Author: Karabekian Emil

Nashua Telegraph, NH
Jan 10 2005

Love & survival

A Telegraph Column By Stacy Milbouer

My mother used to have this saying: `If everyone in the world put
their problems into a big hat, and were asked to choose one to keep,
they’d always choose their own.’ If you find yourself scratching your
head now, trying to figure out what she meant – welcome to the last
47 years of my life.

But every once in a while – like yesterday – the meaning of that
proverb is clear to me. A woman named Julie and a man named George
got married at The Courville at Nashua nursing home Sunday.

Julie Natchioni is 54 years old and a widow. George Kouchakdjian, is
59 and a widower. The Rhode Island couple chose to marry at what
might seem to be an unusual venue because George’s mother,
91-year-old Annette Kouchakdjian, is a resident there and is too
infirmed to travel. But she wanted very much to see her son married
and make sure he was happy.

Her son wasn’t that happy before he met Julie last summer. He was
still reeling from the 2002 death of his wife Karen, to whom he’d
been married for 37 years. The couple’s eldest son, Chris, was also
gone – dead in 1991 from a sudden heart attack that struck when he
was only 20 years old.

`I was miserable, despondent, depressed,’ said George, looking back
to that time.

But then two golfing friends had an idea. Marilyn knew this man, a
neighbor. And Ella had a niece. Maybe they should arrange a meeting.

`It was the first date I had been on and the first date George had
been on since our spouses,’ recalled Julie. George will tell you he
knew he wanted to marry Julie right away. `I could have stayed in
misery the rest of my life. I wasn’t doing well. But when I met
Julie, it made me stay in the present and look at the future
together.’

George credits any resilience he has to his mother, Annette. `She’s a
survivor in every sense of the word. She is remarkable.’ Annette
Kouchakdjian is remarkable. At her son’s wedding yesterday, she was
dressed in a pink, tan and blue brocade frock set off by a soft,
beaded sweater. She needed a walker and a wheelchair to get to the
room at the Courville that was transformed by the staff into a
miniature Armenian chapel.

Annette made the dress she wore to the wedding. She’s been sewing
since she was 12 and was living as a refugee with her mother in
Paris. The two were the only survivors of a family of 13, that was
forced by the Turkish government to walk through the Syrian desert
during the Armenian genocide that began in the early years of the
20th century.

In fact, Annette, who was 10 at the time, watched her father and 10
siblings starve to death. But she and her mother began life again in
Paris, where the girl who was so good with a needle and thread began
a career that would span decades and help her family survive in times
of need. It was in Paris that she met her husband, Caloust, and gave
birth to two boys, Jacques and George.

Life is good, or so you’d think, for someone who had already dealt
with so much. But then Annette’s husband, a member of the French Army
during World War II, was captured and taken prisoner of war by the
Germans.

Annette was alone in Nazi-occupied Paris with two small children. But
she hadn’t survived so much without learning a thing or two. This
time, instead of a needle and thread, she used her wits to survive.

She ate piping-hot bread just out of the oven and followed it with
ice-cold water. She did this again and again until she became very
ill. So ill, that the Germans allowed her husband to be released to
care for the children until she recovered. But as soon as he came
home, Annette had already arranged for her husband to escape to a
relative in the French countryside.

He hid there for two years until the family could move to New York
City. There – Annette took up her seamstress work again, landing
employment in some of the finest design houses in the city. Her
husband worked in hotels and the couple gave birth to their third
child – daughter Anita, who now lives in Hollis.

Eventually after a lifetime of hard work and raising children,
Annette and her husband moved to New Hampshire with her daughter and
son-in-law to retire. Caloust died 14 years ago, and Annette,
suffering from emphysema and other ailments, came to the Courville.

`She is a very, very strong woman,’ said Julie. `She has a will about
her that’s incredible. She’s extremely loving and giving as tough as
nails and funny as anything. Every week she gets her hair done and if
someone compliments her – `Hey Annette you’re hair looks pretty.’
She’ll say, `So do you have a boyfriend for me?’ ‘

Julie adored George from the moment she met him, but credits his
mother for yesterday’s nuptials.

`She wanted this so much, so we decided to do it.’

Sunday’s ceremony was officiated by a priest from the Armenian Church
in Watertown, Mass., who was able to get a dispensation from the
bishop to perform the marriage ceremony in a place other than a
church.

So this is a survivors’ tale on many levels. But it is far from grim.

At the wedding, George’s 30-year-old son, Alex, served as his best
man, while Annette’s best friend stood up for her. And George’s
sister, Anita, pretty much put the whole lovely day together.

Also in attendance, among the bride’s and groom’s siblings and loved
ones, were George’s late-wife’s family, who said they couldn’t be
happier for him. And, of course, there was Annette.

