Notes from the Armenian Blogosphere
For reasons that I don’t need to go into here, I’ve decided not to write a weekly update on the Armenian blogosphere for Global Voices Online. Coincidently, I had already mentioned the idea of doing something like that for New Eurasia, but to be honest, I was missing the obvious. Why not do this on my own blog, and not least since I occasionally link to other blogs anyway.
To begin with, it’s worth pointing out that the Armenian blogosphere is not well-developed and what has existed has been largely driven by the Diaspora for the Diaspora. Credit where credit is due, however, and not least to Cilicia.com’s Life in Armenia blog which was probably the first ever blog from Armenia and is certainly the oldest.
This section began as a way to share life in Armenia as experienced by diasporans who have repatriated. Now, it reaches the life of Armenians of every category… Diasporans in the diaspora all over the world, local Armenians who have remained in Armenia, and of course those who have moved back or forth still have a place… finally, I have added an expat log to let people share the experience of odars who have made Armenia their home, whether short or long-term.
As such it is probably fitting to begin with the first post made by a new blogger on that site. Nareg writes about getting his cellphone repaired, and finds that he still can’t get used to signs being posted on the wrong sides of doors for entering and exiting buildings, and the ability of Armenians to disregard them when they’re correctly labelled anyway.
I had never been inside that large, imposing structure before. There were at least two, maybe four doors in the front, with one marked “Moutk”. As I approached it, a bunch of people started coming out, and I got all upset with my favourite hobby-horse for being upset that gets to me every time I go to the Yeritasardakan Metro Station, when I feel like shouting, “It says MOUTK! The YELK is the other one! Can’t you read ?”
Meanwhile, Alex posts some photographs of the snow that has turned the Armenian capital into a winter wonderland. Truly, the scenes are very beautiful, although he says that problems with transportation have been inevitable. The same theme is picked up on over at Armyouth, a promising new blog run by visiting Fullbright scholar Tamar Palandjian who works at the Civil Society Institute in Yerevan.
Tamar is understandably confused why the municipality has failed to prepare for the snowfall and even more perplexed that state-controlled Public TV is pumping out propaganda that the situation is under control.
Frankly, the streets are not ploughed and it does not seem like the local authorities are taking quick action to clean the streets. Thus, cars are getting stuck trying to go up the slightest hill and the snow is continuing to accumulate. Yet, for some reason the news broadcast said something different. They showed images of Abovyan Street and how all of the snow on the streets were melted. The broadcaster was also explaining that it snowed in Yerevan (gosh, really?!) and that we should all be careful in this snow. But overall, the snow is melting quickly and all the streets are clean. I was simply shocked! What streets was she talking about? Because frankly all I saw were cars getting stuck on the road and I was walking around the streets around Baregamutiun metro the other day.
Myrthe, a Dutch girl residing in Yerevan, also blogs about the snow and complains about the power cuts that are occuring from time to time. She says that she won’t have gas heating until next winter, but after explosions ripped through the main gas pipelines transporting it to Georgia and Armenia, Ara Manoogian at Martuni or Bust posts a report stating that it’s uncertain whether anyone else will next week.
This much from blogs originating inside Armenia for now, although I’d like to draw the attention of readers towards two of the most professional blogs coming from outside Armenia now that Blogrel has become mundane, uninteresting and often uninformed over the past year.
The first is The Artyom Reader which covers a lot of issues more of interest to Diasporan readers perhaps, but which does so in an interesting and informative way. It also contains an update on the ongoing trial of Ramil Safarov, an Azerbaijani soldier who beheaded his Armenian counterpart on a Nato Partnership for Peace programme in Budapest, Hungary.
Instead of condemning this despicable crime, the Azeri government from the very get-go launced a PR blitz trying to portray this calculated murderer as a national hero and a faithful son. But of late the portrayal of this murderer has undergone a metamorphosis of its own beyond even Kafka’s wildest imaginations, starting with a national hero, turned a deranged and hallucinating sicko, turned a victim of some grand Armenian conspiracy. In short, you get it.
Last but certainly not least is the always excellent Glendale Chick — possibly the best and most humorous blogger in the Armenian context anywhere. From the facial hair of Armenian guys to transgender issues, it’s always uncertain but certainly refreshing to discover what she’ll post about next. Her funniest post of late, however, has to be one written after a recent visit to the supermarket.
