Armenia Twitter: November 2009

Sunday, November 29, 2009

Armenia photo takes first place in Washington competition

Armenia photo takes first place in Washington competitionWASHINGTON - Serli Hacikoglu, an amateur photographer from Bethesda, Md., won first place in the "Student Travel" category at the FotoWeek DC competition held November 7-14. Ms. Hacikoglu, who lived most of last three years in Armenia and whose photo essays have appeared in the Armenian Reporter, was honored for a photo she took on the Yerevan-Gyumri road. "A friend at National Geographic, Kara Setian Marston, knew I was very much involved with photojournalism and photography," Ms. Hacikoglu explained in an e-mail. "She contacted me, recommending I submit my work to the FotoWeek DC." "As I had never submitted work to a photo contest before, I didn't think much of the recommendation. The day submissions were due, I reconsidered with only minutes to spare," she wrote. A month later, at an award ceremony held at the National Geographic Society, Ms. Hacikoglu's Armenia photo was announced first place winner in the "student travel" category. In all, 16 first-place awards were given, 11 to professionals and five to students, out of more than 3,500 submissions that came from 28 countries. Source:armeniadiaspora.com

Viticulture and border: Armenia-Turkey ties no threat to local winemaking

Armenian winemaking is under no threat because of the prospect of the opening of the Armenian-Turkish border, according to the head of a local union of winemakers. Avag Harutyunyan says that Turkey is the world’s fourth largest vine-growing country, while Iran is the sixth.

However, this branch is developing more intensively in Iran. “Today, Turkey exports one kilogram of grapes to the world market at a price of 60-70 cents, Iran – at 25-30 cents. That is, it has always been more lucrative to deal with Iran than Turkey. Even if we have ideal relations with Turkey, then nothing will change, because we do not buy grapes even from Iran,” explains the chairman of the Winemakers’ Union. According to him, it is lucrative to import into Armenia “Argentinean wine or one kilogram of grapes at a price of 30 cents”, which means that Turkey’s economy is not globally competitive in terms of winemaking and vine-growing. The next main reason is that Armenia’s legislature on grapes and wine has a great resisting capacity. The legislation on the wine market is based on the country of origin – the grapes of the country of origin cannot be mixed with other grapes.

“According to the World Trade Organization, whatever laws you apply in your domestic market, the same laws should be applied to imports. However, there are exceptions on grapes and wine. That is, if it is Armenian wine, it means that you have no right to use another country’s grapes or wine. And both circumstances favor us,” Harutyunyan tells ArmeniaNow. “One should weight and compare two things – either we develop neighborly relations with Turkey developing vine-growing in Western Armenia, once and again forgetting that it was part of Armenia and get profits, or we struggle,” says Harutyunyan.

Turkeyy today produces and exports ten times as much wine as Armenia does. Turkey has three large winemaking centers – from Istanbul to Izmir on the western coast to Kilikia and the Van province. The western coast with Greek and French investments is developed. However, Turks have great expectations also from the wine-making centers in Van and Kilikia. Turkey today has as many as 1,200 “aboriginal” grape varieties, of which 250 have pure Armenian names. Harutyunyan says that they have not yet managed to Turkinize the Armenian grape sorts.

“Armenian vineyards have been left as they were in 1915. The Kurds did not touch them. Simply the vineyards ran wild. And when grapes run wild, it is recoverable, it is enough to cultivate vineyards for three or four years and it will return to its previous form,” he says. If the border with Turkey is opened, it is possible to restore the Armenian wild grape sorts. However, it will be exported to the market as a Turkish brand. “You have two options – to war and conquer these lands and create Armenian wine or jointly with Turks create Caucasian, Anatolian brands,” Harutyunyan tells ArmeniaNow. Ethnographer Suren Hobosyan is convinced that Armenia is trying in every way to enter the European market, but Turkey stands in its way. “And we should travel this path.

Perhaps we will have losses, but we cannot reject this path, otherwise we will find ourselves in a deadlock. Iran is a closed country for us in this sphere, and our cooperation is not with Turkey, but with the world. I see nothing bad in it,” he says. Ninety percent of grapes in Armenia is used for brandy production, ten percent for winemaking. Some 8 million bottles of wine go for export annually, of which 70 percent to former Soviet countries and 30 percent to the United States and Europe. Ninety-four percent of brandy is exported to former Soviet countries, of which 70 percent to Russia, the rest goes to the United States and Europe.