After the ceremony, the priest came over to her chair and gave her a
special blessing. In Armenian, he wished that she might live an even
longer life. And with a laugh she replied, `I had enough.’ Maybe. But
no one seems to have had enough of Annette.

`If she had said to me she was waiting to see George married again so
that she could finally die, we would have put the wedding off
forever,’ said the bride.

So going back to my mother’s saying, perhaps it should be rephrased
to represent the optimistic spirit that drives the lucky among us.

`If everyone in the world put all their blessings in one hat, and
then were asked to choose one to keep; they’d always choose their
own.’

Hamazkayin Armenian Educational and Cultural Society
Greater Washington DC Chapter
4906 Flint Drive
Bethesda, MD 20816
[email protected]

PRESS RELEASE

Contact:
Areg Abrahamian
[email protected]
[email protected]

HAMAZKAYIN PARTNERS WITH KENNEDY CENTER TO SPONSOR NEW
YEARS ARMENIAN FOLK MUSIC CONCERT IN WASHINGTON

Performance Part of Hamazkayin Evening Dedicated to Supporting Young
Armenians in the Arts

Washington, D.C. – January 2, 2005 – The Hamazkayin Armenian
Educational and Cultural Society joined forces with the John
F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts to sponsor a New Year’s
weekend performance of Armenian folk music on the Center’s Millenium
Stage. The concert was part of an evening organized by the Hamazkayin
Washington chapter dedicated to supporting young Armenians in the
performing and visual arts.

The Zulal Armenian A Capella Trio performed a range of songs
showcasing Armenia’s folk music heritage before a standing-room-only
audience of more than 600 Washingtonians gathered at the
world-renowned Kennedy Center. Using original arrangements of melodies
and harmonies, the group presented a repertoire of songs that drew on
the rich tradition of Armenia’s rural music, including songs such as
`Sari Siroon Yar’ and `Sareri Hovin Mernem.’

Following the concert, the Hamazkayin Washington chapter hosted a
photography exhibit titled `A Window to Armenia,’ featuring the works
of Arsineh Khachikian at the Soorp Khatch Armenian Apostolic Church
Hall. A Washington DC native, Ms. Khachikian shared with attendees a
photographic journey across Armenia’s mountains, villages and
people. The exhibit displayed more than 30 color and black and white
images depicting a range of subjects from panoramic landscapes to
poignant close-up portraits.

`By sponsoring such performances and exhibits, Hamazkayin is pleased
to help young Armenian artists gain increased exposure in the nation’s
capital,’ stated Maggie Simonian, chair of the Hamazkayin Washington
DC chapter. `Hamazkayin would like to thank the Kennedy Center for
opening their Millenium Stage to our organization as well as
acknowledge the Armenian Embassy for their collaboration in making
this event a success.’

Founded in 1928, the Hamazkayin Armenian Educational and Cultural
Society is dedicated to the preservation and advancement of the
history and the cultural heritage of the Armenian nation. Hamazkayin
has chapters throughout the United States, Canada, South America,
Europe, the Middle East and Australia, as well as the Republic of
Armenia.

A recording of the concert featuring Zulal is available on the Kennedy
Center Website at:

Zaman, Turkey
Dec 26 2004

‘Turkey is too Big for EU’

Turkish Greater Unity Party (BBP) leader Muhsin Yazicioglu says that
the real goal of the European Union is not to make Turkey a full
member but to break it into pieces.

Yazicioglu says that the EU is trying to split Turkey into parts, as
it is too large for them and said that that’s why they put in clauses
about the so called Armenian Genocide, Cyprus, Aegean region and
minorities.

Answering the questions of Zaman, he said that although Turkey has
fulfilled the Copenhagen Criteria, the EU is applying double
standards. Pointing out the fact that they are constantly bringing
new conditions to the table, he said: “They tell us to solve the
problems with Armenians, which means to give the Armenians Kars, to
accept the invasion of Karabag, to accept the so called Armenian
Genocide and to give them extra land as indemnity. Another point here
is that there may be wars over water so they want us to turn over the
administration of the rivers Firat and Tigris to an international
committee, which is a violation of our sovereign rights. Do we tell
them to turn over the oil produced in Britain to such a committee?”

12.26.2004
Selim Kuvel
Ankara

LAKE SEVAN LEVEL 41 CM UP IN 2004

YEREVAN, DECEMBER 24. ARMINFO. The level of Lake Sevan has risen
by 41 cm to 1.897 meters in 2004. 1 cm rise implies 12.5 mln c m of
water,0 says Environment Protection Minister Vardan Ayvazyan.

