Edik Baghdasaryan, Larisa Paremuzyan
$21,500 for a Toilet

[September 10, 2007]

In 2007, the Alaverdi Municipality allocated 7,200,000 drams (US $ 21,500) to build a toilet near the entrance to the monastery in the village of Sanahin. Construction work on the toilet has yet to be completed... [full story]

Hakob Samvelyan
Generals Battle Over Bus Route

[September 10, 2007]

According to a contract signed between the Etchmiadzin Freight Traffic Enterprise (FTE) and former parliament member Hakob Hakobyan, in effect until his term expired, 2,500 students from Etchmiadzin were entitled to use buses on the route between Etchmiadzin and Yerevan ... [full story]

Vahe Sarukhanyan
Jiliza: Life on the Armenian-Georgian Border

[September 3, 2007]

The village of Jiliza in the Lori Marz is one of the northernmost villages in Armenia. Unlike other villages, Jiliza is completely cut off from any other Armenian villages and towns. The closest is the town of Alaverdi, fifteen kilometers away as the crow flies, and twenty-eight kilometers away by the road ... [full story]

Lena Nazaryan
This Pension is Humiliating

[September 3, 2007]

Thirty-eight-year-old Samvel Hovsepyan has voluntarily refused the pension that wounded veterans of the Karabakh war receive. Samvel was wounded twice between 1992 and 1994. The second time he lost his leg and became permanently disabled ... [full story]

Edik Baghdasaryan
Jiliza is the Most Isolated Village in Armenia

[August 20, 2007]

The isolation facing the Armenian village of Jiliza, which straddles the border with Georgia, lately became even more pronounced when Armenian and Georgian border guards began prohibiting residents from their respective countries to make the crossing over to the other side ... [full story]

Lena Nazaryan
The Last Remaining Greeks of Madan

[August 20, 2007]

The neighborhood of Madan is located some five kilometers from the center of Alaverdi. In the early 1990's it was exclusively populated by some 800 Greeks. Today, only twenty-four remain, mostly elderly folk. Greeks began to appear in Armenia starting in the second half of the 17th century ... [full story]

Hasmik Hovhannisyan
Kashatagh Is For The Educated And Those Families With Many Children

[August 13, 2007]

Vazgen Arghumanyan was the first resident of the village of Artashen located in the northern reaches of Kashatagh. He used to work at the tourist center in Jermuk as a photographer and moved her in 1994 ... [full story]

Edik Baghdasaryan
When I Saw The Natural Beauty Of The Place I Told Myself We Have To Live Here

[August 13, 2007]

Sayat Melkonyan, a resident of Yerevan, is a specialist in ethnographic dance and song. He's worked with the “Akunk” troupe and has directed his own “Karin” and “Mush” ensembles ... [full story]

Lena Nazaryan
I Couldn’t Answer The Door, There Were So Many Visitors

[August 13, 2007]

Six months ago Hetq published an article entitled “You Do That To Mock Us“. Soon afterwards many people came forward to lend a helping hand to Naira Galstyan and her three young children ... [full story]

Edik Baghdasaryan
Peace and Tranquility

[August 6, 2007]

“I'm from Yerevan, I was born and raised there, but now I'm a Karabakhtsi,” said Ashot Simonyan from Movsesashen. “ No, we're from Yerevan, but our children are Karabakhtsi, they were born here,” Ashot's wife Lilit corrected him. The couple were the parents of the first baby born in Movsesashen ... [full story]

105 Armenians Extradited from CIS to Armenia in 2005-2006

An interview with Nelly Harutyunyan, Head of International Legal Relations at the Office of the Prosecutor General

[August 6, 2007]

- What kind of international legal collaboration is the Office of the Prosecutor General of Armenia involved in? ... [full story]

Shushan Harutyunyan
Armenia’s Animosity Towards Gays

[August 6, 2007]

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 ... [full story]

Hasmik Hovhannisyan
Children Learn Music Without Instruments

[July 30, 2007]

“When my family moved here from Charentsavan, there were only construction workers here. It was 1999 and there was nothing here. Until 2002 we didn't have electricity. Now each family receives 60 Kilowatts of electricity for free. Many have cars and there is transportation to Stepanakert and Vardenis. In the last few years, life has gotten much better and I think it will get even better in the future, “ Robert said ... [full story]

Edik Baghdasaryan
New Verin Shen

[July 30, 2007]

For eight years Iskhan Hovannisyan has been the village mayor of Verin Shen in the region of Nor Shahumyan. He recounts that when water was piped into the village ten years ago it was forcasted to serve the needs of eighteen families. Today, the amount of water isn't sufficient. There are certain neighborhoods that receive no water at all. The Mayor states that ... [full story]

