HORRIFYING PHOTOS IN MOSCOW
By Ruben Hayrapetian in Moscow
AZG Armenian Daily
27/04/2006
Armenian and Russian intellectuals and renowned clergymen were
present at the opening ceremony of a photo exhibition at Halabian Hall
of the Ararat Park Hyatt hotel in Moscow dedicated to the Armenian
Genocide. The presentation of “Four Years Under the Crescent”, book by
Venezuelan writer Rafael de Nogales Mendes, also took place that very
day. The eyewitness of the Genocide tells about this great tragedy
with compassion.
His Holiness Ezras Nersisian, head of the Armenian diocese of New
Nakhijevan and Russia, made an impressive opening speech. After a
historic survey into Turkey’s past, he said that Turkey’s denial of
the Genocide demands great efforts from us to make the world aware. And
the exhibition is one of such steps.
“I am not Armenia, I have no Armenian blood,” Italian historian
Giovanni Guaitai said in excellent Russian, “but I try to be impartial
while examining the events of 1915. The idea that the Genocide is
an Armenian-Turkish issue is intolerable. No. It is an issue of the
civilized mankind.” He said he is currently working on a new book –
memories of an Arabian official who, being a Moslem, managed to remain
impartial to the extent of questioning Islamic morality. The opinions
of foreigners are more powerful, the Italian historian underscored.
Historian and political scientist Natalia Norochinskaya, chairman
of Foreign Relations Committee at the State Duma, made a pithy and
impressive speech.
Firstly she noted that she was brought up in a spirit of love to
the Armenian nation (her father was a historian and was in friendly
relations with many of his Armenian colleagues). Secondly, she used
the Armenian genocide to portrait the present-day Christian-Moslem
confrontation in Russia, which is not in favor of the former. While
talking with deputies of the European parliament or “liberal”
Western thinkers in general, one faces stiffened ideas and way of
thinking: they do not know history and do not want to know and tend
to fragmentize it. As a result we have injustice towards Christian
Serbs and establishment of another Moslem state in troubled Balkans.
Norochinskaya thinks that the West, taking advantage of Russia’s
weakness, implements the disastrous policy for the Christian world in
the South Caucasus. Thus, the lesson of the Armenian Genocide should
awaken the Western thought.