He says that in the last three years Sevan’s level has risen by 1.35
meters. 149.835 mln c m have been released from the lake this year
against with 243.19 mln c m poured into it from the Arpa-Sevan canal.

This year ecological inspectors have seized 8,000 illegally fished
sigs against 100,000 ones in 2002. Fishing on the lake has been banned
since Nov 25 to allow fish to reproduce itself.

KARABAGH LEADER REPLACES FOREIGN MINISTER

ArmenPress
Dec 24 2004

STEPANAKERT, DECEMBER 24, ARMENPRESS: Arkady Ghukasian, the leader
of Nagorno-Karabagh, promoted the republic’s Permanent Representative
in Armenia Arman Melikian to the post of foreign minister on Friday.

Melikian’s predecessor Ashot Ghulian was appointed education and
culture minister. As he presented Melikian to the foreign ministry’s
personnel, Ghukasian said that Melikian’s appointment was dictated
by the need to step up Nagorno-Karabagh’s foreign policy activities
in response to recent international developments.

Arman Melikian, 41, was born in Yerevan and graduated from the
Department of Oriental Studies of Yerevan State University. He served
also as Armenia’s ambassador to Kazakhstan.

According to sources in the Karabagh government, new reshuffles in
the Cabinet are very much likely.

Vote Turkey this Christmas
By Norman Stone

The Spectator, 2004-12-18

http://www. spectator.co.uk/article.php?table=&section=&am p;issue=2004-12-18&id=5423

Herr Professor Dr Wehler once wrote a very good article about the
Poles in Germany. They emigrated to the Ruhr in droves, well over a
century ago,and – unlike the Poles of Belgium or France – they did
not fit in at all.

They had their own Catholic churches and clubs, and what was unique in
Germany was that this went on generation in, generation out until at
last, in the 1950s, Polish names were all over the Hamburg football
team and the Politburo of the DDR. Wehler’s point was that there was
something special about the German handling of Polish immigration
that ruled out assimilation.

That same professor now writes in Die Zeit that the Turks can never
be part of Europe, and we can guess what lies behind this: Germans
often complain that their Turks do not assimilate, even in the third
generation and,right enough, it can be irritating, if you get on an
aeroplane to or in Germany, to find yourself behind an Anatolian rural
pair in the queue. He, woolly-capped and bearded, will be lord of all
he surveys. She, huge Islamic coat, will take time placing her many
plastic bags and will settle, triumphant silly beam on her face, in
the middle of the wrong row, and will not understand the stewardess
when she is told to move. I, being British and having experience
of Turkey, show Asiatic resignation and drum my fingers. Professor
Wehler writes an article in Die Zeit saying that the Turks are not
European. Will he please remember those poor old Poles a century ago,
and bethink himself that, back then, a certain Professor Weber, on the
back of a non-starter of an adulterous affair, wrote a rather bizarre
book about how Catholics – Poles – could not adapt to capitalism?

In 1963 Turkey signed a treaty with the Europeans, opening the way for
eventual membership. This week that treaty will come home to roost,
and the Europeans will have to decide whether to give her a date
for the start of negotiations. Turkey in Europe? There has been a
litany of objection from ex-President Giscard d’Estaing and the German
Christian Democrats, with an amen corner of little countries such as
Slovakia, the economy of which would fit comfortably into Istanbul’s
Eminönü quarter. Perhaps Giscard d’Estaing is disappointed to find
that what he sees as a Third World country has not been offering him
diamonds, in the manner of the Emperor Bokassa in days of yore. But,
purely on technical grounds, it is going to be very difficult indeed
to say no to – at least – discussions of membership. The Euros, in
their wisdom, established ‘the Copenhagen criteria’ for membership,
the usual End-of-History stuff, a market economy, minorities dancing
freely around their maypoles etc.

Turkey has met them. Over the past two or three years, the Turkish
parliament has passed all the relevant legislation. It even includes
a provision for education in Kurdish – a difficult matter, since
there are seven Kurdish dialects at least, not mutually intelligible
(just as the Gaelic of Mull is not understood on Lewis) – although so
far only about a hundred people have volunteered to sacrifice their
children in this way.

