Happy 51st Birthday, Robert Kocharyan!

Via, RFE/RL, While most Armenian politicians are satisfied with doing stupid things during their working hours, Gyumri’s mayor, Vartan Ghukasian, enjoys doing stupid things in his free time as well.

This guy shot an illegally owned pistol at a group of Russian soldiers in a restaurant owned by his brother. “Fortunately, no one was hurt and only the restaurant’s windows were left broken,” says “Aravot,” adding that Gyumri prosecutors have launched an investigation into the incident.

“Haykakan Zhamanak” says that no casualties were reported, suggesting sarcastically that the mayor, known for his staunch support for Kocharian, was too drunk to take aim.

The mayor’s office denies the whole thing.

Crossing the street in Yerevan is dangerous. Basically you have to run as fast as you can and pray in order to make it.

[Via A1+] Well, the “Police Car Inspection” department (what the heck is that? I guess the licensing department?) has started a new initiative to help kiddies cross more safely.

We turn to all the parents to use only underground crossings and to follow the signals of the traffic lights. Dear drivers, keep to the traffic rules while driving, and be especially careful in the areas near schools. Dear teachers, remind the children about the necessity to follow the traffic rules. Pupils of high school, help your young co-learners in any way you can.

Good luck…

Marianna’s coverage of election news in Azerbaijan

A1+’s vacation is over! Back to high quality English language news. Hoorah!

The Shanahans are missionaries in Armenia. While you may or may not agree with missionaries in the country, their blog is pretty interesting with great photos.

I can only imagine how confusing it will be that the mother of this family is also named Katy, spelled with a Y.

One Free Korea has this week’s CoR. Josh did a great job!

Hello everyone. Blogrel should seem a bit slower for the next month or so because I am moving to London. I am going to be attending the University of London’s School for Oriental and African Studies for a Master’s Degree in International Studies and Diplomacy. If you have any thoughts about London or want to get together while I’m over there, drop me a note. I’m going to be busy packing and all that for the next 3 weeks. Wish me luck!

The first comment after Kocharian-Aliyev meeting is reported by Itar-Tass:

Armenia says meeting with Aliyev on Karabakh was “positive”
KAZAN, August 27 (Itar-Tass) — Armenian President Robert Kocharyan and Azerbaijani President Ilkham Aliyev conferred for about two hours in Kazan on Saturday in a bid to find a solution to the Karabakh conflict that has been the cause of confrontation between the two countries since the beginning of the 1990s. Confidentiality is one of the conditions of the Karabakh talks, and neither side has disclosed the details of the negotiations or agreements. However Kocharyan’s spokesman, Viktor Sogomonyan, said, “The Armenian side assesses the meeting in Kazan positively and considers it a positive development in the negotiating process.” He said the Armenian and Azerbaijani foreign ministers, who also took part in the meeting, will “continue the work based on the agreements reached in Kazan.”…

NEWS FIRST: Sirusho’s new album of folk music was released this week. Produced by Hayko, I’ll be reviewing it shortly. I bought it despite the fact I vowed to no longer support this artist.

-Theres a concert outside the opera house on the 1st September - to celebrate a year of the long haired trendy male VJ’s and Pamela Anderson wannabe women at Dar 21 “Armenian Music Television”. A bad channel in my view ( barely Armenian Music Television ). Artists appearing include : Hay Tghek , Hasmik Karapetian, Karine Movsisyan. I urge you to go if you can to see Hay Tghek. They always perform live.

Now to the picture. What you’re looking at above are four CD’s that I ordered from www.disc.am last week, and much to my surprise they arrived within 6 days, perfectly packaged, and it only cost me 7 dollars shipping! If you’re wondering I did this, its because I live in the United Kingdom!

They have absolutely everything on the website, and although many of the western products are pirated, the Armenian stuff is all genuine where possible. They have also started selling books, and DVD’s. I completely put my faith in the Haypost system, and it seems to have done the trick. The envelope came airmail marked, with 6 500dr stamps.

This is good news for Armenian music fans, including me, as there was always a delay in getting the latest Armenian music, and no chance at all if the artist hasn’t struck a deal with Glendale record companies who can distribute via the USA.

Hasmik Karapetians new cd: A great selection of her own ballads, and a couple of dancey tracks. As I suspected, Hayko didn’t produce the album, and I can’t help thinking it would have been a bit better if he had. The music needs that extra “push” - which is sadly lacking. Nevertheless, being a fan, I absolutely love it.
It really lacks in design quality. The inlay is empty of any text, apart from thank you’s. A bit dissappointing considering its a genuine copy and it’s been 4 years in the making - Hasmik’s last album was released in 2001.

Armenchik: If you’re a fan of his style ( not quite rabiz ) then you’re 99% likely to enjoy this CD. I did. I am impressed by the number of live instruments used in this recording. Particularly a funky guitar all the way through, a good choice. There’s a song featuring Glendale - Armenian rapper Mihran - who introduces the song as a collaboration between “The hottest artist on the Armenian pop scene ( Armen ) - and a new sensation(Mihran)” - I’m not sure but I think thats slightly inaccurate. Again, a disappointing cover, but Armenchik is well known for his tacky covers, this one is done in the style of a film cover.

