April 24, 2007
Tsitserakaberd Armenian Genocide Memorial, Yerevan, Armenia. Photos by Christian Garbis.
See previous posts here, here, and here.
Labels: Armenian Genocide, Photography
April 16, 2007
Armenians don't like trees
During the last two weeks nearly all the trees, with the exception of the horse chestnuts alongside the Opera park, have been cut or are presently being cut along Tumanyan Street in a harsh technique called pollarding, a supposedly preventive measure against disease. These severed branches are all young for the most part, some no more than a few years old, others perhaps eight or more. They obviously grew again from the last time this process was undertaken, probably four or five times in the last 16 years since Armenia
Yerevan
You are not supposed to pollard all kinds of trees--this fact has been documented and can be read on the Internet. But Armenians don't care. Yerevan city hall officials need the wood for lighting barbeques or for making pocket money--there cannot be any other reason why
Labels: Personal Experiences, Social and Cultural
At the Arinj Village Festival
Today with two friends, Hamlet and Onnik, I traveled to the village of Arinj, which is located just outside the Yerevan city limits, actually bordering the Avan district. It is purportedly the childhood home of Gagik Tsarukian, who is one of the wealthiest men in Armenia and whose political organization, Prosperous Armenia, is now by far the most popular party in the country. His compound is located adjacent to the village high on a hilltop. Today was the “village day” for Arinj, in other words a holiday, during which hundreds of people—perhaps thousands as they were coming from all around the vicinity—migrate to the site of an ancient monastery perched on hill. All that remains is a tiny chapel, but nearly all the visitors managed to cram into it—not all at once but in a remarkably orderly fashion, filing in and out without shoving, cutting in line or whatever else. Those that could not manage to enter to light candles instead lit them in two large rectangular votives just outside. But for some reason people had given up lighting each one individually and inserting them into the sand. Instead the simply threw the candles on top of this uncontrollable fire that burned from the melted liquid wax. I never saw anything like that before—it just shows that Armenians cannot ever let completely go of their fire-worshipping roots. There was a minor circus attraction as well with clowns, zurnas, dhols, and tightrope walkers, but unfortunately no monkeys. Alongside the road leading up to the chapel were vendors selling toy guns, lollipops, sunflower seeds, popcorn, plastic jewelry and all sorts of other things. Oh, and candles, I almost forgot to mention. Every vendor there was selling candles, I swear. I overheard one woman complain to someone she knew with already purchased candles in hand that she should have bought them from her, in typical Armenian guilt-trip fashion.
Arinj must be one of the cleanest villages that I have ever visited in Armenia. It is rare to find any litter on the sidewalks or gutters. And in the late spring there are perennial flowers planted alongside the curbs—even grass grows in certain spots. I would dare think the fact that the small town’s golden boy lives there is the primary reason why the town looks so nice. There are even young trees planted throughout, especially around the vicinity of the chapel, which also serves as a public park it looked to me. The occasion was a nice way to spend a couple of hours on a Sunday afternoon, and an excellent excuse to leave the city to breathe some fresh, clean air for a change.
Photos courtesy Onnik Krikorian
Labels: Personal Experiences, Social and Cultural
April 14, 2007
New kids on the political block
Tonight I had the pleasure of meeting some representatives of a fledgling political party called MIAK, which is the abbreviation for the organization's full Armenian name. In English it is know as the United Liberal National Party. It started off as a political "movement" then blossomed into a political party only recently. I met and spoke to two guys there, Levon and Davit, both of whom received some university-level education in the West, namely in England and the United States. They have "Western" style ways of thinking, which I cannot necessarily describe all too well but is obviously familiar to me, just by the way they express themselves openly and frankly rather than beat around the bush as most potential or supposed full-fledged Armenian politicians do. Basically I could not get much of an explanation as to what their specific agenda is as they do not really have one yet. They know that serious reforms are needed in Armenia and based on that premise they are trying to go after as many followers as possible, then form a consensus as to what key areas need to be focused upon.
They discussed two things that I thought were interesting. Firstly, Levon believes that there are no political parties per se in Armenia, only politicians that are either Soviet trained or Western trained. He said it makes no difference whether a person is a member of the Republican Party of Armenia, the ARF-Dashnaktsutiun, or Prosperous Armenia--if the individual has a Soviet way of thinking, that mentality will impede his or her abilities to bring about change, whatever that may be or entail. The second topic was regarding Nagorno-Karabagh. The two gentlemen, who are basically giving the opinion of the party, insist that arriving at an immediate solution to the Karabagh problem, in other words this year as the West particularly is hoping for, will not be enough to drastically improve Armenia's economy. Furthermore, it is not in the interests of Armenia to give up the status quo and simply gamble on the possibility of faster economic growth through regional integration. They also believe in cautious negotiations with Turkey, but not to develop relations without preconditions in order to simply open the Turkish-Armenian border, as the Armenian side has been suggesting for some time now.
In any case, I was very impressed with these guys. They seem like they know what they want to do but not necessarily know the correct approach yet. The party, which has around 600 members, will be contesting seats in the National Assembly elections in May, but they will have to win apparently 5 percent of the total vote in the proportional system to have representation. And they have lots of competition, including Raffi Hovhanisian's Heritage party. It should be very interesting to see where MIAK goes from here.
MIAK's Web site can be found in Armenian here.