Ethnographerr Hobosyan says that while Armenia is the homeland of grapes, almost none of 500 wild Armenian sorts of grapes have survived now. “History shows that these sorts first became victim to Islam, then to Czarist Russia, then to the Soviet Union. Meanwhile, the world’s best sorts are descendants of Armenian grapes,” says Harutyunyan. According to him, a revolution in wine taste takes place on the world market once every 30 or 40 years. “The world has grown tired of European wines. Once it was searching for and found grapes of exotic countries – Chile, New Zealand, South Africa. Now the world is looking for new taste and quality and appears to be centering on the homeland of grapes. We should try to present ourselves to the world with exotic “aboriginal” grapes and with wines made from these grapes,” says the head of the Armenian Winemaker’s Union. Source:armenianow.com

Armenian landscape is picturesque and rich in cultural monuments

Mrs. Nelli Malkhasyan is an old friend of mine, I’m always meeting with her at travel fairs and witnessed her efforts to promote her country, Armenia. I met her again during the World Travel Market (WTM) at the Armenia stand, and I asked her to introduce her country to the readers of TurboNews. "With my pleasure," she said and invited me to visit Armenia on my own to be able to discover fully the hidden treasures of her homeland.

She told me that Armenia has attracted travelers since ancient times. Caravans would travel across the territory of historical Armenia as it was an important part of the Great Silk Route. Many famous travelers, such as Jean Baptist Tavernier, Marco Polo, and others, have portrayed this country in their books depicting its picturesque landscape and the richness of its numerous cultural monuments, covering a wide range of the history of human civilization from Cyclopean fortresses to the times of Urartu and the Pagan era, with its towns built in Hellenistic style to early Christian churches and ecclesiastic universities homed by monasteries.

Pages could be written on the long-aged history of Armenia! Generally, tourists visiting Armenia are excited by its nature and amazed by the results of its "creative work" (pictorial landforms, rock sculptures, waterfalls, etc.) and wish to learn more about the roots of their formation. As a matter of fact, Armenia is one of those few countries that, though small in territory, is notable for its complexity and rich diversity of its geological structures. In a small area, one can observe various signs of active geological processes ever taking place on the Earth and continuing today. Among all this diverse Armenian geology are objects that could be assigned to the rank of rarity, and often, unique natural geological monuments are to be found. The agro-biological diversity of wild relatives of plants - cultivated, medicinal, edible, wood, coloring, aromatic, fodder, and many others - including many endemic, relict, and rare species is surprising.

Thee people and races that have populated the Armenian highland, whose origin stretches into the unknown millennia of prehistory, have provided the human substance for its culture. Being at the crossroads of Asia and Europe, the country served as a bridge joining both, geographically as well as culturally, Iran and Indo-China with European civilization. Armenia synthesized the best traditions of the arts, music, and architecture from its neighbors and gave them a new interpretation that not only enriched its own cultural heritage but also influenced that of its neighbors.

A visit to Armenia will help one to define a new interpretation of east-west cultural interactions. Throughout Yerevan alone, there are more than 40 museums and galleries presenting fine arts. Yet the country as a whole is often referred to as an outdoor museum. It has over 4,000 historical monuments, which cover various periods of the country's development from prehistoric to the Hellenistic era and from the early to medieval Christian era.

The stone-carved crosses and cathedrals recall the European Renaissance. Comparisons and discoveries of the arts are a continual delight in this magical country. Though distinctive national styles are clear, an Armenian national song can sound to a westerner as hauntingly oriental. In order to understand Armenian musical arts, please visit the House-Museum of the world-reknowned contemporary composer Aram Khachatouryan or go to the Philharmonic Hall, the Chamber Music Hall, or to the Opera and Ballet House while in Yerevan.

