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Get your daily news HERE!!
[November 01, 2008]
Starting today Hetq will be publishing news, informative articles, interviews and much more regarding developments in Armenia on a daily basis at: today.hetq.am
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 Sara Petrosyan
Rid Yourselves of Those Bothersome Names
[December 29, 2008]
On June 6, 2005, the Jambarak branch of the Civil Status Acts Registry Agency (CSARA) duly registered the birth of Karineh Meliki Khachatryan. In May of 2008, Lusineh Mkhitaryan, who has headed the same CSARA branch office for eight years, handed Karineh Khachatryan a copy of her birth certificate. The only difference was that there was a different last name on the copy. It read Karineh Makaryan. Karineh, in essence, had been given another surname.
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Readers Respond
[December 29, 2008]
Dear readers,
Last week “Hetq” published an article regarding the Armenian community in Sweden. Our reporter spent a week there and conducted interviews with various community leaders. Naturally, one cannot provide an exhaustive and detailed picture of the community and its inner workings based solely on information culled in a few days.
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 Kristineh Aghalaryan, Shushan Stepanyan
Just How Much Do You Have to Pay For a Room at the Zeytoun Dormitory?
[December 22, 2008]
According to students residing in the Zeytoun dormitory, they are paying more than the normal daily price as defined. They say they have no choice given that they’d have to pay several times more if they rented rooms in Yerevan.
“I pay 50, 000 drams, others more. When I wanted to get a room here they told me 95,000 drams. I accepted even though I didn’t know the rules because it was convenient,” states a student who wished to remain anonymous. The student stated that even if he knew he was paying more than normal he would have done so. “We can’t do a thing about it because rental in Yerevan or so expensive, even given normal conditions.”
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 Armen Davtyan
The Plea of a Disabled 26 Year-Old – “Good people, please help me”
[December 22, 2008]
The last school bell rung for 26yera-old Meri Asatryan didn’t usher in the beginning of a new and wonderful life; just the opposite. In her words, “it was the start of a slow road to hell”. Her dreams of going on to college and of following in her mother’s footsteps and becoming a teacher fell to pieces just one year after finishing high school.
It was while she was going to school in Ukraine. One day, out of the blue and with no signs of being ill, her entire body started to hurt. At first she thought that she had caught a chill but a few days later her feet started to swell-up.
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 Larisa Paremuzyan
The Armenian Community in Sweden
[December 22, 2008]
There are about 5-6,000 Armenians residing in Sweden. Most live in the capital Stockholm or in the city of Uppsala. Armenians first started to move to Sweden some 30 years ago, mainly from Iraq, Syria and Leban/on. Some ten years a new group of Armenians from Karabakh and Armenia began to arrive as well as Armenians from Turkey.
“We have our clubs, where Armenians meet. There are 3-4 clubs in Uppsala and others in Stockholm, Gothenburg, Malmo Many Armenians are from Turkey and do not speak Armenian. They didn’t use the language in Turkey because it was forbidden. For one day a week in the clubs there are Armenian lessons for them,” stated Mourat Artin, an Armenian who heads the Swedish Left Party’s office in the town of Orebro.
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 Lilit Nurijanyan
Gabriel Sargsyan – For the chess champ who once wanted to be a football star…billiards is the most beautiful game around
[December 15, 2008]
In 1989, at the age of six, Gabriel would follow the chess games played by his grandfather Sargis and his friend. He’d watch how the old wooden chess pieces would move around the board and bring victory to one and defeat to the other.
One day young Gaby told his grandfather, “Grandpa, let’s play a game together.” The old man was thrown for a loop by the boy’s request and answered, “But Gaby, in order to play this game you have to know the moves.” Gaby retorted, “I already know the moves.” Gaby played his first game of chess with on the worn out board of his granddad.
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 Lilit Nurijanyan
Vladimir Hakobyan – “Chess is a game of fantasy and intuition”
[December 15, 2008]
Ten year-old Vladimir received many congratulations in school on November 26th. He was proud of his father who had just become an Olympiad champion for the second time. On the evening of November 26th Vladimir along with his brothers, 4 year-old Edward and one and a half year-old Sergei, and mother went to the airport to greet their champion father.