They discussed two things that I thought were interesting. Firstly, Levon believes that there are no political parties per se in Armenia, only politicians that are either Soviet trained or Western trained. He said it makes no difference whether a person is a member of the Republican Party of Armenia, the ARF-Dashnaktsutiun, or Prosperous Armenia--if the individual has a Soviet way of thinking, that mentality will impede his or her abilities to bring about change, whatever that may be or entail. The second topic was regarding Nagorno-Karabagh. The two gentlemen, who are basically giving the opinion of the party, insist that arriving at an immediate solution to the Karabagh problem, in other words this year as the West particularly is hoping for, will not be enough to drastically improve Armenia's economy. Furthermore, it is not in the interests of Armenia to give up the status quo and simply gamble on the possibility of faster economic growth through regional integration. They also believe in cautious negotiations with Turkey, but not to develop relations without preconditions in order to simply open the Turkish-Armenian border, as the Armenian side has been suggesting for some time now.
In any case, I was very impressed with these guys. They seem like they know what they want to do but not necessarily know the correct approach yet. The party, which has around 600 members, will be contesting seats in the National Assembly elections in May, but they will have to win apparently 5 percent of the total vote in the proportional system to have representation. And they have lots of competition, including Raffi Hovhanisian's Heritage party. It should be very interesting to see where MIAK goes from here.
MIAK's Web site can be found in Armenian here.
Labels: Nagorno-Karabagh, Politics
April 10, 2007
The heat is on
The campaigning for the May 12 National Assembly elections has officially started as of April 8. Although parties like Prosperous Armenia have already begun hanging gigantic banners promoting their message, others are playing the campaign game by the book. ARF-Dashnaktsutiun plastered posters up and down my street on Sunday—I suppose it is a convenient start since the party’s Supreme Body administration building is only a few blocks away. Basically two posters were being pasted up—one shows a bunch of young adults casually posing in front of the camera, some kneeling, others slouching, but another variation features a photo of what seems to be an extended family. The other companion poster lists specific goals that the party intends to reach.
The message chosen for the campaign slogan is “Our Old Friend is Dashnaktsutiun.” Yet I believe the message would have been much more effective had the phrase “Your Old Friend…” been used instead. “Your” would have suggested that the friend you can depend on, the one that will always stand by you, is there and always has been. Nevertheless the underlying message is clear—ARF is making a strong push to get its program across to the people in a way that has simply not been done before by the party here.
In any case, amongst the several pledges that are listed, four specific points are notable:
For one, given the fact that the unofficial and commonly accepted current population figure is 2.5 million, the ARF has its work cut out for it. Even if we entertain that the population is 3 million, which is optimistic at best, you still have to figure out a way to convince 1 million people to return to the country or to move there for the first time, and you have to do it within five years. This perhaps can be best accomplished by making a huge push in worldwide communities where the ARF is based. The point of repatriating the homeland once a free, independent republic is established is in the actual party program and has been there for decades. But this pledge is 16 years overdue; nevertheless it is a start. The question is, how do you persuade comfortable diasporans to make the leap?
Second, ensuring that money is actually available in a dedicated, to-be-established social fund for assisting new families will be a rather great feat. The party is to an advantage in that its party member, Aghvan Vartanyan, is the Minister of Labor and Social Affairs. However, he has been criticized for his lack of urgency in the past. It was only after a series of articles published by Hetq Online in the winter of 2004-2005 about homelessness that the ministry established a temporary shelter for people in housing transition—supposedly this program is still in operation. But you still have to figure out how to establish such a “growing family” fund, how to ensure that money is deposited into that fund accrued from tax collection or whatever other way, and how to prevent a future (or current) minister from sticking his or her sticky fingers into that fund. It will be a daunting, huge undertaking.
Finally, a minimum wage increase was needed probably six years ago at least. I think the current minimum monthly wage is 5,000 dram or some ridiculous amount. Even 50,000 dram, or by today’s current exchange rate just under $140, is still too low considering the fact that the dram has been increasingly getting stronger—it seems to have leveled off at around 360 to the dollar for the last 10 days at least—and the prices for goods have stayed the same or have increased since the rate started dropping steadily from 460 dram to the dollar about 18 months ago, meaning there has been huge inflation in that short amount of time. I have already written about the inflation phenomenon in previous posts. In any case, a guaranteed minimum wage of 50,000 dram enforced by law would of course be welcomed, not to mention a sharp increase in allocated pension payments to Armenia’s retired workforce. You cannot expect anyone to live on an average of 5,000 dram a month no matter what age he or she may be.
I attended a campaign rally that the ARF organized at Charles Aznavour Square--in front of Cinema Moscow--on Monday night. About 2,000 people or possibly more were in attendance, and I would have to say that about half that number were kids under the age of 20. There were youth everywhere. About 100 red flags with the trademark, highly distinctive ARF emblem stenciled on them with gold paint were flying all over—from the upper balcony of the cinema to the street on handheld poles. There were hundreds of people there from the regions—one young man told me that purportedly about 1,500 people from the Ararat region alone were due to show in total. Several ARF leaders spoke at the event, and there was musical entertainment as well. But what really struck me was the turnout and the subsequent excitement. I quite honestly did not expect such a show of support, and it was certainly a fantastic experience to see what was transpiring.
Without a doubt Dashnaktsutiun now has an enormous amount of work to do. Now that it has very clearly, and finally, defined its platform for the next five years at least, it needs to live up to its ambitions, no matter how many seats it wins in the elections. Really, the number of members the party will have serving in parliament should not have anything to do with its ability to realize these pledges, especially given the fact that its members hold several ministry posts. But in order to accomplish its goals, the organization has to make sure that it does not fall against any barriers along the way, namely government-level corruption. And it also has to make sure that its party members holding positions, whether parliament seats or ministries, put the party program first and business interests on the back burner. Already you have one minister buying and selling real estate in the Cascade area and another running a notorious cabaret/strip club. You have other notable party heads co-owning cafés and other business establishments. To own and operate businesses while being a government official is not difficult in Armenia, and arguably everyone has a stake in something lucrative. The thing is that the ARF-Dashnaktsutiun prides itself as being a member of the Socialist International—it indeed sounds like an impressive achievement. But if you look at the party’s presence up until now in public life, it has done for the most part very little to live up to its socialist agenda, and has done nothing to outreach to the masses, instead waiting eternally for people to knock on the ARF door. That is until now.