Armenia’s literary and artistic history is studied and exhibited in Matenadaran – the Institute of Ancient Manuscripts in Yerevan, which preserves a unique collection of 14,000 complete manuscripts, fragments, and miniatures (UNESCO World Heritage Site). The oldest parchment manuscript dates back to early 5th c. The majority of manuscripts are research works of ancient scholars on astrology, alchemy, geography, history, medicine, poetry, and the musical arts. Mrs. Nellie is the general manager of the Princess Maneh Consultancy and Tourist Services - a full service incoming tour operator and DMC offering tailored packages to the most attractive sights and architectural monuments of Armenia. Source:eturbonews.com

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Hatis Back: Armenian basketball team mark comeback with a Euro League win

In round two of the women’s basketball European League on Thursday, the Yerevan club Hatis beat Chevakata (Vologda, Russia) 103-99. This was the event Armenian basketball fans have waited for – for nearly 20 years. Attending the game in a packed Mika hall, veteran basketball fans must have remembered full crowds that Soviet-era Hatis, then based in Abovyan, would attract. That legendary team included players not only from Armenia, but also from Russia and Ukraine. In 1989 Haits won the USSR Cup and that success in basketball was equal to Ararat’s victories in Soviet soccer competitions. Hatis, brought to life again out of non-existence this year, started off ambitiously, with its players and Georgian-Armenian coach not concealing their desire to score victories rather than just take part in international games.

They view progressing to the playoff stage of the Euro League as the minimum task for this season. Active efforts to recruit players had been made for several months, resulting in a team that besides a few Armenian players also includes players from Serbia, Croatia, Georgia, Ukraine and even the United States and Jamaica. At the helm of Hatis is a Georgian-Armenian, Gia (Georgiy) Ghazanchian.

Specialists say that the financial crisis may have helped Hatis and the Armenian domestic championship to look more attractive for players from other European leagues. Some basketball teams in Europe have been disbanded over the past year because of financial difficulties caused by the global recession. An invitation to play in Armenia became a life-line and an opportunity to participate in a European club tournament for many of the recruited players. Source:armenianow.com

Sport: Armenia soccer youths in mature play against Estonia, Ireland

A Danish coach’s Armenia provided a surprisingly positive finish to an otherwise failed soccer season as they battled bravely and successfully against visiting Estonia and Ireland. Flemming Serritslev’s Under-21 charges were a whisker away from scoring a deserved victory over Estonian coevals in the Saturday game at Republican Stadium, but after scoring once and missing a lot of good chances to materialize their advantage on the pitch they conceded a goal in stoppage time and had to settle for a 1-1 draw. Armenia’s junior team looked mighty three days later against Ireland. In that game, Serritslev’s youngsters scored their first victory in the current campaign 4-1, with Henrik Mkhitaryan managing a hat-trick.

Thuss, with four points (in six games) Armenia has managed to unseat Ireland from the fifth spot in the six-nation qualifying group that also includes Switzerland, Turkey and Georgia.

Armenia next travel to Ireland for the second leg in early March. Meanwhile, European soccer’s governing body, UEFA, has announced the composition of six pools of nations for the Euro-2012 qualifying stage draw that will take place on February 7 to form nine qualifying groups. Armenia is in the fifth pool, along with Montenegro, Albania, Estonia, Georgia, Moldova, Iceland, Kazakhstan and Lichtenstein. Azerbaijan is put in the last sixth pool.

Sourcee:armenianow.com

Co-Chairs in Baku To Set New Meeting With Armenian, Azeri Leaders

BAKU: International Mediators working on a resolution for the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict arrived in Azerbaijan on Thursday for talks with top officials on the current course of negotiations between Armenia and Azerbaijan, the Azeri Press Agency reported.

Thee American, French, and Russia co-chairs of the OSCE Minsk Group and the representative of the OSCE Chairperson-in-Office, were scheduled to meet with Azeri President Ilham Aliyev and Foreign Minister Elmar Mammadyarov.

They will then travel to Yerevan for similar talks with Armenia’s President Serzh Sarkisian and Foreign Minister Edward Nalbandian. The mediators were expected to propose to Aliyev the format and venue of another meeting with his Armenian counterpart. The Armenian and Azeri presidents last met on October 8 on the sidelines of a CIS summit in Chisinau. Source:asbarez.com

Religious Travel Market Shows Resilience

Religious travel industry leaders at the just-concluded World Religious Travel Expo and Educational Conference report better than expected figures and predict continued resilience in faith-based tourism because of the commitment among religious travel consumers. Positive updates and forecasts by WRTA Expo participants – including representatives from Switzerland, Cyprus, Turkey, Palestine, Israel, Germany, Greece and Jordan – confirm the findings of a recent report by the World Tourism Organization, which explained that religious tourism has proven resilient to the pressure of the global recession because it is not seen as a luxury but rather travel with a purpose.