At the age of five Vladimir Hakobyan started to play checkers and even though his dad thought he played well, he didn’t consider it a serious game and that the boy needed to play chess.
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 Shoushan Stepanyan
Levon Aronyan – “After every defeat I wonder if I’ll ever be able to play chess again”
[December 08, 2008]
Hetq – On November 25th Armenia’s chess team won its second consecutive championship during the final round of play at the 38th International Chess Olympiad held in Dresden, Germany. Armenia was represented at the tournament by Grandmasters Levon Aronyan, Gabriel Sargsyan, Vladimir Hakopyan, Tigran Petrosyan and Artashes Minasyan. The following is a set of observations on the chess champions prepared by Hetq reporters.
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 Shoushan Stepanyan
Tigran Petrosyan - “It’s possible to try and move to chessboard #3.”
[December 08, 2008]
Tigran Petrosyan junior, a champion of the recent 38th International Chess Olympiad in Dresden, is no relation to world chess champion Tigran Petrosyan. This, despite the fact that the victory and excellent gamesmanship of the latter was a deciding factor when it came time for Levon Petrosyan to name his future son. “Being a chess aficionado, my father always dreamt of having a son. Since our last name was Petrosyan he named me Tigran and taught me how to play chess. It worked out fine,” says the Dresden champ.
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 Ararat Davtyan
4,284 People Still Officially Registered Homeless in Gyumri
[December 08, 2008]
The bus station in Gyumri is the largest neighborhood of “tnaks” (huts built as temporary shelter after the 1988 earthquake) in Gyumri; in a deafening silent corner of town removed from the noise and hustle and bustle of the city. Here, tragic accidents occur almost every year- sometimes it’s a child that drowns in the “Dirty River” that surrounds the place or else one of the huts suddenly washes down into the river. Last year one family barely managed to escape such a fate. For years the river’s waters had weakened the foundation of the hut and one night all three members of the family found themselves washed away into the water and were severely injured as a result.
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 Kristine Aghalaryan
An Historical Overview of the Norashen Sourb Astvatzatzin Church
[December 08, 2008]
Some 650 Armenian churches are registered in the territory of Georgia. Just in Tiflis alone there were 29 Armenian churches during the 19th century. Today only two remain. Today the property rights of six churches expropriated during the Soviet era remains unresolved – Saint Norashen (15th century) in Tbilisi, Saint Nshan (18th c.), Shamkhoretsots Holy Mother of God (or Karmir Avetaran, 18th c.), Yerevantsots Saint Minas (18th c.), Moughni Saint Gevorg (14th c.) as well as Saint Nshan (19th c.) located in Samtske-Javakhk.
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 Kristineh Aghalaryan
Armenians of Tiflis Can’t Even Light Candles in the Armenian Church
[December 01, 2008]
“We want to enter the Norashen Church to light candles, that’s our right, no?” says Mikayel Davtyan, an Armenian from Tiflis. “Every Sunday we go to the Norashen courtyard, it’s a meeting place for Armenians. Why can’t we go inside and light candles?”
The Holy Mother of God Church in Norashen is one of the churches “in question”. It is presently closed while the courtyard serves as a gathering place for local Armenians. Armenians of Tiflis have accepted this development quite painfully given that a solution to the status of the Armenian Church in Georgia and the question of handing over the five Armenian churches in Tiflis to the Armenian Apostolic Diocese had been dragging on for years.
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 Lena Nazaryan
Armen Harutyunyan – “I am hopeful that the political will exists to seriously investigate the matter and find the culprits.”
[November 24, 2008]
Mr. Harutyunyan, Edik Baghdasaryan is the 7th journalist to be physically assaulted this year. However, none of the guilty has been found in any of these cases and no one has faced punishment. What is the reason?
Till today I really haven’t seen a great desire to get at the truth. Perhaps, freedom of speech isn’t such an important value for our society and thus something to fight for. It’s curious that none of the organizers or individuals responsible for these attacks has been uncovered. In my estimation there simply isn’t the desire, otherwise it’s hard to believe that such a thing is impossible.
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 Astghik Khachatryan
Newly Appointed UNICEF Representative to Armenia – “Child labor robs children of their childhood itself”
[November 10, 2008]
Today, Fifteen year-old Yura Haroyan temporarily lives in the Children’s Reception and Orientation Center run by FAR, the Fund for Armenian Relief. Previously, Yura lived with his father Edik Haroyan, a Karabakh War veteran. The boy hardly knows his mother as his parents separated when he was just two months old.
