Blogrel says that the damn awful giant LCD screen in Republic Square will soon be finally gone. It was erected a few years ago, as Armenia Now reported way back then, and was meant to be “temporary,” although I think we all knew that it would stay as long as whoever owned it made money and remained in favour with the local authorites who should never allowed it there in the first place.

Where once Vladimir I. Lenin stood bronzed and pointing the way to socialism, an electronic billboard now stands in Yerevan’s Republic Square, broadcasting capitalism and the best of Hollywood action movies, and video clips from the former dictator’s nemesis, the evil west.

[…]

While authorities are looking for a worthy replacement for Lenin they gave permission to AD Technology advertising company to put the 15-meter high billboard where the 18-meter-tall former leader stood until 1991.

[…]

Vahram Gharibjanyan, manager of AD Technology and in charge of technical and program support of the billboard, says he chooses clips of movies that are interesting to spectators: such as “Taxi” and “Terminator”.

The manager himself thinks Lenin’s monument should have stayed, for its historical value. But since the place is vacant, why not fill it with advertisement?

[…]

Ads on the board cost $2 to $8 per minute, depending on the number of times it appears.

(more…)

After saying goodbye to old friend Lola Koundakjian who set up and runs the Armenian Poetry Project blog, which also includes podcasts, Zarchka at Life Around Me has felt encouraged to post some of her own writing on her site.

No, I’m not a poet, never was and never intend to become. Just from time to time something strikes me and I try to jot down it down. When I manage, I like it. When I don’t, I just tear off the leaflets. Now, eventually, I decided to post some of those “poems”. Yet, this is a challenge for me. Don’t kill me!

[…]

Anyways. I venture to present to your attention two of my writings, which are rather states of mind then poems. I would give the translations if needed, but I’m always of the idea that the literary work suffers a lot when translated.

Actually, Zara did eventually provide a translation of one of the poems in the comments section of her post, so you can read both Armenian and English versions over there. Lola Koundakjian’s Armenian Poetry Project is here.

She also has a travel blog that includes an account of her recent visit to Armenia here.

After some absence due to a faulty computer, Zarchka over at Life Around Me is back with a post on the greatest love of Armenian writer Paruyr Sevak. A new book reveals that the woman Sevak dedicated his love poems to was a real rather than a fictitious person.

The author of the book found the letters of Sevak and Sulamita which they were exchanging during the years. It is based on true events, though the pen of the writer neatly describes the whole beauty of their love. Not once it was that I tried to resist my tears while reading it, being not a romantic person at all, but they would always burst out with grief and lamentation for the great love of my dear Sevak. If you haven’t read this book yet, I sincerely recommend, for his whole poetry you read so far is equal to nothing if you don’t know who he referred and what he was feeling when he wrote his famous lines “You, my last one, misunderstandingly, and my only one by destiny…”

Unfortunately, they were sentenced to live and love far from each other and all over the time stand the tests of the life. And here he writes “ The spring passed, I didn’t see you, The summer passed, I didn’t see you, The autumn passed, I didn’t see you, The winter will pass, I’ll not see you. And where is our season of the year-the fifth one?”

Ohh, my dear dear Sevak, I love you so much and I love you more and more after learning your great but pleasant sorrow and pain caused by your sweet-sweet, most most love…

Zarchka says that she’s not a romantic person, but I don’t believe it for a second. You can make your own mind up after reading her post here.

After hearing so much from Nessuna about Lilith, a local girl studying design in Russia who’s about to continue her education in the U.K., I finally got the chance to meet her last night. Not only that, but along with Nahro Zagros, the Yorkshire Kurd, I got to play my first game of Mafia.

Mafia (also known under the variant Werewolf or Village) is a party game modelling a battle between an informed minority and an uninformed majority. Mafia is usually played in groups with at least five players. During a basic game, players are divided into two teams: ‘Mafia members’, who know each other; and ‘honest people’, who know only the number of Mafia amongst them.

[…]

Mafia was created by Dimma Davidoff at the Psychological Department of Moscow State University, in spring of 1986, and the first players were playing in classrooms, dorms and summer camps of Moscow University. The game then became popular in other Soviet colleges and schools and in 1990s it started crossing borders, first in Europe (Hungary, Poland, England, Norway) then the United States; now it is played virtually everywhere.

(more…)

Via The Armenian Odar, news of “an online global exhibit featuring art, photographs, essays and film by young women in their 20s and 30s…” Myrthe points out that only one Armenian woman based in Moscow is participating so far, so head over to her blog for more details. I know a friend of Nessuna’s might submit some art, but there’s room for more contributions.