Three new phone stations will be installed in Kashatagh and Nor Shahumyan

A “Hetq” interview with Ralph Yirikyan, General Manager of “Karabakh Telecom”

[July 30, 2007]

- In Kashatagh a dozen of villages don't have landline phone services. In meetings with the village residents this is always mentioned as one of the most serious problems there. In one village in Kashatagh a woman told us that she found out about the death of her mother a month late. What work is “Karabakh Telecom” doing in this region, and what is being done to provide phone services to those villages? ... [full story]

Lena Nazaryan
July Birthday Boys

[July 30, 2007]

When I asked the children living in the Gavar orphanage who I should talk to, they all agreed. “You ought to meet Sedo. It's his birthday today.” The birthday boy was immediately found and brought to me, but a dozen children, ages six to thirteen, stuck close by, begging me to ask them their names and ages, and what grade they were in. At the orphanage, the birthdays of all children in a given month are celebrated at the month's end ... [full story]

Hasmik Hovhannisyan
New Shahumyan

[July 23, 2007]

On April 3, 1993, Armenian forces liberated the region of Karvachar (formerly Kelbajar): Since this area has been repopulated with mainly those who had been deported from the Shahumyan region, the government of the Nagorno-Karabakh Republic has renamed it New Shahumyan ... [full story]

Edik Baghdasaryan
The Average Age in the Liberated Territories is 28 – 30 Years Old

[July 23, 2007]

The village of Tzar is different from other villages in the liberated territories not only because it has served as a princely royal seat for hundreds of years but also due to the fact that it has received a 20 million dram loan from the government ... [full story]

Edik Baghdasaryan
Deadly Remnants of War

[July 23, 2007]

One of ten-year-old Boris's chores is to take the cows out every morning. Last year, in March, Boris Manvelyan took his cows out toward the ridge above their house, as usual. On the way back he noticed something strange at his feet ... [full story]

Lilit Nurijanyan
Our Daily Meat

[July 23, 2007]

We Armenians love meat. It is enough to pay a visit to one of Yerevan's markets to be convinced of this. Yerevanians call this market “GUM market.” Right across from it butchers “advertise” to visitors their meat, laid out on a table, the ground, or a car ... [full story]

Tigran Paskevichyan
Vegetables and Wood, But No Equality

[July 16, 2007]

Grandfather Gigos, an 83-year-old resident of the village of Lusahovit in the Tavush Marz, is digging in the earth near his house. With every blow of the shovel, small pieces of dry soil fly and fall around like pieces of sandpaper. There hasn't been rain for a long time, and an outside observer would find it hard to believe that anything could grow near Grandfather Gigos's house ... [full story]

Ani Gasparyan
“I’m Happy to Be Alive and Will Keep on Living”

[July 16, 2007]

Levon is seventeen years old. He graduated from Special School 14 in Yerevan this year and will soon finish complete his studies at the Alexander Spendiaryan Music School as well. Levon's talent and love for music has amazed many ... [full story]

Ani Gasparyan
The Number of Asylum Seekers Increases Every Day

[July 9, 2007]

The Mesropyan family immigrated to Armenia from Basra, Iraq on August 14, 2006. They live in a rented apartment on Kuznetsov Street in Yerevan. Artsrun and his wife Zebyur and their children Shahen, Salbi and Nora are all unemployed. Artsrun is a highly qualified accountant who worked for years at an insurance firm in Basra ... [full story]

Tigran Paskevichyan
A Good Tool Deserves a Good Hand

[July 9, 2007]

I met Dr. Joel Sargsyan at his clinic in Lyon. He is a well-known surgeon and urologist, a specialist in lithotripsy, i.e. crushing kidney stones. I was aware that over the years he had rendered valuable assistance to Armenian healthcare institutions, but he did not seem eager to pursue that topic during our conversation. He would speak with pleasure about his family, childhood, or general health issues while deftly dodging questions about his hand in providing Armenia with aid ... [full story]

Hasmik Hovhannisyan
“Drop by Drop A Lake Will Be Created”

[July 9, 2007]

Furniture-making brothers Garik and Artyom Babajanyan needed five hundred dollars to buy a truck. Canadian-Armenian Antoine Terjanyan offered to give them the money without them having to pay it back on the sole condition that they would quit smoking. If the brothers started smoking again, they would have to immediately return the money ... [full story]

Dzovinar Simonyan-Lokmagyuzyan
With and Without Hrant

[July 2, 2007]

In Armenia, Hrant's heroic death came as a shock and generated much pride as well as envy. The most widespread emotion of all that it caused was amazement – what a public reaction, what a funeral. And since what took place in Istanbul was beyond the realm of any comprehension for those in Armenia, they attempted to describe events based on what they did know ... [full story]