What I noticed about both CD’s is not ONE lettter of Armenian script. Everything was in latin script. A huge annoyance of mine, and I do think that something needs to be done to solve this syndrome of writing Armenian in Latin letters. I fail to see the point of singing Armenian, producing “Armenian” music, and writing in English through the inlay covers - absolutely ridiculous to the point that it’d be funny if it wasn’t killing the Armenian language.

Incidentally, the only CD I bought that featured a fully Armenian cover was ARAZ, pure rabiz/turkish affair.Hm.

On that note, I’ll see you all in 2 weeks

There is an unprecedented op-ed by U.S. Embassy in Yerevan on the upcoming Constitutional amendments debate in Azg, entitled A Time For Responsibility.

On August 29 the National Assembly will discuss the proposed amendments to the Armenian Constitution. This is an extremely important process that should be taken seriously by all political actors, as well as by all citizens of Armenia…

…The United States supports the efforts of all those who have been involved in the process of attempting to amend the current Armenian Constitution, and encourages all parties to engage in responsible and constructive debate on this issue. The constitution of any country establishes the rules of the political game. Every political party ought to be interested in establishing those rules. Once the rules are established, then let the political game begin, and let it be hard-fought, even fierce, but conducted within the rules that have been agreed.

In addition to political actors, every citizen should be attentive to the process of amending the Constitution, as this document will be the fundamental law of the land. The international community, including the United States, has consistently supported the efforts of the Council of Europe in helping Armenia arrive at a good package of reforms. In our view the current package represents a notable step forward, but its approval is of course a matter for the voters of the Republic of Armenia to decide. I hope that the necessary steps will be taken to increase public awareness about this important process so that a well-informed public can express its will in the referendum scheduled for November.

As the members of the National Assembly prepare to discuss the proposed constitutional amendments on Monday, we hope that they will recognize the heavy responsibility they bear before their fellow-countrymen for agreeing on the best constitutional arrangements for the Republic of Armenia. Monday’s debate and the subsequent process will be taken as an indication of the level of political development in Armenia.

There’s obviously a degree of convergence between the position voiced by President Kocharian on Wednesday and public pronouncements by the United States, first by Secretary Rice (see the previous Blogrel posting) and now the U.S. Embassy in Armenia. Whether or not it’s connected to the Kazan talks is not clear.

What is clear is that the position taken by two leading opposition factions (see RFE/RL story) is increasingly at odds with how the United States and the international community view the situation in Armenia as far as the Constitution is concerned. The opposition’s strategy was based on the conspiracy theory that the President would secretly love to sabotage the Constitutional amendments, and therefore they would too, and would take credit for it. Now that the Prez publicly committed himself to getting it passed and the international community is urging him on, the opposition risks marginalizing itself further, which opens up all sorts of unpleasant scenarios for Armenia.

State Department spokesman put out this press release on August 25:

Secretary’s Phone Calls: Upcoming Kazan Talks

Question: What did Secretary Rice discuss during her phone calls to Presidents Aliyev and Kocharian?

Answer: Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice spoke briefly this morning with President Ilham Aliyev of Azerbaijan and President Robert Kocharian of Armenia. She did so in order to stress to them the importance that the United States attaches to their upcoming meeting in Kazan, and to express our hope that the two Presidents will make the compromises necessary in order to reach a settlement of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict. Both leaders were upbeat about the prospects for making progress.

The Secretary stressed to President Aliyev the importance of free and fair parliamentary elections this November in Azerbaijan, and noted his important role in this. The Secretary also told President Kocharian she hoped Armenia would make progress toward enacting a package of constitutional reforms now before the parliament.

Today is my last day guest blogging at lifehacker.com - please feel free to check it out. It was a lot of fun, but I promise I’ll be back to give more time to Blogrel next week.

The Moscow Times has an interesting take on the privatization of Armenfilm and what it may offer the Armenian cinema.

…In 2004, private investors took ownership of the Vilnius-based Lithuanian Film Studio, and last month, Armenia headed in a similar direction. Yerevan’s historic Armenfilm, founded in 1923 and long part of the rich film tradition of the Caucasus, passed into the hands of the well-connected local media group CS Media City, or CSMC, and its subsidiary Armenia Film Studios, for the sum of 350 million drams (just over $750,000).

Cinema in the Caucasus has always straddled the present-day national borders, and though Armenia has a considerable reputation in film, it’s often been dwarfed by neighboring Georgia, where directors, especially those from the generation of the 1950s and 1960s, earned particular fame.

For instance, Armenfilm is named in honor of Amo Bek-Nazarov, a Soviet actor and director whose career began before the Bolshevik Revolution. Although of Armenian descent, Bek-Nazarov played a major role in Georgian silent film, and one of his best known works, “Pepo” from 1935, unfolds in 19th-century Tiflis, though it features an almost exclusively Armenian cast. Boundaries are further blurred by the fact that Georgia’s state film production body, Goskinprom, actually started in Baku, now the capital of Azerbaijan.

