The National, UAE
July 12 2009

Armenia diaspora comes home

Daniel Bardsley, Correspondent

Last Updated: July 11. 2009 7:17PM UAE / July 11. 2009 3:17PM GMT

YEREVAN // Charles Masraff does not mince his words when he describes
what he wants to achieve in Armenia.

The 59-year-old restaurateur says he was attracted to the country `by
the possibility of giving Armenia a future’.

Although he was born and brought up in London, Mr Masraff’s paternal
grandparents came from what used to be Western Armenia, and is now
eastern Turkey.

He is one of what is thought to be a growing band of western-raised
diasporan Armenians moving to their ancestral home country.

In the decade after it became independent in 1991, Armenia lost as
much as one-fifth of its population as the economy declined in the
early 1990s, with most emigrants going to Russia.

Since the mid-1990s, the economy showed strong annual growth until the
recent financial crisis, and the parallel modernisation has attracted
many of Armenia’s huge diaspora, which is over twice the size of the
country’s 3.2 million population, to live in the country for the first
time.

While Armenia has achieved significant economic growth, Mr Masraff
believes the country remains stifled by a culture of corruption, which
he describes as `a way of life here’.

`Armenia desperately needs people with outside experience,’ he
said. `There’s a culture among Armenians living in Armenia that makes
progress difficult ` corruption, the sense that the present is all
there is.

`But if you look at the Armenian diaspora and the success they’ve
enjoyed in different societies, compared to the inability of this
society to achieve very much ` why did we get this huge contrast? The
post-Soviet hangover has a lot to answer for.’

Mr Masraff spent most of his career in Scotland in hotel management,
but for the past three months has been running a restaurant in
Yerevan.
`I came here to try to achieve something,’ he said. `I’m not just an
observer. By running a business, I feel I have a greater chance to
achieve something.’

Among the analysts who believe a growing number of diasporan Armenians
are moving to Armenia is Arpi Vartanian, country director for the
Armenia and Nagorno-Karabakh offices of the Armenian Assembly of
America, a lobbying group.
Born and raised in Detroit to two diasporan Armenians, including an
Iranian-Armenian father, Ms Vartanian moved to Yerevan in 1993.
`I’ve seen families come and go, I’ve seen people get frustrated they
weren’t able to succeed but I see more and more people coming or
expressing the desire to come. They want to live in their homeland,’
she said of the `repatriates’ moving to the country.

`That’s not to say everyone is coming with rose-tinted
glasses. They’re coming with the hope that Armenia will change them,
but [also] that they can use their experience or knowledge to change
Armenia.

`Every encounter impacts people. I’ve had people say: `You’ve taught
me.’ They told me later they watched how I worked and my work ethic
and that taught them. They were able to use that later.’

For diasporans brought up in the West, Ms Vartanian said Armenia was
now a much easier place to live than when she arrived, when there were
few cafes or nightclubs.

`There are still some things I miss and crave,’ she said. `It drives
me nuts when people don’t stand in line. But people have been so open
and interested in who I am.’

Rudolf, a 27-year-old born in Bahrain and brought up in France, London
and Lebanon, and who declined to give his full name, admitted however
that diasporan Armenians often tended to socialise with their own kind
rather than locals.

`My friends are diasporan friends from Syria, Beirut, the United
States,’ said Rudolf, who has a `pagan Armenian metal’ rock band and
has lived in Armenia for the past 18 months.

Even if his social circle is largely made up of fellow diasporans, he
hopes he can effect change.

`We’re coming here to do something good,’ he said. `We have done stuff
that there wasn’t here five or six years ago ` the first rock band in
the Caucasus. We come with new ideas. We’re trying to relate it more
to Europe. I’m against the Soviet mentality. I think it’s ruined the
country.’

His friend, Zak Valladian, born and brought up in Dubai, is a member
of a group called Tebi Hayrenik or `back to the motherland’ that
encourages diasporans to relocate to Armenia. He believes `absolutely’
more of them are doing what he did four months ago, and moving to the
country.

`Change comes from within,’ said the 30-year-old, who runs a special
effects business. `I do believe for Armenia’s sake, the only thing
they can do is to encourage the diaspora to come and invest. It’s home
from home for us.’

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