Tigran Paskevichyan
The Boys Leave Home; the Girls Remain Unmarried

[July 2, 2007]

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. All the villages and towns nearby can be seen from this village. Another obvious sight from this altitude is the Armenian-Azerbaijani border, from where the village was shelled periodically during the war ... [full story]

Lena Nazaryan
Help Me Find My Father

[July 2, 2007]

“My greatest dream is to find my parents and live in one family, “ said 21-year-old Karine. But she is a bit confused, and doesn't know how to go about finding her parents, because she lived for 11 years in the Zatik Orphanage, and knows very little about them. She says she says that she started thinking about it recently ... [full story]

Edik Baghdasaryan
In Kashatagh the conditions necessary for progress do not exist

[June 25, 2007]

Shalua is one of the few villages in Kashatagh where the Azeris were never able to destroy the local church. The village is named after the river of the same name on whose banks it is located ... [full story]

Hrach Bayadyan
Does Armenia Have a Future?

[June 18, 2007]

Many people speak today about how the South Caucasus is an artificially created region, where the member countries have differing (and sometimes opposing) interests and wishes. Will it unite in the wake of other countries' entry into the region, or the region's desire to be part of broader international bodies? Or will it break down as a result of centrifugal forces? ... [full story]

Edik Baghdasaryan
The World Begins Here

[June 18, 2007]

Stretching two fingers apart Yura from Himnashen says, “Even though the beginning of the world starts here this is how far we are removed from the globe”. He's been talking non-stop for the past half hour and I've stopped listening. It's as if he wanted to comment all at once about everything I had discovered regarding his faraway village. Nine years of solitude, abandonment and contemplation. He was drinking mulberry vodka and continued to talk as his emotions rose ... [full story]

Haykush Aslanyan
Iraqi Armenians are Disillusioned

[June 18, 2007]

Two years ago Barsegh Hambardzumyan and his family emigrated from Iraq to Armenia. They lived for a year and a half in Yerevan's Avan district, but paying $180 a month rent was a luxury the family couldn't afford, and so they moved to Echmiadzin, where they found a place for $50 a month ... [full story]

Davit Karapetyan
Karegah – Kashatagh’s Biggest Village

[June 18, 2007]

The youth center in Karegah, a village in Kashatagh, plays the role of movie theater, theater, café and discotheque – to put it briefly, “…everything we need,” said the young people of the village. The center was established in 2003 on the initiative of the Monte Melkonyan charity organization and was named for Smbat Tatosyan ... [full story]

Hasmik Hovhannisyan
We Feel Abandoned

[June 18, 2007]

“There is nothing to do in the village. After school, we go to the village square, sit down and talk about this and that. We don't even have an ordinary café to take girls to. There's only a restaurant, but instead of two cups of coffee you can only order two bowls of borsch, “ says 10th grader Norayr ... [full story]

Hasmik Hovhannisyan
Comments on the Article “Marriage, Armenian Style”

[June 18, 2007]

Dear readers, thank you for your comments on the article “Marriage, Armenian Style”. The overwhelming majority of the responses came from Armenians of both genders and different ages, living in Armenia and abroad. Most of the comments were based on the analyses of subjective experiences ... [full story]

Now is the time to uncover corruption and punish for it

An Interview with Amalia Kostanyan, the President of the Center for Regional Development/Transparency International

[June 18, 2007]

Where does the country rank in corruption according to the calculations of Transparency International? How do you explain this position?
- Over the last three years there have been no positive changes. We are again in that group of countries where corruption is widespread ... [full story]

State Department releases 2007 Trafficking in Persons Report

[June 18, 2007]

Armenia is a source country and, to a lesser extent, a transit country for women and girls trafficked to the United Arab Emirates and Turkey for the purpose of commercial sexual exploitation. Armenian men and women are trafficked to Russia for the purpose of forced labor. Women and girls also transit through Moscow to the U.A.E. The Government of Armenia does not fully comply with the minimum standards for the elimination of trafficking; however, it is making significant efforts to do so ... [full story]

Hasmik Hovhannisyan
On That Side of the World

[June 11, 2007]

Little Gevorg and Elya have only two books – The Liar, which is an Armenian folktale, and an anatomy textbook. They also have a doll with broken arms. They got the folktale as a gift from graduating schoolchildren on the last day of school in the neighboring village. Nobody remembers how the anatomy textbook ended up in their home ... [full story]

Hasmik Hovhannisyan
Berdzor’s Boarding School

[June 11, 2007]

Three-year old Erik has been living in the boarding school at Berdzor, the regional center of Kashatagh, for the past four months. Erik does not speak. He listens carefully and understands everything, but expresses his thoughts and feelings through a few rare hand gestures and other body language ... [full story]