His father suffers from suberculosis and is presently in jail detention. To help his father Yura started working when only seven by selling crosses at the Mother See at Holy Etchmiadzin.
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 Ararat Davtyan
The Yerevan Municipality Allocates a Parcel of Land to one of its Employees under the Guise of “Eminent Domain”
[November 10, 2008]
“Every day President Sargsyan talks about developing small and medium sized business. Today we are the representatives of this sector but they throw us out of there and give that huge sector to just one person so that he can make money and for the oligarch to get rich. Perhaps we’ll work as vassals for him. But why? I don’t want to hand over my property to him.” sated Nikola Melikyan.
Nikola is one of the 28 businessmen who have privatized land near Yerevan Botanical Garden bordering Ajarian Avenue and Tzarav Aghbyur Street. There you’ll find stores selling construction material and auto parts and various garages. Their future however is threatened.
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Weekly Interview
[November 10, 2008]
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 Edik Baghdasaryan
Artsakh War Vet Proclaims, “Don’t Look for Land-Givers Here - Go to Yerevan”
[October 27, 2008]
“If they think that by giving back those territories they can continue to live comfortably, they are mistaken.” This is what Garik, a disabled person, told us one week ago in Martakert, Karabakh. I tried to get him to enter into a conversation regarding what the guys who fought in the Artsakh war of liberation thought about recent development surrounding the Nagorno-Karabakh settlement process. It seemed that my questions ruffled the feathers of the veteran who received a head injury during the war. I felt that I had made a blunder by stating that Karabakh residents weren’t interested in discussing the issue of returning the liberated territories surrounding the NKR.
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 Liana Sayadyan
Armenia’s Public TV Expresses Desire to Adopt Serious Reforms…But Will the Regime Allow It?
[October 27, 2008]
At the request of the OSCE’s Yerevan Office, the BBC’s World Service Trust conducted an evaluation of the needs of Armenia’s Public TV Station. The aim of the review, which was conducted on July 14-18, 2008, was to spur the development of the station’s public programming. On October 17th, at the Congress Hotel in Yerevan, Michael Randall, the BBC’s Projects Manager for Europe and the CIS, and Armen Arzumanyan, Executive Director of Armenia’s Public TV (APTV), presented the results of that evaluation. (Full report transcript available at OSCE Yerevan Office website)
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The New Facts of Violation of Armenian Minority Rights by the Georgian Authorities
[October 25, 2008]
Despite international obligations assumed by the Georgian government for the protection of the rights of ethnic minorities in Georgia, despite numerous recommendations and appeals by international organizations, including the UN Human rights commission and human rights NGO-s to respect these obligations, the Georgian authorities continue to ignore and disregard issues of concern to the Armenian minority, contributing moreover, by a number of new steps, to the aggravation of tensions and the increase of discontent.
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The Storks Have Migrated, but They Have Promised to Return
[October 20, 2008]
Since 2005 the American University of Armenia’s Hakobyan Ecological Center has conducted a research project entitled the “White Stork”. During these years some 1,017 white stork nests have been registered throughout different regions of Armenia.
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 Edik Baghdasaryan
Why Do We Struggle Against Corruption?
[October 20, 2008]
Once again the struggle against corruption is intensifying in the country. The National Security Service has circulated a video-tape showing an employee of the Kotayk Marzpetaran (Governor’s Office) accepting a 60,000 dram bribe from a citizen. The woman was paying the 60,000 drams in order to get her name registered on the list of those entitled to social benefits.
On the frontlines of the struggle are also the Police, the Prosecutor’s Office, the National Assembly and the government. Joining in the struggle are international institutions that provide financial grants designed to erase the plight of corruption completely or at least to reduce it presence.
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 Ararat Davtyan
“If “Meat-Grinder” Lyovik and His Gang Aren’t Arrested They’ll Go on Committing Crimes’
[October 20, 2008]
The above comment is how Artur Sahakyan, Director of Armenian Public Radio’s “Radio Lour” program described the events in question. He portrayed National Assembly Deputy Levon Sargsyan, who is publicly known by the moniker ‘Flour-Mill Lyovik’, as a “meat-grinder”, given that the latter’s “criminal gang murdered 35 year-old Andranik Babayan, a father of two.”
