Washington: Rep Speier Leads Bipartisan Call for Democracy Aid to Armenia
Washington: Office of the MP Jackie Speier has issued the following news release:
Congresswoman Jackie Speier (CA-14) and a bipartisan group of twenty-four Members of the House of Representatives wrote Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and USAID Administrator Mark Green to urge support Armenia’s renewed efforts to build democratic institutions and processes.
The request follows the April resignation of longtime Armenian leader Serzh Sargsyan in the wake of mass protests, and the subsequent acceptance of the prime ministership by reformist leader Nikol Pashinyan. The signers included many representatives belonging to the Caucus on Armenian Issues, as well as leaders on the House Foreign Affairs Committee.
“The peaceful and lawful actions of Armenia’s citizens have created an incredible opportunity to build democracy in Armenia and advance the rights of all Armenians,” said Rep. Speier. “The United States must lend our expertise and resources to assist them in their effort. Helping Armenians can remind our allies and adversaries that democracy will always be on the march.”
In the letter, the representatives called on Secretary Pompeo and Administrator Green to provide Armenia with various forms of democracy assistance. It also called for economic support to help build democratic practices in Armenia and improve the economy by addressing corruption. Specifically, the letter called for:
Increasing funds available for democracy assistance to Armenia through the Department of State’s Office of the Coordinator to Europe and Eurasia. Tripling funding for democracy assistance and civil society available to the National Endowment for Democracy and its grantees. Assisting Armenian efforts to fight corruption, promote transparency, and improve the economy through rule of law programs, economic support, and a new Millennium Challenge compact.
Visitors to the National Mall Get a Taste of Unique Food, Craft and Community Through the “Armenia: Creating Home” Program; Free Festival June 27–July 1, July 4–8
The 2018 Smithsonian Folklife Festival explores the creativity, hospitality and resilience of the Armenian people and its extensive diaspora through a rich slate of vibrant programming that celebrates the role handmade traditions can play in preserving culture and supporting enterprise. Throughout the 10 days of the festival, dozens of artisans, designers, cooks and performers share their skills and stories through workshops, demonstrations, participatory experiences, interactive installations and discussion sessions all highlighting the importance of cultural-heritage enterprise in the face of change.
The Festival will be held June 27–July 1 and July 4–July 8 on the National Mall between Seventh and 12th streets. Admission is free and accessibility services are provided. Festival hours are from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. each day, with evening concerts beginning at 6:30 p.m. and a special fireworks display June 30. The Festival is co-sponsored by the National Park Service.
“‘Armenia: Creating Home’ reflects the indomitable spirit of Armenians to create home wherever they are,” said Halle Butvin, one of the program’s curators. “Through sharing the traditions that have shaped their cultural identity, like feasting, winemaking or craft, they creatively carve new pathways for exchange both within Armenia and across its many diasporas. They recognize and continually reinvent the ways cultural heritage can have value as not just an economic enterprise, but also a way to make meaning of who they are.”
Foodways and Wine: Because feasting is an important pillar of Armenian culture, there will be ample opportunities at the Festival to observe cooking demonstrations, participate in cooking classes and taste regional specialties like Ghapama (stuffed pumpkin) and Gata (Armenian cake) in between wine tastings and cheese-making classes. This year’s festival also features special collaborations between notable local and Armenian food experts, like renowned Armenian American Chef Carrie Nahabedian and Washington, D.C.’s Zaytinya restaurant.
Innovation: Select signage at this year’s festival can be activated by the Arloopa app, which will animate the subject to show artisans actively at work in their environment in augmented reality. Two immersive, 3-D, virtual-reality tours give visitors unprecedented access to two of Armenia’s most prominent historical sites, the Areni-1 Cave Complex, site of the oldest evidence of winemaking, and the Noravank Monastery.
Performance: There are 7–11 million people in the Armenian diaspora, and the festival features a selection of musical groups that span a diversity of musical styles from traditional to contemporary. The Nur Qanon Ensemble, the Samvel Galstian Group and the MVF Band are among the many groups performing, and two of the free evening concerts on the Mall present Armenian chamber and jazz music performances. Seven different groups comprise the The Handes! Armenian Dance Summit during the second weekend of the festival, which also showcases wedding and celebration dances.
Craft: The revitalization of Armenian craft illuminates the intersection between technology and handmade traditions. Workshops, demonstrations and participatory experiences offer visitors the opportunity to engage with artisans as they share their techniques while getting hands-on experience designing, carving, carpet weaving, embroidering, creating calligraphy and making jewelry and musical instruments, among others.
