Amman is the capital of a Country hovering between remaining faithful to a pro-Western monarchy and the shock wave of the Arab Spring. A community of three thousand Armenians, a small star in the firmament of the diaspora, lives and survives the contradictions of the Middle-East. The eleventh episode of our report “From the Caucasus to Beirut”
1915: in the countryside around Diyarbakyr, Armenians and Kurds have been living together for centuries. The Ottoman empire, on the verge of collapse, is about to launch its witch-hunt. Ethnic cleansing in Anatolia is systematic. But some men, helped by luck or their neighbors, manage to save themselves. The ninth episode of our report, “From the Caucasus to Beirut”
A city symbol of the Armenian resistance. Razed twice to the ground, first by the Ottoman troops and then by the terrible earthquake of last winter, Van seems to share its destiny with the beautiful Tamara, a legendary figure disappeared in the abysses of the lake it looked over. The eighth episode of our report, “From the Caucasus to Beirut”
When a State is founded on a myth, that myth is to be defended at all costs. These words by an Armenian university professor come to Paolo’s mind while walking through the cold rooms of the Turkish Genocide Museum, in Igdir. Here, history becomes myth and the past is turned upside down. The seventh episode of the story “From the Caucasus to Beirut”
As a young child, she always wondered why she lived in Yerevan when her father was born in the U.S. and her mother was from Lyon. Then she understood. With an historical-artistic project, Hazel Antaramian Hofman follows the footprints of those people, who, from all over the world, decided to migrate to Armenia after the Second World War
Desolate lands, where the mountains of the Caucasus descend towards the Anatolian plateau in big steps, and names come from politics rather than history. The sixth episode of our report “From the Caucasus to Beirut”
The meeting with Vartuhi and with the fate that divided her from her sister in 1946. She lives in Musa Dagh, in Armenia, where a huge hawk reminds travellers of the Armenian fighters who in 1915 opposed the Ottoman troops. The fifth episode of the story “From the Caucasus to Beirut”
Vartuhi left Beirut in 1946, to reach Soviet Armenia aboard a ship called "Pobeda". In Stalin's land, however, the survivors of the genocide saw the dream of a homeland turn into a nightmare. Travelling to the Caucasus on the paths of migrations. Fourth episode of the story "From the Caucasus to Beirut"
Professor Adakessian’s slow pacing up and down the halls of the Armenian University of Haigazian, Rafi and his shoe factory in centre city Beirut, the present that shows up again in the old pictures of the Pobeda, the Russian ship that carried thousands of Armenians from the Lebanon to Soviet Armenia. The third episode of the story “From the Caucasus to Beirut”
Arafat’s bodyguard, then on the front line in the Armenian armed struggle and for 10 years a prisoner in a Syrian jail. “When I came out, everything had changed. The USSR no longer existed”. The meeting with Sarop, in Beirut’s Armenian quarter. The second episode of the report “From the Caucasus to Beirut”
In the Bekaa valley, in Lebanon, in the company of Hrayer, a boy from the local Armenian community. Among fruit trees, vegetables and a tragic past. The first episode of the report “From the Caucasus to Beirut”
One of the first Turkish scholars to tackle the question of the Armenian genocide in an open and forthright manner, Taner Akçam thinks that overcoming the taboo of the genocide will also enable Turkey to strengthen its own role as a regional power
At the beginning of May 1992, in one of the hardest battles during the recent conflict in Nagorno Karabakh, the Armenians took the city of Shushi/Shusha. A portrait of the city 20 years later
International Alert, an NGO based in London working on conflict resolution, did a study on how people on opposite sides of the conflicts in the South Caucasus perceived each other. Our correspondent focused on how Armenians were depicted in online discourse in Baku. An insiders' look into the dark side of the Azerbaijani blogosphere
“A boy is OK, a girl is not”. In the Southern Caucasus, male newborns outnumber females by more than 10%. Experts have no doubt that the cause lies in the practice of selective abortions, an already-known phenomenon in China and India. This clearly shows how gender inequality is still highly present in the region
At home they speak Hamshen, a variety of western Armenian. At school, they study eastern Armenian, as spoken in Yerevan. According to Sukhumi authorities, they will need to speak Abkhaz within a few years. Most of them, though, prefer to just speak Russian. An interview with Suren Kerselian, former president of the Armenian community in Abkhazia
Countries included in the European Neighbourhood Policy, like the three republics of the South Caucasus and Moldova, are unlikely to join the EU any time soon. Still, according to different rankings, their performance is not so different from that of current candidate countries Croatia and the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia (fYROM) at the time those countries were granted candidate status (2004-2005)
Each year since 2007, the Imagine Center brings two groups of selected participants from Armenia and Azerbaijan together in a third country to discuss the two communities' histories, perceptions, and attitudes. The intention is to contribute to transforming negative perceptions and attitudes by reaching out to the younger generations
Ngos in the Caucasus often fill the gap left by the state in areas related to children care, including basic education and assistance to the disabled. The Open Society Foundation supports local Ngos active in these fields in both the Northern and Southern Caucasus. Journalist Natasha Yefimov told their stories in a book, Kids Across the Caucasus. An interview with the author
Events held in rural Georgia hope to demonstrate how grassroots peacebuilding activities can not only contribute to discussion and debate, but also have some more immediate and practical dividends as well
The project of an Armenian theatrical director and actor turned peace activist to open a peace center in Tekalo, a small village in Georgia a few kilometers from the border with Armenia and Azerbaijan. “Communication is not betrayal, it is a natural human need.”
Armenia and Azerbaijan fought a war over Nagorno Karabakh in the early 1990s. Around 25,000 were killed and nearly a million from both sides forced to flee their homes. Although hostilities were put on hold by a 1994 ceasefire agreement, in addition to skirmishes on the frontline, landmines and unexploded ordnance (UXO) continue to pose a threat to life
Gagik Beglaryan, the first elected Mayor of Yerevan, has resigned after reportedly assaulting a member of the presidential administration’s protocol department. At the same time, a number of other high level officials have been changed in a rare cabinet reshuffle
Azerbaijan’s parliament on October 22 approved a military budget of 2.5 billion manats, or about $3.12 billion. That figure is higher than the entire state budget of Baku’s neighbor and longtime foe, Armenia. From EurasiaNet.org
The novel "Ali and Nino" tells about the love between an Azerbaijani and a Georgian teenager. Depicted as symbols of Asia and Europe, they meet in the Caucasus and there can be united. Almost one century after Ali and Nino was published, can the Caucasus be European and can it be united?
The reactions to the signing of the August 20 deal between Russian president Dimitry Medvedev and his Armenian counterpart, Serge Sargsyan, extending Moscow's military presence in its former satellite by more than two decades. The internal and regional scenario, the consequences for the Karabakh conflict
As panic turned to anger following the last front line clash between Armenian and Azerbaijani forces in Nagorno Karabakh, more deaths reported in July rocked the nation. This time, however, Armenian soldiers were apparently killed by their fellow countrymen
Panic reportedly began to spread last week in Yerevan as news of the worst major skirmish between Armenian and Azerbaijani forces on the line of contact in two years was reported by the local media. Ironically, the ceasefire violation occurred just one day after the Armenian president and his Azerbaijani counterpart met in St. Petersburg for talks convened by Russia