Now the party must convince the people that it is able to meet the significant challenges that it has identified. If the ARF wants the people’s support, it has to prove to Armenian citizens that it can get the job done without fail. This persuasion must be accomplished through an aggressive, relentless PR campaign, waged apart from its own controlled TV station as well as its weekly newspaper and companion Web site (both called Yerkir). The ARF needs to constantly be in the news, and it must be convincing in that changes are indeed happening. Otherwise people in Armenia will stop taking the party seriously—some actually stopped doing so a while back, particularly when it joined the three-party pro-government coalition bloc a few years ago alongside the Republican Party of Armenia and Country of Law, which was replaced last year by a party so insignificant that no one even bothers talking about it.
I remember distinctly in 2005 the party’s slogan was “ARF-Dashnaktsutiun is 115 years old.” No one seemed to care very much about that except its teary-eyed nostalgic membership perhaps. But this time, the ARF is claiming to be “our old friend.” Let’s hope it really acts like one. Everyone was wondering where that friend had gone off to. Hopefully they will not ever feel that they have been let down.
Photo courtesy Onnik Krikorian
The message chosen for the campaign slogan is “Our Old Friend is Dashnaktsutiun.” Yet I believe the message would have been much more effective had the phrase “Your Old Friend…” been used instead. “Your” would have suggested that the friend you can depend on, the one that will always stand by you, is there and always has been. Nevertheless the underlying message is clear—ARF is making a strong push to get its program across to the people in a way that has simply not been done before by the party here.
In any case, amongst the several pledges that are listed, four specific points are notable:
- Dashnaktsutiun aims to raise the native population of Armenia to 4 million by 2012, namely by encouraging repatriation.
- Married couples will have monetary incentive for having large families: 200,000 dram for the first and second child born, 2,000,000 dram for the third, and 2,500,000 dram for the fourth. If a family grows to having five children, new housing will be provided.
- The minimum monthly wage will be increased to 50,000 dram starting in 2008.
- Monthly paid pensions will be set at a minimum of 30,000 dram to at least 50,000 dram.
For one, given the fact that the unofficial and commonly accepted current population figure is 2.5 million, the ARF has its work cut out for it. Even if we entertain that the population is 3 million, which is optimistic at best, you still have to figure out a way to convince 1 million people to return to the country or to move there for the first time, and you have to do it within five years. This perhaps can be best accomplished by making a huge push in worldwide communities where the ARF is based. The point of repatriating the homeland once a free, independent republic is established is in the actual party program and has been there for decades. But this pledge is 16 years overdue; nevertheless it is a start. The question is, how do you persuade comfortable diasporans to make the leap?
Second, ensuring that money is actually available in a dedicated, to-be-established social fund for assisting new families will be a rather great feat. The party is to an advantage in that its party member, Aghvan Vartanyan, is the Minister of Labor and Social Affairs. However, he has been criticized for his lack of urgency in the past. It was only after a series of articles published by Hetq Online in the winter of 2004-2005 about homelessness that the ministry established a temporary shelter for people in housing transition—supposedly this program is still in operation. But you still have to figure out how to establish such a “growing family” fund, how to ensure that money is deposited into that fund accrued from tax collection or whatever other way, and how to prevent a future (or current) minister from sticking his or her sticky fingers into that fund. It will be a daunting, huge undertaking.
Finally, a minimum wage increase was needed probably six years ago at least. I think the current minimum monthly wage is 5,000 dram or some ridiculous amount. Even 50,000 dram, or by today’s current exchange rate just under $140, is still too low considering the fact that the dram has been increasingly getting stronger—it seems to have leveled off at around 360 to the dollar for the last 10 days at least—and the prices for goods have stayed the same or have increased since the rate started dropping steadily from 460 dram to the dollar about 18 months ago, meaning there has been huge inflation in that short amount of time. I have already written about the inflation phenomenon in previous posts. In any case, a guaranteed minimum wage of 50,000 dram enforced by law would of course be welcomed, not to mention a sharp increase in allocated pension payments to Armenia’s retired workforce. You cannot expect anyone to live on an average of 5,000 dram a month no matter what age he or she may be.
I attended a campaign rally that the ARF organized at Charles Aznavour Square--in front of Cinema Moscow--on Monday night. About 2,000 people or possibly more were in attendance, and I would have to say that about half that number were kids under the age of 20. There were youth everywhere. About 100 red flags with the trademark, highly distinctive ARF emblem stenciled on them with gold paint were flying all over—from the upper balcony of the cinema to the street on handheld poles. There were hundreds of people there from the regions—one young man told me that purportedly about 1,500 people from the Ararat region alone were due to show in total. Several ARF leaders spoke at the event, and there was musical entertainment as well. But what really struck me was the turnout and the subsequent excitement. I quite honestly did not expect such a show of support, and it was certainly a fantastic experience to see what was transpiring.
