• Just some notes

Yerevan’s taxi drivers know everything more and better. They know all: started from the half tone gossip in the last table in the teahouse ended from the first ladies’ underclothes. They know government functionary’s secret concord with the opposition representative and policeman’s latent jobs. And of course they know all the good and bad places in Yerevan. Maybe they know me and probably they know you too.

So, what I was talking about… Yesterday I was harrying to an important meeting and dropped myself to the first come taxi. After the several times looking outside of the window, than to clock, to my papers, once more to clock… looked at a taxi driver: handsome man with the grey hair and white moustache. He looked as if he is cut from the national uniforms catalogue. He looked at me through the mirror and asked if I knew who was singing.

What a surprise. There is also a music playing”. I was concentrating for a while then I answered. “Gohar Gasparyan?” “No, Zeynab Xanlarova”-he said and smiled.
Generally I like experiments on unknown people but this time I understood his smile was showing quite the opposite. Anyway I “went on the play” asking him what was the song about. “Who knows, I don’t understand her but it’s not important. Melody is ours. Are you against of this melody and Azerbaijan?” (Here I want to stop and describe what I was feeling. “Am I looking like an intolerant person?)

Then he explained saying that he has been driving this taxi for 25 years, almost all that time listening to Zeynab Xanlarova’s songs. The type recorder was broken and the cassette stayed inside. “May be your generation will not understand but for us this melody has another mention and it is Caucasus oneness feeling inherited from the Soviet Union”-he says. “I don’t know what this song is about but I’m sure it is something close to my heart”. Today’s Caucasus – I can’t rely on such ours. Your Caucasus is Euro, isn’t it? He said and smiled. Read more »

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Yerevan music style

May be “this” came from the president of the republic, who had taken it from the presidents of other countries and these presidents took it from the best image-makers of the world… Anyway, the important part of this “taking from each other” story is the fact that listens to jazz music became an indivisible part of Armenian society’s life especially among average and high nap (though I am against of dividing society in such a stupid form).

Now in Yerevan, if you are a banker, for example, have a high rewarded work, own car, wife and lover, the compulsive part of your life is attending jazz clubs and listening to jazz radio in car or keeping some jazz CD’s in your car box like Oscar Peterson, Duke Ellington or Louis Armstrong at worst.And these all not because of rich pocket that changes peoples music taste but because now they can allow themselves “to do it”. Version of why not?

Going on in this style: Yerevan’s jazz clubs or the places where play jazz, mostly attend people like the banker from my example and his friend’s ensemble. And it’s no news no more that these people come to Paplavok café to have a dessert after the restaurant’s eating or to show the others they also are here or to smoke a cigarette and all these under the jazz music. The Malkhas’s club is another foppish place: (Malkhas is an Armenian popular self-taught pianist who has opened a jazz club in Yerevan, if I’m not mistaken a year ago). The club, Avantgarde Folk Music Club…. jazzes’ places are o lot. And there are a lot of jazz real lovers and defenders.

That’s why Armenian jazzmen are almost excellent. It’s not only my-dilettante jazz listener’s opinion but musicians say so and this is serious. Artem Ayvazyans’s than Konstantin Oberlin’s-Armenian jazz band the best big bend for many years, Time Report, saxophonist Armen Husnunts, Cats, pianist Vahagan Hayrapetyan: good musicians are too many. Only the fact how many talented future musicians study in Conservatories jazz faculty is enough to be sure for the Armenian jazz music future. Read more »

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Electoral Armenian society: the absurd I see

