For nearly a week now, ArmenTel’s IP address that is used by all of its dialup customers has been blocked by CBL presumably because of spam coming out of Armenia. Each time it’s manually unblocked a few hours later it’s blocked again. Bad enough, but even worse is the fact that ArmenTel don’t appear to give a damn. Well, it’s how most organizations and companies are run here, but for a country that places such a priority on the development of the IT sector.

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Armenians have read a lot about the frozen conflict over the disputed mainly-Armenian populated territory of Nagorno Karabakh, but such articles are usually from partisan sources inside Armenia or in the Diaspora. Seldom does the Armenian press carry impartial and objective reports, and of late there has been some clandestine funding of less than objective articles on the situation in and around Karabakh to serve certain political interests.

Probably it’s a last ditch effort to influence public opinion here before we stand a real chance of reaching a framework peace deal after presidential elections in Armenia and Azerbaijan are held next year, but anyway, the point is that we don’t read too many stories coming from the “other side.”

That’s why it’s interesting to read an article by Azerbaijani journalist Rovshan Ismayilov, with accompanying photographs by Rena Effendi, on EurasiaNet.

Thirteen years after the cease-fire agreement that brought an end to fighting between Azerbaijan and Armenia over the breakaway region of Nagorno Karabakh, villagers still living along the Azerbaijani frontline remain trapped in a state of neither peace nor war.

Tens of Azerbaijani villages and settlements, stretching from the southwestern town of Horadiz to the northwestern Terter region, are strung along the roughly 120-kilometer-long frontline that divides Armenian and Azerbaijani forces. According to government statistics, they contain some 150,000 people.

Some, like the village of Chirahli in Agdam region, have become ghost towns; only 10 families are left to occupy the 100 houses still standing there. Still others, battle sites during the last two years of the 1988-1994 war, look as if the fighting ended only yesterday.

But still, their inhabitants stay on. “It is very difficult to live here. No money, no good prospects. But we are keen to stay in the village,” said Yashar Ahmedov, a farmer who lives in Mirashalli village on the frontlines in Agdam region, an area mostly controlled by the Armenian army. “If we leave this place then everyone else will go, too. We don’t want to give up our lands.”

Gunfire and occasional shell explosions are routine for frontline residents, making security their major concern. According to the Azerbaijani Defense Ministry, up to 200 people, many of them civilians, are killed each year from cease-fire violations. Even more, the ministry says, are wounded.

To avoid Armenian sniper fire from a few kilometers away, cab drivers dim their lights at night when driving to Azerbaijani-controlled villages within Agdam region. Further to the south, in villages like Horadiz in Fizuli region, some 150 meters from the frontline, houses are reinforced with horizontal cement slabs and top floor windows are sometimes covered with metal and wood to shield from such attacks.

[…]

Meanwhile, the population is growing larger. About 30,000 Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) from the breakaway region of Nagorno-Karabakh and surrounding occupied regions were recently moved to the frontline Fizuli, Agdam and Terter regions from tent settlements around the country. The IDPs occupy new houses built by the government over the past two years out of proceeds from the State Oil Fund.

“[It] only reinforced the unemployment level,” commented Mammadov. “There are not enough jobs, not enough land for ploughing, infrastructure is underdeveloped.”

[…]

“Life is continuing,” concluded Guzanli resident Mammadov. The frontline residents who remain behind “are somehow adjusting.”

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RFE/RL reports that the U.S. Deputy Assistance of State Matthew Bryza is in town and has praised the conduct of the recent parliamentary election in Armenia. Although the more radical elements in civil society and the opposition allege widespread fraud, falsification and intimidation, most local and international election observers instead believe that the vote marked a significant improvement over past elections.

However, it is important to note that this does not mean that the election met international standards or is on par with the conduct of elections held in the West, or even most recently, in neighbouring Turkey. Bryza also made it clear that there was still room for significant improvement, but the main point is that international bodies now consider Armenia to be on the right path in terms of democratization.

“I would like to recognize and congratulate Armenia for its success in holding what appears to be the freest and fairest election in this phase of Armenia’s independence,” Bryza told reporters, echoing the findings of Western election observers.

“These elections were a real step forward in the development of democracy in Armenia,” he said. “These elections brought the Armenian electoral process closer to international standards than any previous election. But there is still some room to go.”