So yeah, I buy the milk, ask for a paper bag and start walking out. All of a sudden, I notice a sign inside the Ralph’s store in Armenian! It read something to the effect of “Don’t take the shopping carts off the property. Its the law.” And as I was driving out of the parking lot — there was another sign stating that if you try to take the cart off the property the wheels will lock. Are you kidding me? Is this REALLY a problem? Please! Then on my way home… I noticed three shopping carts in the street, just sitting there, waiting to be found. Hmmm… I think we have a problem.
For hundreds of years, Armenian grandmothers have been known to be many things including force-feeders, matriarchal dictators, blanket knitters, grandchild spoilers, slow-walkers, fashion critics, and church-goers. But now, it seems that something else is going to be added to this list. Armenian grandmothers are shopping cart thieves. Its not according to me — its according to the sign at Ralphs and Whole Foods. And of all things — shopping carts??? Talk about embaressing!
[…]
Here’s what I’m asking… pick up the phone, call your grandmother, tell her you’re picking her up in five minutes. Go get her, and buy her a shopping cart. Its not a big deal. Give her a way out of crime. Let’s make sure that at least our grandparents are law abiding people.
Well, this much for now. I’ll try to do this roundup of the Armenian blogosphere once a week so if you know of any blogs of note that I’ve missed please post a link in the comments section. On that I would usually include Garo Adanalian’s Notes from Hairenik, but I’ve just posted a separate entry on his latest post here. Anyway, underdeveloped it may be, but the Armenian blogosphere is slowly becoming more interesting and diverse.
Armenia: Tour of Armenian Blogs
Onnik Krikorian rounds up the Armenian blogosphere.
…
Trackback by Global Voices Online — January 26, 2006 @ 9:41 am
thanx onnik for the nice words. i think your blog is one of the best out there period. dealing with vital issues like poverty and corruption, and a great stop for me to be connected to Armenia sans the government propaganda.
Comment by artyom — January 26, 2006 @ 9:57 am
Here is my favorite
http://shushanika.blogspot.com/
Comment by Nessuna — January 26, 2006 @ 11:09 am
ah, here is another one: http://lycaeus.livejournal.com/
and yet another good one in Russian: http://ogostos.livejournal.com
Comment by Nessuna — January 26, 2006 @ 11:45 am
Vay… Katy and Ben over at http://armenia.neweurasia.net/ appear to have deleted all the posts I made on that site last year. Not quite cricket is it now guys? Actually, I’d even go so far as to call it censorship and an attempt to control the Armenian blogosphere by people who know next to nothing about the country.
Still, while we’re here on this subject, and as there’s been some controversy about what has been happening at Blogrel, I’d like to say that while I don’t believe that Katy is the “agent of a foreign power” that some Armenians in the Diaspora consider she is, I do consider that she breaks the rules and etiquette of blogging to push her own career and self-interest.
http://aramanoogian.blogspot.com/2006_01_01_aramanoogian_archive.html
http://artyomize.blogspot.com/2006/01/take-this-katy-pearce.html
Firstly, while Blogrel has slipped in terms of quality since Matt passed over the reigns to Katy, it is obvious that rather than follow the generally accepted tradition of linking to other people’s blogs she instead posts links to news as if she’s done the world a great favor and found them herself. I know this because in the past I have monitored Katy’s accesses to my own site and then seen several similar posts on the same subject matter made soon after.
This is what I don’t like about Blogrel and Katy’s ambitions. Instead of developing and encouraging a diverse Armenian blogosphere she is looking to monopolize it even though her understanding of issues within the Republic is limited at best. Well, now she has a new project which I daresay she’ll get funding for which is a great idea in itself — linking Armenian, Azeri and Georgian students together.
http://youngcaucasus.neweurasia.net/
However, these guys are based outside of their home countries when an attempt could be made to encourage something within the three societies (which of course means that she’d have to relinquish control to local civil society activists with more expertise on the matter),
What’s more concerning however, is that these new bloggers will be given themes to write on to order and mentored by others not from the region. This I totally disagree with. Firstly, if you want to encourage cross-country communication it needs to be done in Russian AND English.
