People also applied to OVIR for travel permits. They wanted to see, with their own eyes, those magical foreign lands that were only maligned by Soviet propaganda and praised by those visiting friends and family in Armenia.
The modus operandi of OVIR, with all its bureaucratic baggage, had one aim in mind – to wear out the applicant and dissuade them of the idea of leaving. One important component of this approach was the “cozy advice” aspect - something outside the regulations (if, of course, any of this was regulated at all).
He said that a special five-member committee would discuss the cases of those possessing state secrets.
In 2011, we started the project called “Coming Full circle”, dedicated to the Mass Repatriation, by looking for families in Armenia, immigrated from different countries. There were families from everywhere, except from the USA. It seemed strange to us: wasn’t there at least one Armenian American family in Armenia? We tried to understand the reason of their absence.
Sargis Mazmanian, who immigrated from Romania in 1947 and presently lives in Los Angeles, recalls one such incident.
Today everybody speaks about emigration and, doubtlessly, by emigration they refer to the flow of Armenian citizens to Russia, Europe and the U.S., observed over the past decades. Many people believe that the cause was the collapse of the Soviet Union and the independence of Armenia. “The Soviet Union collapsed, borders opened and people started to leave,” they say.
An interview with Fresno painter Hazel-Takouhie Antaramian
The house where Susan and Karen Madatyan's family lives is not visible from the position of the Azerbaijani armed forces. However the family, which consists of seven members, experiences the difficulties of the life on the border. "Sometimes we hear the shots everyday", says Karen. He also added that the area where they live is located in a pit and the bullets rush past above them.
The Beginyan family lives in Aygehovit, a village in Armenia’s Tavoush Marz. Souren and his wife, Hratzin, have three boys and three girls. Souren’s mother, who receives a 35,000 AMD pension, ...
It would seem that the Armenian authorities are pleased with the recent PACE resolution. The opposition in Armenia has already expressed its dismay regarding the same resolution. The apparent pleasure on the part of the regime can be explained by the attitude ...
The politically persecuted can be divided into 4 main groupings. 1) Members of organizations grouped around opposition presidential candidate Levon Ter-Petrosyan 2) individuals who played an active role on election day; managers of campaign headquarters and ...
The inattentiveness with which Gorik Hakobyan, the Head of the National Security Service of Armenia, greeted this expose by the opposition, however, cannot be compared to the subsequent developments of Watergate. It is not comparable for the simple fact that ...
It doesn’t take much effort to expose the absurdity in the law regarding the opposition. If you have access to the Internet you can enter the www.parliament.am website where the text of the Armenian Constitution is available. Chapter 2, Article 28, of ...
“I am a bit surprised that a issue of a single unified candidate has gained such attention both on the part of our politicians and among those people who consider themselves political scientists,” said Robert Kocharyan on November 14 at the ArmProdExpo 2007 exhibition.
A large number of people who have reservations about the candidacy of the founding President of the Republic say that in order to return to politics and receive the vote of the people, Levon Ter-Petrosyan must ask for forgiveness.
The residents of the Shirak village of Jrapi wake up every morning and look at the hills before them, where there are unintelligible words written in a foreign language. Jrapi is a border village and the hills are located beyond the border, in Turkey.
There is not going to be a new candidate in the 2008 presidential elections. That much is clear. There are also not going to be any new ideas from the same old people. That is clear too. If it were not for the realization that this is an important period in the history of Armenia, the 2008 presidential elections would not differ at all from the 2007 parliamentary elections.
"What car do you drive?" asked the village head at Sevkar, Vladimir Margaryan. "A Niva," I replied.
“Are there any areas with landmines”, is sort of a rhetorical question when it comes to the border villages in the Tavush marz. The answer is always the same; it’s just the amount of mined lands that differs according to the land’s overall surface features. The village of Sevkar (Blackstone), that lies exactly five kilometers from the border on a straight line, is no exception.
“Let the politicians view all this in a political context. I’m a scientist and for me it has an archeological, historical and artistic value”, says archeologist Artak Gnuni.
The village of Aygehovit in Tavush, which has a twelve-kilometer border with Azerbaijan, seems like an impressive and rich area at first glance. The community has 922 hectares of arable land and 103 hectares of vineyards. But only ten percent of the arable land and only half of the vineyards are irrigated. Around one-third of the total land is right next to the border; it has been mined and is therefore unusable.
Weeks ago, a group of Diaspora Armenians, a few art experts and a dozen representatives of the cultural scene were saying their final farewell to artist Markos Grigorian at the Chamber Music Hall.
“Now we can definitely say that Armenians played a significant role in the development of photography in the Middle East,” said photographer Vahan Kochar. He is the editor and publisher of the Encyclopedia of Armenian Photographers that was recently published in Yerevan.
