According to a paper that was attached to the email,
In 1994, the Armenian Engineers and Scientists of America (AESA) of Glendale, California and Institute of Botany of the Armenian Academy of Sciences embarked on a project to introduce fast growing hybrid poplar trees in Armenia, which can be used as fire wood or as soft wood lumber. These trees then can be cut to satisfy the need for wood instead of cutting old trees from established forests. A few years later, the Armenian Forest Service (Hay Andar) also joined the project team.Unfortunately, Hay Andar, which now falls under the jurisdiction of the Ministry of Agriculture, has been largely impotent in preventing illegal cutting. The land, which is located in Armavir, was owned and operated by Hay Andar.
Parts of the plantations in Armavier that were developed with a large investment from the US private and governmental sources are now in jeopardy due to the corruption in high levels of the Armenian government. Land where these plantations are established belonged to Armenian Forest Service (Hay Andar). In December of 2004 Armenian Forest Service dissolved their organization in Armavier region because there were no forests at that region. They had land that was leased to the farmers, a small apricot plantation, and 52 hectares where the fast growing hybrid poplars were planted. When the government decided to dissolve the Armavier region of Forest Service, all the land excluding the 52 hectares were given to the governor’s office for distribution. Government’s decree 128 dated December 8, 2004 clearly indicates that the ownership of 52 hectares where the fast growing trees are planted plus 3000 square meters of land where the water well is should be given to the Armenian Institute of Botany to continue the experiment of the fast growing hybrid poplars.The problem is that the regional government of Armavir somehow managed to overturn that decision.
In early 2005, the governor of Armavier region appealed this decision and claimed that this land should also be divided and sold to the local farmers. Attempts were made to meet with the governor but he was not willing to meet with the plantation project team members. AESA, Armenian Forest Service, Ministry of Agricultural, Ministry of the Environmental Protection, and National Academy of Sciences protested against the governor’s request about destroying the plantation and selling the land. They had written letters to the Prime Minister requesting that the governor’s appeal to be denied and land ownership to be given to the Institute of Botany. After consideration of all the facts, the Armenian Government denied the governor’s request and confirmed its previous decision of transferring the land to the Institute of Botany.But wait, there’s more to this saga.
Then, there were some requests of payment of $300 for expediting the transfer of ownership that was denied by the Institute of Botany. Finally it became apparent that all of these were smokescreens to sell big chunks of land released by the Forest Service to some governmental officials. Approximately 80 hectares of land has been sold to the minister of finance at a ridiculously low price. However, the land deed was issued under his mother-in-law’s name. A few months later, the land was sold to a friend of the minister who lives in the City of Echmiatzin, for $40,000.You can guess that the trees are expected to be cut and sold as firewood and the project will officially cease to exist. The backing organizations are asking that people send letters of protest to the prime minister since this project has effectively been sabotaged. Since I am in solidarity with this effort as deforestation has been a great concern of mine, the contact information of the Prime Minister is as follows:
Mr. Andranik Margaryan
Prime Minister
Government Building 1
Republic Square, Yerevan
Armenia
e-mail: frd@gov.am
You can also send letters to the Armenian ambassador to the US:
Mr. Tatoul Markarian
Ambassador of the Republic of Armenia
2225 R Street, N.W.
Washington D.C. 20008
Tel: (202) 319-1976 , Fax (202) 319-2982
e-mail: armpublic@speakeasy.net
In a sort of related note regarding environmental issues, the Nayrit chemical plant apparently has had its second blazing fire in two months. Apparently 600 tons of a noxious byproduct, which was illegally stored for 10 years, went up in toxic black smoke. Not surprisingly, foul play was suspected in the fire. You can read more about the situation here.
Dear Ministers,There are cases of people dying in Yerevan from speeding cars and generally oblivious drivers, and the incident that sparked this campaign was the death of a young Iranian-born girl who was hit. The Araz Petition as it is called is named after her. She was only 17 when a driver going a bit too fast struck her one evening while she was crossing on Baghramyan Avenue, one of the busiest thoroughfares in Yerevan.