All of this is happening in an economy that has been forging ahead:
the average age in Turkey is about 26, and over the past generation
the Turks have been learning how to do capitalism. In 1960 the Koreans
exported wigs, and had a GDP per head somewhat below Turkey’s. The
Turks took rather longer about such progress (politics was a mess), but
they are getting there, and there are now world-class Turkish firms,
with interests all over the place, which could pay off the national
debt tomorrow if the call came. If you take the road from Istanbul
to Cappadocia, you pass one huge lorry after another ferrying goods
to Germany (they are sometimes to be seen, even in England; nowadays,
in Wales, there are Turkish ceramics factories – a phenomenon that we
cannot have seen since the 16th century when Ottoman traders dealt in
Cornish tin). Now, Turkey is still, overall, quite a poor country,
and there are huge differences between the plush parts of Istanbul
or Izmir, where you might think you were anywhere in Mediterranean
Europe, and S?rnak or Hakkari in the Kurdish south-east, where –
drugs traders apart – you might think you were in the Third World,
producing nothing but children. But Korea was like that 50 years
ago, and what Europe now has on its doorstep is a country not only
Korea-like in potential, but with a long, long history, entirely
missed by critics, of co-operation with Christianity and with Europe.

This is perhaps the most misunderstood thing of all. The Turks are
Muslim, yes, but there is an enormously long tradition of collaboration
with Christianity. Louis de Bernières has written a very good
novel about this – Birds Without Wings – which takes the history of a
Greek-Turkish small town in Mediterranean Anatolia in the period of the
first world war. Critics – the Economist’s, for instance – wondered
why he had spent ten years between his last novel and this one. I
can tell that critic the answer: it is a very very complicated story,
and Louis de Bernières has done an enormous amount of homework,
from the high politics of the Turkish war of independence to the nature
of local cooking and the shape of local superstitions. But the central
point is that the local Christians and Muslims got along very well –
quite a bit of intermarriage, with much blurring of the edges when
it came to religion. There are nowadays in the Greek press articles
about how the Anatolian Greeks resented the invasion by mainlanders
in 1919: they smashed the balance that generation after generation
had established. The end of the Greek presence in Anatolia is a
horrible story, and the chief devil in it is Lloyd George, who egged
on the mainland Greeks to invade, commit ethnic-cleansing atrocities,
polarise things, lose, and preside over the departure of the million
or so Anatolian Greeks. In de Bernières’s words, ‘You do not piss
off the Turks.’ True, they are not good at all when it comes to public
relations – lying does not come naturally to them – and in any saloon
bar it can be very tiresome to have to tell people that they did not
do an Auschwitz on the Greeks or the Armenians, who have been much
better organised with their hard-luck stories. The Armenian diaspora
can be especially tiresome, trying to make us believe that they had
their very own Holocaust. In 1914 their leader, Boghos Nubar Pasha,
was offered a place in the Turkish cabinet. Can you imagine Hitler
making Chaim Weizmann the same offer?

The fact was that Christians had been part of the Ottoman empire from
the start. Was the initial Ottoman state in the early 14th century
a creation of Warriors for the Faith, as its best-known historian
in England, Paul Wittek, supposed? No, the first Osman was elected
chief by the other three leaders, who were Byzantine cowboys. Did the
Ottoman dynasty, Caliphs of all Islam, marcher lords of the horizon,
etc., descend from the Prophet? No, they were three-quarters Balkan
Christian in origin. A 12th-century Byzantine princess, Anna Comnena,
remarked that the population of Anatolia consisted of Greeks,
barbarians and what she called mixo-varvaroi, and a famous Arab
traveller, Ibn Batuta, tut-tutted about the lax ways of the Turks –
wine and women well in evidence. He would tut-tut even more, now.
There are Christmas lights and trees all over Ankara, Christmas
shopping is the usual European epidemic, and Santa Claus is around,
only the celebrations are theoretically for the New Year.

But there is nothing new in this. When Constantinople fell to the
Turks, the nephews of the last emperor became governor-general of
the Balkans and admiral of the Ottoman fleet, while their first
cousin, Zoe, famously married the Tsar (it was not, incidentally,
to give Muscovy a title to Byzantium: the aim was to convert the
Tsar to Catholicism, Zoe having been brought up by the Pope). In
1453 the Sultan’s first port of call was to the Orthodox Patriarch,
Gennadius, and a treaty was drawn up. The two were natural allies,
because the Orthodox detested the Latins, who had taken over the
Byzantine economy (the Galata Tower, one of Istanbul’s landmarks, was
built by the Genoese, not against the Turks, but against the Venetians,
who were trying to take over the Black Sea trade). A Grand Logothete
remarked famously, ‘Better the Sultan’s turban than the Cardinal’s
hat’, and when Othello’s Cyprus fell to the Turks in 1571 the Orthodox
peasants cheered them on, as a relief from Latin feudalism. The Turks
made the Patriarch a pasha. They remembered their nomadic origins,
and a badge of honour was a horsetail on the coach. The Sultan had
four, and the Patriarch rode around with three. He became the largest
landowner in the empire (this subject is splendidly explored in Stephen
Runciman’s best book, The Great Church in Captivity) and the document
was drawn up in Greek, addressed to megas authentes, ‘great sovereign’,
which was how you addressed the Byzantine emperor. The Turkish ear,
incidentally, which has affinities with the Japanese, could not manage
this very easily, and turned authentes into effendi, an honorific
widely bestowed. There is a very good Greek book on this, Dimitri
Kitzikis’s L’ empire ottoman. The general line is that the Ottoman
empire, when it worked, was a sort of Byzantium with attitude. Quite
why it declined is a good question.