Holiday: The final day of the festival, July 8, happens to fall on the traditional holiday of Vardavar, which Armenians celebrate during the hot summer season by throwing water on each other to cool off.
“Armenia: Creating Home” is produced by the Smithsonian’s Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage in partnership with the Institute of Archaeology and Ethnography in the National Academy of Sciences of Armenia, the My Armenia Cultural Heritage Tourism Program, funded by USAID and implemented by the Smithsonian Institution, the U.S. Embassy in Armenia and the Embassy of Armenia to the United States of America. It is also produced with the support of sponsors: AGBU, Hovnanian Foundation, HIKE Armenia, Birthright Armenia, Armenian Volunteer Corps, ANCA Endowment Fund, Aurora Humanitarian Initiative, IDeA Foundation, Armenia Tree Project and Armenian Assembly of America.
The Festival strives to maintain an accessible and inclusive environment for visitors of all abilities. Information about Accessibility Services may be found at festival.si.edu/accessibility. For more information on the 2018 Smithsonian Folklife Festival, visit https://folklife.si.edu/ and follow the festival on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and YouTube.
As part of a standard procedure, prosecutors of Ararat province have filed a criminal case on possible murder since it has been already 10 days that the 14-year-old child, Hayk Harutyunyan, is missing, prosecutors said.
The ministry of emergency situations earlier said that search operations continue in the Ayntap community of the province.
Rescuers, police officers and volunteers are involved in the search.
The boy, Hayk Harutyunyan (pictured in the photo above), a local of a village of Ararat province, has gone missing on June 8. The 14-year-old suffers from autism.
According to reports, he was wearing a green T-shirt and shorts.
Anyone having any information about the whereabouts of the boy is urged to contact police by dialing 911.
In the South Caucasus, new technologies and virtual reality are not being used to help to spread human values and peacebuilding; instead military games are developed which reflect the societies’ attitudes towards the unresolved conflicts.
Thirty-two-year-old IT expert Karen Sogoyan, who developed the game Hi Zinvor (Armenian Soldier), says it was not created to sow hate among users. The military shooter game, he claims, merely aimed to pay tribute to Armenian soldiers. Nevertheless, a number of elements in the game suggest that its hero is battling
The game opens with a parachute jump from a helicopter to the sounds of the song ‘We Are Going to War, Me and My Brother’. After landing on the ground, the soldier opens fire on enemy troops who are hiding to either side of him. Killing some of them, the main character then runs off, continuing to destroy enemy tanks and aircraft along the way.
Use Up/Down Arrow keys to increase or decrease volume.
The armed clashes that broke out on the night of 1 April 2016 and lasted for four days became the most serious since the end of the war in Nagorny Karabakh (1991 – 1994) and the 1994 ceasefire between Azerbaijan, Armenia and Nagorny Karabakh. In Armenia, these events, which took hundreds of lives in total, became known as the four-day April war. In Azerbaijan, they are referred to as the April clashes.
During the April war and in the days that followed, the image of the heroic soldier took centre stage in Armenia and Nagorny Karabakh. It was within this context that Hi Zinvor, the first online game for mobile phones, was developed. Released in February 2017, the game now boasts more than 70,000 users in Armenia and across the world.
The shooter game does not contain any bloody or cruel scenes. It boasts twelve locations including towns, military bases, forests, mountains and fields created using computer graphics and design,. It does not include a single real place name associated with Nagorny Karabakh, yet clearly deals with the unresolved Armenian-Azerbaijani conflict.
‘After the April war, I was determined to create a game that would, as far as possible, reflect the elements of Armenian reality. In those days, the Armenian soldier played a crucial role in the life of our nation. Even today, he remains our finest hero,’ Karen Sogoyan explains
Karen Sogoyan, developer of the game Hi Zinvor
Azerbaijan also has its own range of computer games aimed at ‘raising the fighting spirit’, expressly supported financially by the country’s Ministry for Youth and Sport. Game creator Farid Khagverdiyev says he was driven by patriotic motives: Azerbaijan did not have its own computer games, and he felt this should be rectified. The conflict in Nagorny Karabakh, he decided, was the obvious theme for a shooter game.
Today, Khagverdiyev is Head Programmer with a company called AzDimension, but back in 2006, when he started developing these games, he was still at school. His first two games were released without any state sponsorship, purely out of enthusiasm.