Undoubtedly presidential elections in Armenia have started months, even a year ago. But the seriousness of the situation (election campaign) was notified after the several “shouts” of the opposition shown on TV. Up to that there generally wasn’t even a word about them. All TV channels were just glorifying ruling regime.
Afterwards when our neighbor, a petty clerk, came to our place to beg our choices (also to show his trustiness to ruling regime) I found the other really serious thing: we are far from fair elections, though I guess it is going to be conformed to international standards. The readiness of our society to sell own vote is not a history. But you know this time it wasn’t too easy for our neighbor: going to “democracy” votes’ prices are lifting fantastically fast.
There is no sense for the Armenian society to be politicized, and starting from the schoolchild ending by scientists all are political theorists. But phenomenon is the fact that nowadays all the people is also fortune teller. They all know who will win the election campaign. How they know and why particularly from this regime? Cause “Who will ask us”? (Persons’ unimportance or own choice’s inessentiality was inspired to our society for ages and this political fetch has been used up to know). Then I see some apathy among the citizens inherited from Soviet Union regime.
Anyway the society is divided into some parts: those, for whom there is no importance who will rule (they don’t expect any changes); those, who agrees to see as the president anyone, not only the prime minister, who will continue the political direction of this regime; those, who is trying to understand what is the matter, and people, which is very close to being position or opposition. Everything is confused. And this confusion is not only among the society, but Read more »

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Democracy, Armenian Style – The Bloggers March On

A year ago, within the Armenian internet community, people were talking about the formation of a blogging culture and explaining what a blog actually meant. Today, there are some 1000 – 1500 blogs and around 200 active bloggers who are shaping social opinion in the internet, even to the point where blogs are soliciting rebuttals on a governmental level. Today, discussions regarding the competition between blogging and the press, or their joint operation, are of current import. All this started within the course of the last one or two years.
Blogger and journalist reporter-arm states that, “Bloggers are free individuals and can write what they want and how they want in their blogs. This is the exact essence of the matter. Blogger and physician Artmika says, “In any event, this is how my voice gets heard. I see that I can assist in making changes.” Another blogger, theoretician Kornel, states, “The blog is sort of like my notebook. Everyday I jot down things and in order not to lose those references and themes I put them in my blog. In addition, I see the comments of my readers.” The blogger Observer, who also comments on the Armenian blogosphere, says, “Today in Armenia there’s a very active blogger community and they are active outside the borders of the internet as well. Apparently, these people are active citizens with a definite orientation.”
Interest in the blogs doubled especially during the pre-election period in 2008, along with the creation of blogs and websites of the various candidates. Now, there are already blogs of various organizations, initiatives, groups and individuals as well as blogs covering a certain development or issue. Examples are blogs regarding the boycotting of Eurovision, preparations for the next public rally, the release of political prisoners and blogs which forward questions to the president. Through the means of internet communities, groups and bloggers, propaganda is effectively at work within the Armenian network. Read more »

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Armenia’s Animosity Towards Gays?

20-year old Ruben (the names of our interviewees have been changed to protect their privacy) is a bartender at the only gay bar in Yerevan and also one of only three men employed as strip dancers in the capital’s nightclubs. Ruben has not told his family about the nature of his work, only a few of his friends know. And those few friends are also aware of the fact that Ruben is in love with a boy.
“My parents were suspicious of my sexual orientation during my last years of school, and we had many fights about it at home. Now we don’t talk about it anymore; they think I’ve changed. As for my work, they know that I’m a bartender in a club, but they don’t know that it’s for gays. The mere mention of the striptease job is out of the question,” said Ruben. Ruben is a student and future economist. He said that he hardly made any money dancing, because male strip shows were organized very rarely. But he also said that making money was not the biggest problem he faced. His greatest problem has been to overcome the period of dispute with his parents and resigning himself to his current situation.
“When my parents found out, they isolated me. They wouldn’t talk to me, kept being hard on me and I was in a very bad state psychologically. I was aggressive and behaved badly – imagine what you would do if the world you lived in did not accept you,” Ruben said. Mistreatment and intolerance of homosexuals, which often then turns into animosity, are typical in Armenian society. A survey we conducted among 100 people of different ages in the center of Yerevan offered further support to this fact. According to the results, 53 percent of the respondents felt animosity towards homosexuals, 40 percent were tolerant, 4 percent treated them well, and 3 percent were undecided. When asked, “What would you do if your child were a homosexual?” 73 of the respondents said that they would disown the child.
Psychologist Davit Amiryan believes that this attitude in Armenian society is actually typical of all former Soviet countries. “Ignorance and misperceptions about homosexual relations have led to its association in people’s minds with perversion, which is why many people don’t consider that it has a place in Armenian society,” said the psychologist. He also said that homosexual tendencies could arise at different ages and that it was necessary to have correct information about homosexuality in general in order to understand the homosexual population. Read more »