Secondly, people from these countries should be allowed to form their own conversations even if they disagree or are on totally different tracks. This way we could see where the countries are in terms of similarities and differences, but as it is there can only be serious doubts as to whether they represent any free conversation at all.
If comeone is going to blog they will blog, and more importantly, they do so because they have something to say. There are people like that in Armenia who need encouragement and support and in my opinion, this new project by Katy will frustate the development of a genuine Armenian blogosphere.
I know from speaking to Ben at New Eurasianet before he deleted all my hard work on that site that he and Katy hope to go into (funded) partnership with Transitions Online (http://www.tol.cz). In my opinion, this would be a huge mistake and TOL can only lose its reputation for reliable information from Armenia at least as a result.
Well, the more the merrier, but it should be up to Armenians here and in the Diaspora to define their own blogosphere and not for Katy to further her own ambitions. On the other hand, with this attempt to control what is written on Armenia and Armenian-related issues, perhaps the rest of us can now work together and support each other even if we might disagree.
I’m all for free speech and have supported Katy in attacks on her in the past, but not because I think she’s done a great service to the Armenian blogosphere (in fact, I think the opposite). Instead, I just don’t think that she’s a spy or an American agent. This latest project of hers, however, threatens the development of individual Armenian blogs and the natural development of a diverse Armenian blogosphere.
I also have to raise my concerns with Nathan Hamm’s (Global Voices) and TOL’s so-far indirect but potential involvement with the project. This isn’t doing Armenian bloggers any favors, guys. Incidently, it is because of my concerns with Katy’s ambitions and lack of blogging etiquette that resulted in my withdrawal from New Eurasia and my turning down the opportunity to post on Armenian blogs for Global Voices.
Comment by Onnik — January 27, 2006 @ 8:55 am
Onnik, I told you I have no formal relationship with neweurasia and that I don’t agree with every last way they do things. It’s bad enough that you accuse me of improprieties to my employers and now you’re doing it in public. I don’t ever plan to have a formal relationship with them for both a lack of time and a difference of opinion over the model. If I could share private discussions between Ben and I, I think you’d be happy with some of his ideas.
Considering your tone in the email exchange that’s brought on this outburst, I can see why the editors might have gotten the impression that you wanted your posts removed from neweurasia’s Armenia site.
There’s a lot more that could be done to set the record straight here, but I think it’d ultimately be a futile effort. Suffice it to say that I think you are seriously distorting a lot of people’s intentions.
Comment by Nathan Hamm — January 27, 2006 @ 8:56 am
Katy’s idea of http://youngcaucasus.neweurasia.net/ does not sound all that original to me, since I came up with that idea back in 2003, but didn’t get too far with it, since the university students in Baku decided that instead of talking, they wanted my Armenian blood.
Just so Katy does not waste too much money on this project that was my idea, re-read the post from May 28, 2003 to the end of May.
http://www.cilicia.com/2003_05_01_armo_life-backlog.html
Wednesday, May 28, 2003
A reader of cilicia.com who lives in Baku and I are planning to put together a program where Azeri and Armenian university students interact on a non-political level in hopes of finding some common ground.
Though I don’t envision reconciliation or some peace plan to be signed as a result of our efforts, I think it’s important that our generation (via the common people without some middle-man with his or her own agenda) learn to talk to each other. We also all need to understand our past so the bad stuff that has been going on for the last few hundred year will not be repeated in the future and just maybe with that lesson, we can collectively create some working form of stability in this part of the world.
Work is going well and now that we are cutting stone, I’m getting small orders from the natives. I guess there is an untapped market here for good quality granite tiles. Maybe with the help of my new friends in Azerbaijan, I can export there too?
posted by Ara at 1:13 AM
As I mentioned in my last log that an Azeri reader of ours and I were planning on a possible program to get university students to talk on a non-confrontational level, just to get some dialog going.
I want to share with you the following e-mails I got from our reader in Baku Orxan Huseyinli, a 19 year old university student.
I had run the above mentioned idea across Orxan to see what he though and he wrote:
Hi Ara! how are you? i m well 10x! i liked your plan! i think we can chat together between azeri and armenian students and we can discuss the problem between us! i liked your plan! i have some friends who want to discuss this problem! so i wait you! i m waiting your answer! and your project! with greatest love :Orhan!