“They relate they viciously beat the man, and with pistols to the head, as far as I know. They were under the impression that they were killing me but due to a tragic coincidence I was not behind the wheel of my car at the time,” stated Artur Sahakyan during a press interview while he was in hiding.
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 Hasmik Hovhannisyan
This “Horse Doctor” is the Real Deal
[October 13, 2008]
Hippotherapy is a rehabilitation method for mentally and physically disabled people that utilizes equine movement and the psychological impact of the horse on human beings. “Khouzhan” is our ‘head doctor’ in hippotherapy.
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 Hasmik Hovhannisyan
Hippotherapy: Treatment with Pleasure
[October 13, 2008]
It was a hot September day when my life divided into “before” and “after”. Before that day I was an ordinary horse, like other horses living in the village. All the day I would graze in the fields and from time to time village guys would saddle me. After that day I became a doctor. And not an ordinary doctor whom children fear to see but a doctor whom children go to with smiles on their faces.
My name is Khouzhan. I, along with hippotherapist Hasmik and horse trainer Boris practice a kind of rehabilitation for mentally and physically disabled children called hippotherapy (from the Greek word “hippos” meaning horse).
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Haykush Aslanyan
General Absolution in Charentsavan
[September 29, 2008]
Charentsavan resident Tatul Ivanyan states, “The Charentsavan Municipality has grabbed my land.”The resident first got wind that something wrong was going on when he refused to sell his gas station located on Shahumyan Street to Charentsavan architect Vahe Hakobyan. Afterwards the architect stated that a parcel of the land no longer belonged to Mr. Ivanyan, whether he liked it or not. “A few guys started to fence off the 40 square meter parcel as a preliminary construction step. I was surprised to learn that the property was sold to them given the fact that I’ve owned the land since 2003 when I signed a contract with the Municipality.” stated Mr. Ivanyan.
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 Lena Nazaryan
The “Mission Armenia” NGO Has Closed Three Soup Kitchens
[June 16, 2008]
The news regarding the closing of a number of charitable soup kitchens has come as a blow to those used to getting their meals there. These people now face the prospect of going hungry. One month ago the Mission Armenia NGO, a charitable organization founded in 1993, closed the doors of three of its 32 soup kitchens operating in Armenia. The no longer functioning soup kitchens were located in the cities of Gyumri, Vanadzor and Vartenis. There have also been cuts to the remaining 29 located in Yerevan and eight of Armenia’s Marzes (regions). Three more soup kitchens are slated to be shut down by 2009.
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 Lena Nazaryan
“I am Surprised….Why are you Making Such a Fuss?”
[August 18, 2008]
In 2007 the Armenian government allocated some 9.8 million drams from the state reserves designed to tackle the primary issues confronting rural and urban communties in the Marzes (Regions). Prime Minister Serzh Sargsyan signed this decree in September after which the funds were transfereed to the various Marzes.
The Ararat Marz was granted 1.1 million drams. Deputy Regional Governor S. Miniasyan stated that about 75% of the amount would be essentially spent on the repair of kindergartens and cultural houses in 56 rural and urban communities.
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 Ararat Davtyan
Ashot Boghossian: “Exploitation of Marjan Deposit Will Make Arevis a Viable Community”
[June 30, 2008]
On June 20th residents of the Arevis village in the Syunik Marz, bordering Nakhijevan, gathered together for a discussion at which representatives of Regional Governor’s Office, the Environmental Ministry and Economy Ministry and village administration heads from Hatsavan, Tasik and Ashotavan, were also present.
Questions posed by local residents were mainly addressed to employees of the Armenian branch of the US Global Gold Company.
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 Voskan Sargsyan
Inhuman Living Conditions at the Ijevan Dormitories
[July 07, 2008]
The building located at 64 Saribek Ohanyan Street in the town of Ijevan formerly housed the carpet factory’s dormitory. This building was constructed forty years ago but was handed over to the Ijevan Municipality eight years ago due to a variety of land and property debts. Forty families currently live, or more correctly put, exist, with the dormitory walls.
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