April 24th, 2007

April 24th is a national holiday in Armenia. We saw several businesses that were closed. Our plan was to visit the Armenian Genocide Memorial and then go to the last Yerevan screening of the movie "Screamers" that features the System of a Down band.

We woke up in the morning to a very unexpected snow storm. It was the first time in almost 30 years that it snowed in April (let alone April 24th). We waited until mid day and seeing no break in sight, we left for the Memorial. We drove down the hill and parked at AUA, then took the subway closer to the Memorial and walked the rest of the way. We were cold and wet by the time we arrived. That combined with the fact that my stupid video camera would not work (eventhough it was working fine that morning) led to the angry look on my face during the photos...

Hearing that despite the powerful (he said sarcastically) ANCA and feared Armenian Assembly (he said bitterly) the US Congress was going to postpone consideration of the Genocide Resolution until after April 24th, we figured we should try to send a message to Speaker Pelosi. The girls and I made the banner and they proudly carried to the memorial. The visit to the Memorial was pretty incredible. I have been there now more times than I can count, but seeing people treking through the rain and snow was powerful. Being there with my family was even more powerful.

On Saturday, the girl's history teacher at school is going to take them to the Genocide Museum for a tour. They are looking forward to it. This morning on the way to school, they told me that despite the rain, snow and cold, they really enjoyed the trek to the monument.

In the evening, we went to the last screening of "Screamers" here in Yerevan. The movie was in English with Armenian subtitles. The theater was full and the movie was great. Personally I find the System's music horrific, but they have done a damn good job spreading the word and educating masses of young people about the horrors of Genocide.

I am not hopeful that the Genocide resolution currently before the House and Senate will be voted on. I do not think that the Armenian community at the moment has the political capital to make it happen. Having lobbied on this issue for most of my professional career, I am torn. Passing this particular resolution will change nothing. But, the US must go on record affirming the Armenian Genocide. It would simply be nice if it were a more meaningful resolution that did something positive.

Around 10 or so p.m. Houry and I were watching TV and we saw something really interesting. An Armenian TV crew visited Eastern Turkey searching for pieces of our history. They visited several cities and toured the audience through was is left of our churches and homes. All in all it was a day to remember.Publish

Our Noraduz Adventure

To continue our adventures, last Sunday we packed up the car and headed out towards Lake Sevan to investigate Noraduz, which is a cemetery that has more than 1,000 khatchkars. Some date back as early as the 13^th century. We also stopped at a church along the way called Hairavank right on the shore of Lake Sevan. It was a pretty beautiful place. The original church was built in the 10^th century.

Our destination was on the south eastern shore of Lake Sevan, a place we had never been. The shoreline on this side of the lake was beautiful. Although the weather in Yerevan has already become spring (and the cherry blossoms are in full bloom), the weather at Sevan was still winter. It was cold and snow was still on the ground. It was interesting to see that the shoreline at some spots at Sevan had clearly risen. This is purposely done to try and preserve the lake after the Soviets had attempted to drain 80% of the surface area. You can clearly see that attempts to begin to restore the lake’s level are working.

The church was quite nice perched on a hilltop. Near the church were Bronze Age ruins and some very large boulders. It was picturesque.

Noraduz was quite amazing. This is supposed to be the location of the largest collection of old khatchkars anywhere. It was located just outside of a small village. We stopped and admired the khatchkars and walked around the cemetery. We were followed by an old woman, who ultimately told us to take her picture. Then she asked for some money. I gave her the Armenian equivalent of about $1.20 and she looked at it and said something to herself like “oh, good.” It was pretty funny. The drive back was nice and all in all it was a great day.

The Land of Men in Dresses...

I finally got the photos from the other camera and figured it was time to post them and a few thoughts on our trip to Dubai. Dubai was a pretty amazing trip. We certainly did not expect things to be the way we found them. It seems that the crazy Arabs, having more money than they know what to do with, created the "best of USA" and "best of Europe" in the middle of freaking no where. The new part of Dubai is one monsterous highrise building after another. The old part of Dubai is scary old crap. It was pretty funny to see Arabs in dresses driving porche suvs with sunglasses on, white head scarfs, and no shoes. All that cash, and the biggest mall in the area and you would think they would figure out that shoes are a good thing. Seriously, if you want a pair of man sandels, Dubai is the place to purchase them. They had an incredibly HUGE selection of sandels. We visited several of the shopping malls and all were pretty amazing. Every bathroom in Dubai has a long hose that most westerners use to wash dishes in the sink. Well, the hose is located in the toilet stall, so that relegious Arabs can wash themselves prior to praying (which they are suppose to do 5 times a day). In the mall there were seperate prayer areas for men and women and we heard the Mosque's call for prayers being broadcast on the street. Overall it was a pretty surreal adventure. On the plane going to Dubai the president and his wife of Nagorno Karabakh was on the plane. (I guess his wife needed to do some shopping) and coming back, Gagik Tsarukian was on board (I guess he needed to buy a pair of sandels). The photo in the nice courtyard is the bus stop at the mall. The shiny camel is outside of an office building (that also has a mall inside). The desert shots are on a desert safari that we took for half a day. They put us in a Toyota SUV, drove us out into the desert, and did some 4 wheeling for about an hour, then we rode camels, drove atvs, and had an Arab feast. It was pretty funny. The shot of Houry and I smoking the water pipe is in front of a picture of the Arab Sheik who essentially owns Dubia, and is the foreign minister of the UAE. All in all a fun trip!