Without a doubt Dashnaktsutiun now has an enormous amount of work to do. Now that it has very clearly, and finally, defined its platform for the next five years at least, it needs to live up to its ambitions, no matter how many seats it wins in the elections. Really, the number of members the party will have serving in parliament should not have anything to do with its ability to realize these pledges, especially given the fact that its members hold several ministry posts. But in order to accomplish its goals, the organization has to make sure that it does not fall against any barriers along the way, namely government-level corruption. And it also has to make sure that its party members holding positions, whether parliament seats or ministries, put the party program first and business interests on the back burner. Already you have one minister buying and selling real estate in the Cascade area and another running a notorious cabaret/strip club. You have other notable party heads co-owning cafés and other business establishments. To own and operate businesses while being a government official is not difficult in Armenia, and arguably everyone has a stake in something lucrative. The thing is that the ARF-Dashnaktsutiun prides itself as being a member of the Socialist International—it indeed sounds like an impressive achievement. But if you look at the party’s presence up until now in public life, it has done for the most part very little to live up to its socialist agenda, and has done nothing to outreach to the masses, instead waiting eternally for people to knock on the ARF door. That is until now.
Now the party must convince the people that it is able to meet the significant challenges that it has identified. If the ARF wants the people’s support, it has to prove to Armenian citizens that it can get the job done without fail. This persuasion must be accomplished through an aggressive, relentless PR campaign, waged apart from its own controlled TV station as well as its weekly newspaper and companion Web site (both called Yerkir). The ARF needs to constantly be in the news, and it must be convincing in that changes are indeed happening. Otherwise people in Armenia will stop taking the party seriously—some actually stopped doing so a while back, particularly when it joined the three-party pro-government coalition bloc a few years ago alongside the Republican Party of Armenia and Country of Law, which was replaced last year by a party so insignificant that no one even bothers talking about it.
I remember distinctly in 2005 the party’s slogan was “ARF-Dashnaktsutiun is 115 years old.” No one seemed to care very much about that except its teary-eyed nostalgic membership perhaps. But this time, the ARF is claiming to be “our old friend.” Let’s hope it really acts like one. Everyone was wondering where that friend had gone off to. Hopefully they will not ever feel that they have been let down.
Photo courtesy Onnik Krikorian
Labels: Politics
April 6, 2007
Apathy blues
I just recently wrote an article about apathy amongst youth in Armenia regarding politics for The Armenian Weekly newspaper, which is printed in the Boston area and distributed in North America. It is the companion to Hairenik, the oldest continually printed Armenian-language newspaper in the world, in print since 1899. The Weekly's current editor, Khatchig Mouradian, hails from Aztag, one of the most reputable Armenian newspapers, based in Beirut.
Here's an excerpt:
You can read the article in its entirety here.
Here's an excerpt:
“I think that kids aren’t interested in politics in general,” says Hamlet Gevorkyan, 31, who was raised in Abovyan before relocating with his family to the Los Angeles area in the late 1980s. Mr. Gevorkyan returned to Armenia in 2005 and is studying to earn a degree in dentistry. He also teaches courses to foreign students at the university level.
“Most of the kids that I talked to are thinking of getting out of this country as soon as they find an opportunity,” Mr. Gevorkyan adds. “This can be viewed as a good excuse for kids to not care about politics in general.”
Indeed, the trend of people in their twenties is to leave, mostly because of the common belief that “Armenia is not a country” or that “there’s nothing here” to keep them. This mentality usually has nothing to do with the availability of opportunities that may await a person in a specific field of interest. Even if someone does have a well-paying job, for instance as a software programmer, leaving the country is nearly always considered a better option.
Mr. Gevorkyan notes this general trend of careless abandon each day. “I think that the young generation doesn’t have big expectations. They are pretty happy with their daily routine: going to universities where they spend more time catering to their appearance—how they look and what they wear—rather than worrying about their education,” he states.
However, this is not entirely the case. Although they are a minority, some youth are clearly trying to become involved in civil society and build the democratic process. And they are trying to get the message out to those who are for the most part unaware.
“Recently a friend asked me what democracy is, not that she wanted me to give the factors of what democracy should involve, but she didn’t know the term, and she’s a 21-year-old girl,” confesses Zara Gevorgyan, a university student studying linguistics and the coordinator of the Erebuni community youth branch of It’s Your Choice (IYC), a non-governmental organization that monitors elections throughout Armenia. She is also a member of its board of directors. IYC is gearing up for the National Assembly elections to be held on May 12.
You can read the article in its entirety here.
Labels: Personal Experiences, Social and Cultural
Defense Minister turns Prime Minister, then to be appointed Prime Minister once again
On Wednesday a decree by President Robert Kocharian made it official that Republican Party of Armenia member Defense Minister Serge Sarkisian was appointed Prime Minister, after the unfortunate death of Prime Minister Antranik Markarian, who was also the leader of the Republicans, almost two weeks ago. This action was anticipated by journalists and people on the street alike, since the two guys are bosom buddies from Karabagh and are considered to be the most affluent, powerful men in the country. Even his alleged political enemies have vowed their support.
According to what I read, the new Prime Minister has 20 days to form a cabinet, and another 20 days have to pass before the cabinet’s agenda is delivered to the National Assembly for a vote of approval (or rejection). But, the current National Assembly will not be able to approve the agenda because the elections are due to be held on May 12. On top of that, the likelihood of the agenda’s approval is also partially dependent on how many seats the Republican Party take, even though what party ends up with how many seats has already been predetermined supposedly, as everyone seems to think there will be funny business at play on election day. And besides, no one taken seriously will protest the cabinet’s agenda anyway—who’s kidding who?
But, according to the Armenian Constitution, the Prime Minister must leave office when a new National Assembly has been elected. So the former Defense Minister turned Prime Minister will most likely be reappointed Prime Minister, assuming that the deal he made with President Kocharian goes down as planned, with the Republicans owning most of the seats in the National Assembly (it most likely will turn out that way, since all the major parties have agreed to the allocated, or “elected,” number of 131 seats). Then he will have 20 more days to form a cabinet, and another 20 days to determine the cabinet’s action plan, then present it to the National Assembly for a vote. Next year, Prime Minister Serge Sarkisian will most likely be elected President of Armenia, according to common speculation.
