Still riding high after an unexpected first post by 26-year old Nessuna, and thankful for her first stab at summarizing the Armenian-language blogosphere, I’m also glad to see that former Oneworld blogger Zarchka continues to go from strength to strength. In a post related to the role of women in Armenian society, Zarchka reminds us of the conditions that Armenians have had to endure since independence.

There was no electricity, no water, no food. The winter seemed not to end anymore and everything was so bleak. In our block, a few people had installed furnaces, no, the others also had, just they were packed in their lumber-rooms, as they didn’t have wood to burn. Every morning on my way to school, which was about a kilometer away from my house, I was gathering broken wet branches of the trees, then hiding them somewhere out of eyesight. On my back way, I was doing the same, thus coming home with some amount of wood. As we didn’t have much water to drink, my brother and I were taking the saucepans and rushing into the yard in the search of snow, which wouldn’t be trampled down. The snow was melting on the furnace and later we were using it for washing the dishes.

Staying within Armenia,Tamar over at Armyouth reports on this weekend’s rock festival in Tsaghakdzor. I didn’t go because, to be honest, it didn’t sound too enticing. As much as I love Bambir’s eccentric performances, the rest of the line-up didn’t appeal too much. I also have to admit that I’m tiring of constantly seeing Bambir play and hope that we’ll get a more diverse rock scene soon.

That said, they do have some interesting new material that I heard for the first time in Yerevan on Friday.

Regardless, Tamar noticed something that has made her question the way people stereotype each other here. Actually, this seems to be a common theme of late from the likes of Zarchka and Nessuna, for example. Unfortunately, it’s all too true with Armenian society still preferring image over substance or individuality. Sometimes, most Armenians look like clones.

One thing which seems to consistent every time I attend these rock concerts is the amount of security at these types of events. During the day, the security guards had already arrived to the concert hall and were “on duty.” I was kind of taken aback by the number of security guards which were present for this concert. It seemed that Tsaghkadzor was relatively a safe city and in general Armenia has a relatively low crime rate. So I stood back and watched to observe these guards. As people were coming in and out of the concert hall, they would watch them. There was this one group of four young people who were wearing big sunglasses, one of them a girl had died her hair bright red, all of them wearing baggy pants and dressed in what you could stereotype as a rock’n’roll image.

[…]

Is there a connection between rock and revolution? If we think about the Sixties movement in the U.S., the anti-war movement and hippies tended to be known for their love for rock music. Are the Armenian rock’n’rollers also starting a social movement in this country, which may pose a threat to the security and stability of this government?

This is probably not the case, as rock music is not liked by a vast majority of the Armenian population. In fact, Armenian youth who do not prefer to listen to rock music tend to stereotype all rock music as being “heavy” and “not understandable.” It is also an image that they do not prefer to maintain. So is that it? Is rock’n’roll associated with such an image? Some may agree. Could that be why there were so many security guards present at the rock concert in Tsaghkadzor? It comes down to this, I think. Many Armenians tend to judge these people because they “look different” from the norm and also think that rock’n’rollers are bad people- criminals, or just unobedient children.

[…]

It is really sad to see such stereotypes about those people who do appreciate rock’n’roll in Armenia. It is even more disappointing to see that having an image which is considered to be different from the norm is what makes security on “high alert”.

Meanwhile, as the number of foreigners blogging from Armenian vastly outnumbers the locals, it is at least encouraging to find some Indian bloggers posting from Yerevan. I stumbled upon these sites while looking at Armeniapedia.org’s list of online journals, but quite coincidently, one of these Indian bloggers posted a comment on my own site today.

For those of you that don’t know, there are hundreds if not thousands of Indian students studying in Yerevan and like Nanyaar, mainly at the Medical University.

Rushed out of my Pathanatomy lecture, came to my room and slept and woke up today morn sparing just enough time to get ready for class. And that was how I spent my Valentine’s Day. Even though Yerevan celebrated it in full blast with concerts and parties. You could see couples young and old moving along the beats in the city circle. And oh, the girls ever so beautiful in red and green, many clutching a red rose.

In the Diaspora, of course, the topics are again fairly predictable, but that is not to downplay their significance. Indeed, the content on two of the main Diasporan blogs is actually quite interesting and poignant given recent attempts to find a solution to the conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan over Nagorno Karabakh.

The Artyom Reader, for example, reports that the murderer of an Armenian soldier at a NATO Partnership for Peace programme in Hungary has been named “Man of the Year” by one Azeri political party.

The Russian language Day.az is reporting that the National Democratic Party of Azerbaijan has made the murderer Ramil Safarov as its poster boy by declaring him to be the coveted “Man of the Year.” Here is a brief translation of the speech of the leader of the party:

I really don’t care as to how Ramil Safarov killed the Armenian officer (Gurgen Margaryan). What really matters is the fact there is one less Gurgen in the world, and the more Azerbaijanis kill Armenians the less of them (Armenians) will be present (in the world).

According to Blogian, the announcement appears to come two years since Margaryan was decapitated. Blogian also links to a poem in Armenian dedicated to the murdered soldier. Keeping in the area of prose and literature, Blogian also draws our attention to a new book by a Canadian writer based around an Armenian orphan who arrives in Canada after surviving the 1915-23 Armenian Genocide.

The story is an emotional one. About a young boy who has already lost his mother and father and little brother because of the Armenian genocide in Turkey. But he now must choose to lose everything else that is familiar — his grandmother, the orphanage in Corfu that he considers home, and his beloved teacher — on the chance that he can gain freedom as a Canadian.

You’d think that because this story had been in my heart for so very long that seeing the page proofs would have no effect on me. After all, these are my own words.

And talking of Genocide, The Artyom Reader also reports on the controversy surrounding the inclusion of two panelists who deny that the Armenian Genocide ever took place on a PBS TV show.

Now this raises an obvious question of how come? - the answer for which can be read all over Atlas’ declining and a foul play is as obvious as anything else. The article also notes that the panelists representing the “Armenian side” were in fact “cornered” by PBS into accepting the airing of the debate or else.

To end on a brighter note, however, Harmick at Blogrel writes more on Armenia’s entry to the Eurovision Song Contest, not that I or any of my friends in the UK will give a damn given the dross that usually passes for music in the competition. Nevertheless, Harmick says that this year’s contest truly marks Armenia and Georgia’s progress towards Europe.

This is a huge step for Armenia, as not only has it’s tv network fulfilled broadcasting rules implied by the EBU , it has also, along with Georgia, redefined the broadcasting area of “Europe” which used to exclude Armenia and Georgia, classing them as Asia. Now they are European, or so it seems! The EBU says it has no further plans for expansion, so, we did good!

Once again, help promote the Armenian blogosphere by linking to this post and as usual, feel free to post any Armenian-related blogs you think I might have missed in the comments section of this post.