We, the undersigned are concerned citizens, visitors and devotees of our beloved land, Armenia. Our concern is the safety of all pedestrians, especially those in the streets of Yerevan. The traffic laws and regulations presently in place do not reflect the rapid increase of motor vehicles and unsafe drivers in the country. Our request from the government is: to act fast upon this life-threatening and concerning issue. Since the present laws do not work in favor of pedestrians, there is neither a safeguard nor justice for the victims, and the ramification for the motorists is from minimum to none.
As concerned Armenians we would appreciate your cooperation and sharing of our vision, for a pedestrian-safe Armenia.
There are two problems now that are plaguing both motorists and pedestrians—drivers who do not know how to operate a vehicle and people who like to jaywalk. In an era when driving a used Mercedes-Benz, BMW, or another “foreign,” non-Russian car is considered a sign of wealth, you are seeing many more motorists cruising around, very few of whom actually know what the rules of the road are or how to operate their vehicle safely. Although there are driving schools and you can learn how to drive with an instructor sitting beside you, in many instances people pay an extra amount to obtain a driver’s license without knowing what to do, taxi drivers especially. There was a commercial on television shown a few weeks ago parodying this fact, where some guy who just finished grocery shopping is trying to figure out how to shift gears while his wife tells him how to via the mobile phone. I’ve heard of people paying as much as $500 for a license or more.
So you see a lot of whippersnappers driving their pimped-out Ladas with black tinted windows at top speeds throughout downtown Yerevan, in particular up Nalbandyan Street exiting Republic Square, along Sayat Nova Street, and on Baghramyan, as those streets have at least two traffic lanes making it easy to pass. There are other show offs as well driving imports, making illegal U-turns before racing down the street trying to be the first to make the red light (assuming someone actually stops for it). You cannot walk down the street without seeing a driver passing another car illegally, unnecessarily speeding, or driving incorrectly so as to endanger not only other motorists or pedestrians but themselves as well. It’s becoming a real problem—there are too many cars on the road and no one to enforce traffic rules, since cops are generally concerned only with collecting bribes.
On the other hand, jaywalkers are ever-present. And it doesn’t matter where in the city you are—they are everywhere. It is acceptable to jaywalk unfortunately—very rarely do you see people actually waiting for the traffic light to change before crossing at an intersection since people are so impatient about everything. Usually the thing to do is to start walking into the street towards the middle when not as many cars are coming and stand on the solid lane-indicating line until traffic slows down in the opposite direction. Sometimes you see an actual designated place where people are apparently supposed to stand safely in the middle of the street as cars speed by nearly grazing someone’s toes. Actually I am amazed how peoples toes are not run over by the way people approach so close to cars whizzing by them. To make things worse, some pedestrian traffic lights do not work properly so people who want to cross the street without risking being run over are confused as to when to walk. Also obstructed sidewalks due to construction projects hamper pedestrian access.
So what to do? Well for starters, the Good Samaritan organization is now showing public service ads demonstrating people crossing in a pedestrian crosswalk, and a vehicle lets them have the right of way instead of swerving sharply around them. Not only are they trying to make motorists understand that they have to slow down for pedestrians, people are learning that they need to actually cross the street where they are supposed to. Although some readers will undoubtedly disagree, this trend has already gotten underway performed by drivers who know better and respect the rules of the road. Drivers have stopped for me and I have seen them do so for others perched at the beginning of crosswalks as well. But this is a phenomenon, unfortunately.
I have only once seen traffic cops actually directing traffic at most definitely one of the busiest intersections in the city, Charents and Abovyan, when the lights were malfunctioning one afternoon. So we can’t expect them to chew out someone for not stopping for a pedestrian let alone running a red light. Once in a while you see cars being pulled over seemingly at random, sometimes for speeding, but again, this is another uncommon scenario.
In a nutshell not only do motorists have to learn to slow down, pedestrians have to understand when is the proper time to cross the street—it’s very simple. As a primary measure at most intersections all vehicle traffic should stop at preset timed intervals to allow people to walk from one corner to the next, something you find in some cities in the US for example. Such a public service is a huge necessity throughout Yerevan, but who can say when the mayor’s office is going to realize that something needs to be done in that vain? So in my opinion obeying traffic laws is a two-way street so to speak—both pedestrians and drivers have to respect each other and learn when to uphold their own rights of way. When that will actually happen we cannot ever tell, but it’s chiefly reliant upon common sense sinking in until some new traffic laws are put into effect or rather, the current ones are upheld.
