Now that the main phase of the 19 February presidential election in Armenia is over, the Armenia Election Monitor 2008 has become The Caucasian Knot and will take over from this one as my primary blog. Facebook users may also join a Caucasus Knot — Oneworld Multimedia group to receive updates of breaking news, photographs and new projects when appropriate or relevant.

A Facebook Group for Oneworld Multimedia, the working name for journalist, photojournalist and blogger, Onnik Krikorian, who has covered the conflict in Nagorno Karabakh as well as human rights and the Kurdish issue in Armenia and Turkey since 1994. He has also covered general issues relating to Armenia, Georgia and the South Caucasus since 1998 and is the Caucasus Editor for Global Voices Online as well as the Armenia Country Editor for Oneworld.net.

Anyway, The Caucasus Knot is here.

Now that the post-election situation is dying down, I’m starting to pitch story ideas to various regional, international and Diaspora-based publications. Of course, I’m also interested in finding other outlets for my work as well, especially as interest in Armenia still remains quite small. Nevertheless, there are a few key areas which I want to focus on now and I’m interested in commissions for writing or photojournalist work in Armenia, Georgia and Turkey. Until then, it’s probably worth highlighting some of the work that has been published in the last two years.

First up is a continuation of my work on Yezidis and Kurds in Armenia and Turkey, and specifically the continuing division within the former community here. Although considered by most ethnologists to be ethnic Kurds, Armenia’s small Yezidi community is riven by debate over their origin. Even so, as I wrote for Geographical, the community is of specific interest to academics the world over.

Nestled at the foot of Mount Aragats, Armenia’s highest peak, the villages of Riya Taza and Alagyaz hardly merit more than a passing glance from motorists heading north towards the border with Georgia. Elderly women dressed in colourful garb nonetheless line the road, while children play nearby among rusting abandoned vehicles and farmers herd their cattle in the surrounding pastures. Few stop at the makeshift shacks selling basic groceries and provisions on the roadside. In fact, nobody pays much attention at all.

But for academics from as far away as the UK, France, Germany and Japan, these small, impoverished villages are a dream come true. Located 60 kilometres from Yerevan, the Armenian capital, Riya Taza, Alagyaz and other villages interconnected by pockmarked roads are home to one of the biggest concentrations of Yezidis in the country.

[…]

What makes the Yezidis so interesting to the academic community is the fact that they are considered to be ethnic Kurds who resisted pressure to convert to Islam. Speaking Kurmanji, the dialect of Kurdish spoken in Turkey, Armenia’s Yezidis are considered by many Kurdologists to represent the purest form of Kurdish culture in the region.

The full post is available on The Caucasus Knot.

While blogs undoubtedly came of age during the recent post-election state of emergency when the traditional media was effectively muzzled for 20 days, that is not to say that politics is the main focus of every blog. Indeed, it might even be argued that such blogs do little more than duplicate the same kind of polarized views voiced by a myriad of politically partisan newspapers.

Instead, now that post-election tensions are dying down in Armenia, there is a huge potential for blogs to cover more specific issues which are either ignored or left undiscussed by the media and society in general. One of those subjects is education, an area which is particularly tainted by corruption in the post-Soviet space.

According to Transitions Online’s education blog, Chalkboard, Armenia is no exception when it comes to the slow pace of reform.

While authorities tout Bologna reforms as creating a modern, competitive education system in Armenia, many feel that the transition is only exacerbating existing problems. In spite of the Ministry of Education’s lofty plans, Armenian schools continue to grapple with a critical shortage of resources and qualified teachers, especially in rural areas, due to persistent low public spending on education – only 3.2 percent of GDP according to the most recent figures from the World Bank.

The full post is available on Global Voices Online.