Edik Bagdasaryan
Something Draws Me Here. What, I Can’t Understand

[June 11, 2007]

Artak Bunyatyan, Chief Physician at the Berdzor Hospital, thinks that people who live in Kashatagh deserve special status. “Living here, in such conditions, is already heroism,” the doctor said. He cannot accept the fact that when Kashataghtsis go to Yerevan and Stepanakert to have complicated operations, they have to pay huge fees ... [full story]

Edik Bagdasaryan
A Family with Fifteen Children

[June 11, 2007]

I asked Emilya, who has fifteen children, whether she remembers all of their names. “Sometimes I mix them, up. I say three or four names, before I remember who is who.” Emilya gave birth to Artak, her fifteenth child, in the hospital in Berdzor in the Kashatagh region ... [full story]

On June 12, 1993 Monte Melkonian was killed

[June 11, 2007]

In the early morning the self-defense forces of the Martuni region of Nagorno Karabakh began an operation to destroy the military strongholds in the villages of the Aghdam region of Azerbaijan. Everything was going as planned. By noon the operation was over. Monte, Komitas, Saribek, Saro, Hovik, and Gevork entered the Marzili village riding in a Vilis ... [full story]

Edik Bagdasaryan
There’s No Country Or Court That Has The Right To Judge Our Struggle

[June 11, 2007]

In 1985 Monte was in France. The police didn't know this. Levon Minasian, one of the leaders of the “Armenian National Movement” had been arrested. Monte had come to France to testify on his behalf. Since Monte was barred from entering France his friends negotiated a secret deposition ... [full story]

Hasmik Hovhannisyan
The Arakel Village Kindergarten May Be Closed

[June 11, 2007]

Sisters Ruzanna and Eleonora go to elementary school. Ruzanna says school is very boring, but they like to come to kindergarten after school. “Sometimes we skip classes and come here,” she whispered ... [full story]

Ani Gasparyan
I’d Rather Eat Dry Bread with My Children Than Send Them to An Orphanage

[June 4, 2007]

Twenty-nine-year-old Zhenya is the mother of six young children. Three of them—Arayik , Arman and Armine—are in school; the others—Mariam, Edgar and Erik—are still too young ... [full story]

Edik Baghdasaryan
They Start Taking Drugs in School

[May 28, 2007]

Chaplain Bedros Hajian founded the Armenian American Christian Outreach in 1998. A unique facility, it specializes in the reintegration of prisoners. When we visited there were fourteen people there. One was Mexican; the rest were Armenian... [full story]

Hasmik Hovhannisyan
Marriage, Armenian Style

[May 28, 2007]

Arman's parents moved from Gyumri to Chuvashia when Arman was still a teenager. When Arman grew up and the time came for him to marry, he had to follow the ancient tradition of marrying not only an Armenian girl, but one from his hometown. After all, Gyumri is famous for its respect for tradition, in addition to the sense of humor of its residents ... [full story]

Lena Nazaryan
France Separates a Young Family

[May 28, 2007]

Although the Republic of France legally sanctioned the marriage between Hamlet and Juanna Zeynalyan, the country has deported Hamlet and separated the newly established family. Hamlet was caught by the French police by chance and deported immediately because he had no residence permit. He was told that France wasn't barring his way into the country, but just wanted that way be legal ... [full story]

Ethnic Minorities in Armenia

Hasmik Hovhannisyan
The Jewish Community of Sevan

[May 28, 2007]

“I've started taking a new kind of medication.”
“Misha can't walk; his legs hurt.”
This is how an ordinary conversation starts between neighbors Anya Kirilina and Olga Yershova. Or it might begin with a discussion about how their water had been cut yet again and they had been forced to carry it in buckets from other neighbors' apartments ... [full story]

Edik Baghdasaryan
The Armenian Sodom and Gomorrah

[May 21, 2007]

“I'm here temporarily,” said a fairly well known director when he saw me. Almost every Armenia from Armenia in Los Angeles lives in a state of confusion. Many of them I met said that they were waiting for changes to happen in the homeland before they ... [full story]

Edik Baghdasaryan
18,000 Armenians in California Prisons

[May 21, 2007]

In the common room of a California prison, a toilet and a man urinating could be seen through the bars. The toilet had no door, just like the one I had seen in the Nubarashen detention center a few years ago in Yerevan. People were gathered in ... [full story]

Vahe Sarukhanyan
Disabled Veterans Like Us Are Considered Third Class Citizens

[May 14, 2007]

The year was 1989, during the Soviet era. The authorities began to organize us into combat detachments which gradually grew into an army ... [full story]

Christine Vardanyan
Guest Workers Fall Victim to Xenophobia in Russia

[April 30, 2007]