‘Of course, the first game, which was called Karabakh War, was rather primitive: I barely had any experience, back then. But many people seemed to like it, so I decided to carry on.’
In 2012, an improved version appeared, which was named İşğalAltinda: Şuşa (Under Occupation: Shusha).
In this game, the action takes place in the future, during a second war in Nagorny Karabakh. In one of the battles, the main character’s unit gets caught in an ambush. All the soldiers are killed, apart from the main character and his commanding officer. At the other end of the village, though, friendly troops await. The aim of the game is to reach them.
The next game, İşğalaltında: Aqdam (Under Occupation: Agdam) was released with the aid of state sponsorship.
The action takes place at two different times: in the 1990s, during the battles for Agdam, and in the future, during its retaking. The user plays the part of several soldiers from a special forces unit.
Having had access to archive photographs, the programmers were able to reproduce the appearance of Agdam with the utmost precision. Many gamers, indeed, choose this game precisely because it gives them an opportunity to ‘visit’ Nagorny Karabakh, which they are too young to have done in reality. The town is shown at two different times, before and after the outbreak of war. The weapons in the game are also perfectly ‘real’: the Zəfər pistol, İstiqlal sniper rifle and military hardware used by Azerbaijan.
Currently, the İşğalaltında series has more than 100,000 users. Most of them live in Azerbaijan, although there are also Azerbaijanis living in Russia, Turkey and Iran who play it.
The final game of the series, İşğalAltında: Qisas (Under Siege: Revenge) appeared last summer, featuring a number of changes, improved graphics and encyclopaedic inserts with information on the main places of interest in Shusha.
Conflict studies expert Artak Ayuntz is convinced that Hi Zinvor reflects a growing militaristic mood in Armenian society.
‘The game ties in with the logic of the nation-army concept. All soldiers have to be prepared to give their lives, should war break out once again. Young Armenians who play this game most likely see Azerbaijanis as their enemies: the colours of the enemy flag in the game are like those of the flag of Azerbaijan, although this is not immediately obvious. Having said that, portraying the enemy as a ram in order to humiliate Azerbaijanis is nothing new in the Armenian online space,’ the conflict studies expert says. Such games, he is convinced, have a negative effect on users.
According to Ayuntz, military shooter games encourage hate among young people, stimulating the urge to resolve conflict through the use of weapons and force.
Every day, more than 3,000 users play Hi Zinvor. These are mainly men of different ages. Some users are children. The most active age group is 18 to 34.
‘The fact that the game encourages a sense of satisfaction at killing someone, and that this makes the player feel like a hero, is extremely dangerous,’ says Gulnara Shainyan. The founder of the non-profit organisation Democracy Today, she stresses the need to create more peaceful games in Armenia.
Hi Zinvor, she says, is geared to foment hatred and enmity.
Azerbaijani psychologist and psychiatrist Elchin Dzhabrailbekov does not feel that computer games, even those connected with the Nagorny Karabakh conflict, should be taken this seriously. And he certainly does not believe that such games are capable of raising the patriotic spirit.
‘Patriotic spirit is what makes you leap up from the couch and actually do something, whereas video games are what keep you on that couch. At the end of the day, that game is probably no worse than those ‘tank’ games that everyone is so fond of. Maybe it’s actually better. Perhaps some people are able to sublimate their militaristic tendencies that way.’
Elchin Dzhabrailbekov. Photo: hayat.clinic
Dzhabrailbekov does not see using the Nagorny Karabakh conflict as the theme for a video game as unethical. A great many games, he notes, are based on historical themes.
At the end of the day, Dzhabrailbekov feels, video games about Nagorny Karabakh are neither dangerous, nor useful. They should, he says, be seen merely as a pleasant pastime for those interested in such things.
There are no games about the conflict in Armenia or in Azerbaijan that advocate a humanistic, peaceful approach.
Many international organisations, however, are continuing to develop a range of games that stress the importance of humanism and peacebuilding in the context of other conflicts.
Focusing on cooperation and communication in the digital world, these peacebuilding games stress the need for dialogue whilst attempting to break down negative stereotypes.
A competition organized by the United Nations Development Programme in 2014 saw the creation of an entire series of such games. Arousing little interest, they remained unpopular.
Information security expert Samvel Martirosyan warns that military games can have a serious psychological impact on how the youth of today view the world.