Confused? Well don’t be. When politics is predictable, apathy abound. Supposedly we just have to take things as they are reported by the Armenian media or by word of mouth. There’s nothing else to be done except to let it happen, at least that is the vibe I have been getting. Although I have always insisted that it is up to Armenian citizens to determine which of the candidates in the elections they will support the most to serve, not the parties in power or vying for power. Let’s see what will happen in five weeks.
According to what I read, the new Prime Minister has 20 days to form a cabinet, and another 20 days have to pass before the cabinet’s agenda is delivered to the National Assembly for a vote of approval (or rejection). But, the current National Assembly will not be able to approve the agenda because the elections are due to be held on May 12. On top of that, the likelihood of the agenda’s approval is also partially dependent on how many seats the Republican Party take, even though what party ends up with how many seats has already been predetermined supposedly, as everyone seems to think there will be funny business at play on election day. And besides, no one taken seriously will protest the cabinet’s agenda anyway—who’s kidding who?
But, according to the Armenian Constitution, the Prime Minister must leave office when a new National Assembly has been elected. So the former Defense Minister turned Prime Minister will most likely be reappointed Prime Minister, assuming that the deal he made with President Kocharian goes down as planned, with the Republicans owning most of the seats in the National Assembly (it most likely will turn out that way, since all the major parties have agreed to the allocated, or “elected,” number of 131 seats). Then he will have 20 more days to form a cabinet, and another 20 days to determine the cabinet’s action plan, then present it to the National Assembly for a vote. Next year, Prime Minister Serge Sarkisian will most likely be elected President of Armenia, according to common speculation.
Confused? Well don’t be. When politics is predictable, apathy abound. Supposedly we just have to take things as they are reported by the Armenian media or by word of mouth. There’s nothing else to be done except to let it happen, at least that is the vibe I have been getting. Although I have always insisted that it is up to Armenian citizens to determine which of the candidates in the elections they will support the most to serve, not the parties in power or vying for power. Let’s see what will happen in five weeks.
Labels: Politics
April 5, 2007
Virus plagues Yerevan
I was hit with a whammy of a virus that I have heard seems to be circulating around Yerevan at present. I think I inherited from my wife or a friend or both, can't say for sure. It kept me confined to my bed for most of the last three days and scorched me with a high temperature, although not as severe as the infamous Vanadzor fever that almost killed me (exaggerating) in 2005. Sicknesses spread fairly quickly in Yerevan I am guessing mainly through public transportation. People love to cram into the hundreds of minivans that zigzag throughout the city, so I am guessing that if one person on board is carrying the virus, feasibly almost everyone on board who is susceptible could catch it as well, then forward it to anyone else with whom they come into contact, causing a chain reaction.
I don't know a way of preventing this thing, which has left me with a parched, sore throat no matter how many liquids I drink all day long or cough drops I take, not to mention a splitting fever-induced headache made worse by the dreaded, depressing Eddie Rabbit with Crystal Gayle '80s country song "You and I" playing over and over again in my head all night long. I don't know how it resurfaced into my conscious memory--it's still lingering for some reason.
Taking daily 1,000 mg supplements of Vitamin C didn't seem to do anything. Tylenol made me sweat for the remainder of the fever night while wrapped tightly under the wool blanket which thus lowered my body temperature but did not aid the weakness I felt the following day. Eating huge bowls of chicken soup as well as drinking lots of black or green tea and fruit juice also did not seem to have any effect. Which means one thing--if you are in Yerevan right now and have not gotten sick yet, try to stay home as much as possible while not at work or wherever else for the next week or two. No restaurants, no trips in minivans, no shopping in huge markets, nothing.
Stay well.
I don't know a way of preventing this thing, which has left me with a parched, sore throat no matter how many liquids I drink all day long or cough drops I take, not to mention a splitting fever-induced headache made worse by the dreaded, depressing Eddie Rabbit with Crystal Gayle '80s country song "You and I" playing over and over again in my head all night long. I don't know how it resurfaced into my conscious memory--it's still lingering for some reason.
Taking daily 1,000 mg supplements of Vitamin C didn't seem to do anything. Tylenol made me sweat for the remainder of the fever night while wrapped tightly under the wool blanket which thus lowered my body temperature but did not aid the weakness I felt the following day. Eating huge bowls of chicken soup as well as drinking lots of black or green tea and fruit juice also did not seem to have any effect. Which means one thing--if you are in Yerevan right now and have not gotten sick yet, try to stay home as much as possible while not at work or wherever else for the next week or two. No restaurants, no trips in minivans, no shopping in huge markets, nothing.
Stay well.
Labels: Personal Experiences, Social and Cultural
April 1, 2007
Time to move
My wife Ariga and I decided that the time had come to leave our apartment on Nalbandyan Street, across from the Republic Square metro station. There were several factors at play when making our decision, such as the dust, the car fumes, the drag races held late night on Nalbandyan from Republic Square to the intersection with Tumanyan Street, the groans from the neighbor entertaining male guests nearly every day and night, and others. But the main reason, at least for Ariga, was the landlord, Valer.
I found the apartment in April of 2002, with an assistance of a broker named Torkom, who is now a friend and generally a fantastic guy. The second I entered the door I knew it was a special place, as I immediately felt an unexplainable aura of tranquility. I decided to take it then and there, papers were drawn a couple of days later, and I moved in. Gradually I made a home for myself, purchasing things that I intended to use there or someplace else in the future, if necessary. When I had to leave at the end of that year, I told the landlords that I would be back eventually, and I asked that they would leave the place to me again upon my return. I visited the following winter for just over a month, but did not resume my professional life in Armenia until the fall of 2004. But the place was waiting for me.