In 2003 friends of Borik Ghazaryan and Hrachya Darmanyan, residents of the town of Talin in the Aragatsotn Marz, invited them to the city of Oryol in the Russian Federation to work on a construction site ... [full story]

National Minorities in Armenia

Hasmik Hovhannisyan
There Have Always Been Jews in Armenia

[April 30, 2007]

“In the first century B.C. Armenian King Tigran the Great (95-55 B.C.) besieged Cleopatra at Ptolemaida to avenge his father, Artashes I, but he had to abandon the siege when Lucullus attacked Armenia. King Tigran returned and settled the Jews that had been captured in Hellenic cities in Armavir and on the banks of the Kasakh River.”... [full story]

Ani Gasparyan
I Know That One Day the World Will Condemn the Genocide

[April 23, 2007]

Painter Heghine Abrahamyan is a Genocide survivor. She is 95 years old, born in Kars. Heghine was a witness to the deportation of Armenians from Ardahan and Kars. In 1921, when Heghine was eight years old, her family left Kars forever, emigrating to Gyumri, and then to Yerevan ... [full story]

Vahe Sarukhanyan
Venues Undecided for Armenian-Azerbaijani Football Matches

[April 23, 2007]

When the qualifying groups for Euro 2008 were drawn in Montreux, Switzerland in January 2006, many people asked themselves whether the matches between the national football teams of Armenia and Azerbaijan in Group A would take place ... [full story]

Lena Nazaryan
Philanthropy Missing Its Mark

[April 16, 2007]

A number of NGOs and psychologists who deal with issues related to graduates from children's homes stress that many initiatives aimed at helping children raised in such homes often fail to produce the desired results only because after receiving a certain amount of material assistance ... [full story]

Hasmik Hovhannisyan
Real and Imaginary Problems in the Village of Myasnikyan

[April 16, 2007]

Water, a café, paved roads - these are the most important things required to completely satisfy the residents of the village of Myasnikyan in the provincial region of Armavir ... [full story]

Vahe Sarukhanyan
Dirty Water Instead of Drinking Water

[April 16, 2007]

For the residents of the village of Kaghtsrashen in the Ararat Marz, contaminated water and the accompanying kidney disease have become commonplace. To this day the village is supplied with water through pipes ... [full story]

Lena Nazaryan
They Either Don’t Know about Us, or Don’t Want to Know

[April 9, 2007]

For people residing at 127/2 Gurgen Mahari Street (the former vocational culinary school in Vardashen) extreme poverty is all the future offers. According to Harutyun Sargsyan, a department head at the Erebuni district administration, there are many people like this in their community ... [full story]

Edik Baghdasaryan
Nightclub on Church Property Sparks Controversy

[April 2, 2007]

Hetq received a letter from Gideon Moalem, resident of Jerusalem, in which he voices his displeasure with a gay nightclub located in a building owned by the Armenian Patriarchate in Jerusalem (See also: Nightclubs on Armenian Patriarchate Property?) ... [full story]

Hasmik Hovhannisyan
Newroz, Piroz Bi

[April 2, 2007]

Passers-by would stop in surprise at the wide open gates out of which songs emanated in an unknown language and a group of people were performing a simple dance - two steps forward, two steps back - for a long, long time, to seemingly endless music ... [full story]

Sara Petrosyan
Satisfying Communities Before the Elections

[March 19, 2007]

This was the logic behind last week's decision by the Armenian government to allocate 250 million drams from the state budget to cover the community budget deficits. “Why should there be debts in the salary owed to the staff of local administrative bodies if the government provides the communities with grants in a timely manner?” Hovik Abrahamyan ... [full story]

Kristine Aghalaryan
No Libraries in Akhalkhalaki for a While

[March 19, 2007]

Prior to 2007, the libraries belonged to the Akhalkalaki Region's Department of Culture. The Culture Department was a centralized organization which managed and financed all the cultural institutions in the region – clubs, music schools, art schools, museums, etc ... [full story]

Lena Nazaryan, Edik Baghdasaryan
Beneficiaries Are To Blame, Says Ministry

[March 12, 2007]

The February 12 issue of Hetq included the article Apartments for Graduates from Children's Homes Are Unfit to Live In, after which a meeting was organized at the initiative of the Ministry of Labor and Social Affairs, where they attempted to explain to Hetq why some apartments end up in dilapidated condition within just a few months and who is to blame for this situation ... [full story]

Tigran Paskevichyan
Border Guards

[March 12, 2007]

The Village of Barekamavan in the Tavush Marz is some 200 kilometers from Yerevan. The village is in a canyon, and to someone looking down from above, it resembles a plate. This plate-like position has given the neighboring Azerbaijanis complete control of the village and its fields, which have lain fallow for fifteen years now ... [full story]

