Author: Vatche Chakhmakhchian

Tashir Group and Inter RAO have signed an agreement of sale and purchase of electric energy assets in Armenia. The deal was already approved by the Armenian Government and will be closed after the decision of Public Service Regulatory Commission. The parties have agreed that Electric Networks of Armenia and Hrazdan Thermal Power Plant will continue to meet all the liabilities.

Tashir Group takes full responsibility for the management of CJSC “Electric Networks of Armenia”, said the President of Tashir Group, Samvel Karapetyan. “Future development plans include an anti-crisis program to optimize the Company’s financial activities and control its commercial operations, as well as gradual modernization of its distribution network facilities. On a parity basis with the Government of Armenia, the Company will cover part of the electricity costs of the general public and small businesses for the whole of 2015, compensating the difference between tariffs before and after indexation on 1st August 2015. This decision has been taken to support the people of Armenia.

”While the assets were in our ownership, Inter RAO Group implemented international best business practices, invested in the development of the Armenian utilities sector, and ran an optimization and cost control programme, resulting in improved operational efficiency of the assets”, announced Boris Kovalchuk, Chairman of the Management Board of Inter RAO.  ”We agreed with Tashir Group to close the deal on terms that reflect the fair value of the assets. This approach will enable both parties to secure maximum economic benefit”.

Works  by Armenian photographers are on display at Franz Kafka’s House in Prague within the framework of the Prague Quadrinale.

“The last room on the third floor of the Kafka house definitely makes one thing clear: Scenography is much more than stage design for theater. It is the art of combining images, sounds and objects to create something new,” writes.

The Armenian photographer Vahan Stepanyan and his three colleagues took 50,000 photos of schoolgirls with dolls in the ruins of a church and used 10,000 of them for an eerie film they show in Prague as part of the installation, “Red Hail… because it never ends.”

The photos are based on documents of the Norwegian missionary Bodil Katharine Biorn, who worked in Armenia in an orphanage in 1905. One year, she raised money in Norway to give each of the girls a doll for Christmas and photographed all the happy children with their new toys.

After the 1915 massacres of the Armenian people, Mother Katharine – as she was called – tried to find out what happened to those girls. She couldn’t find a single one of them. They had all been murdered. Altogether, 500,000 children were among the victims of the massacre.

“We’ve been wanting to work with these photos for a long time. Bodil Katharine Biorn’s grandson gave us access to the approximately 60 surviving shots in a Norwegian Archive,” explained Stepanyan. The black-and-white film they made also features sacred music specially written by the Armenian composer Tigran Hamasyan.

The soundtrack for the new staged pictures revives the atmosphere of the original ones, as if time had stopped and still held the laughter of these children. The result is a very aesthetic and moving work of art.

Armenian international Gael Andonian is expected to sign his first professional contract with Olympique de Marseille, La Provence said Sunday.

In coming days Olympique de Marseille will sign professional contracts with three young players from the second team – Gael Andonian (20), Bill Tuiloma (20) and Stéphane Sparagna (20).

Andonian currenly plays as center back at  Olympique de Marseille 2 and his contract expires on June 30.

Andonian debuted for the Armenian national team in a EURO 2016 qualifier against Albania on March 29.

With religious tolerance giving way to the savagery of Islamic State, communities that have existed since the first century are now facing extinction. Linda Dorigo and Andrea Milluzzi’s book of photographs documents the people who, through poverty or defiance, refuse to leave, reports.

The new book by photographer Linda Dorigo and journalist Andrea Milluzzi, Italians working in the Middle East– titled Rifugio (“refuge” or “shelter”) – is a visual record of those who have, through poverty or defiance, refused to become a part of the Christian diaspora and now struggle to live out their faith in an increasingly inhospitable land.

When the US launched its invasion of Iraq in 2003, there were 1.5 million Christians living in the country. Saddam Hussein’s foreign minister, Tariq Aziz, was a Christian – demonstrating the relative religious tolerance under that regime. But, by igniting sectarian violence between Sunnis and Shias, the US invasion was a disaster for indigenous Christians, who Muslims associated with the hated crusaders.

Now Christians are being slaughtered by Islamic State. Between 2003 and now, three quarters of Iraq’s Christians have been driven from their homes or killed. It’s a story that has repeated itself throughout the Middle East, although, to be fair, it long pre-dates the US invasion.