“Because of the nature of religious tourism, it has proven elastic and strong, even in the current economy” said Kevin J. Wright, president of the World Religious Travel Association (WRTA) and chairman of the Expo. With more than 300 million people traveling annually for religious and pilgrimage reasons and with revenues that exceed $18 billion every year, faith tourism has become a significant global industry. WRTA reports that faith tourism today is more than just pilgrimages, as it includes travelers on cruises, volunteer vacations, adventure trips, leisure vacations, and conferences and events. In fact, religious travel is not necessarily focused on the destination, but on the purpose of the travel: strengthening fellowship and faith. Highlights of the second annual Expo: • Keith Powell, author and “business revivalist,” reminded Expo delegates that they have the “awesome power and responsibility to change lives” through transformative travel experiences.

Dr. Khouloud Daibes, Palestine minister of tourism and antiquities, participated in the WRTA Expo for the second year in a row. She reported an increase in travel to Palestine and declared her commitment to help travel suppliers build a sustainable and complementary Palestine religious travel portfolio. • The Holy Land panel, a signature event of the WRTA Expo, once again featured updates from representatives of the Bible Lands. Mesut Ozbe of the Turkish Government Culture and Tourism Office reported that 10% of tourists to Turkey come for religious purposes.

Eliezer Hod, Western region director of the Israel Ministry of Tourism, told the audience that he is “completely focused on Christian travel to Israel.” Nayef H. Al-Fayez, managing director of the Jordan Tourism Board, reported that Bethany beyond the Jordan – the traditional location of the baptism of Jesus – attracts more Americans than any other nationality outside of Jordan’s neighboring countries. Officials from Greece and Cyprus reported a vigorous and growing religious cruise industry in the Mediterranean, and increasing popularity in monastery guest stays in both countries. • Greg Stielstra, author of Faith-Based Marketing and Pyromarketing, shared with Expo delegates the importance of “serving” the religious market, not “selling” to it.

During his opening keynote entitled “Make 2010 Your Best Year Ever” (the official theme of Expo 2009), WRTA President Wright shared plans of his upcoming trip to Armenia, one of the emerging faith-based travel destinations.

The final night of the conference featured a well-attended optional “Tourism Rocks” event, a charitable dance party to benefit Tourism Cares (http://www.tourismcares.org), the tourism industry’s primary charitable organization for preservation, conservation, restoration and education, and the official philanthropy of WRTA. 2010 Religious Travel Outlook • Tour operators expect 500,000 visitors for the Oberammergau Passion Play in Germany, which only happens once a decade. • Spain has declared 2010 a holy year because the feast of St. James, July 25, falls on a Sunday, which means that many will be traveling to Santiago de Compostela, whose cathedral has a relic of St. James the Apostle.

The Year for Priests, in which many seminarians and priests are traveling to Ars, France, where St. John Vianney served his entire priestly life, continues through June, 2010.

A rare exposition of the Shroud of Turin in Italy will open in 2010. More than 550 participants – including 300 sellers and 200 buyers – attended the 2009 World Religious Travel Expo and Educational Conference, held Nov. 14-16 at the Atlantis Resort in Reno, Nev. Tourism representatives of 30-plus countries, from Armenia and Ethiopia to Tanzania and Turkey, participated. Despite the economic downturn that has contributed to a decline in overall attendance at trade conferences, the WRTA Expo turnout surpassed the attendance figures of its 2008 inaugural year. The WRTA Expo was co-located with the annual convention of the National Tour Association (NTA). Currently, 35 percent of NTA operators offer religious tour products, and NTA and WRTA seek to expand the overall growth of faith tourism by bringing both memberships opportunities for education and professional development. Next year’s WRTA Expo will again be held in conjunction with the NTA convention (Nov. 13-17) in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. WRTA already has begun accepting exhibitor, attendee and sponsorship registrations for the 2010 World Religious Travel Expo. The annual WRTA Expo is sponsored by the World Religious Travel Association, founded in 2007 by Wright. His latest book, The Christian Travel Planner (released 2008 by Thomas Nelson), is the most comprehensive guidebook ever published on faith-based travel. An updated version of his Europe’s Monastery & Convent Guesthouses was released in 2008 by Liguori Publications. (www.wrtaexpo.com, www.wrtareligioustravel.com.) Source:leisuregrouptravel.com

ARMENIA: PREPARING FOR TURKISH TRADE

As Turkey and Armenia ponder ratification of a pact that would reopen their mutual border, Armenian customs officials are preparing for an influx of Turkish goods.