I responded:
Hi Orhan,
Plan? I really don’t have a plan yet, but I think between the two of us we can come up with something.
I guess first we really need to decide what it is that we want to accomplish and then a plan can be formulated to help facilitate what we desire.
The following is my list of what I would like to accomplish:
1. Everyone to understand that we are all human beings.
2. Everyone has a right to a free and fair life.
3. People need to be sensitive to other people needs.
4. People need to respect others religions and culture.
5. War does not accomplish anything and in a war there are no winners.
I think these topics are very general and could be a starting point for some kind of dialog between our students.
Some rules that need to be applied and respected are:
1. Everyone has the right to their opinion.
2. For this forum, we don’t discuss the conflicts that we have had in the past, as my feeling is we are working to create a positive dialog and discussing the conflict from the start will only build more wall between us. We first have to have a positive dialog and then when we think we are ready, we can start to talk about all the conflicts, understand them so they wont happen again and then move on.
Now down to the point of if we can do this or not? I know from my side here, there is no one that will stand in my way of doing this. They big question is if from your side they will let you do this. Remember, you live there and if for some reason this will cause you problems with your government, I will understand that you can’t do this. If you have no problems in terms of being harassed, then I see no reason why we can’t move forward.
Please get back to me with what you think of my general ideas and tell me what you would like to change and add.
Regards,
Ara.
Orhan wrote me back today:
Hi Ara! you said that you dont like the war! yeah?! ok ! so i will say that from all azeri young mans! Nagorno Karabakh is azeri region! and armenia was occupied that region from azerbaijan! killed a lot of people(children,whomens,old mens) and we will return back our regin with war way! and belive me , all azeries waht to return his own region with war way! you said the war is bad think! cuz you didnt war for your region! armenians werent kill and werent died for land! they were killed all time turks! in turkey and in azerbaijan! so wait for me! so wait for azeri turks! wait for azeri soldiers! we all are deady for second war! wait for us! we will kill all armenians! and we will return back our lands! our motherlamd-Karabakh! our heart! our blood-Karabakh! bye!
With gretest killing wishes one of the azerbaijanian killer! killer who wants to kill only armenians!
Orhan!
Well I guess that this means we were never able to get the project off the ground and that love that Orhan had for me was only for my dead Armenian body.
Well the following is my response to Orhan that I wont bother sending to him since he reads our log:
Dear Orhan,
I’m saddened that you were unwilling to accept my hand of friendship I have offered you and understand that me being ethic Armenian is what stands in your way from honestly loving me as you had once said you did.
I am further saddened that you find war is the only answer to resolve the conflict we are presently facing, though that too I understand since the Turkish people have a history of wanting to kill Armenians and why should I expect this to change now?
I do want to tell you that if you and your fellow Turkic people decide to start another war with us, as much as I dislike war, I will have no choice and defend my home and people in any way I can.
I hope for your sake that one day you and your people will learn that war is not the answer to problems and like I told you before, in war there are no winners.
Ara
Well readers and all those governments that have been trying to get us to sit down at the negotiating table to come up with a peace plan. Here is another example of who the Turkic people are.
This should also give you a good idea why this conflict broke out in the first place. Armenians and Turks can not live on the same land together as like we saw in 1915 and then again in 1988, there are too many Turkic people like Orhan who are thirsty for Armenian blood.
Comment by Ara Manoogian — January 27, 2006 @ 8:57 am
Why most of the Armenian blogs are hosted at non-Armenian domains? Perhaps, www.Hayastan.com had this question in mind when it opened a blog space for its users.
There are not many active users at Hayastan.com’s community blog at this time, but maybe some blogs can “migrate” to Hayastan.com at some point.
To view the list of the bloggers, visit http://forum.hayastan.com/index.php?automodule=blog.
Comment by Armen — January 27, 2006 @ 10:49 am
Nathan, I have seen how you’ve personally tried to promote New Eurasia including linking to those same posts that I cross-posted there from my own site which are now deleted. This implies in my mind that your friendship with Katy and Ben, of which you make no secret, takes precedent over ethics. Of course, you’re in a different league than Katy herself who spends most of her time posting crap or does the blogging equivalent of plagiarising others.