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Convicts Swallow Spoons and Thermometers

“Life is different on this side of the walls and barbed wire. We live differently, there are different rules and all this causes psychological pressure,” said 40-year old Seyran and grew silent, wishing to limit his description of everyday life to these few words.
It was difficult in general for this former public official and candidate of sciences to speak of his everyday life. He is serving a five-and-a-half year prison sentence and all his days at the Convicts’ Hospital are spent staring down the road to the home where his family is waiting for him. His mother is gravely ill and he recently lost a child, and the stress exacerbated a skin disorder he suffers from.
Seyran is one of the 255 convicts serving sentences at the Convicts’ Hospital, an institution under the Ministry of Justice. Sixteen of the “residents” are HIV-positive, 40 of them suffer from tuberculosis, and the others – ranging in age from 18 to 87 years old – have psychiatric disorders or other serious conditions.
The other convicts are in this institution only temporarily. They walk freely here within certain permitted hours during the day. The convicts can use the money they receive for work to buy cigarettes, sweets, juice and other items from a small kiosk located in the yard.
The are various cross-stones place all along the path to the cafeteria and the convicts have set up a small chapel on the adjacent wall. This scene – with people standing near the wall or squatting next to it, dressed in dark colors and fingering worry beads – was not nearly as strange as the cabinet in the doctors’ room of the hospital. Read more »

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The Three Extremes of Armenian Rock Music

“Some of the guys from my college class gave me a guitar for my birthday and things just took off.” This is how Narek, a 4th year student at Yerevan’s Medical University, describes how the story all began. “ Some of my guitar-playing friends gave me some pointers and I was soon playing on my own.”
One day Narek met Zakar at the Student Council where he’d often hang out. Zakar, who would always be in a state of confusion, coming and going aimlessly, took Narek on as a bass player in his group. It all started for Narek about three years back as well when they played a gig at the Medical University’s auditorium. Despite all the mistakes they made the audience really dug their music. “ It was the instruments that brought us together, we never really sat down and decided to form a group. We needed a flute player and then met up with Anushavan. We were missing a gutarist and teamed up with Vagner “ recounts Zakar, one of the founding members of the group Synkope.
Synkope is a medical term that means ‘a pause of the heart’. The guys in the group recount that they’ve played under a variety of names before coming up with this appellation. Once, they had to change the band’s name five minutes before going on stage when they found out that another group with the same name already existed. “ They’d ask me what type of music do we play and I’d tell them, a mixed bag of stuff. When asked what instruments we play, I’d give the same answer, a mix of instruments. It was the same with the group’s line-up, a mix of guys and girls. That’s how we formed this mixed group “ relates Zakar. Read more »

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It is really important

The state scholarship in support to the Armenian students studying in the leading institutes of higher education of the world was also delayed this academic year, though the discussions have practically started since 2007. More than 300 scientists, public, political and cultural figures jointed the initiative with their signatures, stressing the public importance of the problem, the program was approved by the RA Ministry of Education and Science, it was discussed in the government, even the sum was foreseen from the state budget in order to pay the state scholarship. But the discussions were frozen in the electoral and post-electoral periods.
Today the program’s implementation is also postponed by other reasons. Artur Ishkhanyan, a a corresponding member of the National Academy of Sciences, doctor of physical-mathematical sciences, who started the initiative, thinks that there is a problem of the program “format”. According to him, the programs on state scholarship in the world are mainly implemented on the presidential level, as for Armenia, the program passed the governmental discussions, so the President-Prime Minister meeting is necessary.
According to the project, annual scholarship contest will be organized by the state commission consisting of specialists presenting different spheres and operating actively in science for state support to the Armenian students studying in the foreign prestigious institutes of higher education. The scholarship fund is formed owing to annual allocations from the state budget, as well as due to the donation of non-state organizations and separate individuals. The rating lists of the institutes of higher education are formed on the basis of the annual mobile lists of the Times Higher Education, US News & World Report and the RF Education Federal Agency compiled by the method used in the international practice. Read more »