Thee chairman of the Armenian parliament’s Committee for National Revenues, Armen Alaverdian, said during a legislative session November 5 that customs checkpoints are preparing to handle goods exported from Turkey, the Kavkazsky Uzel news website reported on November 5. Current trade turnover between Turkey and Armenia amounts to some $100 million, according to data from the Armenian-Turkish Business Development Council. Given the lack of direct trade routes, goods must travel via Georgia or Iran.

Armenian economic analysts said the reopening of the Armenian-Turkish border could generate as much as an additional $500 million in revenue for Armenia’s treasury, Kavkazsky Uzel reported. Source:eurasianet.org

Armenia seeks for trade relations with EU

Today Armenian businessmen participated in the seminar entitled “Trade Frameworks with EU” organised by AEPLAC, Armenia’s Ministry of Economy, and EU Consulting Group. The seminar has a chief objective to introduce new trade opportunities in the framework of the Eastern Partnership and to fill the informational gap in this field. The current level of Armenia’s export is moderate, according to Deputy Minister of Economy of Armenia, Mushegh Tumasyan.

“The chief objective of our policy is a trade joining to EU which involves negotiations on free trade. This, in its turn, demands on carrying of some reforms in different fields. We have already launched this process,” he said. Armenian businessmen haven’t enough information on trade process, running trade regimes and so on, he pointed. The European Union in the framework of the Eastern Partnership provides deep and comprehensive free trade agreements with those countries willing and able to enter into a deeper engagement, gradual integration in the EU economy and allow for easier travel to the EU through gradual visa liberalisation, accompanied by measures to tackle illegal immigration.

Sourcee:aysor.am

Armenia: hotel prices must be reviewed

Armenian citizens will prefer local recreation centers instead of foreign ones, said head of the Tourism and Territorial Development of the Ministry of Economy of Armenia, Mekhak Apresyan.

“The state powers must focus on pricing to provide increase in demand,” he said pointing that there were held some meetings and discussions on this issue. According to Mr. Apresyan, the point is not in high prices only but in poor informational support between travel companies and hotels. “There are hotels with acceptable prices but thin as people have no information,” he said Source:aysor.am

Venture capitalist Roger Strauch discusses Armenia

The Strauch Kulhanjian Family during a visit to the historic Monastery Complex at Datev. Pictured Roger Strauch is a first generation American who resides with his family in the Bay Area. He is a successful venture capitalist and chairperson of The Roda Group, which works primarily with cutting-edge high-tech firms.

He has built and run several public companies and he has co-founded private companies that have been sold to industry leaders, including HP and Logitech. He is a well-known philanthropist who generously supports education and arts programs in the United States and Armenia. So, why does Mr. Strauch have a passion for things Armenian and why does he frequently travel to Armenia? The Armenian Reporter had an opportunity to interview Roger Strauch recently. AR: Roger, could you please tell our readers about your background and how you became a venture capitalist. RS: Growing up, my family lived in Massachusetts and I successfully launched my first company while in high school.

My company employed a team of technicians that provided services to the R & D departments of high-tech Route 128 businesses. I attended Cornell University for my undergraduate degree in electrical engineering and Stanford University for my master's degree in electrical engineering. I very much enjoy developing an idea into a successful business model, and with the technology in the world changing so rapidly, I focused on the high-growth market of telecommunications. I co-founded a company that I ran for 14 years and when I retired from that venture, I wanted to do for others what my original investors did for me - create an environment that would attract and support the success of ambitious, hardworking entrepreneurs with clever ideas that could solve big problems in enormous markets. AR: As a venture capitalist, how do you work with a company and what have been some of your successes? RS: Generally speaking, we are a business-incubator type venture capitalist.

We put up the initial funds to validate an idea in the form of a business. The Roda Group, a company that I formed with my college buddy, Dan Miller, not only invests financial resources into companies that we see as having a potential for growth, but also invests the human resources of management and mentorship. Dan and I currently sit on the boards of only 5 or 6 companies. In addition, we have successfully launched a few companies of our own, including PolyServe, which we recently sold to HP. The Roda Group launched Ask Jeeves, now Ask.com, which was sold to Barry Diller's IAC and more recently, we were actively involved with SightSpeed, a voice and video IP conferencing on line service provider that we sold to Logitech late last year.