But the Ottoman decline was mirrored in Spain, the European country
that Turkey most resembles. Spain had a thousand years of Islam,
Old Castile is similar to the Anatolian plateau in barrenness,
and where Turkey has Kurds and Armenians, Spain has Basques and
Catalans. Europeanisation in both countries involved a sort of
civil war (Charles Esdaile’s splendid Peninsular War deals with this)
because Counter-Reformation Catholicism in Spain laid the same kind of
obscurantist burden that the ulema imposed on Turkey – throwing the
telescopes from the Galata Tower because it was impious to penetrate
God’s secrets, or closing a school of mathematics for gunners on the
same grounds. In Spain the civil war came to a head in the 1930s;
Turkey headed it off with the Atatürk reforms, which have
given her a literate, healthy population and an Islam that is easy
to live with, and has produced a political party quite similar to
the Christian Democratic ones in Europe. Islamic mayors have also,
incidentally, been quite helpful about the restoration of Christian
churches, and even saved the Anglican one from deconsecration by the
bishop of Gibraltar. It is now full, most Sundays.

Spain has been a considerable success story, and there is no reason for
Turkey not to repeat the feat. She has already easily begun to do so,
and on present form her overseas trade will soon overtake Russia’s,
although she has nothing much in the way of raw materials and faces
difficulty in exporting agricultural goods to Europe. Given the size
of the black economy, she is probably worth more than all the other
‘accession countries’ put together, and she has no history of communist
sloth to live down. On the other hand, if she is refused a date for the
start of negotiations, it would be a blow to the present religious but
democratic government; it might be swept away by a nationalist revival
prepared to take revenge on Europe by dumping boatloads of refugees. It
is time for Giscard to remember that his career has been littered
with blunders, and Professor Wehler might remember that Max Weber
himself, after a nervous breakdown, began to understand that Polish
peasants had a very hard existence, and needed some understanding from
double-doctorate professors, not finger-wagging. But a German or a
Frenchman, of all people, should understand that today’s peasant is
tomorrow’s tycoon. A French critic of modern Europe, Marc Fumaroli,
says that the Continent is turning into an enormous version of Venice
in the later 18th century – glossy and sterile. Slovakias and Slovenias
will not arrest that. Turkey would.

Norman Stone is Professor of International Relations at Bilkent
University, Ankara.

–Boundary_(ID_fTUZoiQ+rNwTURzxEXMD2g)–

Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, PA
Dec 19 2004

Lost in Venice

By Mark Houser
TRIBUNE-REVIEW
Sunday, December 19, 2004

In the map room in the Doge’s Palace in Venice, a familiar feeling
crept over me.
Two days of wandering the city’s medieval tangle of winding canals
and narrow, cobbled streets had flummoxed my sense of direction.

In Venice, my internal compass was stuck in a bag of magnets. At each
intersection, I scoured my map and chewed my lip like a man doing
long division in his head.

Now, in the pink marble palace whose residents once ruled a great
naval empire, I felt lost again.

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On a wall of the grand chamber was a painted map of oceans and
continents that seemed vaguely familiar at first glance. But the more
I looked the less familiar they became.

I squinted. I muttered to myself. I swiveled my head.

Finally, I figured it out. The painting is upside down.

There was never such a eureka moment with my street map. A visitor to
Venice is going to be lost, and often. This is a good thing, and
should be embraced.

Every block is a potential postcard, and somehow more appealing if
found by accident. There are no seedy or dangerous neighborhoods;
real estate is too expensive. And it’s impossible to wander too far
on what is, after all, an urban island.

I visited in summer with my wife and two daughters, 9 and 6, and by
the second day we had worked out a few routes.

>>From our airy budget hostel, a former mansion run by Armenian
priests, with a private garden and trompe l’oeil murals in the
ballroom, we could dogleg along a canal and past a church to one of
the city’s bustling squares, Campo Santa Margherita. Sipping
cappuccino and fresh pear juice and chewing pastries for breakfast,
we watched fisherman lay out their catch on beds of ice, pestered by
mewling seagulls.

The famous pigeons of St. Mark’s Square are even less patient. We
bought bags of dried corn from a vendor. A couple kernels would bring
them flapping to perch on my hands, arms, shoulders and head.