Information security expert Samvel Martirosyan
‘Psychologists and teachers are alarmed: most games are very aggressive, they stimulate negative emotions and behaviour. In the gaming industry, humanism is not especially widespread,’ Martirosyan notes.
Father of a fifth-grader Vagif Abasov is a secondary school history teacher. He says he would never allow his son to play this, or any other computer game that deals with a specific war and real nations destroying each other.
Such, for instance, are the highly popular games about World War Two, Abasov says. Several of these, incidentally, allow the gamer to play on the side of the Nazis. All military games, and especially those in which the enemy’s nationality is made clear, Vagif Abasov says, promote increased aggression among young people and strengthen the enemy image.
‘These kinds of games are really only useful to students of military academies if they allow them to work on their tactics and strategy, fighting an enemy in a wooded setting, for instance. But even in this case, it is better to name the enemy simply ‘X’,’ Abasov suggests.
Vagif Abasov
There are, however, some exceptions, such as the computer game This War of Mine, developed by 11 Bit Studios. So popular it gained international acclaim, it features peaceful civilians trying to survive in a town under siege. Struggling with the lack of supplies and medicine, they are in constant danger from snipers as they are forced to make difficult decisions that will impact their lives or may result in death. In creating this game, which today boasts hundreds of thousands of users, its Polish developers strove to show the true face of war, the calamities and destruction it brings, and its impact on society and on individual people.
Developing projects such as this requires funds, and the gaming industry is seldom interested in funding peaceful games.
‘The prevailing discourse in Armenian schools and everywhere else today is nationalistic and militaristic, that much is clear, and the state does everything it can to support and encourage this. Developing and marketing a game that encourages peacebuilding in this kind of atmosphere is a very difficult task. How does one get adults and children interested in it? How does one get a proper following for it, not just 10 people from NGOs? This is most likely why such games are simply not made here in Armenia,’ suggests Isabella Sargsyan, Program Director at the Eurasia Partnership Foundation.
Isabella Sargsyan
The region, Sargsyan stresses, is in dire need of any peacebuilding initiatives. Which instruments are more effective, the online space or face-to-face meetings, however, is another matter.
‘From the point of view of peacebuilding and conflict transformation, there is probably no instrument more powerful than face-to-face meetings. You can advocate whatever you like with the aid of a game for as long as you want, but until you come face to face with a real person and undergo that process of transformation, the efficiency is going to be a lot lower,’ Sargsyan concludes.
David Ignatius: Small miracle of Armenia’s ‘velvet revolution’
By David Ignatiusn
YEREVAN, Armenia — If you’re looking for some good news from a faraway land, here’s a tale of Armenia’s “velvet revolution,” which just deposed a corrupt, authoritarian government and installed a team of eager young reformers to govern a tiny nation perilously bordering Russia.
Maybe it’s the start of a counter-trend, in a world where so many indicators of freedom and good governance have been pointing downward. But it must be said, time is not on the revolutionaries’ side. The squeeze on Armenia, from its neighbors and domestic power brokers, could undo the gains of the bottom-up protest movement that toppled the long-entrenched, pro-Moscow government of Prime Minister Serzh Sargsyan.
For now, there’s something of a festival atmosphere here, as Armenians enjoy the aftermath of what the new prime minister, Nikol Pashinyan, described to me as a “revolution of love and solidarity.” Bands play in the streets, people spontaneously cheer Pashinyan in public, and the post-Soviet haze seems, for now, to have cleared.
Pashinyan spoke with me for an hour last Friday at his grand office on Republic Square, in the center of the capital. He looked slightly uncomfortable in a dark business suit. The popular image of him is of a guy in a baseball cap who led a march on the capital that grew so large it paralyzed the government. Barricading the streets were jazz musicians atop a piano, a chamber quartet and a young boy halting traffic with a line of toy trucks.
The protests became so widespread that Sargsyan faced a choice of using force on fellow citizens or stepping down. In a nation whose political identity is tied to its tragic history, Sargsyan wisely chose the latter: On April 23, the day before the annual commemoration of the 1915 Ottoman genocide that killed more than a million Armenians, Sargsyan resigned.
The miracle of this revolution is that it happened at all. Russia had long supported Sargsyan and his oligarch cronies. But in May, after Sargsyan’s fall, the Kremlin didn’t block Pashinyan’s accession to prime minister. That’s partly because Pashinyan declared, as he told me, that his movement had “no geopolitical agenda.”