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A very big thanks to A. for finding the 1993 album “Always” by Aziza Mustafa Zadeh available online. It’s got to be the best album I’ve heard by any jazz artist from the South Caucasus and one of my favorites in general. That’s because Azerbaijani jazz singer and musician Aziza Mustafa Zadeh plays the piano like a dream on this album and manages to fuse western, eastern, jazz, classical and traditional influences to seamless perfection.

In 1993, Columbia released Always, where Aziza was accompanied by then Chick Corea alumni, Dave Weckl (drums) and the irrepressible John Patitucci (bass). The album roared through Europe, dazzling listeners and wowing critics. It was awarded the ECHO prize from the German Gramophone Association. Was the album pure breathtaking jazz? Never quite so. Aziza can never be put into a singular groove. She had already lit up the sky with her otherworldly interpretation of mugam, appropriated to the landscape of jazz! Azeri mugami harmalodics buffeted with the clash and crash of Weckl’s percussion pyrotechnoques and the deeply resonant pedal-point and ostinato of Patitucci’s bass. Mugam-jazz-harmolodia was born at the slender hands of the soulful Azeri pianist.

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Following on from the statement made by Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL) regarding a reported breakdown in talks over the future of the station’s broadcasts on Public Radio, the Public Television and Radio Council (PTRC) have hit back with their version of events. According to RFE/RL and most independent analysts and observers, Public Radio have refused to sign a new contract to allow for the retransmission of RFE/RL broadcasts since February, and international diplomatic circles believe that the move is an attempt to prevent the station from broadcasting nationwide by the time of the presidential election due to take place early next year. The Noyan Tapan news agency, however, reports that the PTRC deny the allegations.

The full post is here.

EurasiaNet has just published my photo story on the Vardavar celebration as observed in Garni. From attending this event twice in the past six years I have to say that it’s more of a nationalist rather than religious event, and privately some of those attending say it has more to do with preserving and respecting the nation’s history before 301 AD than honoring the pre-Christian gods, but anyway.

Tradition, in the South Caucasus, dies hard. With the ancient July festival of Vardavar, one small group of Armenians is seeing a chance to relive Armenia’s pagan past, and affirm the country’s national identity.

Armenia adopted Christianity as its state religion in 301 AD, thereafter destroying or converting its pagan temples. For most Armenians, this date represents the turning point for their nation, and one that would later distance it from Muslim neighbors in Iran, Azerbaijan and Turkey.

But each year at Armenia’s only remaining pagan temple, at Garni, 32 kilometers east of Yerevan, a few hundred Armenians gather to celebrate Vardavar as an event that they consider represents Armenians’ true and original faith. The festival is perhaps the most popular of all traditional and religious events in the Armenian calendar, with youngsters and adults gleefully dumping water over hapless passers-by.

The celebration has now been absorbed into the Christian calendar, but was traditionally associated with Astghik, the Armenian goddess of water, beauty, love and fertility. The festival’s name is derived from the Armenian word for rose, “vard.” Early observers of Vardavar offered Astghik roses and sprinkled water on each other, or feasted near water in the hope that she would provide rain in time for harvest.

[…]

In the group’s events, nationalism and paganism mingle equally. “We are pagans,” said 43-year-old Zohrab Petrosian, Kakosian’s successor. “We are Armenians, but we don’t know our true religion. Simply lighting a candle in a church or wearing a cross around our necks does not make us Christian. I’ve been a member of this organization for 10 years, but as an Armenian I’ve been pagan since the day I was born.”

At the Garni Vardavar observances, one of the highest-profile attendees was Armen Avetisian, leader of the ultra-nationalist Union of Armenian Aryans, who received a three-year suspended sentence in 2005 for inciting racial hatred against Jews.

[…]

The appearance of ultra-nationalists, however, raises concern in some circles that the pagan movement could make a radical departure toward the extreme right. Armenian pagans tend to dismiss the concern, though. Many at the Garni observances said politics wasn’t a factor for them. Robert Garabedian, an ethnic Armenian astrophysicist from Germany, was baptized as a pagan at the Garni event. Speaking to EurasiaNet, Garabedian said that spending Vardavar at the temple site carried a personal rather than political significance. “I’m Zoroastrian, Christian and Buddhist, and now I want to be baptized into the same religion that my [Armenian] ancestors followed,” he said.