It has already been almost four months since the first Armenian ambassador to the UN, former foreign minister and former president of the ANM Council Alexander Arzoumanian was imprisoned. There are two issues facing the staff at the National Security Service who are working on his case. The first is to prove that Arzoumanian was involved in laundering money that had been obtained illegally.
What is a “single candidate representing both the authorities and the opposition”? One must examine the Armenian political field closely to understand this correctly. It is not difficult to notice that there is a lack of balance there. It is similar to the landscape at Northern Avenue – one on side there are huge buildings rising majestically high, while the other side has ruins that have yet to be cleared up, but where there once was...
Everything would be different if Robert Kocharyan had the right to propose his candidacy for a third time. He would be the only candidate the current authorities would put forward and the problem of replication of power would not be as acute as it currently is. Kocharyan does not have the legal right to run for president this time and going against the Constitution would not be a safe thing to do. But it is also not safe to let go of power...
Grandfather Gigos, an 83-year-old resident of the village of Lusahovit in the Tavush Marz, is digging in the earth near his house.
I met Dr. Joel Sargsyan at his clinic in Lyon.
Today it is hard to say whether or not the Armenian service of “Radio Liberty” will come to an end. It is only clear that Armenia's authorities are trying to cease the work of the last free media source that reaches its population.
The village of Revazlu near Ijevan was at some point renamed to Ditavan ( Ditel – to watch in Armenian) due to its location at a high altitude.
After three months of a leadership void, the Norabak community in the Gegharkunik Marz has finally elected a head of the village administration, with Vazgen Asaturyan assuming the responsibility of the post.
Many people were disillusioned by the event that took place on May 12 (the Parliamentary elections) and there has been a lot of talk about the irreversible deformation of the political system in the country, laying the blame on the people.
The walls of our city still bear the remnants of posters from the parliamentary elections held four years ago.
The man pictured here is Vazgen Asatryan, a resident of the village of Norabak in the Gegharkunik Marz.
The election of the head of the village administration in Norabak, which had been conducted with a number of violations, was ultimately decided on March 14, 2007 in the Court of First Instance of Vardenis, Judge A. Petrosyan, presiding.
The residents of Norabak have kept up their struggle. Following the March 4 election they appealed to the Court of First instance of Vardenis to have the election results overturned.
Hetq has reported recently on the situation in the village of Norabak in the Gegharkunik Marz on the eve of the extraordinary election of the head of the village administration.
The reason we went to the village of Norabak of the Gegharkunik Marz was the alarm sounded by Svetlana Arustamova, the subject of a recent article.
The Village of Barekamavan in the Tavush Marz is some 200 kilometers from Yerevan.
Last December I met with Azerbaijani colleagues at a seminar in Tbilisi.
“I melt and waste away, I burn in fire. Tell me when my child will return, I count the days,” sang Sonya Chichyan.
In Istanbul on January 19, 2006 at about 5 p.m., a sixteen-year-old Turkish boy named Ogun Samast gunned down the 52-year-old editor of the newspaper Agos and well-known Turkish-Armenian public figure, Hrant Dink.
Armenians who were expelled fromAzerbaijanhave been living in the dormitory at57 Nalbandyan Streetin the city ofSevanfor a decade and a half now.
This woman is Svetlana Arustamova. She is a refugee from Baku. Her house faces the cemetery in the village of Norabak, which has only new graves, without tombstones, and in some cases without even names. “Our graves remained where we will never go again,” Svetlana says weeping. “Is this a life? Things are so bad I can't even visit my family's graves.”
This man is Samvel Movsisyan. He is going to turn fifty soon, but he may never have his own home where he can live in dignity with his wife and three children.
In the summer of 2006, Armenian media announced to the entire world that the ruins of an ancient city built by King Tigran the Great had been discovered in the Martakert region of Nagorno Karabakh. Archeologist Hamlet Petrosyan said it was no coincidence that that very location had been chosen for excavation - history had pointed to it strongly.
“Children begin to perceive the world through their environment. Children have a unique ability to get in anywhere, pick anything up and look at it. Children continue to search and dig in even if they sense danger.
Shmavon Virabyan, the foreman in the Mets Shen section of the Khotorashen-Martakert water pipeline, pointed at the tree-covered mountain in the fog, “Do you see that white spot? It's the Irek Mankunk monastery. The water comes from there, and that's where my boss is now.”
Yuri Grigoryan is a kankan by profession. Kankan is a Farsi word for someone who digs wells. They were digging yet another kahrez in Hadrut. A kahrez is an underground water pipe lined inside with stones. It connects different veins of water together and then brings them up to the surface, flowing under their own power.