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15 years history
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The Hayastan All-Armenian Fund is a most
important institution uniting Armenians in the
home-land and in the Diaspora and has brought together
the efforts of all the segments of our people vis-à-vis
pan-national tasks and goals for one-and-a-half
decades now.
In recent years the Fund has implemented the
Art-sakh Rebirth project. It has been called upon to
signif-icantly contribute to the economic upsurge of
Nagorno Karabakh as well as to the improvement of
the well-being of the people.
I congratulate the Hayastan Fund on its fifteenth
anniversary and wish it new successes in its work
aimed at the betterment of the homeland.
ROBERT KOCHARYAN
RA President,
President of the Board of Trustees
Robert Kocharyan
Gagik Haroutunian
Tigran Torosyan
Andranik Margarian
Vardan Oskanian
Vardan Khachatrian
Tigran Sargsian
Arkady Ghoukasian
Anushavan Danielian
H.H. Garegin II
H.H. Aram I
S.B. Nerses Bedros XIX
Very Rev. Rene Levonian
Mike Kharapian
Vartan Yaghsezian
Vagharsh Ehramdjian
Hirair Hovnanian
Berge Setrakian
Hasmik Terterian
Louise Manoogian Simone
Vartan Gregorian
Albert Boyajian
Mark Geragos
Eduardo Eurnekian
Eduardo Seferian
Vache Manoukian
Albert Boghossian
Dikran Izmirlian
Charles Aznavour
Bedros Terzian
Arsen Ghazaryan
RA President,
President of the Board of Trustees
Chairman of the RA Constitutional Court,
VP of the Board of Trustees
Speaker of the RA National Assembly
RA Prime Minister
RA Minister of Foreign Affairs
RA Minister of Finance and Economy
Chairman of the RA Central Bank
President of Nagorno Karabakh Republic
Prime Minister of Nagorno Karabakh Republic
Catholicos of All-Armenians
Catholicos of the Great House of Cilicia
Catholicos-Patriarch of Armenian Catholic Church
Armenian Evangelical Church
Ramkavar Liberal-Democratic Party
Social-Democratic Hunchakian Party
Armenian Revolutionary Federation
Armenian Assembly of America
Armenian General Benevolent Union
Armenian Relief Society
Unites States of America
Unites States of America
Unites States of America
Unites States of America
Argentina
Argentina
Great Britain
Switzerland
Switzerland
France
France
Union of Manufacturers & Businessmen of Armenia
BOARD OF TRUSTEES
Vahe Jazmadarian
Felix Tsolakian
France
Head of RA State Tax Service
Whatever you call it - national giving, donation, contribution, allocation - all
these notions become one when they are placed within one structure whose goal
is strengthening Armenia.
This structure is the Hayastan All-Armenian Fund - neither the first nor the last
among the institutions created and yet to be created by the Armenians - but the
one that brings us all together.
The times and the challenges facing the Armenians have always given rise to
national institutions that exist to carry out their honorable missions.
The Hayastan Fund, too, is a product of a time when the Armenians, after a long
and patient wait, were regaining their homeland. Its establishment was dictated
and it effectiveness was necessitated by the crucial importance of the Republic of
Armenia.
All had to combine their efforts to ensure that the newly created entity had
enough resistance at first, and then accumulated vital energy and got on its feet
to become the parent and the child of us all.
And as every human being must take care of his or her parent and child, every
Armenian had to take care of Armenia.
And as every human being must be concerned about his or her parent and child
every Armenian had to be concerned about the past and the future.
… and thus every Armenian had to be a parent of the child and a child of the
parent.
In other words, every Armenian had to be himself - irrespective of everything,
irrespective of his creed, political views, irrespective of geography.
For that it was necessary that every Armenian give neither the extra penny nor
the last penny, but find the responsibility for what the parent has lived and the
child has yet to live somewhere in between fervent self-sacrifice and cold
indif-ference.