St. Mark’s Basilica, the city’s Byzantine centerpiece, is adorned
with spectacular gold-studded mosaics inside and out. One depicts the
legendary 9th-century heist that put the city on the map, when
Venetian merchants stole the holy relics of St. Mark and smuggled
them out of Alexandria in a basket of salted pork.

Venice’s original patron was St. Theodore, a Greek. By adopting St.
Mark, who wrote his version of the Gospel in Rome, the young city
managed to set itself apart from Byzantium and from Rome, where St.
Peter was patron.

No less significantly, with the famous bones Venice boosted its
potential draw for religious pilgrims. The tourists have been coming
ever since.

Mark’s symbol, the winged lion, is synonymous with Venice and can be
seen throughout the city and surrounding countryside. As a sop to the
spurned Theodore, a statue of him in armor tramping on a dragon
crowns a column in the square, next to another supporting Mark’s
lion.

Without the stained glass windows of Gothic cathedrals, the
gargantuan basilica relies for light on candelabras and isolated
sunbeams descending from windows high in the cupolas.

There is a nominal fee to see a museum upstairs, where the original
four bronze horses looted from Constantinople hide from the elements.
Copies crown the main entrance on the balcony outside, looking down
on the square, its extravagant restaurants, dueling orchestras and
teeming mass of pigeons.

Instead of waiting in the sun for an elevator ride to the top of the
campanile, the bell tower next to the basilica, we hopped a boat
across the canal to San Giorgio Maggiore. The view from the belfry of
the Palladian church was just as splendid, and the bells were just as
loud.

On the nearby island of Murano, famed for its glassblowing, we saw a
man using narrow tongs to deftly tug a rearing horse out of a glowing
orange ball. Cost: a three euro tip, plus the expense of a couple
more horses we picked up later in the shop.

Wandering away from St. Mark’s, we found a gondolier willing to give
us a ride for 50 euros, a relative bargain. Crooning costs extra, and
Sandro, our oarman, only donned his trademark wide-brimmed hat for
photos.

But drifting along the back canals, we were treated to a view of the
city almost completely uninterrupted by waving spectators. And Sandro
let the girls call out “Oe!” at the blind turns, which is what
gondoliers do instead of honking.

True penny pinchers can take a quick, standing ride across the Grand
Canal on a traghetto, one of the retired gondolas Venetians use
instead of bridges.

But we discovered a better strategy to cruise the splendor of
Venice’s main watery promenade.

Boats called vaporetti play the role of buses, and Grand Canal routes
are standing room only. But coming back from Murano, we jumped off at
Giardini di Castello, a park and residential area two stops from the
crush of St. Mark’s and the canal.

After a quick stop at a cafe, we boarded the No. 1 vaporetto with the
locals and headed for the main drag. Most everyone got off at St.
Mark’s, and before the crowd on the dock could board, we scooted to
the bow and plopped down in the coveted few seats on the sides.

Dusk descended, and the glow off the water lit the opulent facades
with ripples of light.

Almost everyone poured out at the train station, but we stayed for
one more stop and disembarked at the car park with Italians headed
back across the causeway for the mainland. Then we waited for the
next No. 1 boat to chug back down the canal.

When it came, we easily claimed front seats again, and were lulled to
reverie shortly after as the crowd of tourists boarding at the train
station set the boat to mild rocking.

Some of them probably were checking their maps, but I was long past
noticing.

If you go

Arrival

Venice’s new Marco Polo airport is served from most major European
airports. The shuttle boat to Venice is 10 euro per person; private
water taxis are about 80. Train travelers arrive right at the top of
the Grand Canal.

Transportation

It’s 5 euros just to ride one stop on the Grand Canal on a vaporetto.
Three-day passes are an astronomical 22 euros, and conductors rarely
check tickets on the crowded routes. If they catch you cheating, the
fine costs more than the pass.

When to go

Summer is high season, but we avoided crowds at the Doge’s Palace in
June by arriving just before it opened. St. Mark’s Square is
frequently underwater during winter floods.

Eating

Venice is crowded with restaurants of every price and quality, with
seafood the specialty. You can save by munching appetizers at a bar
or buying a picnic lunch at a supermarket.

Wine

Vineyards on the mainland produce soave, a light white, and reds
valpolicella and bardolino. Bubbly prosecco also is popular,
sometimes mixed with peach juice for a Bellini cocktail.

Sleeping

Consider anything less than 150 euros is a bargain. Above all, stay
away from Mestre, the ugly industrial suburb across the causeway.

Souvenirs

Seemingly every third shop sells masks, glass and lace, so shop
around for a while.