The landlords, Ophelia and Valer, apparently preferred that I stay in the apartment. While I was gone they rented it to other tenants but they were untrustworthy and each stayed for only a few months. Ophelia had showed me the apartment in 2002, and I remember being entranced with the sweet smell of church incense as we walked in which was being burned apparently to keep the spirits at bay. Her husband Valer was out of the country on business, and I did not meet him until several months later. But I did not get to know him very well until well into my third stay. I came to understand that he is an eccentric, anal, and paranoid guy but generally has a gentle, yet gruff personality, if that can be imagined. His eyes have a stunning, bluish-gray hue, uncharacteristic of Armenian men, which tend to stop you in your tracks and persuade you to pay him attention.
For some reason Ariga could not stand him from their first meeting. She always found issues that she needed to protest regarding his actions or perceived weird behavior. I always managed to calm her down, to convince her that he was a fairly nice guy, albeit somewhat strange, but we had nevertheless a mutual trust. I knew for the most part that I could rely on him to take care of whatever was needed regarding the apartment’s maintenance, and he could count on me for a consistent, timely paid rent.
The problems all started a while back. In the spring that came after I met Ariga I decide to take her to Boston with me so that she could meet my parents, as I intended to marry her. We were in a rush to leave the apartment and couldn’t finish tidying up, but a close friend assured me that he would come by later that afternoon and convinced me to leave the keys with him for safe keeping. That clearly proved to be a mistake, as not only did he not take out a couple of small trash bags and wash a few dishes in the sink as I believed he would, he brought up a female friend to the apartment one afternoon. While he was there Valer showed up, saw the disarray, the girl, and then became disgusted. When we returned to Yerevan he told me that I was keeping a “pig sty,” which was I believe mainly directed at Ariga. I convinced him not to worry, that it was all a misunderstanding. I forgot about the incident, but Ariga didn’t, and I can’t say I blame her at all.
The thing that really was the last straw was the occasional unannounced visit to the apartment. During the two months that I was in Boston when my father was ill apparently Valer and Ophelia entered several times and stayed there. Ophelia even admitted one day to my mother-in-law on the phone that her son had been stopping by every day, even sleeping there. On a few occasions Valer would show up unannounced to check up on things or do something maintenance-related. One of those times my wife had just finished taking a shower. In February when we were still in Boston he again arrived without giving any warning when my mother-in-law was staying there, alone. He had something to do supposedly, and when she opened the door the first thing he did was enter the bedroom for some reason to look around, and he did the same in the other rooms. Then he sat around and wouldn’t leave for quite some time. When they were both on their feet he brushed up against her a couple of times while running back and forth in the process of accomplishing his errands.
I remember that he called only twice in the more than two years I’ve lived in the place to let me know he had to stop by. The last time he did was at the beginning of last winter, when he decided to take out the square gas jet tube from the ancient kitchen stove that for some reason was still perched on the back porch, even after it was replaced six years previous. His goal was to use the tube in fashioning a makeshift heating stove for his home, not that he had any experience in doing so—I can’t imagine what that thing looks like. This was the kind of person I was dealing with as a landlord.
I have spoken to several people here about etiquette in renting homes. Reality brokers, renters, and other landlords have all conceded that it was improper for someone to show up on a whim to an apartment he/she is renting out, never mind live in the apartment while the tenant is away for whatever reason. So long as the rent is being paid, the landlord has no right to enter the home of the tenant unannounced. I think this is something that was never understood by Ophelia and Valer—although the apartment belongs to them as they are the legal owners, the home that my wife and I created in that apartment belongs to us.
But I should say that they were very good to me; they always treated me well. The first day I moved in five years ago Ophelia showed up with a small pot of dolma—I will never forget that. She didn’t have to do it, but she figured I wouldn’t yet have anything to eat. They invited me to their home several times for dinner or to visit, and I never objected. However, everyone I have spoken to about them or who have actually met them made the same observation: they were trying to gain my interest in their daughter, Armine, for marriage. Apparently she wants to desperately go to America, and she may have figured that I was her ticket out. I was always naïve about that intention, as I never really thought about it—she was only a kid in her late teens then but is now in her early twenties. And I always thought she was a sweet girl, until she chewed out my wife on the phone last autumn.
One weekend we were having one of at least a dozen very minor floods that have occurred over the last two years from the water tanks overflowing for whatever still unexplained reason, and I told Ariga to call Valer and let him know what was going on. At one time last year one of the lines leading from the water main had sprung a leak which dripped slowly into the walls of the bathroom and toilet, eventually completely soaking them from the inside out and causing a slow but steady drip into the neighbors’ apartment downstairs in the process—it took several months to finally diagnose and solve the problem. Valer and I agreed that he would do all the repairs in the house—in fact he insisted, and he repeatedly told me to call whenever there was a problem with the water tanks. So that day Armine answered the phone, and when Ariga proceeded to leave a message for her father, she began barking at Ariga that he was not a maintenance man for us and that we should just leave him alone—we were to hire someone to make repairs in the future. Ariga naturally became upset and cried for the rest of the afternoon. Then I called her to gently tell her off in retaliation and gradually became infuriated throughout the day. The intent to search for an apartment was conceived then, but it was postponed for the winter. Ariga’s insistence over a month ago combined with my mother’s coaxing to search for a place while we were still in Boston convinced me to start looking around. Their son’s comment to me on the phone a couple of weeks ago regarding the rent, when he told me that what I was paying was no longer considered “normal,” was a clear sign that there was no going back on our decision.