Tigran Paskevichyan
The Autonomous Republic of Norabak

[March 5, 2007]

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 (See: Teeth Are fore Eating). After seeing the film “Ruined Souls: Refugees in the Gegharkunik Marz Fifteen Years Later”, commissioned last year by the Gegharkunik branch of the Sakharov Human Rights Fund, a woman from Yerevan decided to help Svetlana by paying her electricity bill ... [full story]

Ararat Davtyan
9 More Victims of State Needs

[March 5, 2007]

Law enforcement officers visited Samvel Gharibyan's house, located behind the Astafyan Hotel complex, and advised the residents to vacate the premises on their own. “This is the result of a guilty alliance between the Astafyan Hotel and City Hall. They collaborated and bribed the court to kick a family of nine out of their home,” said the mother of the family, Marieta Hakhverdyan ... [full story]

Gideon Moalem
Nightclubs on Armenian Patriarchate Property?

[March 5, 2007]

Hetq Online has received a letter from Jerusalem resident Gideon Moalem expressing indignation at the recent opening of a gay nightclub in a building owned by the Armenian Patriarchate. Hetq has asked the information center of the Holy See to comment. Below is Gideon Moalem's letter addressed to the Asset Manager of the Armenian Church in Jerusalem ... [full story]

Ani Gasparyan
Great Lady Mamikonyan

[March 5, 2007]

Siranush Margaryan, her five sons, daughter-in-law and grandson reside in a dilapidated dormitory building located at 4 Sisakyan Street in the Achapnyak District of Yerevan. Their apartment is very small, with scant amenities. The furnishings consist of a few chairs, a small table, four beds that barely accommodate the family members, and some kitchen utensils. Forty-eight-year old Siranush works round the clock –she bakes pastry at home and sells it to stores in an attempt to scratch out a living ... [full story]

Hasmik Hovhannisyan
Expectation as the meaning of life

[February 26, 2007]

“Do you want me to dance for you?” she asks, her eyes begging me to say yes.
“No, I now have to go,” I say.
“Do you want me to sing? Or I can recite poetry.” ... [full story]

Tatul Hakobyan
The Azerbaijanis Residing in Armenia Don’t Want to Form an Ethnic Community

[February 19, 2007]

On February 13, 2007 the European Commission against Racism and Intolerance (ECRI) of the Council of Europe published its second report on Armenia stating that progress had been made in a number of fields since its first report of July 8, 2003 ... [full story]

Naira Bulghadaryan
Six Months as a POW

[February 26, 2007]

Though he is only 40 years old, former prisoner of war Arthur Minasyan has already lost his health. He is blind in one eye; the other is weak. He often awakened at night by pain from the old wounds on the legs and back ... [full story]

Over 180 Armenian Students Gather to Discuss Their Role in Armenia’s Development

[February 26, 2007]

Over 180 Armenian students from 67 universities across United States and Canada convened at Columbia University on February 3rd and 4th to define their role in the development of Armenia. This summit of Armenian students, titled "Armenia's Development ... [full story]

Lena Nazaryan
Apartments for Graduates from Children's Homes are Unfit to Live In

[February 19, 2007]

Since 2003 the Government of Armenia has been providing the graduates of children's homes with apartments, but many of these young people have been given apartments that are unfit to live in ... [full story]

Karine Ionesyan
“We Will Have Digitized Armenian Films That bear Little Relation To Their Originals.”

[February 19, 2007]

This warning was in reference to Armenian movies that are being digitized by CS Films, cjsc. According to Ruben Gevorgyants, director of the artistic department, CS Films is actively digitizing films, and has digitally remastered ten films thus far. Before the privatization of HyeFilm ... [full story]

Susanna Shahnazaryan
Will Milk Soup Get the Authorities’ Attention?

[February 19, 2007]

My attempts to arrange a meeting with the head of the Aravus village administration before my trip to the village in the Syunik Marz proved in vain. He did not have a telephone at home. The only connection the village has with the outside world in the freezing winter are the schoolchildren, more than 50 in number, who walk to classes in neighboring Tegh every day ... [full story]

Larisa Paremuzyan
The Village Mayor Treats The Community Budget Like His Own Pocket Money

[February 19, 2007]

Head of the administration of the village of Akori in the Lori Marz and Republican Party member Kamo Simonyan said on Alaverdi's Ankyun +3 TV station the Republican Party is a very good party ... [full story]

Tigran Paskevichyan
Refugees Are a Separate Nation

[February 12, 2007]