This is the Hayastan All-Armenian Fund.
editorial
NEITHER THE EXTRA PENNY
NOR THE LAST PENNY
interview
Among the contributions to the Hayastan Fund are
many large donations by individuals whereas
nation-wide participation lies at the heart of the idea…
In our fifteen years we have always laid the
stress on general participation. We have said, "If
many people provide small donations, it will
yield big results." There is, in my opinion, a
psy-chological difference between people who make
large donations and those who donate small
amounts. Those who donate large amounts are
confident that their contribution will enable us to
implement a complete project, but those who
have little money have a psychological barrier,
thinking about what their donation of, let's say,
fifty or a hundred of dollars will give the
home-land. One of our distinctive national features is
that every Armenian is an individual and wants
to see his or her personal contribution to every
cause. A great many people have realized
through the Fund experience that there are
things that are possible to do only through the
joint contribution of all individuals.
In other words, we have a long way to go until
everyone understands the necessity of national giving.
If we aim at getting all of the Armenians in the
world or all of those who consider themselves
Armenian to participate, then we do indeed have
a long way to go. That will take more than one or
two decades. The degree of participation of those
who are actively involved in community life has
sufficiently increased over the past fifteen years.
You know, it would have been wrong to think
that everyone would accept the idea of national
giving at once. There are many problems, but the
most important, in my opinion, is the sense of
responsibility. We didn't have a state for
cen-turies and now we do. Since there was no state,
there was no experience of dealing with the state
either. This concerns both the Armenians from
Armenia and from the Diaspora equally. Having
an independent state is hard work, especially in
our case, when there exist numerous unsolved
problems, when Armenia is isolated. In this
situa-tion, it is very important that everyone perceive
his or her contribution, no matter how small, as a
responsibility.
Nevertheless, the Hayastan Fund has succeeded
over the past fifteen years in implementing a number
of large projects that, one might say, were too much
for any single organization, whether in Armenia or in
THE HAYASTAN FUND IS A MEETING POINT
The Hayastan Fund was born along with our state, and I think in many respects the
dynamics of the development of our state and the Fund have coincided. That's natural,
since the Hayastan Fund couldn't have existed in isolation, without responding to the
economic and social realities of the country - the hardships and achievements. Some of
the great enthusiasm of the first years of independence was shared by the Fund. When
the social tension rose in the country the Fund felt its impact. In short, the current reality
has always been reflected in our work. It could not have been otherwise. As the situation
changed, so did the Fund's tasks. Today, when there is a certain degree of progress, we
are trying to implement development projects.
NAIRA MELKUMYAN
Executive Director of the Hayastan All-Armenian Fund
[
6-7
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the Diaspora, to bear.
I must say a few words about the specificity of
this institution, which is best reflected in its name,
the Hayastan All-Armenian Fund. "Hayastan" is
the goal, "All-Armenian" is our capacity, and
"Fund" is the means for bringing the capacity to
the goal. I don't think it's correct to emphasize
only the large projects. Yes, it is clear and
under-standable that the Winter 1993-1994 project, the
construction of the Goris-Stepanakert and the
North-South Highways could not have become a
reality if it hadn't been for a general concentration
of capabilities, in other words, All-Armenianness.
But we have the same phenomenon in case of
small projects as well, when one person has the
capacity to restore a school but cannot furnish it
and the other person has the ability to furnish it.
The Fund, which at first glance gives the
impres-sion of being a purely financial institution, is a
meeting point for differing capacities. Moreover,
over the last years it has also become a meeting
point for fresh ideas and intellectual contributions.
Then, would you say the Fund balances the
partici-pation of communities and individuals with large and
small capacities?
Yes, I would. We are trying to coordinate the
participation of communities and philanthropists
with big and small capacities. There are
philan-thropists who are big businessmen and there are
people who donate to charity money they have
saved up for decades, which is perhaps not large
proportionally, but is extremely significant. With a
proper project policy, we tell people that their
spe-cific donations are needed in such-and-such place
for such-and-such a project and they feel good
about that.
Our neighbors, who have access to the sea, oil and
other favorable conditions for developing their
econo-my, sometimes think that a Diaspora is what they
real-ly need to be happy.
If they understood what the Diaspora is the
result of they wouldn't think so. The Diaspora (I
mean our traditional one) is the product of a
calamity, a tragedy, but our nation was able to turn
its dispersion into viability. Today many countries
have to reckon with the Armenian Diaspora, and
this, perhaps, makes our neighbors' envious. But
one should not forget that the grandparents of
today's influential Armenians were homeless,
stateless refugees. They are also impressed by the
outpourings of support from the Diaspora at
diffi-cult moments for Armenia, although we are trying
to make sure that the Diaspora is with Armenia
not only in critical moments, but every day. That
is, that it lives with Armenia's problems.