In February, you were in Armenia at the launch of iCON Communications (www.icon.am), a new internet service provider in Yerevan. Can you tell us about your involvement with iCON?

RS: Several years ago, I was in Armenia with my good friend, Adam Kablanian. I told Adam of my vision to create inexpensive, reliable, and fast broadband Internet access in Yerevan, with the idea that if it we were successful, we could create the business model for providing this type of service to other developing countries or areas. Two years ago, we formed a small partnership and with Adam at the helm, launched iCON Communications. Our infrastructure is built upon a state-of-the-art network utilizing WiMax technology - which is more advanced than what is offered in the U.S. We successfully attracted additional investors from abroad, who enabled us to build the infrastructure in the Yerevan and then launch our service in Yerevan in February. Our customer base is growing rapidly. Customers can pay as little as 8,000 AMD or about $21 per month for unlimited, wireless Internet that is about five times faster than the dial up that is available on the market currently. Our wireless technology works well because it allows users with laptops to use the service in multiply locations using a small USB stick.

We seem to have a prestige thing going at the moment with people demanding mobile, broadband Internet. We even have designed packages for visitors to Armenia to be able to purchase equipment and simply pay for the usage while they are in Armenia. AR: : So do you consider iCON a successful business.

Nope and Yup. We are not profitable yet. Our investors are investing in growth and in the future of the country's need for more accessible and faster Internet access. And that is expensive - and let's face it - a bit risky. However, we were able to enter the Armenian market as foreigners, work with the government to address a critical need that will help businesses, the government, and the population connect with the rest of the world. We have created are more than 50 professional jobs and have plans to increase that number to 80 by year's end. And finally, we were able to have a dream, launch a high-tech company, and attract both foreign talent and foreign resources from well known industry leaders in the field of telecommunication to Armenia in only several years.

iCON sounds like a business that would work in many different cities around the world. So why did you pick Armenia as a launch point? What is your connection to Armenia? RS: My connection to Armenia started when I was 14 years old. My father, Karl Strauch, was the Chairman of the Physics Department at Harvard University and involved in collaborative scientific exchanges with the top laboratories in the Soviet Union. My father was working with Soviet scientists on accelerator technology and research in the late 60s and early 70s. In 1970, my father, at the invitation of the famous Armenian physists Artem and Alik Alikhanyan, brought our family to Armenia. As a teenager, I was impressed with the people with whom my father worked and became and remain friends with several of them, including, Tina Asatiani, a Georgian physicist and Academy member who spent the majority of her life working in Armenia and was one of the most honored female physists in the Soviet Union. Source:reporter.am

Grigor Khanjyan’s mural tells the story of Armenia

Middle Panel "Vardanank"Mural/Triptych at the Cafesjian Center for the Arts in Yerevan. First conceived by Khanjyan as a set of giant tapestries to be woven in France for the Catholicos's residence at Etchmiadzin, the work was received with popular acclaim when the original tapestries were completed and hung in place in 1985.

Khanjyan was determined, however, to bring his murals to a more accessible public forum. In his travels he had been profoundly influenced by visiting Michelangelo's Sistine Chapel and by the revolutionary murals in public spaces of the Mexican artists Rivera, Orozco, and Siqueiros - particularly Siqueiros. In the last years of his life, in failing health and with dimming eyesight, he climbed the scaffolding at the Cascade, painting alfresco a new version of his famous Vardanank (center panel), the battle in 451 where Prince Vardan Mamikonian fought the Zoroastrian Persians to retain Armenian Christianity. Khanjyan conceived of the struggle as ongoing to the present day. In the right panel, he incorporated the emergence of independent Armenia. Yerevan - Grigor Khanjyan spent a large part of the last eight years of his life on a scaffold with his color box and brushes in a broad hall allotted to him in Yerevan's Cascade. Here he painted al fresco the vast triptych that is his final masterwork. His last days on the scaffold were in bitterly cold weather; old, sick, and eyesight failing, he seemed to know the end would soon come. On the day before his death, working on the final panel, the "Rebirth of Armenia," he summoned his last reserves of strength, completing - one could say illuminating - in a single day the critical central area that had remained unfinished; on this day he painted the beautiful face of Mother Armenia and her child, the new Armenia.