To sign the petition, go here.
Labels: Personal Experiences, Social and Cultural
Also Armentel, which was only a few weeks ago sold to a Russian mobile phone services conglomerate named VimpleCom, has agreed to break up the monopoly it maintained on Internet services. Although there are several Internet Service Providers in Armenia, all of them must essentially lease lines provided to them from Arminco, which is the official service company ensuring that Armenia has access to the World Wide Web—Arminco is basically controlled by Armentel. So the hope is that competition will occur and the standards of service will increased coupled with a deflation in service fees. Plus, the IT sector, which is already booming, will grow even more if and when better Internet connections are made available. We'll see what happens but it sounds exciting to say the least. Although dial-up connections are not all that unreasonable in terms of price and reliability high-speed E1 connections cost several thousand dollars a month. The company I worked for was quoted a price if I remember correctly of $10,000 per month, and that was probably for a limited amount of data transfer. A leased split DSL line was costing around $600-700 a month as of six months ago but now that we have many more employees on staff that price will go up depending on how much bandwidth the company uses. The connection is also unreliable—a while back there was no Internet available for quite some time supposedly because a communications line was damaged at the bottom of the Black Sea for some reason. At home we use pre-paid dial-up service cards—4500 dram or just under $12 will buy you 30 hours of Internet time at a connection rate of about 44 Kbps. I'm assuming that when a second main Internet provider starts doing business in Armenia that price will drop significantly as well, just as the cost of mobile phone services did as soon as Vivacell opened in 2005. There's much to be excited about in 2007 in all spheres of society notably in business as well as politics, and it should all be very exciting.
Labels: Personal Experiences, Social and Cultural, Thoughts and Musings
A restaurant owner by the name of Zhirayr Sefilian was arrested in Yerevan on the grounds of allegedly plotting a coup d'etat. He is a member and I believe has a leadership position in an organization called the Protection of Liberated Territories, which had a special meeting last week in a hall at Yerevan State University. During the meeting the subject of government change was discussed, whereby Sefilian suggested that the only way to weed out corruption and perceived thievery was to assassinate the leading officials in power. What that would accomplish is not understandable to me, as you still have to worry about who will take their place. And since there are no viable potential leaders anywhere in site saying anything of real significance, this concept would be a failure, unless murder is indeed the ultimate goal of this group. But just for speaking his mind, Sefilian was taken away. Various rumors have been in circulation as to his whereabouts—one report read that he was being "banished" from Armenia (he is a Lebanese national) and another suggested that he is simply being detained until further notice. He supposedly owns a Lebanese restaurant on Deryan Street—the only one that I know of there is Nury, but I can't say if he is the proprietor. He also played an instrumental role in the capture/liberation of Shushi during the Karabagh war in 1992. Although he has lived in Armenia for several years and valiantly served his nation he has been denied citizenship for whatever ridiculous reason OVIR has or whomever has final say. His imprisonment is yet another blow to the perceived lack of democracy since it is in direct violation of freedom of speech. Then again, I've never known an Armenian that did not retaliate in some manner when an opinion was expressed that significantly differed from his/her own. But although I should be mindful of what I write on this blog, this incident won't stop me from jotting down whatever I have to express. Thus I hope Sefilian is released as soon as possible.
Last Sunday citizens of Karabagh voted on a constitutional referendum, which was overwhelmingly passed by the majority of the 80,000 eligible voters who went to the polls. This is a loud wake-up call to the world community, especially to the European Union and the United States, that screams Armenians in Karabagh will never give up their right to self determination, self governance, and, indeed, national independence, as they rightfully should continue refusing to relent. A stupid organization in my modest opinion called GUAM, comprised of Georgia, Ukraine, Azerbaijan and Moldova, lambasted the Armenian authorities for allowing the referendum to take place, and the criticism was met by an irate Prime Minister Vartan Oskanian who told them to mind their own damn business, which he rightfully should have done. Some other pinhead I think on behalf of the OSCE's Minsk Group which is overseeing the peace negotiations or of another incompetent organization said in an announcement that the referendum is essentially meaningless. At this point I would really love President Robert Kocharian to tell President Illham Aliyev of Azerbaijan to go to hell and walk away from this supposed "deal" that is on the table. Karabagh citizens just held a referendum on how they wish to have their lives lived and on what terms as a nation. The reason why yet another referendum would be expected to be held 10 years after a supposed peace deal is signed to determine Karabagh's final status is far beyond me, and considering it anyway is by all means totally illogical.
