Armenians in the city of Echmiadzin celebrate Trndez, an orthodox ceremony of purification in the Armenian Catholic Church and the Apostolic Church. The celebration, dating from pre-Christian times, involves people jumping over fires and coals and usually begins the evening of Feb. 13.
Anahit Hayrapetyan is a freelance photojournalist based in Yerevan.
Azerbaijan is seriously preparing for war with Armenia over the disputed region of Nagorny Karabakh, the country's defence minister told international peace mediators in Baku on Friday.
"Azerbaijan is seriously preparing to liberate its territories," Safar Abiyev said in comments published by the ministry's press service.
It's hard to know how seriously to take these sorts of statements; the phrase "bellicose rhetoric from Baku" is by now a firmly entrenched cliche of Caucasus journalism. Still, that statement sounds, to my ears, more blunt than normal.
One of the most interesting parts of the recent International Crisis Group report (pdf), was its speculation about what would happen in a war between Armenia and Azerbaijan over Karabakh. It concluded that, while Azerbaijan has an obvious advantage in military spending, a variety of other factors could give Armenia an edge:
Former President Ter-Petrossian, was careful not to present the 1990s war as a conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan, in order to emphasise the battlefield role of Nagorno-Karabakh forces and to downplay the Armenian army’s involvement. The present Armenian leadership makes no such pretence. A premeditated resumption of hostilities by Armenian forces is not likely, but cannot be ruled out, as Yerevan commentators and some military officials, notably in Nagorno-Karabakh, warn of a “preventive war” if the entity comes under imminent threat.
A tense standoff took place on February 8 between scores of Armenian motorists and policemen in the Armenian city of Gyumri, near the Georgian border. But the issue had nothing to do with civil rights. Rather, it was about being able to get cars imported via Georgia into Armenia without having to pay customs duties and a 32-percent Value Added Tax.
About 70 car owners attempted to block the highway leading to Georgia, a critical transportation artery, to pressure Armenian officials to abolish a requirement that all imported vehicles must clear customs.
So, why is that something to get riled up about? Well, until now, many car owners avoided paying these taxes by importing their cars into Georgia, registering them in Georgia (where import duties are lower), and then driving south to Armenia in cars with Georgian license plates. As "temporary imports," these cars did not have to clear Armenian customs, and were not subject to duties and VAT.
Owners of imported cars say they want to keep it that way. Several drivers with their vehicles were arrested by police on Tuesday, but car owners say that they plan to rally on -- next date, February 10.
The disputed territory Nagorno Karabakh is preparing for its first flight in nearly two decades after its airport shut down in 1991 amidst the war between Azerbaijan and Armenia and Karabakh separatists over the region, RFE/RL's Armenian service reports.
With Karabakh’s status in abeyance, the airport in the capital, Stepanakert, is unlikely to have an international arrivals section. All flights will be bound for Armenia, the territory's ethnic kin and sovereign best friend.
Karabakh's de facto aviation officials expect the daily Stepanakert-Yerevan flights on Air Artsakh (Artsakh is the name widely used by Armenians for Nagorno Karabakh) to begin in May. A round-trip ticket on the airline's three 50-seat CRJ200 jets is expected to cost from $50 to $60, Regnum reported.
How Karabakh plans to deal with the International Civil Aviation Organization, which assigns the airport codes used in flight plans, is an unknown. Karabakh is recognized officially as part of Azerbaijan; under ICAO rules, therefore, it presumably would be up to Baku to request that the Stepanakert airport gets an international code.
The Georgian government faced a similar tussle last year when breakaway Abkhazia claimed that it would receive an international code for its airport via Russia.
Human Rights Watch has taken a look at the human rights situation in the South Caucasus and is not impressed by what it found. Army brutality in Armenia, IDP evictions in Georgia and roughshod treatment of media in Azerbaijan make for some bleak paragraphs in the watchdog’s 2011 world report.
Nor is a largely indifferent international community doing much to make matters better worldwide, the group said. While key Western powers such as the EU and the US can have an influence on human rights problem areas, the New York-based organization charged that they are instead settling for a “Façade of Action.”
[Human Rights Watch receives financing from the Open Society Foundations. EurasiaNet.org is financed by the Open Society Institute, a separate part of the Open Society Foundations network.]
Several thousand supporters of Armenian television channel ALM gather on the steps of the Matenadaran Manuscript Museum in the capital Yerevan on Jan. 19, to protest against the threatened closure of the television station. The potential shut down was the result of a controversial December decision by the country's National Commission on Television and Radio (HRAH), which handed a new broadcasting license to Yerevan TV, a small pro-government broadcaster, rather than the popular and independent ALM.
Tigran Karapetich, populist owner of the broadcaster and leader of a small opposition political party, addressed the crowd of mostly older Armenians, speaking mainly about social issues and government corruption.
Anahit Hayrapetyan is a freelance photojournalist based in Yerevan.
Traffic circles Republic Square and around the largest decorated tree in the Armenian capital Yerevan to celebrate "Old New Year" on Jan. 13. The next day is the official end to the holiday season.
Anahit Hayrapetyan is a freelance photojournalist based in Yerevan.
In considering the long-term prospects for a new war in Nagorno Karabakh, the key factor is of course Azerbaijan's growing wealth, especially relative to Armenia's stangnancy. But that could lead to two opposing results: either Azerbaijan would not want to risk damaging its vibrant economy by starting a war, or its oil-funded military will be so much stronger than Armenia's that trying to retake Karabakh would be inevitable.
Azerbaijan scholar and consultant Svante Cornell has written a new book on the country, Azerbaijan Since Independence, which he introduced at an event yesterday in DC. And the part that was most interesting to me was that he came down very much on the side of war being inevitable.
His argument: that while an Azerbaijan invasion of Karabakh would elicit international condemnation, it would probably be short-lived and not amount to much, comparable to what happened with Croatia when it ethnically cleansed the Serb-dominated eastern part of the country in the 1990s. (UPDATE: I should have mentioned originally, this assumes that the invasion would be quick; if not, a protracted conflict would cause a lot of foreign companies to not be interested in operating there.)(SECOND UPDATE: Cornell writes to clarify that the above are not his personal views, but those of "parts of the Azerbaijani leadership." That was clear in his talk, in my writing I just unfortunately conflated his views and the ones he was reporting. My apologies.)
In addition, Azerbaijan, as the party unhappy with the status quo, always has an interest in keeping the situation at high tension. And that raises the risk of an accidental escalation of a small incident into a full-scale war.
Yerevan city officials could spend much of 2011 conjugating English verbs and putting up stickers with new English words on their computer screens. The Armenian capital's new mayor, 47-year-old Karen Karapetian, has ordered government employees to take part in on-the-job English-language classes, regional news website Kavkazsky Uzel reported.
The decision appears to dovetail with the mayor's earlier decision to prioritize attracting foreign investment to Yerevan.
Younger employees reportedly welcomed the initiative, but it caused grumblings amidst older staff, who claimed that they are too old to learn a new language. In an attempt at levity, Karapetian, a former business executive, joked that he will test employees' English skills once they finish their studies.
Like its ex-Soviet neighbors, Armenia increasingly faces a choice between English and Russian for its main second language. As regional Russian language skills become ever rustier, the odds are looking higher in favor of English.