President Vladimir Putin could still make life very difficult for the new Armenia. In Yerevan last weekend, I heard reports from diplomats that if Moscow doesn’t receive new pledges of fealty, it might halt arms sales, on which Armenia depends to counter neighboring Azerbaijan in the disputed area known as Nagorno Karabakh. Russia’s tolerance for political liberalization may come at a price.
What’s next for the velvet revolution? Pashinyan outlined his program, but it was long on democratic idealism and thin on specifics.
Pashinyan’s first priority is to stop the corruption that has been leaching away the creative and entrepreneurial spirit for which Armenians are often known. “Unfortunately, Armenia was a very corrupt country in the last 25 years,” Pashinyan told me, with cronies close to the leadership taking what amounted to a private tax on the economy. “People were fed up with that situation,” he said.
Linked to Pashinyan’s anti-graft campaign is a commitment to break up the monopolies that dominate key sectors of the economy. Armen Grigoryan, the new national security adviser, worked previously for Transparency International, an anti-corruption group. He explained in an interview that the Armenian economy can grow if the new government can shed more sunlight on its operations and “decrease interaction between the state and the citizen.”
The new government will need to put teeth into this anti-corruption push, by holding some of the bribe-takers accountable. “I’m not going to give orders to judges,” Pashinyan insists, but he warns: “We will try to identify and bring to responsibility the most corrupt people.” To combat monopolies, he’ll need to capitalize new, smaller companies, perhaps through a national investment bank.
Breaking free of the gravitational field of the past will take all of Pashinyan’s idealism and energy — and also some raw political power. He told me it’s “very likely” he’ll hold a snap election for a new parliament by October or November, well before the April deadline. And the courts are already releasing some prominent political prisoners.
Armenia is a subject on which I’m hardly neutral, as my father’s family has Armenian roots. During my visit here, I helped host the Aurora Humanitarian Awards, created by a group of prominent Armenians to honor human-rights champions from other countries. Armenia has experienced more than its share of bad news, historically and in the recent, post-Soviet past. So it was encouraging to see Yerevan as a city of smiles after its dramatic moment of change.
PanARMENIAN.Net – The programs “Ari Tun” (Come Home) and Diaspora Summer School will be replaced by a new program called Take A Step Towards Home, new Diaspora Minister Mkhitar Hayrapetyan said in a Facebook post.
Both programs were designed for young Armenians living outside the country.
The new familiarization trip will involve children and youth aged 13-21 and will this year be held on August 10-24.
The programme has two components: educational and awareness raising. The first one consists of intensive Armenian language courses, while the awareness raising component offers tours to cultural, historical and contemporary sites.
Participants will mainly stay with host families throughout the programme and are set to participate in outdoor camping in the last four days.
The deadline for submitting applications is 30 June, 2018.
AGBU Press Office
55 East 59th Street
New York, NY 10022-1112
Website: www.agbu.org
PRESS RELEASE
Wednesday, June 6, 2018
AGBU EUROPE MARKS THE CENTENNIAL OF THE FIRST REPUBLIC OF ARMENIA WITH MUSICAL
WEEKEND IN BRUSSELS
From June 1 to 3, the city of Brussels was captivated by a multi-genre Musical
Weekend organized by the Performing Arts Department of AGBU France/Europe in
partnership with the Boghossian Foundation, the City of Brussels and the
Armenian community of Belgium.
The three-day concert was inspired by the 100th anniversary of the First
Republic of Armenia, an historical milestone in the Armenian Nation's long road
to independent statehood. "Since Armenia's rebirth in 1991, it has showcased to
the world the depth and breadth of the musical achievements of its people. This
concert series has crystalized those achievements all in one weekend," remarked
Nicolas Tavitian, the director of AGBU Europe, when noting the considerable
turnout at all three of the weekend's events.
Together with AGBU Performing Arts Department of France, AGBU Europe assembled
a roster of some of the best musicians of a generation, many whose talents were
originally cultivated in Armenia. A new AGBU string ensemble, a classical piano
trio and a jazz band played on successive nights, displaying their mastery of
their respective genres.
The entire weekend also served as a fundraiser to benefit the afterschool
programs of the AGBU Children's Centers in Yerevan Armenia. "After 25 years of
providing Armenia's youth with character-building and self-discovery programs
through arts and sports, these centers are long overdue for a major renewal-not
only to expand and upgrade interior space but also to enhance teaching
proficiencies and enrich curricula," explained Karen Papazian, back at the AGBU
Central Office in New York. As the director of Global Outreach and Development,
she pointed out that "Armenia's youth deserve to thrive in a safe and nurturing
environment. And no doubt, some of these children will grow up to follow in the
footsteps of rising stars like those who performed this weekend."