We saw a few places together but nothing caught our eyes. There was an apartment on the Cascade Square which overlooked the park there, but the wiring was very old and exposed—in some places two ends were taped together in more than one section of a single line. There was also too much clutter, with large cabinets filled with porcelain bric-a-brac and decorative china that had probably not once been used—standard junk in many apartments I have visited, and overall the place seemed to run down. The brokers who showed it to us were adamant that there were very few apartments for rent to be had in Central Yerevan, which was of course a flat-out lie. Ariga called Bars Realty and they showed her a few places, one near the corner of Demirchian and Proshian Streets, newly renovated but too small, and the other on Hanrabedutian (a.k.a., Alaverdian) Street, just a few blocks up the street from the Nalbandyan apartment. She told me that I should check out both, but when I saw the latter I was hooked, and she also agreed that the place was perfect for us. Although it’s fairly big, which is what I actually prefer—the area being nearly 100 square meters—it’s very sunny and in a generally quieter location, with hopefully much less dust. And all around it’s a much better apartment, for the same rent. We officially move in on April 1.
Judging from the number of times Ophelia called in the last week—at least once a day—to ask when they can bring a broker by to check out the place, it seems they can’t wait for us to leave. On Friday night while I was out she and her son made a surprise visit, apparently to make sure we were really leaving. She wanted to take inventory before we packed and left for some reason, which I didn’t understand, since everything I purchased five years ago I intend to take with me—there was hardly anything in the place when I moved in. Naturally I refused her request, which was made twice in six days.
There are several things I will both miss and rather forget about the Nalbandyan Street apartment. I will miss the comforting, sunlight-drenched front room with its French balcony and a partial view of Mount Ararat, not to mention the metro station and its geyser-like fountain. I will not miss the smog caused by the tens of thousands of cars racing through the center which has subsequently blocked Ararat from being seen completely, not to mention the noxious fumes entering the apartment though the balcony. I already miss the small hamlet that was located just behind the building, and the bustling, village-like life there that I observed from the back porch— grandmothers beating matted wool, kids running around chasing one another, and strutting cats that lived in crevices created from the wearing thin, metal and warped wood rooftops. I will not miss the gaping portal to hell that replaces the homes and instigates rapidly successive dust storms on dry, windy days. I will always cherish the good times I shared entertaining friends and my follies with my wife there. And I shudder when I remember the last days of my first stay when I was very ill, and all alone. It was also the place that gave shelter to my visiting parents in 2005 when they came for our wedding, and where we did much celebrating.
All in all, I am happy to have lived there. It was my first home in Armenia, and it was a fine, warm place. But now it’s time to move on.
I found the apartment in April of 2002, with an assistance of a broker named Torkom, who is now a friend and generally a fantastic guy. The second I entered the door I knew it was a special place, as I immediately felt an unexplainable aura of tranquility. I decided to take it then and there, papers were drawn a couple of days later, and I moved in. Gradually I made a home for myself, purchasing things that I intended to use there or someplace else in the future, if necessary. When I had to leave at the end of that year, I told the landlords that I would be back eventually, and I asked that they would leave the place to me again upon my return. I visited the following winter for just over a month, but did not resume my professional life in Armenia until the fall of 2004. But the place was waiting for me.
The landlords, Ophelia and Valer, apparently preferred that I stay in the apartment. While I was gone they rented it to other tenants but they were untrustworthy and each stayed for only a few months. Ophelia had showed me the apartment in 2002, and I remember being entranced with the sweet smell of church incense as we walked in which was being burned apparently to keep the spirits at bay. Her husband Valer was out of the country on business, and I did not meet him until several months later. But I did not get to know him very well until well into my third stay. I came to understand that he is an eccentric, anal, and paranoid guy but generally has a gentle, yet gruff personality, if that can be imagined. His eyes have a stunning, bluish-gray hue, uncharacteristic of Armenian men, which tend to stop you in your tracks and persuade you to pay him attention.
For some reason Ariga could not stand him from their first meeting. She always found issues that she needed to protest regarding his actions or perceived weird behavior. I always managed to calm her down, to convince her that he was a fairly nice guy, albeit somewhat strange, but we had nevertheless a mutual trust. I knew for the most part that I could rely on him to take care of whatever was needed regarding the apartment’s maintenance, and he could count on me for a consistent, timely paid rent.
The problems all started a while back. In the spring that came after I met Ariga I decide to take her to Boston with me so that she could meet my parents, as I intended to marry her. We were in a rush to leave the apartment and couldn’t finish tidying up, but a close friend assured me that he would come by later that afternoon and convinced me to leave the keys with him for safe keeping. That clearly proved to be a mistake, as not only did he not take out a couple of small trash bags and wash a few dishes in the sink as I believed he would, he brought up a female friend to the apartment one afternoon. While he was there Valer showed up, saw the disarray, the girl, and then became disgusted. When we returned to Yerevan he told me that I was keeping a “pig sty,” which was I believe mainly directed at Ariga. I convinced him not to worry, that it was all a misunderstanding. I forgot about the incident, but Ariga didn’t, and I can’t say I blame her at all.
The thing that really was the last straw was the occasional unannounced visit to the apartment. During the two months that I was in Boston when my father was ill apparently Valer and Ophelia entered several times and stayed there. Ophelia even admitted one day to my mother-in-law on the phone that her son had been stopping by every day, even sleeping there. On a few occasions Valer would show up unannounced to check up on things or do something maintenance-related. One of those times my wife had just finished taking a shower. In February when we were still in Boston he again arrived without giving any warning when my mother-in-law was staying there, alone. He had something to do supposedly, and when she opened the door the first thing he did was enter the bedroom for some reason to look around, and he did the same in the other rooms. Then he sat around and wouldn’t leave for quite some time. When they were both on their feet he brushed up against her a couple of times while running back and forth in the process of accomplishing his errands.