Are you referring to the Rural Development
Pro-gram?
Not that alone, but at this moment since the
issue of villages is on the agenda, I mean that first
of all. It's a problem that has to be solved over a
long period of time, after careful consideration.
Here we cannot say "Road of Life" or "Backbone of
Artsakh" to arouse outpourings of sentiment. It is,
as I said earlier, an issue of responsibility.
Every-one should understand that we have serious
demographic problems, that there is a problem of
the desertion of village settlements, that after all
the seeds of our genes come from the village. After
seeing the interest that this project has aroused in
the Diaspora, I can say that we are going to
wit-ness great qualitative changes.
Will a time come when there will be no need for the
Hayastan Fund?
God grant that Armenia reaches a prosperous
social and economic situation very soon. It's a
dream for all of us. But there will always be a need
for the Hayastan All-Armenian Fund. Armenia is
not going to stay in the same place, is it? An
eco-nomically developed Armenia will need other
types of assistance related to, say, information
technology, or cultural and scientific projects that
even in the most developed and wealthy countries
are implemented through the means of various
funds. Besides, over the past fifteen years, the
Fund has become and will remain a place for all
Armenians to meet and become closer.
general
Over fifteen years, the Hayastan Fund has realized programs worth US $165
mil-lion. These programs have aided the development of the economic infrastructure as
well as social, educational, scientific and cultural spheres in Armenia and Karabakh.
The fund has implemented the construction of 463.8 km of road, about 211.8 km of
water supply lines, 71.4 km of electric supply lines, 410 residential buildings, 97
educational institutions, as well as 34 hospitals and treatment centers.
The question is simple, but when the answer is
yes, the response can fill a book. Or more.
For part of every year since 1995, we have
been traveling throughout Karabagh on journeys
that blended business - law and environmental
studies - with the thrill of exploring our
home-land. We photographed everything and
every-one - remote cultural sites such as G'Tichivank
and Dadivank, and national treasures such as
Gandzasar. We traveled on roadways that
appeared to have been forgotten, and we arrived
in villages that were seldom visited by outsiders.
Our travels inspired us to tell everyone about
our discovery, and our photography served as
our voice. In 1999 we published "Out of Stone:
Armenia and Artsakh," an exquisite
photogra-phy book that celebrated the region and that
introduced Karabagh to many Americans.
Within just two more years we had published
the world's first travel guide to Karabagh ("Edge
of Time: Traveling in Armenia and Karabagh,").
We have released three more books on Karabagh
since then. The economic and political progress
of Karabagh during the past decade is reflected
and tracked in each book.
Karabagh and tourism are seldom discussed
in the same conversation, but thanks to the
lead-ership of the Hayastan All-Armenian Fund,
visi-tors are finding that they can get to Karabagh
easily, and that they can get around once they're
there, too. New roads, combined with our
guide-book, have opened up Karabagh to many
first-time tourists.
So many, in fact, that we've found it necessary
to reprint our travel books on Armenia and
Karabagh three times since 2001-each time with
updated information about the newly-paved
roads of the Hayastan All-Armenian Fund. Our
newest book, "The Stone Garden Guide:
Arme-nia and Karabagh," was released in September
2006 and for the past six months it has been the
best selling English language book about
Arme-nia and Karabagh.
When we started traveling from Yerevan to
Karabagh in 1995 and 1996, the journey often
took two days. On many trips, the winding
mountain road that linked Armenia to Karabagh
was open to traffic for just a brief period at noon
each day. During one of our journeys, we were
stranded in the middle of this so-called Lachin
Corridor until a bulldozer pushed aside a
moun-tain of dirt and rock and cleared a path for us.
Today, zipping along the modern road, it's
diffi-cult to imagine such an event.
A decade ago, Karabagh was freshly
independ-roads
HAVE YOU EVER BEEN TO KARABAGH
?
[
Matthew Karanian
]
[
8-9
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ent, and the spirit of adventure and
comrade-ship with other travelers was inescapable. Still,
to get there, four-wheel drive was essential.