Last December I met with Azerbaijani colleagues at a seminar in Tbilisi. During the coffee breaks we spoke on subjects of common concern for Armenians and Azerbaijanis. I told them that I had read in the Azerbaijani press that the refugee problem had been solved in Azerbaijan. “Yes, houses were built for them,” a colleague said ... [full story]

Lena Nazaryan
You Do That to Mock Us

[February 12, 2007]

These three young children and their mother live in a room on the eighth floor of the drivers' dormitory located at 127/2 Nor Aresh Street in Yerevan. The windows of the doorless room lack glass, there are no toilet or sink, no water, the floor is concrete. Seven-year-old Diana and four-year-old Eric are barefoot – they don't have shoes ... [full story]

Larisa Paremuzyan
Reports Ignored, Fines Unpaid

[February 5, 2007]

Of eighty-eight grocery stores registered with the tax inspectorate of Alaverdi only two - the main store in the Sarahart district, operated by Atorik, Ltd., and Narine Kharatyan's store in the same district – meet the required sanitary standards ... [full story]

Tigran Paskevichyan
We Sing and Dance to Survive

[February 5, 2007]

“I melt and waste away, I burn in fire. Tell me when my child will return, I count the days,” sang Sonya Chichyan. But she is not a singer, nor did she write the song. When asked who the author was, she replied, “He who is the author of everything.” Twenty years ago, Sonya Chichyan lived with her large family in the village of Getashen, in Lower Karabakh ... [full story]

Vahe Sarukhanyan
We Can’t Live with the Damp, the Smell, the Dirt

[February 5, 2007]

Residents of 64 Oganov Street, an apartment building in Yerevan's Malatia-Sebastia district, have been living in appalling conditions since last December 30 th , when their sewage pipes began to freeze ... [full story]

Anahit Pilosyan
A Sacred Book and a Family Treasure

[February 5, 2007]

Uncle Papul is well known, not just in his own Areni, but in the neighboring villages as well. He says that he has changed his name several times, and his fellow villagers do not know that on his passport his name is Papak, on his birth certificate it is Pahlavuni, and Papul is simply a nickname ... [full story]

Tigran Paskevichyan
Our Name is Refugee

[January 29, 2007]

Armenians who were expelled from Azerbaijan have been living in the dormitory at 57 Nalbandyan Street in the city of Sevan for a decade and a half now. They were placed here temporarily, until their legal and social problems were solved, but for those dormitory residents, “temporarily” has become a lifetime. Nina Kadamyan, who was forcefully deported from Baku in 1990, has lost any hope of ever living in her own apartment ... [full story]

It’s The Mass Media That Create Society

Interview with cultural theorist Hrach Bayadyan

[January 29, 2007]

- Is there freedom of speech in Armenia? And what role do the electronic media play in the realm of the mass media, Public Television in particular?
- To some extent there is freedom of speech and to some extent there is not. In many respects the opposition press is freer, but the TV channels are thoroughly controlled ... [full story]

Brazilian Soap Operas Dictate Armenian Fashion

[January 29, 2007]

“Europe is open to our fashion. When I say ‘our' I mean that which we have created. Nobody is saying that we should all wear the traditional Armenian costume, but even a small detail in the Armenian style – a sewing design, color or cut – would interest Europe,” said Mikayel Danielyan, fashion designer and head instructor at the Atex fashion center.

- How does globalization affect Armenian fashion? Who dictates the dress code for Armenian men and women? ... [full story]

Edik Baghdasaryan
They Went to Make Artsakh Strong

[January 22, 2007]

“If you want to taste suffering, come and live here for a few days,” said teacher Khanum Zakoyan. The Kashatagh region in Nagorno Karabakh has caught the attention of several Diaspora organizations (See Is It All Hopeless?). On New Year's Eve, the Shahan Natali Family Foundation launched the program "From Hand to Hand" in Kashatagh. The aim of the program is too ease the condition of poor families in villages throughout the region ... [full story]

Where Yerevan’s Homeless Live

[January 22, 2007]

This is the third year that Hetq has reported on the problems of Yerevan's homeless during the winter months. (You can find related articles in the 2005 and 2006 January issues of Hetq). Yerevan State University journalism students Ararat Davtyan and Vahe Sarukhanyan, who have been interns at Hetq since December 25, 2006, looked at the state of homeless people this fierce winter. We present some of what they discovered below.

