Aram’s trip to Armenia January-February 2021

As I have previously written, I have not wanted to get too political on this blog, not least of which because I am no authority on the subject: I do not follow Armenian politics in any significant way, and were it not for recently having been in Armenia for a month, I would not have anything to say at all. But I was, and so I am following up on what just happened in Armenia yesterday (the dismissal of the head of the Armed Forces + protests) a bit more closely than I ordinarily would, and will offer my own colour commentary of what's been going on. Yesterday, the Armenian military demanded that Armenian PM Nikol Pashinyan resign. As a result, the head of the armed forces Onik Gasparyan was accused of mounting a coup, and was promptly dismissed by the PM. There were demonstrations for and against this action: from what I read, equal numbers of people (about 20,000 each) descended in the streets: there were a few scuffles but it remained mostly non-violent. Not being there ...

As many of my close friends know, I am a member of Voices in Dialogue  (ViD, formerly known under the straightforward yet unpoetic name of the Turkish-Armenian Dialogue Group of Ottawa (TADGO)). I joined the group because I met a beautiful human being who become my very good friend, Kumru Bilici, at a genocide conference in Montreal in 2008. Kumru is a Film Studies Graduate Student at Carleton University. She grew up in Istanbul, and is of Kurdish origin. A mutual acquaintance introduced us: I was excited that a Turkish person (of Kurdish origin) was attending the genocide conference, and very much wanted to meet her. We hit it off right away. Kumru told me about a new dialogue group she helped form in Ottawa where she (and I) lived, in an effort to follow the vision of then recently assassinated Turkish-Armenian journalist Hrant Dink , the founder and editor of the newspaper Agos . Kumru was a freelance writer for Agos, and had been close friends with Hrant. She often recounted ho...

A week has passed since I last wrote. Honestly, I have not been motivated to do so since my return, even though I have felt like I should: there is so much that I think readers would appreciate, stories to tell and pictures to share. I think I needed a week to readjust, and to take care of some personal issues. On the day I returned I had to pass a mandatory covid test at the Toronto airport: although I read up on what to expect, nowhere had I read about a test... but it's a good idea I think. The tester was VERY thorough with the nostril portion of the test: and unlike my first test in Ottawa, for this one I was stabbed through both nostrils, with a good 10-15 second (each) twirling of the swab. Uncomfortable, but not painful. I guess I got used to it! (I received my result a few days ago: NEGATIVE again! Woohoo!) I am quarantined, alone, at my friend's condo which is mere blocks from my own house, with a beautiful view of the nearby Ottawa river. This is the most difficult pa...

In the plane now. Wonderful, I have another seat mate who is incredibly vigilant on mask wearing... the sneezing and coughing I am hearing on the plane doesn’t help matters much. But I will admit, I am much more relaxed than I was once upon a time, seemingly so long ago. People really don’t get the concept of closed spaces being more conducive to COVID spread. I do have my fix the mask getup on, and will hope for the best. As I wrote once upon a time, I "leave it in god’s hands"... (postscript: in the end, it wasn't too bad, she put her mask on for most of the flight. Though many were wearing their mask "Armenian style" throughout the flight...) OK, enough of that. As mentioned I will keep this blog going for a while after my return, I have some more information to relate for those who are interested, and for my own reflection as well. I will with great pleasure personally answer any questions people have, so do please feel free to get in touch if needed. Again,...

Nine hours from now I should be sitting in the Air France lounge, waiting for my flight back to Ottawa via Toronto and Paris: three planes, 22 hours. My Paris layover is thankfully brief, but regrettably, I have a 5 hour layover in Toronto, Air France having altered my original 2 hour-long layover... no issues, it's all part of travel. I'm one of the few Canadians these days who took the risk to travel, knowing full-well that stricter restrictions could be on the way. Fine, I didn't come here to sit on a beach, I came to offer a hand if I could to a country (my country?) in difficulty, at a time that was propitious for me: it was a month of my life. I have no regrets. My 2 weeks in Yeghegnadzor were great: educational, interesting, useful. It took a while to break the ice, but I met some wonderful people and have amazing memories, I felt like I was among friends. Composed mostly of a hard-working group of young university graduates (economics grads mostly), a Bishop with an...

This is my last Covid posting. Probably. I have been relatively careful regarding Covid-19 in Armenia. Relatively I say, because I relaxed the very stringent care I took to protect myself since first arriving here after a few days. As readers of this blog from the beginning would know, my most popular blog posting (by far) was the scary Air Covid flight I took from Paris to Yerevan. Well, I relaxed those stringent rules for myself because I found out, soon enough, that I would not have met anyone — I mean, really spoken to them — if I kept to the kind of restrictions those in Canada are used to (and I was used to). Rules which, incidentally, only got "scarier" after I left, which was on the first day Quebec had required a curfew on citizens. I understand restrictions got even worse after that, in Quebec and elsewhere, as covid numbers seemingly weren't abating. I'm happy to learn that there has been a precipitous decline in those Canadian numbers since my coming here...

Hello! This is my 26th day in Armenia. I spent 2 weeks in Yeghegnadzor, and now 11 days in Yerevan. (Your math is not incorrect: I needed to subtract a day because of time differences, travel, late night arrival, etc.) The contrast between how much I knew about the country when I first arrived and now is great, though I know full well that I have barely scratched the surface. If anything, I realize there is so much more I don't know, about anything. Since I last wrote late at night on February 2nd, I passed a (negative) Covid test, met with some interesting people and received many different perspectives on the country and on life in general, considered how to help from Canada and while still here, got out of Yerevan (thankfully) for a day, moved to a new place... (there is enough fodder to write an individual blog post for each of these experiences...) but essentially, my mood hasn't changed in any fundamental way. I feel privileged, and terribly uncomfortable with it. Central...

Dear donors, This post is meant to offer a rough idea of where your donations have been distributed. (If anyone has specific questions, please feel free to get in touch with me via this blog or email.) Accounting Nearly  $20,000 have thus far been collected for this mission, mostly through donations made to the Atken Armenian Foundation  (AAF). I had collected the first $ 15,100 , and through Dora Sakayan's help, who I wrote about here, an additional $4,631  so far have been raised, a total which may increase further in the coming days. The latter donations have not been distributed yet, I hope they will be before I leave here next week, so that I can personally vouch for their whereabouts. There are several ways the funds were collected: by far, most of the donations were collected through the Ottawa Armenian community, following a request for donations sent out via our Ottahye email list, sent directly to the AAF ($5,139). I had also opened other accounts, some of whi...

I haven't done much the last few days. After arriving here last Wednesday from the hustle and bustle of Yeghegnadzor, I slowed down, without really wanting to. I won't get into it too much, but suffice it to say that I've been going through a bit of a lull. Partly for personal reasons I won't get into, partly because I have been sleeping a lot, even though the last two days were actually beautiful and sunny: it is currently 7 degrees. I am out and about now, in my favourite café again. I had promised myself, and readers, that I would offer greater details as to where donations ended up being distributed, and I will offer them in a separate entry after this brief post. First, a rundown of my last few days in Yerevan. Friday was an interesting day: I met a politician and an actor, both as a result of the very branché/connected Raffi N., with whom walking 5 blocks in Yerevan takes half an hour, given that he sees someone he knows every block, with the inevitable hellos and...