I remember that he called only twice in the more than two years I’ve lived in the place to let me know he had to stop by. The last time he did was at the beginning of last winter, when he decided to take out the square gas jet tube from the ancient kitchen stove that for some reason was still perched on the back porch, even after it was replaced six years previous. His goal was to use the tube in fashioning a makeshift heating stove for his home, not that he had any experience in doing so—I can’t imagine what that thing looks like. This was the kind of person I was dealing with as a landlord.
I have spoken to several people here about etiquette in renting homes. Reality brokers, renters, and other landlords have all conceded that it was improper for someone to show up on a whim to an apartment he/she is renting out, never mind live in the apartment while the tenant is away for whatever reason. So long as the rent is being paid, the landlord has no right to enter the home of the tenant unannounced. I think this is something that was never understood by Ophelia and Valer—although the apartment belongs to them as they are the legal owners, the home that my wife and I created in that apartment belongs to us.
But I should say that they were very good to me; they always treated me well. The first day I moved in five years ago Ophelia showed up with a small pot of dolma—I will never forget that. She didn’t have to do it, but she figured I wouldn’t yet have anything to eat. They invited me to their home several times for dinner or to visit, and I never objected. However, everyone I have spoken to about them or who have actually met them made the same observation: they were trying to gain my interest in their daughter, Armine, for marriage. Apparently she wants to desperately go to America, and she may have figured that I was her ticket out. I was always naïve about that intention, as I never really thought about it—she was only a kid in her late teens then but is now in her early twenties. And I always thought she was a sweet girl, until she chewed out my wife on the phone last autumn.
One weekend we were having one of at least a dozen very minor floods that have occurred over the last two years from the water tanks overflowing for whatever still unexplained reason, and I told Ariga to call Valer and let him know what was going on. At one time last year one of the lines leading from the water main had sprung a leak which dripped slowly into the walls of the bathroom and toilet, eventually completely soaking them from the inside out and causing a slow but steady drip into the neighbors’ apartment downstairs in the process—it took several months to finally diagnose and solve the problem. Valer and I agreed that he would do all the repairs in the house—in fact he insisted, and he repeatedly told me to call whenever there was a problem with the water tanks. So that day Armine answered the phone, and when Ariga proceeded to leave a message for her father, she began barking at Ariga that he was not a maintenance man for us and that we should just leave him alone—we were to hire someone to make repairs in the future. Ariga naturally became upset and cried for the rest of the afternoon. Then I called her to gently tell her off in retaliation and gradually became infuriated throughout the day. The intent to search for an apartment was conceived then, but it was postponed for the winter. Ariga’s insistence over a month ago combined with my mother’s coaxing to search for a place while we were still in Boston convinced me to start looking around. Their son’s comment to me on the phone a couple of weeks ago regarding the rent, when he told me that what I was paying was no longer considered “normal,” was a clear sign that there was no going back on our decision.
We saw a few places together but nothing caught our eyes. There was an apartment on the Cascade Square which overlooked the park there, but the wiring was very old and exposed—in some places two ends were taped together in more than one section of a single line. There was also too much clutter, with large cabinets filled with porcelain bric-a-brac and decorative china that had probably not once been used—standard junk in many apartments I have visited, and overall the place seemed to run down. The brokers who showed it to us were adamant that there were very few apartments for rent to be had in Central Yerevan, which was of course a flat-out lie. Ariga called Bars Realty and they showed her a few places, one near the corner of Demirchian and Proshian Streets, newly renovated but too small, and the other on Hanrabedutian (a.k.a., Alaverdian) Street, just a few blocks up the street from the Nalbandyan apartment. She told me that I should check out both, but when I saw the latter I was hooked, and she also agreed that the place was perfect for us. Although it’s fairly big, which is what I actually prefer—the area being nearly 100 square meters—it’s very sunny and in a generally quieter location, with hopefully much less dust. And all around it’s a much better apartment, for the same rent. We officially move in on April 1.
Judging from the number of times Ophelia called in the last week—at least once a day—to ask when they can bring a broker by to check out the place, it seems they can’t wait for us to leave. On Friday night while I was out she and her son made a surprise visit, apparently to make sure we were really leaving. She wanted to take inventory before we packed and left for some reason, which I didn’t understand, since everything I purchased five years ago I intend to take with me—there was hardly anything in the place when I moved in. Naturally I refused her request, which was made twice in six days.
There are several things I will both miss and rather forget about the Nalbandyan Street apartment. I will miss the comforting, sunlight-drenched front room with its French balcony and a partial view of Mount Ararat, not to mention the metro station and its geyser-like fountain. I will not miss the smog caused by the tens of thousands of cars racing through the center which has subsequently blocked Ararat from being seen completely, not to mention the noxious fumes entering the apartment though the balcony. I already miss the small hamlet that was located just behind the building, and the bustling, village-like life there that I observed from the back porch— grandmothers beating matted wool, kids running around chasing one another, and strutting cats that lived in crevices created from the wearing thin, metal and warped wood rooftops. I will not miss the gaping portal to hell that replaces the homes and instigates rapidly successive dust storms on dry, windy days. I will always cherish the good times I shared entertaining friends and my follies with my wife there. And I shudder when I remember the last days of my first stay when I was very ill, and all alone. It was also the place that gave shelter to my visiting parents in 2005 when they came for our wedding, and where we did much celebrating.
All in all, I am happy to have lived there. It was my first home in Armenia, and it was a fine, warm place. But now it’s time to move on.
Labels: Personal Experiences, Social and Cultural
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