National loyalties are relative, indeed: One of Yerevan’s most prominent museums may honor Sergei Paradzhanov, the censored and once-imprisoned creator of Soviet-era classics such as “Color of Pomegranates,” who died in the city in 1990, but the director rarely worked in the country and is more often linked to Georgia and Ukraine…

According to Arminfo, a close aide to People’s Party leader Stepan Demirchian, Ruzan Khachatrian, will contest the Mayoralty of Yerevan’s Center District in October.

PRESS-SECRETARY OF OPPOSITION BLOC BECAME ONLY CANDIDATE TO PREFECT OF CENTRAL COMMUNITY

YEREVAN, AUGUST 25. ARMINFO. Press-secretary of the opposition “Justice” bloc Ruzan Khachatryan has been elected the only candidate from the bloc to the post of the prefect of central community of Yerevan. Such a decision was made unanimously at today’s sitting of the bloc. Leader of “Justice” Aram Sargssyan assured that the participation of Khachatryan in the elections will help to reveal once again the defects of Armenia’s apparatus.

To note, the elections in the Center community will be held on Sept 25. Registration of candidates to the prefect will take place on Aug 26-31. Besides Khachatryan, the acting prefect of the community Gagik Beglaryan also will stand for this post.

This means that the opposition is finally getting over itself and trying to return to active politics, rather than sitting it out on the fence.

Foreign Minister Vartan Oskanian, who is otherwise busy negotiating NK settlement, issued an apology for the car accident involving his son Ara. Oskanian Sr. said he took the entire responsibility for the accident as he had authorized his son (sic!) to use the Foreign Ministry car on the weekends, and promised to be ‘more prudent’ in the future. He also expresses sympathy for the victim.

While it is a nice precedent that a government official owns up to his kid’s behavior, the statement was kind of cynical, I think. He has no business authorizing his son to use a government vehicle, period. The least he could do is reimburse the government. I wonder whether this ‘apology’ has anything to do with Vice Speaker Torosian’s call (reported in Haikakan Zhamanak on August 24) for his resignation over the incident.

The original story was reported by Haikakan Zhamanak (English version via RFE/RL):

“Haykakan Zhamanak” reports that Foreign Minister Vartan Oskanian’s son Ara ran over and seriously injured a 25-year-old man in downtown Yerevan as he drove an expensive German car that belongs to the Armenian Foreign Minister and is meant to cater for visiting foreign dignitaries. The man, identified as Karen Gyunjian, was hospitalized. The paper recalls that Oskanian caused a similar accident last January when he rammed another Foreign Ministry car into a metal pole just outside Yerevan. The Mercedes, donated to the ministry by the Armenian community of Iran, was left seriously damaged.

From the blog of LA city council member, Eric Garcetti,

On early Friday morning, after an exhausting 23 hours of travel, we touched down exactly halfway around the world from Los Angeles in Yerevan, Armenia. (since Yerevan is twelve time zones from Los Angeles, I didn’t have to change the time on my watch!). At the airport, a television camera waited for us until 3 in the morning, and there was a table set out with fresh fruit and cognac (I opted for the former, considering the hour). While British Airways lost two pieces of our party’s luggage, we were mostly intact. I did a quick interview with the television camera bringing greetings from the world’s second-largest Armenian city, Los Angeles and setting out our trip’s goal of establishing a Sister City relationship with Yerevan, no easy feat after almost a day of travel.

The Yerevan airport is an architectural marvel–it is like a giant octagonal beehive, with arrivals in the center and departures leaving from above. Built in Soviet times, it is a cement sculpture. The airport is currently expanding and the operations are being handed over to a foreign company in an ongoing wave of privatization.

On the way into town, we saw many casinos with names like Caesar’s and Hollywood Casino, which we learned have been banished from the city center to the outskirts of town. On the road from airport, they have formed a kinda Yerevan Strip. We also passed the brand-new American Embassy, built on one of the biggest pieces of land of any American Embassy abroad. It was impressive.

We drove through the city center in the waning hour of the night, but it’s stateliness was easily apparent–a seemingly well-planned center, with a real European feel. There were cafes everywhere (some folks still out at 4am, wide boulevards, and a video screen up where the statue of Lenin once stood in the main square.

We settled into our hotel and prepared for the next day’s meetings with government officials and Yerevan representatives.

Turkmenbashi’s done it again…

He has outlawed opera and ballet and railed against long hair and gold teeth, but now Turkmen President Saparmurat Niyazov is determined to wipe out another perceived scourge: lip synching.

Niyazov has ordered a ban on lip synching performances across the tightly controlled Central Asian nation, citing “a negative effect on the development of singing and musical art,” the president’s office said Tuesday.

from the AP

Marianna’s round up of election news from Azerbaijan is up.

Carnival of Revolutions is up!