I’ve seen the ability and way she uses others in order to promote herself at the expense of those already doing what she pretends she has herself, and that she is nothing more than the internet equivalent of a leech or other form of blogging parasite. As for New Eurasia deleting my posts, you’re talking bull. NOBODY does that and your attempt to justify the deletion of my posts that you yourself linked to in the first place is quite incredible.
As you know, my posts were deleted BEFORE these comments which are a response to such an unprofessional approach to blogging. For you to turn around to say that later comments justify such an action throws into question your perspective on the matter. Quite frankly, you’re talking out your ****.
Sorry if this gets you into trouble with your employers (although I doubt it will so the Armenian blogosphere will continue to suffer), but ask yourself this? Is your own career and the aspiration of your friends more important than what bloggers are doing in Armenia and in the Diaspora — forming conversations and sometimes arguments based on the realities in both of those two communities?
That you can even try to spin this around in New Eurasia’s defense shows that your links are too close indeed, which is why Ben includes you in his mailing list for developing New Eurasia into some kind of monster of a blog which seeks to eventually monopolize blogging in the Caucasus and Central Asia rather than promote individual blogging which should be the way ahead.
I can only hope that Transitions Online does not become involved with New Eurasia if it maintains such an approach, and certainly, there will be resistance to any of its initiatives to control and define the Armenian blogosphere, especially as Katy knows little or nothing about the country compared to a network of people on the ground who do know and who could use some support in their work.
Blogging is about naturally formed conversations and posts by individuals with something to say. It is not about instructing citizens of the three South Caucausus republics to blog on subjects to order and to also have a team of 6 “mentors” for each blogger to ensure that they fit in with New Eurasia’s style and self-serving ambitions to become a publication or “think-tank.”
Just to illustrate the fact, when I talk to potential bloggers here they are generally already involved in some type of activitiy whether that be forming links with NGOs in other countries of the regions, working voluntarily for NGOs here, or they might be student activists and the such like. They nearly always ask me first, however, what they should blog about.
My response is whatever they like and whenever they like. It is not for me to instruct them to do this or that. That is a genuine blogosphere with myself taking the role of being there to support them in their blogging in a technical capacity regardless of whether I agree with what they’ve written or not. Katy can’t even get into the standard blogging style of promoting other individual blogs, preferring instead to push only herself.
BTW: Something went wrong with the time-stamps on my, Ara and your comments so I’ve modified your two timestamps to in order that the comments follow in chronological orger. Unlike Katy who not only controls comments as well as even trackbacks, nothing has been added to or deleted from your comments — only the timestamp by less than an hour. Ara pointed this out to me, and I’ve chosen this approach to resolve the issue.
Comment by Onnik — January 27, 2006 @ 11:35 am
Armen,
Thanks for the link to the hayastan community blog area. I’m always on the lookout for Armenian blogs I don’t know about so thanks again. I’ll certainly keep an eye on it.
As for why I’m posting on a non-Armenian domain it’s because I want to use Wordpress to do so and had no choice although I’ve since managed to get Hetq Online to install Wordpress for the first of our blogging projects:
http://www.hetq.am/wp/
Cheers,
Onnik
Comment by Onnik — January 27, 2006 @ 11:45 am
Armen, pity most of these blogs are inactive. Still see some links to some more Armenian blogs in Nessuna’s comments above.
Comment by Onnik — January 27, 2006 @ 11:50 am
BTW: Nathan, when you respond to the fact that New Eurasia deleted my posts with the following “Suffice it to say that I think you are seriously distorting a lot of people’s intentions” then yes, your employers should be concerned with a potential conflict of interests.
So there we have it, you can now push your friends to your heart’s content and we’ll just get on with posting information from the ground. Incidently, I’ve known Katy since 2000 and she’s always been ambitious over and above doing anything else moderately constructive.
Spin your spin, but hopefully New Eurasia’s attempt to blog by order will encourage us to do something a little better. As you know, because you were also involved with discussing New Eurasia’s plans, while I was on Ben’s list and raised my concerns about instructing students what to blog about I was told “Never you mind, Onnik” by one of New Eurasia’s people. Not a good start to a project that is meant to promote freedom of speech and information.
Concerns? You bet ya — and they’re all valid.