Getting lost

You can see a picture of the upside-down map from the Doge’s Palace
at

Al-Jazeera, Qatar
December 17, 2004

Turks cold to EU accession deal
By Jonathan Gorvett

Friday 17 December 2004, 22:56 Makka Time, 19:56 GMT

Scepticism greeted the EU accession deal amongst Turks

After a day marked by crisis talks and last-minute deals, Turkey’s
European Union road now stands open, with a date to start membership
talks fixed for 3 October 2005.

When on Friday the news finally broke that an agreement on the
country’s most cherished ambition of 40 years had been reached, there
was little in the way of celebration to be seen amongst ordinary
Turks.

To test out reactions to the news, Aljazeera.net spoke to people in
one Turkish heartland that has always been part of Europe, at least,
geographically.

In the town of Eceabat, located at the Dardanelles Strait on the very
edge of continental Europe, news that a final agreement had been
brokered roused little enthusiasm – and much scepticism.

One who questioned the worth of Ankara’s EU bid, and of the bloc’s
sincerity in wanting Turkey to join its ranks, was local artist Sera
Sekitmen.

Tough conditions

“The conditions being set out for us are very tough and very hard to
accept given our nationalism,” she said. “I do not believe that for
the price we will have to pay there will be great benefits from
becoming a member.”

EU deal involves more difficulties
for Turkey, says Sekitman

She was referring to the extra clauses that have been added to the
agreement between the EU and Turkey. These touch on issues such as
recognition of Cyprus and the possibility that the talks will not end
in full membership. Such terms have never before been asked of a
country seeking membership.

“There are more difficulties for us, more compromises being asked
for,” Sekitman said.

“As an individual I would not make so many compromises. For example,
on issues that we had insisted on throughout history, like the
Armenian genocide, that I believe happened, and the recognition of
southern Cyprus, we as a state said no for many years. Now we are
asked to say yes, this is a double standard for us. I would not give
so much.”

Opinion polls

Though scepticism remains strong, recent polls put support for
joining the EU among Turkish people at 80%, far higher than in most
of the countries that became members in May. However, in countries
such as Poland, Cyprus and Malta, there was little question of
whether they were wanted.

For 65-year old Ayse Ordu, this, however, is precisely the point.
“The prime minister keeps saying we will get into the EU,” he says.
“I am not so sure. We have many poor and jobless. They would go and
try to get jobs there. Would the EU agree to that? Would they really
like to let so many of our people into their countries? I am not so
sure.”

The deal caused a surge in
Turkey’s stock market

Local Nermin Demir saw Turkey’s unstable economy, rather than a
question of religion, as the main obstacle to accession. Despite the
news that EU leaders had agreed on a date for membership talks to
start, Demir says that her country is a long way from Europe.

“We are told everything will be fine if we get into the EU and that
the problems of the economy and unemployment will be resolved,” Demir
said. “But will they take us? We have many disadvantages such as
poverty, unemployment and our system is very different and that is a
problem on its own. I mean as people, citizens and as a state we are
different.”

Yet Turkey’s financial markets were a lot more positive about the
news of a date and a deal. The Istanbul Stock Exchange Index surged
late on Friday while the Turkish currency strengthened against the
dollar.

Simple fact

But the simple fact is, according to shop owner Askin Gungor, is that
Europe doesn’t want Turkey in its ranks – and Friday’s decision to
open accession talks has come too quickly for both sides.

“They do not want us.They will never have us”

Askin Gungor,
shop owner, Eceabat

“They do not want us,” Gungor said while standing outside his shop on
Eceabat’s main street. “They will never have us. Look at the Greek
Cyprus issue, this is just the beginning. Next will come more
enforced conditions. In fact, I see the future being worse when they
apply pressure on even more issues.”

Gungor believes that Turkey is not in a position to meet the rigid
demands of the EU in the short term and fears political and economic
instability if it tries to do so.

“Turkey cannot bear those burdens,” he said. “It is not just in one
area but in many and in fact in all sectors difficulties will occur.
There will be problems in all areas: fishing, the food sector that I
am in, textiles. In everything we are not ready yet. We do things our
way and we make mistakes and we are far from being ready for such
change.”

Doubts aside, however, Turkey does have a date to start accession
talks, although they may take 10-15 years to complete. This in itself
marks a major step, even if the consequences may still be viewed with
great suspicion on the streets of small town Turkey.

War and cold have depleted Armenia’s only natural resource: trees

Agence France Presse — English
December 17, 2004 Friday 6:52 PM GMT

YEREVAN Dec 17 — It is one of Armenia’s most revered sites, but for
the poor, the trees around the giant Genocide Memorial outside the
capital make more than a pleasant setting for the monument, they are
their only source of heat as a bitter winter approaches fast.

