Armenia, Georgia Commissions Sought

Now that the post-election situation is dying down, I’m starting to pitch story ideas to various regional, international and Diaspora-based publications. Of course, I’m also interested in finding other outlets for my work as well, especially as interest in Armenia still remains quite small. Nevertheless, there are a few key areas which I want to focus on now and I’m interested in commissions for writing or photojournalist work in Armenia, Georgia and Turkey. Until then, it’s probably worth highlighting some of the work that has been published in the last two years.

First up is a continuation of my work on Yezidis and Kurds in Armenia and Turkey, and specifically the continuing division within the former community here. Although considered by most ethnologists to be ethnic Kurds, Armenia’s small Yezidi community is riven by debate over their origin. Even so, as I wrote for Geographical, the community is of specific interest to academics the world over.

Nestled at the foot of Mount Aragats, Armenia’s highest peak, the villages of Riya Taza and Alagyaz hardly merit more than a passing glance from motorists heading north towards the border with Georgia. Elderly women dressed in colourful garb nonetheless line the road, while children play nearby among rusting abandoned vehicles and farmers herd their cattle in the surrounding pastures. Few stop at the makeshift shacks selling basic groceries and provisions on the roadside. In fact, nobody pays much attention at all.

But for academics from as far away as the UK, France, Germany and Japan, these small, impoverished villages are a dream come true. Located 60 kilometres from Yerevan, the Armenian capital, Riya Taza, Alagyaz and other villages interconnected by pockmarked roads are home to one of the biggest concentrations of Yezidis in the country.

[…]

What makes the Yezidis so interesting to the academic community is the fact that they are considered to be ethnic Kurds who resisted pressure to convert to Islam. Speaking Kurmanji, the dialect of Kurdish spoken in Turkey, Armenia’s Yezidis are considered by many Kurdologists to represent the purest form of Kurdish culture in the region.

Of course, while academics might be interested in the cultural traditions of Armenia’s Yezidis, the division of the community has also resulted in problems in other areas. As I wrote for the Institute for War & Peace Reporting (IWPR) in November 2006.

Yezidis in the western Aragatsotn region of Armenia have taken a dim view of government efforts, supported by the UN children’s agency, UNICEF, to bolster minority education in the republic.

At the beginning of September, at an event staged in the Yezidi village of Alagyaz, government officials said that new textbooks in minority languages would be distributed to schools in minority-populated villages, while UNICEF said it would provide stationary and other supplies.

Less than a month later, however, Yezidis in Alagyaz and ten surrounding villages were complaining. Their language is the Kurmanji dialect of Kurdish, but the books funded and provided by the government were instead written in Ezdiki. While the latter is still Kurdish by another name, the alphabet chosen for publication was in the unaccustomed Cyrillic alphabet instead of the more usual Latin or Arabic scripts.

“All schools have at present is old Soviet-era textbooks,” said Gohar Saroava, a young journalist with the Mesopotamia newspaper in Yerevan and one of the few Muslim Kurds remaining in Armenia. Others, however, are more outspoken. “These [new] books are a shame and we don’t want to have this rubbish,” said Torkom Khudoyan, vice-president of the National Committee of Yezidis of Armenia.

Speaking to IWPR, both UNICEF and Hranush Kharatyan, head of the Armenian government’s department for national minorities and religious affairs, confirmed reports that the new textbooks are being rejected, but said that it was outside their remit to intervene. Critics, however, argue that the situation should never have arisen in the first place and allege it is part a continuing attempt to promote a non-Kurdish identity among Armenia’s Yezidis.

While I’ve been covering the Yezidi community since 1998 as a long-term projects, another specific interest has been landmines and the territory sandwiched between Armenia and Nagorno Karabakh — what is now known by some as Kashatagh. In September 2006 I returned to Lachin and managed to combine both subjects for IWPR.

The local residents of Suarassy seem oblivious to the hidden danger as they herd cattle down a road known to have been mined during the Armenian-Azerbaijani war of the early Nineties. Despite the mangled military lorry rusting in a ditch to one side, none of their cows have so far detonated seven anti-tank mines still believed to be buried underneath, so they reckon the road is safe.

Less than a metre away is forest and grazing land laden with at least 900 anti-personnel landmines. Yura Sharamanian, operations officer for the HALO Trust, compares the minefield to Cambodia and says that the British de-mining charity considers Lachin to be the most mine-infested region in Karabakh and surrounding regions, which were fought over during the 1991-4 war.