We drove a Russian-manufactured Willys-a
jeep with a tough reputation for driving
straight up cliffs and through raging rivers-a
reputation that we tested whenever possible.
The maps suggested that Karabagh was no
larger than the tiny US state of Delaware-a
micro state a fraction the size of Armenia. And
yet it loomed larger than Texas when we were
exploring in the late 1990s. Distances were
exaggerated by the terrible road conditions,
which either forced us to drive along at a crawl,
or to travel long and circuitous routes. It was
commonplace for us to endure eastward
jour-neys that took us outside the nominal borders
of the Nagorno Karabagh Republic simply to
reach a destination that should have been just a
short skip north.
Today we marvel at the modern North-South
Highway, the road that everyone rightly calls
the backbone of the country. Traveling in
Karabagh now feels less like being in sprawling
Texas, and more like being in, well, Karabagh.
The trek from Stepankert, the capital city, up to
Gandzasar, has become an easy half-day trip
for any visitor. Amaras, Martakert, and even
Dadivank, are all within easy reach of
Stepanakert.
The primary purpose of the roads, of course,
is not to facilitate tourism, but rather to make it
possible for Karabagh's economy to grow, and
for Karabagh's people to be able to move goods
to market. Tourism is an important part of
eco-nomic development, however, and
encourag-ing more visitors is a vital part of the campaign
to ensure Karabagh's survival.
Tourists who are nostalgic about the old
days when it might take four hours to travel
forty miles need not fret. We suggest that you
try to visit G'Tichivank, the mountain top
monastery in the south of the country. Even in
Karabagh, there will always be some roads that
never get paved, and it's at the end of one of
these roads that we expect we'll always find
G'Tichivank.
Matthew Karanian and
Robert Kurkjian are
co-authors of
The Stone
Gar-den Guide: Armenia and
Karabagh
, which was
published in September
2006. The book is
acclaimed as "excellent"
by CNN Traveller
maga-zine, and is rated as "a
top guide" by the
Wash-ington Times.
education
"My sister was two years older than I was,
and already going to school and I was in
kindergarten dreaming of going to school. I
used to say, 'Send me to school soon,' but when
I went there I realized that the kindergarten was
better. The school was located in shabby
tempo-rary cabins," recalled Gayane Makaryan, a
tenth-grader at a Vanadzor school named for
Catholicos of All-Armenians Vazgen I. She was
born two years after the 1988 earthquake and
like others her age lived through all the
hard-ships of that disaster.
"I was going to go to school ten years ago, I
imagined a big, bright building, but now all I
remember from my first years is the smell of
petroleum," said tenth grader Tigran
Mkhi-taryan. His classmate Taron Hambardzumyan
shares the same memories: "In those cabins all
we thought about was getting warm. No one
thought about studying."
There is a generation in Vanadzor, Gyumri,
Spitak and other towns in the area who have
spent the ten years of their schooling in cabins,
perhaps never even imagining what a real school
is supposed to look like.
But things changed for Gayane, Tigran, Taron,
and their classmates in 2000 when they started
fourth grade in a bright new school building.
This school named for Catholicos of
Arme-nians Vazgen I is a project of the Hayastan
All-Armenian Fund supported by donations from
Armenians living on the East Coast of the
Unit-ed States.
"We always believed that we would have a
nice school but we didn't know when," Taron
said, adding that this building, with its style and
comfort, was even better than they had expected.
"When we first came to this school, it was so
big that we couldn't find each other," Gayane
Makaryan said.
"It was the school we had dreamed of. When
we walked in we ran around in the corridors,
even in the basement admiring the colorful
walls," Taron recalled.
And in Tigran's opinion the cheerful building,
the heating, and everything else, help the
learn-TWO CHILDHOODS
[
Gayane
]
[
Taron
]
[
Tigran
]
[
...We do not forget that these conditions were created by the Fund
]
ing process.
This year they will bid farewell to their
schooldays, in which they have spent two
childhoods - dark and light, cold and warm,
miserable and dignified.
They know that the second school differs
from the first one, thanks to large and small
donations from good people, and they
know they should follow this example.