Ever since Armenia became locked in war over Nagorno-Karabakh, an
enclave in neighboring Azerbaijan in the 1990s, it has been under
an energy blockade from the oil-rich post Soviet republic as well as
its historic foe to the south, Turkey.

As a result, when the war was in full swing much of the tiny
land-locked nation’s forests were cut to be used as fuel when the
heat supply was cut by Azerbaijan.

The conflict with Azerbaijan frozen in an uneasy cease-fire, Armenia
has a new gas pipeline linking it to Russia, but today the problem
for many Armenians is the fuel’s price, so the cutting continues.

“During the Soviet Union we had as much gas as we wanted,” Vladimir
Gregorian, a 75-year-old pensioner, said as he pulled a cart stuffed
with brush and branches down a slope leading out of the woods around
the Genocide Memorial.

He said his 20-dollar monthly pension was not enough for him to buy
a new gas line for his house or even pay for the gas itself, so he
heats water for baths with wood collected in the area.

But environmentalists warn that if wood cutting in Armenia continues in
an unsustainable way, much of the country’s harsh mountainous terrain
could turn to desert, a process they say would be irreversible if
left to itself.

“The winters of 1991 and 1992 were very severe, Armenians had
no alternative but to cut trees and burn park benches,” said
Susan Yacubian Klein, the director of the Armenian Tree Project,
a US donor-sponsored organization dedicated to reforestation and
sustainability.

But today loggers continue to cut forests illegally, Yacubian Klein
said, delivering their contraband goods to cities in covered trucks,
“If forest cutting continues at the same rate in 20 years Armenia
will face desertification.”

Today deforestation is already causing erosion and landslides and
is throwing dust that used to be held down by roots into the air
of Armenia’s cities, and according to the Armenian Tree Project the
situation could get worse.

In some areas, roads have collapsed as a result of the powerful
erosion forces that deforestation has unchained in rivers.

But there are ways to revitalize the forests. The ATP has launched a
number of projects including one around the Genocide Memorial where
workers use a technique called coppicing to rejuvenate tree stumps.

By cutting away excess shoots that grow out of a stump people can
help one healthy branch utilize the tree’s root system to grow into
a tree. However the work “is just a drop in the bucket,” Yacubian
Klein admitted.

In 1900 forests covered 25 percent of Armenia, after 70 years of
Soviet rule that figure dropped to 12 percent, but the decline of
wooded areas in the last decade has been the most dramatic, bringing
forest cover to just eight percent.

Armenia’s energy crisis has had at least one benefit.

Its isolation and lack of hydrocarbon reserves has lead to some
innovative ideas about alternative energy sources, in contrast to
its two Caucasus neighbors, Georgia and Azerbaijan, whose policies
have been dominated by a geopolitical tug-of-war for pipelines,
electricity cables and global alliances.

A few years ago a small firm called SolarEn started up a project to
explore solar energy in Armenia and has since branched out to wind
power and hydrogen powered fuel cells.

Spurring companies like this on is legislation requiring the state
electricity monopoly to buy electricity generated by alternative
means at a higher price to encourage private investment in the sector.

SolarEn is not in the black yet but its sales of affordable solar
powered water heating systems and alternative energy consultancy
services have given it an annual turnover of nearly 100,000 dollars.

Its sister firm Zod Wind is involved in a 25 million dollar project
to build a set of wind turbines in the east of Armenia next year and
an Iranian firm has already begun construction of two wind turbines
in the south as a 3.5 million dollar gift to the country.

“We don’t have oil, we don’t have gas, all we have is the sun and
the wind,” said SolarEn Executive Director Viktor Afyan, “we need to
use it.”

EX IRANIAN PRESIDENT CALLS FOR FURTHER EXPANSION OF TEHRAN-YEREVAN
RELATIONS IN ALL FIELDS

TEHRAN, DECEMBER 16. ARMINFO. Chairman of the Expediency Council Akbar
Hashemi Rafsanjani here on Tuesday called for further expansion of
Tehran-Yerevan relations in all fields. In a meeting with Armenian
Ambassador to Tehran Gegham Garibjanian he called for implementation
of the agreements reached between the two sides.

Stressing the importance of the project to transfer the Iranian gas
to Armenia, Rafsanjani said that by putting into operation the project
Iran will gain access to an appropriate market. Calling for settlement
of the existing dispute between Azerbaijan and Armenia, he expressed
the hope that peace and durable stability will be established in the
entire region through all-out cooperation among all regional states.

Appreciating Iran’s efforts in settlement of the regional crises,
he said a powerful and developed Iran is to benefit the entire
region. The Armenian ambassador to Tehran further called for promotion
of Tehran-Yerevan bilateral relations.