 billion years old. My parents taught me growing up that, “Money doesn’t grow on trees”, but George Bush is apparently proving them wrong because he is spending more money than we have to spend, so what do we do, borrow it from other countries. Who is going to pay that off once the war is over? The American citizens are going to now and in the future and they will pay it off in taxes and other price increases. The reason I bring up the war is because I am an Armenian American who will have to pay off that debt, but what has this country done for the Armenian American population, they have rubbed this bill in our face by not passing it.

Adolf Hitler before the Holocaust: “Who still talks nowadays of the extermination of the Armenians?”

Turkey has condemned the “genocide” bill and recalled its ambassador to Washington back to Turkey for consultation over the matter, a sign of exasperated U.S.-Turkey tension over the issue. More than 1.5 million Armenians were killed in a systematic genocide in the hands of the Ottomans during World War I, before modern Turkey was born in 1923. All Armenian Americans want is for the US government to recognize this as a genocide and not try and pull some political bull just so we can use Turkey’s land. It has been 92 years since the genocide took place and Armenian Americans want to know that the country that our ancestors escaped to is finally going to agree with us. My great grandparents were featured in an article in the Boston Globe in the 1990′s for escaping the genocide and finally coming to Ellis Island to start a new life in Boston, Mass. A new beginning that my grandmother and my father and I were able to have in this country, one that 3/4 of my ancestors were not able to have because they were killed by the Turks in 1915.

To the US government, this might be a chance to keep an ally oversees, but to the 700,000 – 1.4 million Armenian Americans currently living in the US, it is about being recognized for the lives that were taken and new start this country gave us when the US actually cared about its citizens that live here. Please help raise awareness on this cause, and vote Yes (MSNBC Poll) and help bring the numbers back up because they are extremely low. This is not about politics, this is about doing the right thing and helping the Armenian Americans take back what the US has never given us…Recognition

WE WILL ALWAYS REMEMBER!!!!

armenia, armenian, genocide, us, congress, george bush, government, politics, war, killing, turkey, turks, ottoman empire

Duduk.com sells the instrument on their website and I am thinking about saving some money and buying one. After hearing it recently at a performance that His holiness Karekin II was at, I was very interested in its sound…again. While I was in Armenia in 2001, I was able to listen to a duduk, but I didn’t know what it was until recently.

We began collecting Apricot wood from 1998, since then over 4,500 blanks
for duduk have been stored and aged in a moisture controlled environment.
Instead of using the typical two step process throughout three years we have aged the wood for 5 years and used a 5 stage aging process. Using the knowledge and experience passed to us from the masters of Armenian duduk we are adding our own research and techniques to produce our own brand of instruments while maintaining its traditional integrity of Armenian duduk.

– duduk.com

Below is a sample of what the Duduk sounds like so that people who are unfamiliar with it will understand its amazing sound.

instrument, armenia, duduk, ancient, armenian

The Vernissage Marketplace is Yerevan is an amazing outdoor venue that holds a giant flea market every Saturday that runs from Republic Square all the way to Khanjian Street. (see map below)

Nowadays, you can find almost anything in this weekend open market. In just a few blocks, you will see, besides art, carpets, old collections of coins and medallions, jewelry, music, books, carved wood, lace, embroidery, ceramics, posters, food, tools, parts for electronics and even pets. It is open year round, though only on the weekends, except for a rump vernissage held daily at the end of the usual Vernissage venue where it meets Khanjian Street.

yerevan, armenia, republic square, Vernissage, Marketplace, paintings

The Armenia Tree Project was established in 1994 by Carolyn Mugar to promote Armenia’s socioeconomic development through reforestation. Carolyn Mugar is a part of the Mugar Family of Boston who have been voted number 6 on the top 50 most influential families in Boston (Star Market and Mugar Omni Theater). The reason that Carolyn Mugar founded the ATP is due to the fact that her family is from Armenian decent. They shortened their last name from Mugardichian to Mugar when they arrived.

The Tree Project has its main offices in Watertown, Mass and Yerevan, Armenia. In 2006, ATP planted around 720,000 trees which brought their grand total to 1,500,000 which is one for every victim of the Armenian Genocide. From those trees 240,000 pounds of apricots, apples, peaches, plums, and cherries for the benefit of local communities. I don’t know what it is about the soil, but I have never tasted fruits as good as the fruit from Armenia.

If you would like to donate to the ATP, you can help save Armenia’s forests. Single Tree – $20.00, Cluster of Trees – $80.00, Grove of Trees – $160.00, Arbor of Trees – $700.00, Woodland of Trees – $2000.00, Forest of Trees – $5000.00

The following are front and back postcards that I got while I was in Yerevan at the Armenia Tree Project.

blog action day, blog, action day, armenia, armenia tree project, tree project, environment

It will start in the house and then go to the senate and will most likely pass. As soon as it hits the President’s desk, it will be vetoed because the President is an idiot when it comes to forgien/domestic relationships. We will wait and see if they actually decide to do the right thing pass the bill.

For now we have to wait.

house, armenia, congress, vote, genocide, recognition, us, turkey

The Sayat Nova Dance Company of Boston (SNDC) was formed in January 1986, as an independent, non-profit dance ensemble, under the direction of Apo Ashjian. With his leadership and the efforts of a handful of dedicated individuals, the Company has been able to surround itself by a group of young, talented individuals from all walks of life.

As part of a rich culture, Armenian folk dancing is a reflection of the life and legacy of the Armenian people. Each dance symbolizes the livelihood, the aspirations, the legends, the celebration of life and appreciation of beauty.

The Company takes its name from the famous 18th century troubadour, Sayat Nova, whose beautiful music and poetry captures the essence of the Armenian soul and spirit.

The Company aims to preserve and promote Armenian culture through the art of dance. With this in mind, the group performs extensively in the United States and Canada. In 1995, the SNDC took its much-anticipated first trip to its homeland, Armenia. The group presented eight performances throughout the country, including the capital city of Yerevan, receiving rave reviews and much applause.

Inspired by a love for their heritage and for dancing, members of the Company are enthusiastic, devoted individuals, investing both time and talent to make the Sayat Nova Dance Company a symbol of pride and achievement for the Armenian people.

dance, armenian, karekin, boston, sayat, nova, armenian dancing