Apart from those two interesting events life is generally fine in Armenia, as always. Despite my frustrations and tribulations the fatherland is still the only place I really want to be at this point in my life, although I am off to Boston for the holidays. The main reason of my trip actually is to be with my father as he recovers from triple bypass heart surgery performed shortly after suffering from an attack last Saturday. I write this entry from the E terminal of Amsterdam Airport Schiphol as I wait to board my flight. I'll be back in Yerevan in a few weeks but will keep posting in the meantime.
Labels: Thoughts and Musings
It’s starting to get cold in
This year they have wisely chosen the most common, yet economical way to heat the home by using natural gas. The price of 1,000 cubic meters of gas, supplied by Russia’s conglomerate Gazprom, is about $110, significantly lower than the costs paid by other countries in the region who also depend on Russia, which are around $200 or more. Last winter the Armenian government was able to negotiate avoiding a sharp price-hike to last for two years by offering the incomplete Hrazdan thermo power plant on a platter. It may also surrender a portion if not the entire new Armenia-Iran natural gas pipeline currently being constructed. Armenians love the Russians; it seems they worship them and will do anything to please, including selling the control of nearly its entire infrastructure to them. Now the electricity grid and as of only a couple of weeks ago the entire landline telephone network operated by Armentel is under Russian control. However, I should add that the relatively low price of gas is contingent upon
In any case, an estimated 84 percent of
You can basically heat the home in one of two ways with gas. One method is by setting up a furnace-like device, which can be situated in virtually any home including apartment buildings, many of which were outfitted with accessible central exhaust pipes found behind walls that release fumes through small chimney ports on roofs. Basically these things are square boxes, usually black in color but can also be had in brown or copper tones. Most of them are imported from
The other way is by installing a central heating system, often referred to as the “Baxi” method, named after one of the first European companies that offered such a solution in
A by far pricier but arguably safer alternative to gas is to use electric, portable radiators, which are oil filled. Once the oil starts circulating through the radiator or whatever it does you can feel the effects in about 10 minutes or less, depending on the wattage of the unit and how many heating fins it has. European brands like Ufesa and Ariston fetch high prices, costing at a minimum of $100 only for the small units. But three years ago I purchased a generic Chinese unit, stamped with the logo “Nautionl” in place of the genuine brand National, to make you think at first glance that you’re buying the real thing until you go home and kick yourself for not being able to read. This thing is still working great, which I bought at that time for about $80. Last weekend I bought a second oil-filled radiator for about $60, which is also doing very well—both of them have about 12 fins and heat up a 30 square meter room in no time at all.
But I found a way to bring down the cost of heating by having installed a digital electric meter. Between the hours of 11:00 pm and 7:00 am, I enjoy the miracle of electricity at about half the regular price per kilowatt. This is obviously a measure for people to conserve electricity during the day, but as far as I know I am the only person in the section of my apartment building to install one. It only cost me 5500 dram, or about $15.
Villages that do not have gas accessibility I believe are still burning wood or whatever people can get a hold of to produce heat. Affordability is also an issue with using gas, assuming it is available, but I don’t know if regional government subsidy programs are being put into place to help families in need. Something tells me that there aren’t such services.
Look into purchasing home warranty insurance for protection against heating problems.
Labels: Personal Experiences, Social and Cultural
Recently I was told by one or two fellow Armenian Special Residency Visa holders that I had to check in with the Republic of Armenia Police Department for Passports and Immigration, otherwise known as the Office of Visas and Registration or OVIR. Supposedly five years after the issue date the visa holder must go to OVIR and register with them, for purposes of national security I am assuming. My visa was issued on December 24, 2001, so I figured I’d check in a few weeks early from the actual deadline and get it over with.