Vahe Sarukhanyan, Ararat Davtyan
The Homeless People of the Chamber Music Hall

[January 22, 2007]

Two men were getting ready for dinner by the dumpster near the Chamber Music Hall. One of them was warming his frozen fingers by the fire, and the other was inspecting the content of a plastic bag and taking out what they needed: pieces of fried potato, scraps of meat and bone, bread. The man who was looking through the bag was about 40 years old ... [full story]

Vahe Sarukhanyan, Ararat Davtyan
Homeless People are Dying on the Streets of Yerevan Again

[January 22, 2007]

On December 26, 2006 Tony and Myasnik, two homeless men we were acquainted with, once again made a fire next to the garbage dump near the Yerevan Chamber Music Hall. We had agreed beforehand that they would gather the homeless people they knew to meet with us. But only the two of them were there. “Help us. Igor is dying,” Tony said with tears in his eyes ... [full story]

Vahe Sarukhanyan, Ararat Davtyan
“We’re Human, Aren’t We? So What If We Live on the Streets?

[January 22, 2007]

“Every day I think about not getting frostbite at night. Vodka helps – you drink and don't feel anything; you're knocked out. You get up in the middle of the night trembling with cold, you drink one or two of glasses of vodka, and fall asleep again,” Artsakh war veteran Rafo said. Rafik Martirosyan is from Etchmiadzin. He was born in 1961 and has three children who live with his mother-in-law ... [full story]

Vahe Sarukhanyan, Ararat Davtyan
Who Did We Use to Be, and Who Are We Now?

[January 22, 2007]

“Who did we use to be, and who are we now? Screw whoever revolutionized this world, really,” said freedom fighter turned homeless man Hovik Ghambaryan. “I used to have everything – home, family – I created everything. And now I collect empty bottles. Look, I found a TV set, some rugs. I'll take it to the flea market to earn some money for bread,” he said ... [full story]

Ararat Davtyan
I Am the Anti-Human Being of This State

[January 22, 2007]

“I'm not crying because I want you to feel sorry for me. I'm crying for my life,” 43-year-old Gegham Petrosyan said in tears. He lives near the “hobo market” in a house made of pieces of tin (if it can be called a house). His hearing is poor. He prepares a solution from various substances according to folk medicine, he says, heats it on the fire, and pours it into his ears ... [full story]

Our Goal Is For People Not To Have To Stay on the Street

Interview with Jemma Baghdasaryan, head of the Department on Disabled and Elderly Issues of the Ministry of Labor and Social Issues

[January 22, 2007]

The Center for Social Assistance to Homeless People was established at Yerevan's Shelter #1 in 2006.

- How was the Center established?
- We had felt the need for it for a long time. But neither the Mayor's Office, nor the police or any other agency had ... [full story]

Homeless People Get Used To Not Assuming Responsibility

Interview with David Shahbazyan, director of Yerevan's Shelter #1 and its Center for Social Assistance to Homeless people

[January 22, 2007]

- What has the Center for Social Assistance to Homeless People done since it was established?
- As you may know the Center has been operating since January 20, 2006 ... [full story]

Edik Baghdasaryan
Notorious Pimp Changes Name

[January 15, 2007]

As we have reported earlier, Amalya Mnatsakayan (Nano) and Marieta Musayelyan – both notorious pimps – took new groups of women to the United Arab Emirates in November 2006 (See also: When They Get Out of Jail, the Pimps Go Back to Work) ... [full story]

Tigran Paskevichyan
Teeth Are for Eating

[January 15, 2007]

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.”... [full story]

Varduhi Zakaryan
Gyumri’s Human Trafficking Victims

[January 15, 2007]

“Seven of us lived in one room, where we didn't even have the most basic facilities. We would be kept partly hungry almost all the time – there would be days when we would eat dry bread, cabbage stems and even days when we would go hungry ... [full story]

Lena Nazaryan
Make Your Life Easier or Fall Victim to False Advertising?

[January 8, 2007]

Television commercials for the company Telemarket that air regularly on several Armenian TV channels offer customers various household items that become useless after a single use ... [full story]

Ani Gasparyan
Five-year-old Alexandra Celebrates New Year's Eve in a Cellar

[January 8, 2007]

For six months now Alexander Shumovich, his wife, refugee Elvira Martirosyan, and their five-year-old daughter Alexandra have been living in the basement of the apartment building located at 43 Bagratunyats Street in Yerevan ... [full story]

Hasmik Hovhannisyan
Physically Challenged People – Stereotypes, Laws and Reality

[January 8, 2007]

In 2002, Armen Alaverdyan, founder and musical director of the Paros (lighthouse) chamber choir established Unison, a non-government organization (NGO) for the disabled, which, among other issues, would deal with administrative tasks related to Paros ... [full story]

Knarik O. Meneshian
The Gift of Christmas

[January 8, 2007]

It is December's first evening. Colorful lights and decorations already illuminate and adorn windows, doors, and streets. Snow has fallen. Shrubs and trees bow under the weight of the shimmering whiteness. Icicles glisten in the night lights, appearing at times like flickering candles, while tracks in the snow appear and disappear with the whims of the wind ... [full story]

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