When, a century ago, the Ottomans drove Armenian Christians from Turkey into the Syrian desert to die of starvation, there was a 13% Christian presence in Turkey. Now, they have been all but wiped out. In Egypt, some 600,000 Christians have left during the past 30 years.

Borussia Dortmund have confirmed the signing of Swiss international goalkeeper Roman Bürki from relegated side SC Freiburg, according to Bundesliga’s official website.

The 24-year-old is BVB’s third major summer recruit, following the arrivals of Gonzalo Castro from Bayer 04 Leverkusen and Julian Weigl from Bundesliga 2 outfit 1860 Munich.

Bürki, who has two full international caps for Switzerland, moved to Freiburg from Grasshoppers Zurich last summer and had an outstanding debut season in the Bundesliga, saving over 76 per cent of all shots fired at him. Nevertheless, even he was unable to prevent the Black Forest side slipping down to Bundesliga 2.

American pop superstar Lady Gaga was paid a whopping $2 million to sing at the opening ceremony of the European Games in Baku, according to Eurosport.

Fellow soldier has confessed to killing a Russian serviceman in Armenia’s second city of Gyumri, where the Russian Military Base #102 is stationed.

“According to preliminary information, the murder could be a result of a conflict with fellow serviceman,” Interfax reports, quoting the press service of the Southern Military District.

Soldier of the Russian Military Base identified as Ivan Novikov was stabbed to death this morning near the Mother Armenia monument in Gyumri.

From June 18-28 Armenia will present a scenographic installation on the 100th anniversary of the Armenian Genocide titled “Red Hail” at the 13th international Prague Quadrennial.

The project is implemented at the initiative of the “Eiva” Arts Foundation with the support of the Armenian Ministry of Culture, the Hayastan All-Armenian Fund and the Commission Coordinating the Armenian Genocide Centennial Events.

The Lost Origin Sounds Series has released “Forty Martyrs: Armenian Chants from Aleppo at the centenary of the Armenian Genocide, the bloody Ottoman campaign that drove many Armenians to the centuries-old community in Aleppo,  reports.

The  video Forty Martyrs: Armenian Chanting from Aleppo presents a unique new recording of sacred Armenian music.

In one of Aleppo’s oldest neighborhoods rests a church, once a focal point and a haven. The head priest there, The Very Reverend Yeznig Zegchanian, agreed to chant, but he was going to do it now and he was only going to do it once. Jason Hamacher, a drummer from Washington DC who had developed a serious fascination with Syria’s endangered spiritual traditions, dashed back to his hotel to get his equipment.

The result, recorded in the resonant Forty Martyrs Armenian Orthodox Church, captures a time, place, and endangered language. The city is entrapped in Syria’s agonizing civil war. The church’s congregants, descendants of several waves of Armenian refugees, have been scattered throughout the region and beyond. The language of the chants, West Armenian, once spoken in what is now Turkey, seems destined to die out in a generation.

His Holiness Aram I, Catholicos of the Armenian Church of the Catholicosate of Cilicia, met with the Right Honourable Mr. Stephen Harper, Prime Minister of Canada, on June 3, 2015, Horizon Weekly reports.

On the occasion of the hundredth anniversary of the Armenian Genocide, the Pontiff expressed his gratitude to the Prime Minister on Canada’s recognition of the Armenian Genocide, discussed his concerns regarding the conflict in Syria and the impact it has on the Christians and Armenians in the area since its eruption in 2011. His Holiness also informed Mr. Harper on the lawsuit the Catholicosate of Cilicia has filed in Turkey’s Constitutional Court, requesting the return of the historical Catholicosate of Sis, which was forcefully taken by the Ottoman Turkish Empire, as were all Armenian churches and institutions.

During this visit, His Holiness Aram I also decorated the Right Honourable Mr. Stephen Harper with the Prince of Cilicia medal, the highest insignia of the Catholicosate of Cilicia.

His Holiness was joined by the following delegation, Bishop Meghrig Parikian, Prelate of the Armenian Prelacy of Canada, Most Reverend Father Housig Mardirossian, Ecumenic Relations Officer of the Catholicosate, Krikor Der Ghazarian, Chairperson of the Executive Council of the Armenian Prelacy of Canada, Dr. Girair Basmadjian, member of the Central Executive Council of the Catholicosate, Raffi Donabedian, Chairperson of the Armenian National Committee of Canada, and Hagop Der Khatchadourian, President of the Armenian National Committee International Council.