Although considered by the international community to be occupied Azerbaijani land, this territory is now marked on Armenian maps as Kashatagh. Also including the formerly Azerbaijani regions of Kubatly and Zangelan as well as Lachin itself, Kashatagh stretches down to the Iranian border in the south.

This strip of land between Armenia and Karabakh is one of the key points in dispute in the unresolved Armenian-Azerbaijani conflict. And it is also home to a few thousand hardy Armenian settlers who have moved here since the 1994 ceasefire.

However, it is not just the danger of landmines that threatens the existence of new settlements in the Kashatagh region. Although a 2005 census put the official population of Kashatagh at 9,800 Armenians, with 2,200 residing in the town of Lachin, the actual figure is now believed to be around fifty per cent less.

Another article on settlements in Kashatagh was also published by EurasiaNet.

The flag of the unrecognized Republic of Nagorno-Karabakh flies over the local administrative buildings in the center of Lachin, the strategic lynchpin connecting the disputed territory with the Republic of Armenia. The town and surrounding area, regarded as vital for Karabakh’s security, appear to be experiencing an unsettling demographic shift.

Over the past 14 years, Lachin has been reshaped by the ebb and flow of humanity. In May 1992, during the height of the Karabakh conflict, Armenian forces captured Lachin. [For background see the Eurasia Insight archive]. Typical of most military operations against towns and villages during the war, buildings were razed and entire populations forced to flee. Accordingly, at least 20,000 Azerbaijanis and Kurds evacuated the area when Armenian forces approached the town.

Armenians remained in possession of the Lachin corridor, renamed Kashatagh, and several other Azerbaijani territories after the signing of a Karabakh cease-fire in 1994. Shortly thereafter, Armenia implemented a resettlement policy. Robert Matevosian, head of the department of resettlement for the region, says that the first Armenian arrivals came to the region out of a sense of patriotism. These territories, “regardless of the consideration of diplomats, must be inhabited by Armenians,” he says.

Armenians relocating were also the subject of another feature article, but this time the focus was on religion. After viewing my Lightstalkers portfolio, CNEWA’s One Magazine commissioned me to write and photograph a story on the return of the Mkhitarist Fathers to Armenia.

“Five years ago, when I was 75, I thought it was time to rest and pray in preparation for the last joyous journey to be with our Father in heaven, but it was not to be,” said Father Hovsep Behesniryan, a priest of the Armenian Catholic Armenia Congregation. After serving more than 64 years in ministries in Venice, Paris, Los Angeles and New York, “I was called into service once more, this time in Mekhitarist.”

He was sitting in a parlor of the Mekhitarist minor seminary, located in the Armenian capital city of Yerevan, where the Ethiopian-born priest supervises the education of those who hope to follow his path. The seminary opened in October 2004 and is now home to 22 boys, age 13 and older.

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Father Hovsep’s return to the land of his ancestors has more than personal significance for the octogenarian. The seminary also marks a significant step in the homecoming of an Armenian religious community after centuries in exile.

Well, there’s a lot more as well — from covering the 2007 parliamentary election and writing and photographing features on ethnic divisions in sport as well as a nationalist pagan resurgence in Armenia for EurasiaNet, but its also been good to return to Georgia to work for EveryChild and the Newport Kutaisi association. The work was particularly welcomed as it covered another interest of mine in Armenia — children abandoned or deprived of parental care.

You can view the gallery with audio commentary here.

Some of the same work is also available in a book I wrote, photographed and designed for UNICEF alongside other articles written for the international children’s organization. It’s also available for download in English and Armenian.

Older materials are also available in a book I wrote, photographed and designed, Armenia: Poverty, Transition & Democracy. An electronic version of the book is available for download. More photographs are available in the photojournalism section of my main site, http://www.oneworld.am. My Lightstalkers portfolio is here.

There was also work for Habitat for Humanity, which involved an exhibition, and photos shot for the Tufenkian Foundation. Plus, of course, there was capturing the 2008 presidential election, my commitment as Caucasus Regional Editor for Global Voices Online and an article for Armenia Now on blogging in Armenia.

New areas I want to focus more widely on after touching upon them in articles for EurasiaNet on Sksela and deforestation for Oneworld.net is youth and the environment. Contemporary culture such as rock music and bands such as Bambir continue to be another personal interest.

So, if anyone out there is looking to commission articles or photography from Armenia, Georgia or Turkey, please contact me by email. I’m based in the region.