My wife Ariga and I arrived about 15 minutes early from the office opening time of 11:00 am to wait in line. I have only heard horror stories about people having to wait in queue for hours at a time, only to be rudely dismissed by an official for some triviality. Since I have no patience for waiting around, and neither does my wife, we decided to go down there early and be the first ones in the door, but we were actually the second in line. As soon as 11:00 rolled around some guy wearing a pathetic green uniform came out to lift off the “Closed” sign from the black vinyl-seat rusted metal desk chair perched at the top of the entrance way stairs and mumbled “Come in.” Then the race was on—some guy tried to cut in front of us and I pushed him aside, declaring that I was second in line, then my wife told him he should wait his turn. We walked in facing a huge empty lobby, with a staircase leading upwards to the uncertain. In a rush I asked the uniformed guy whether or not we go should up. He replied, “What do you need to do?” We ignored him, now fresh in the sprint, and started climbing the stairs. The same guy tried to cut us off again and I pushed him aside once more. He kept saying more or less the equivalent of “go figure” to flaunt his mild discontent, but he was in hot pursuit of us. We reached the second floor and found a long corridor of closed doors. Then we climbed up to the third, then finally the last to discover even more closed doors, with no one handy to answer our inquiries. We looked at each other not knowing what to do, so Ariga opened a random door to ask a woman sitting within where we would go concerning residency visas, explaining briefly my situation. In the meantime, the guy trying to pass us approached to exchange a few words with me. He wanted to start an argument, then before he could get a word in I told him to screw off (but in stronger terms). Then he grabbed my collar, demanding I speak more “sweetly” with him, but I ignored him, trying to overhear Ariga’s conversation. We had to descend to the second floor. I brushed the guy aside yet again and we made our way downstairs.
The second floor was for the most part completely dark—there was natural light coming through a window from each end but no lamps could illuminate most of the corridor. We saw a line develop in front of one closed door, then started to panic. Ariga found an unlocked door and burst in. We had to figure out quickly where to go so that the wait queue would not get too out of hand.
For some reason I was expecting to approach a window, like you would find at a bank or at administrative processing centers like a department of motor vehicles found in the States, which was why we found ourselves running around frantically, trying to be the first in line for the next service representative. I forgot that I was in
She found out that we had to go to room 211. We ran up the corridor, checking each door along the left side—204, 205, 206 and 207. The door number to the immediate opposite of the last was 223. We looked at each other again, then ran towards the other end. Some of the doors were unmarked, then we started to freak out as no room 211 seemed to exist. So I started to count the doors with numbers, which all progressed neatly in numeric order, so through subtraction I determined the door that we needed—Ariga burst in at once. The robust man sitting at the desk looking at her blankly told her to go next door. She knocked on that one, then opened it slowly, asking “May I?” We were hoping it was the right room, but we couldn’t be sure.
“How can we help?” the portly man with drooping eyes asked from behind his laminate desk.
“We were told to come in this office,” Ariga started. “He has a visa,” pointing towards me.
“I have a 10-year visa, and I was told that I supposedly have to check in with you, as five years have already gone by…”
“Are you a citizen?” the man asked—why he did I could not figure out.
“No, I’m an Armenian diasporan,” I replied, then he looked away, and a woman approached us, seemingly from no where. The only other person in the office was a balding guy, also overweight, who was preparing to start playing his arcade game as the program was loading on his PC.
“What do you want,” she asked us.
“I don’t want anything, really,” I smiled and a bit surprised. “I just want to know what I need to do—whether I need to be registered with you or not.”
“He’s a foreigner, you know,” my wife added.
“Let me see your passport,” she requested, and I gave it to her. She inspected it for about five seconds, then gave it back to me. “You don’t need to do anything. Everything is normal.”
“For sure?” I asked, suspiciously.
“For sure. You don’t need to do anything more.”
“What happens if I leave the country, then return? They’re not going to give me any trouble at the airport?”
“None at all. You’re all set.” ‘Why the hell was I told that I have to come down here,’ I thought.
“Thanks. OK, let’s go,” I said to Ariga, and we darted out. We could hardly contain our laughter before we emerged from the lobby into the parking lot, wedged between the dozen or so apartment buildings surrounding OVIR. It was all so absurd. We were in and out of there in 10 minutes at the very most, running around like two lab mice trying to find the cheese in the great labyrinth of the administrative oppressors. Turns out we weren’t really hungry, and there was nothing to eat anyway.
Labels: Personal Experiences, Social and Cultural
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