Monsters like New Eurasia which seek to enforce a style in order to become a commercial enterprise in the future are not the way to go. We need genuine communication and conversation and preferably from individual bloggers. Even if that takes some time to develop it will be real. New Eurasia and Katy’s efforts (to promote herself) will not.
Comment by Onnik — January 27, 2006 @ 12:01 pm
I am keeping a list of blogs at . Look for the first category in the upper right hand corner. It’s called “Reisverhalen & Weblogs” in Dutch. The list is rather diverse (probably too diverse for your purpose), but somehow they all have a connection with Armenia or are written by (Diaspora-) Armenians , though not all write about Armenian-related topics. I am updating the list about once every month. Some blogs are no longer active (they have a green text next to the link saying “niet meer actief” - no longer active).
Comment by Myrthe — January 27, 2006 @ 12:27 pm
Someone should make it easier to post links in comments! I keep having problems when trying to post a link in a comment. Not just in Wordpress, but also in Blogger and other systems. Or maybe it is just me…
Comment by Myrthe — January 27, 2006 @ 12:30 pm
Move the </a> tag to where you want the link to end. At the moment it’s right at the end of your comment. I haven’t changed it because you get an easier to click on link. However, in the future why not just post the link directly i.e.
http://armenie.startkabel.nl/
the link is automatically highlighted in the comments so you don’t need to enclose it with any html.
Comment by Onnik — January 27, 2006 @ 12:37 pm
Since you’ve raised the “never you mind” incident again, I will paste the e-mail that I subsequently wrote to you and that you did not answer. Just so that readers of this comments section do not gain the impression that you were being intimidated by anyone at neweurasia. Or by me, at any rate:
“Hi Onnik,
Sorry to hear that you’re abandoning the neweurasia gang. I think you misunderstood the tone of what I said; I was only joking, certainly not telling you to mind your own business. Anyhow, keep in touch.
Just for the record, I agree with your general idea about getting people on the ground involved, but people in Turkmenistan are strangely reluctant to volunteer. As it happens there’s a couple of people doing their own blogs in Russian, but they said they didn’t have the time to devote to other projects.
Regards,
Peter
P.S. I still intend to carry out my threat of dropping in on you in Armenia, f***ing gut notwithstanding.”
The original message from me, just for the record, was:
“Never you mind about that, Onnik! Where are your posts, eh? Tut tut…”
Admittedly, a bit of sarcasm that has gone seriously wrong. As you should know from our meetings in the UK last year, I like you and consider you to be a great, imaginative journalist. I can only speak for myself when I say that I think that there are lots of ideas out there on how to invest in the future of blogging and, more importantly, grassroots journalism. It is also undeniably the case that this will bear constructive fruit if we exchange ideas and disagree amicably when the need arises. I hope you keep in touch, because I like your work and I am keen to see it do well.
Regards,
Peter
Comment by Peter — January 27, 2006 @ 8:14 pm
As I told everyone on the list, all subsequent messages were regarded as spam and were not read. Now, sarcasm or not, I raised a very important point that has ramifications for the Armenian blogosphere which we in Armenia are closer to than you, Ben and Katy.
As for Turkmenistan, Armenia, Georgia and even Azerbaijan are not the same and you know it. It is possible to promote local blogging from at least two, if not all, of these South Caucasian Republics. Talking of Turkmenbashi, however, Ben or Katy seem to be giving him a run for his money:
http://oneworld.blogsome.com/2006/01/27/new-eurasia-guilty-of-censorship/
Now, I wonder, who can explain dozens of missing posts…
Comment by Onnik — January 27, 2006 @ 8:22 pm
I replied to you some hours ago as to why the posts disappeared. I hope you accept my apology and won’t keep suspecting some strange act of censorship behind it. It was my own fault, and I didn’t want to delete your posts. I would also want to have them put back on the site, because as Peter rightly points out, they were high-quality material.
Comment by Ben — January 28, 2006 @ 3:57 am
A nice round up about the Armenian Blogs, Even though I blog from armenia, I have not taken the transistion yet, I am in a bridge between Armenia and India.
do check my blogs too, photoyerevan.blogspot.com , nanyaar.blogspot.com and my friends blog who blogs about some armenian issues jeya.wordpress.com
Comment by Nanyaar? — February 20, 2006 @ 2:38 pm