Aram Khachaturian House-Museum, Yerevan, Republic of Armenia © Onnik Krikorian / Yeraz Art 2006

Have literally stepped in the door after shooting 200 plus photos of some very talented and young classical musicians at the Aram Khachaturian House-Museum in Yerevan for Yeraz Art. Raffi Meneshian, Executive Director of Yeraz Art recently blogged about the organization’s purpose on Cilicia.com’s Life in the Armenian Diaspora.

The basic premise of Yeraz Art is very simple. There are a bunch of talented kids in Armenian who are musicians. We will assist in finding them venues around the world under the “Yeraz Art” and “Armenia” moniker to help market and promote them and the country through concerts and international competitions. Along the way, we will fund their education and help with purchasing and upgrading their instruments. When they hit 18, they graduate from our program and we will attempt to get them into the best music schools in the world like Juliard, etc. Their education would be covered by our organzation.

(more…)

Bambir, Environmental Protest, Yerevan, Republic of Armenia © Onnik Krikorian / Hetq Online

It’s not often that you hear rock music on the streets of Yerevan, but today, Gyumri rockers Bambir changed all of that — literally. Riding on the back of a truck, Bambir toured the streets in an action to protest the destruction of the capital’s green areas by senior government officials, and the mainly oligarch-driven illegal construction in the center of the city. The environmental protest action was organized by the Armenian Center for Contemporary Experimental Art.

Bambir, Environmental Protest, Yerevan, Republic of Armenia © Onnik Krikorian / Hetq Online

(more…)

Bem Exhibit, Liberte, Egalite, Fraternite Annual Exhibition of Political Art, Armenian Center for Contemporary Art, Yerevan, Republic of Armenia © Onnik Krikorian / Hetq Online

I’ve just posted an update on Sunday’s referendum on New Eurasia’s Armenia blog that includes details of a visit to an annual exhibition of political art at the Armenian Center for Contemporary Experimental Art in Yerevan.

As the date of the referendum to amend the constitution draws ever closer, RFE/RL says that the Council of Europe is indirectly urging Armenians to accept the proposed changes.

Read more on New Eurasia’s Armenia blog here.

Narek Barseghyan, Bambir Rehearsal, Stop Club, Yerevan, Republic of Armenia © Onnik Krikorian / Oneworld Multimedia

YEREVAN, Armenia – It’s well past midnight when Narek Barseghyan and Arman Kocharyan, lead guitarist and bassist with the Armenian rock band Bambir, return home. For once, they’ve decided to call it an early night, providing me with the opportunity to interview them over a bottle of vodka diluted down with orange juice.

Narek says he feels like drinking screwdrivers tonight rather than the more customary vodka drunk straight.

At the very least, it means that it will take a lot longer before speech becomes slurred, and the whole point of the interview is lost. An early Bob Dylan recording is playing in the background as we start to speak about the band in an old apartment building now overshadowed by half a dozen high-rises being built on Yerevan ’s prestigious northern avenue.

The two musicians have come a long was since leaving their native Gyumri in 2000. They’ve always been dynamic performers on stage, of course, but in recent years the band has matured musically. Now performing on an almost weekly basis at Yerevan ’s Stop Club, Bambir are attracting a sizeable and almost fanatical following in the still largely underground rock scene.

Four years ago, short haired and clean cut, the band resembled the stereotype of how most mothers hope their sons will turn out. Nowadays, hair is longer, and Bambir look and live like a rock band. Across the table, Narek lights a cigarette before pouring another cocktail. I’m here to find out more about the band’s history, and to discover what their future holds in store.

I can only hope that it all makes sense in the morning.

(more…)

Hetq Online has been updated. Of particular note is a poem by Knarik Meneshian from Illinois who spent one year volunteering in Gyumri, Armenia’s second largest city devastated by the 1988 earthquake.

Of that visit Meneshian writes, “During our stay in Armenia, my husband and I saw much poverty. It was especially heart-wrenching to see how the extremely poor lived–some in moldy domeeks, some in shacks, and some in apartment dwellings that were not fit for even dogs to live in. We saw young mothers, young men, old men and women, begging in the streets as well as in Gyumri’s shuga. We learned what happened to some of the extremely poor girls in that city when they became 14 or 15 years old. Sadly, we saw much poverty amidst the dazzling lights of Yerevan too.”

Her poem “Son of Armenia” is a true account of a homeless man who died on a street near Gyumri’s Ani District.

Hetq also has articles on the trafficking of Armenian women and children to the United Arab Emirates, developing tourism to the southern town of Meghri, and my article on rock music in Armenia.

Katy over at Blogrel points us in the direction of a new blog from Armenia by a Fullbright scholar focusing on the theatrical arts. Katy says “she has some interesting things to say about drama interacting with culture.”