The hordes of children drenching pedestrians and motorists with water usually overshadow any such quests for meaning on Vardavar. Even so, Armenia’s pagans might take comfort in the fact that torrential rains unexpectedly hit Armenia at the festival’s end on July 15. As the rain poured down in the days that followed, one can only wonder if Astghik wasn’t listening after all.

The full text accompanied by photographs is here.

For the past four days I’ve been unable to send any emails through Thunderbird and Outlook Express. Each time I try my mail server rejects the messages and says that my IP address has been blocked.

http://www.spamhaus.org/query/bl?ip=212.73.64.41

Interestingly, this IP address is not one specific to my computer. Other ArmenTel dialup users I know also have the same IP address although as they use web-based mail services such as Yahoo and Hotmail the blacklisting doesn’t appear to affect them.

However, if the situation is as it appears, it’s quite outrageous and one that ArmenTel should address immediately. According to CBL, this is not the first time that such blacklisting has occurred.

IP Address 212.73.64.41 was found in the CBL.

It was detected at 2007-07-29 04:00 GMT (+/- 30 minutes), approximately 4 hours ago.

It has been relisted following a previous removal at 2007-07-07 21:57 GMT

If anyone else is experiencing similar problems or knows anything about this situation please leave a comment. If someone from ArmenTel is reading this post, please look into this situation immediately.

I can request a removal via the CBL site, but I find that such a situation existing for four days without the largest telecommunications and Internet company doing anything about it is quite ridiculous.

With less that six or seven months before the campaign for next year’s presidential election officially gets underway, all attention is currently on who will run for office. Under the Constitution, the incumbent president, Robert Kocharian, may not run for a third term in office and many suspect that as has been the case in most other former Soviet republics, he will hand pick his successor.

Meanwhile, in the other camp, speculation continues as to whether a common candidate can be chosen to represent a fractured and divided opposition. As mentioned on this blog before, four possible candidates have been mentioned in this regard — Artur Baghdasarian, Raffi Hovannisian, Vazgen Manukian, and possibly Kocharian’s predecessor, Levon Ter Petrosian.

The full post can be read here.

Environmental Protest Action, Yerevan, Republic of Armenia © Onnik Krikorian / Oneworld Multimedia 2007

Yesterday saw another environmental protest held in Yerevan. Actually, although they are staged from time to time, they’re not so frequent it has to be said — probably because few people here actually think about such things. Despite respiratory problems and air pollution being on the rise, the number of green areas in the capital continues to decline usually to make room for some monstrosity of a building or cafe belonging to a corrupt government official, their relatives or business partners.

The announcement of the protest, which I posted on Wednesday, read as follows:

We are against all the actions which cause ecological disaster in our city. The greediness of our “elite” is beyond measure. The construction business has purposefully destroyed the green areas and the historical and cultural monuments of the city for the latest decade, turning it into an asphalt-concrete desert.

Yerevan residents intensely struggle for the green areas near the houses, yet women and children face the attacks of the police and other armed forces.

It is the last straw that breaks the camel’s back. Emergence of a huge foundation pit for construction in Opera garden by the Swan Lake became culmination of negligence and arbitrariness toward the ecological and cultural environment and toward public opinion.

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Given that my 2.5 year old Siemens CX65 mobile died on me a few days ago thanks to an apparently inherent design flaw with the circuit board, time for some mobile phone humour. Myrthe at The Armenian Odar has more.

Earlier today I met a girl from Lebanon who had brought some things from my boyfriend’s parents for us. We didn’t know each other and we were supposed to meet on the Republic Square. This is part of the phone conversation we had when we were trying to find each other.

She: Are you standing in front of the museum?
I: Yes.

She: Are you wearing a black summer dress?
I: Yes.

She: Okay, I think I see you. Are you talking on the phone right now?
I: ….

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As mentioned before, some observers and political figures believe that there are those in government who do not support the idea of the prime minister, Serzh Sarkisyan, taking over the presidency next year. For example, not only is there speculation that Kocharian might back another candidate other than Sarkisian, the Armenian Revolutionary Federation — Dashnaktsutyun (ARF-D), one of the three parties making up the current government coalition, has already stated that it will not support his candidacy in 2008.

However, as even Dashnak party members believe that there are no suitable candidates from among their own ranks, some are wondering if both Kocharian and the ARF-D might not be considering supporting the Foreign Minister Vartan Oskanian instead.

The full post is here.