Only hours later, he passed away. The huge triptych, completed and in full restoration, graces the entire wall in its own designated, stately hall, open and free to the public, an integral part of the new Cafesjian Center for the Arts. In this environment I see it and feel it as a sacred space. I believe Grigor Khanjyan also thought of it that way. He created a mural of this ancient Christian land and its people, telling of struggles, early triumphs, tragedy, and rebirth in independence. He did it with heart and soul on a public wall for everyone who wishes to know what it means to be an Armenian.

Hee would do it in a way that speaks to the generations into which he was born, inspiring and legible to the common man and woman. Who was Grigor Khanjyan? Born in Yerevan in 1924, he graduated from art schools in the city as World War II ended. His work spans the second half of the 20th century. He lived to see the end of Stalin, the resurgence of the Apostolic Church, and to take active part in the movement for the independence of Armenia. He passed away in the year 2000, with red, blue, and orange on his palette and under the skin of his hands.

Khanjyann, was a man of prodigious talent, understanding of Armenian literature, and abiding religious faith. As an artist he possessed an uncanny ability to catch, and to express graphically, the decisive narrative moment. It led him to unfashionable clarity. By choice, because it suited his way of thinking, he was as modern as the vivid moment, capturing its mood, its light, its musical movement.

He recomposed for dramatic effect, painting the world as he felt it before his eyes, but without painterly devices that might compromise lucidity at the popular level. Trained as a prodigy by his Armenian teachers, he learned how to get along within the system, the Soviet regime finding little to criticize besides too little of the rootless, mass modern man and too much specifically of Armenian national consciousness in his work. Under these circumstances, he turned to the masterpieces of Armenian literature as an effective shield, becoming its most successful graphic interpreter.

As a consequence, with the strength of the literature, combined with the artistic strength and clarity of his illustrations, the highest exhibition prizes and honors in the Soviet Union began to heap up. In his earliest period his favorite writer was Hovhannes Toumanian. Khanjyan illustrating Toumanian's beautiful "Anoush," the story "Gikor," and the poem "Sako from Lory," for each of which he received great praise and prizes.

He turned to Khachatur Abovyan for The Wounds of Armenia, receiving an award of "The Best Book of the Year" in the Soviet Union. He was able to use this success as a passport to the world. He was first able to visit Albania. What he saw there, his exhibited works suggest, is a nation that had kept a vital connection to the genius of its traditional handicrafts - something he would come back to fight for in Armenia.

Hee also recognized the deep, emotional attachment on the popular level of the people of Albania to their own Vartan, their Scanderbeg, the abducted Christian Albanian who learned as a general in the Turkish Army how best he could destroy the oppressive Turks, leading greatly outnumbered but victorious Christian Albanian armies against them. There was an affinity to Armenian struggles that Khanjyan would also not forget. Over the next few years he would go on to tour Poland, France, and Italy. In Rome he would visit and sketch a reverent scene in the Sistine Chapel. In a sense a part of him never left the scaffold that held Michelangelo aloft. He returned do some of his best work in the illustrations for Paruir Sevak's "The Ever-Tolling Bell Tower," dealing with the Genocide and the life and death of beloved Komitas.

No work of art was more completely embraced by the Armenian public in its time. It would find a place here in virtually every Armenian household. More success followed with further illustrations of Armenian literature and travel abroad. A critical journey was in 1974 to Mexico. He had earlier been to Spain, but it was in Mexico that he caught the spirit of Latin rhythms, the focus of the mind on what is personally most hallowed and important that distinguishes prayer, along with the momentary relief from oppression and the spiritual qualities that may be found in some of the popular arts. His canvases from this period done in Mexico and back in Armenia have an especial brilliance.

In Mexico he studied the wall murals of Diego Rivera, Orozco, and Siqueiros, discussing al fresco painting and becoming a close friend of Siqueiros'. He would devote his moving "Where are you, Son of the Lord?" to Siqueiros. It was in this period that he also decided to openly reconnect with his church. In 1975, he painted "He Returned," and accompanied Catholicos Vasken I to Jerusalem, developing a strong friendship and productive working relationship with the Catholicos that directly bears on the murals in the Cascade. While applying himself to plans to restore to brilliance the Holy See at Etchmiadzin, he illustrated Avetik Isahakyan's "Fables" and a personal favorite, Gevorg Emin's "The Dance of Sassoon," which now hangs in Yerevan's National Art Gallery, and he went on to complete the illustrations for "Western Armenian Poetry." Source:reporter.am