The concert series began Friday evening at the Brussels Town Hall, one of
Belgium's most magnificent Gothic buildings. Opening remarks made by officials
and dignitaries spoke to the significance of the occasion. H.E. Tatul
Margaryan, Armenia's Ambassador to Belgium, stated, "On May 28, one hundred
years ago, our nation restored its millenia-old state by declaring the birth of
the First Republic of Armenia. Although the First Republic faced numerous
challenges and was short lived, it laid the foundation for the establishment
and development of state institutions and democratic governance."
He was followed by Philippe Close, the mayor of Brussels, who referred to the
turbulent context in which the Republic of 1918 was founded, citing the fall of
the Ottoman empire, the chaos of the Russian revolution and the admission of
hundreds of thousands of genocide survivors. The mayor also highlighted the
will of the City of Brussels to collaborate with Armenian organizations to host
this important cultural event, noting that "culture is the best expression of a
people's vitality and of its presence in the world."
Stepan Mirdikian, a former chairman of the Armenian community of Belgium also
added words of inspiration. Quoting Ernest Renan, he mentioned, "What
constitutes a nation is not so much speaking the same language or belonging to
the same ethnic group, it is to have accomplished together great things in the
past and to want to accomplish more in the future."
On opening night, the AGBU String Ensemble[CE1], took to the stage to perform
under the direction of young composer Alexandr Iradyan, who conducted the very
first concert of the ensemble which interpreted the powerful and emblematic
Symphony for Strings and Timpani, by Mirzoyan along with selected works by
Komitas.
The following evening, the diverse audience of Armenians and non-Armenians
gathered at the Ceremonial Hall of the Boghossian Foundation Villa Empain for
the performance of pianist Varduhi Yeritsyan, known for her vast and diverse
repertoire. She performed along with the Brussels based brothers Hrachya
Avanesyan (violin) and Sevak Avanesyan (cello). The trio performed the works of
Shostakovich and Babajanian as well as a number of encore pieces by Komitas
following the wide public acclaim.
Sunday's performance at the same venue featured the contemporary works of
Yessaï Karapetyan Trio, a jazz ensemble led by pianist Yessai Karapetyan, a
gifted musician who performs on the most prestigious jazz stages in Europe.
Yessaï was accompanied by Sylvain Fournet-Fayas on double bass and David Paycha
on drums.
Nadia Gortzounian, the president of AGBU France, hailed the event as a
"brilliant" weekend. "I was thrilled to see such a high level of attendance at
each of our three events and I am profoundly grateful to all the immensely
talented musicians for their extraordinary performances. It was also a pleasure
to collaborate with the City of Brussels, the Armenian community of Belgium and
the Boghossian Foundation that allowed us to host our concerts in the
particularly magical setting of the Villa Empain in Brussels."
She went on to say, "It was a heartwarming and inspiring experience to see just
how far the Armenian Nation has come since the First Republic, as we contribute
to world culture through the arts."
Established in 1906, AGBU (www.agbu.org) is the world's largest non-profit
Armenian organization. Headquartered in New York City, AGBU preserves and
promotes the Armenian identity and heritage through educational, cultural and
humanitarian programs, annually touching the lives of some 500,000 Armenians
around the world.
For more information about AGBU and its worldwide programs, please visit
www.agbu.org.
Armenians mistake children’s toy for Turkey's spy blimp
28 May in 10:00
A 'spy blimp' found in an Armenian village of Nor Amasia, next to the Turkish border has turned out to be a child’s toy rigged with cameras.
According to media reports, the device was a balloon rigged with video cameras. Locals on camera dutifully expressed their suspicion that the balloon could have been launched from Turkish territory and was being used for surveillance of the tiny impoverished border village of less than a thousand souls, RIA Novosti reported.
"The discovery has been handed to the National Security Service. It turned out that it is just a common children's toy with a remote control which can be found in Yerevan's shops. It poses no danger," the Armenian Security Service press release says.
Nikol Pashinyan is currently at Garegin Chukaszyaan’s place. Nikol Pashinyan embraced Karo Egnukyan, who was there, and then stated that Garegin Chukaszyan was stopping the hunger strike.
Garegin Chukaszyan personally told reporters that today he will go home.