"Every time we hear that the Hayastan
Fund has started a new building or a new
project we want to make our own small
con-tribution," deputy school superintendent
Zarik Tarkhanyan said, assuring us that
they all - students, teachers, and
parents--participate in fund raising with joy and
enthusiasm. "We do not forget that these
conditions were created by the Fund."
schools
From the very beginning, one of the most important areas of the Fund's
activities has been the renovation and development of educational
institu-tions. This renovation was also especially important for the schools in
Arme-nia's northern regions, which had suffered because of the terrible earthquake
in 1988, as well as in Artsakh, where war had taken its toll. Examples of
development programs include the Physics and Mathematics schools of
Yerevan and Stepanakert, the Gyumri Academy of Fine Arts, the furnishing of
institutions which were built, rebuilt or renovated as well as providing them
with modern equipment. Over 15 years, the Fund has had a total of 97
edu-cational programs.
residential buildings
The buildings in the Yerankyuni (Triangle)
dis-trict of Spitak attract your attention right away.
Their outward appearance suggests that the
apart-ments inside are bright and comfortable. And this
is the case. But in the same breath that they talk
about how pleasant and comfortable they are, the
residents of these buildings remember their old
homes, saying that they were different, they were
better, they were unique. These new homes can't
compare to their old ones, because what they lost in
a matter of seconds was not stone and metal, it was
childhood, adolescence, marriage, the birth of
chil-dren, the warmth of the family.
People here often compare their new homes with
temporary shelters, since when they lived in them
they came to understand the spiritual meaning of a
home.
"This is a building, a home, how can I compare it
with the cabin?" said 57-year-old Spitak resident
Lena Hovhannisyan. "Our new building is
beauti-ful, not only on the outside. The inside is pretty, too.
The rooms are large and bright." When she moved
to the new apartment, Lena Hovhannisyan was
pleasantly surprised at the tiled bathroom floor, the
gas stove in the kitchen, and the running water.
Lena's daughter-in-law Susanna lived in a
tem-porary shelter for the first two years of her
mar-riage and had a child there. "True, it was hard, we
lived penned up together, but we got used to it and
we never complained, because we understood that
many people didn't even have that," said Susanna,
for whom moving to the new apartment has been a
significant change.
This is the case for almost all of the people who
live here. "Until I got the keys to the apartment, I
didn't believe that I was going to have a home,"
said Nina, a 58-year-old resident of building #8A in
the Yerankyuni district. She lived in temporary
shelters from the time she was forty until she took
possession of this apartment built by the Hayastan
Fund. "We really didn't have a place to live. We
were tired of renting rooms here and there, and we
I DIDN'T BELIEVE THAT I WAS GOING
TO HAVE A HOME
[
12-13
]
[
...this is a building, a home, how can I compare it with the cabin?
]
moved into our new apartment right away,"
she said.
Mariam, who lives in the same building, is
from Dilijan. She came to Spitak as a bride, and
raised two daughters and a son. In a
tempo-rary shelter. "We were a big family and we
lived in a cabin that you couldn't even call a
cabin-narrow and uncomfortable," Mariam
said. "When we got this apartment we were
impatient, especially the girls, because in
win-ter time the kids had to bring wawin-ter from quite
a distance, not to mention the cold and damp."
This woman who spent her best years in a
cabin is happy that at last she has a three-room
apartment, but she is very sorry that her
father-in-law didn't live to see the new home.
residential buildings
The residential buildings constructed for people in the earthquake zone
pro-vided them not only with the chance to leave their temporary shelters made
of wood and all the inconveniences associated with them, but also to
improve their lives. A fundamental principle was laid down to improve the
quality of life for victims of the earthquake. The apartments constructed by
the fund lacked only furniture; everything else - doors, windows, bathrooms,
internal design - had been done as each apartment owner would have done
himself. Based on these principles, the Fund realized around 200 such
pro-grams in the cities of Gyumri, Vanadzor and Spitak. Two buildings were
con-structed in Sevan, for families deported from Azerbaijan.
education
THERE IS NO NEED TO GO TO YEREVAN
Ten years ago, the Hayastan All-Armenian
Fund, with funding from the Armenian General
Benevolent Union (AGBU), established the
Gyumri Academy of Art. This educational
com-plex, which combines branches of the Yerevan
State Conservatory, the State Institute of Fine
Arts, and the State Institute of Theatre and Film,
is now a prestigious institution.
Hakob Chilfimyan, the director of the Gyumri
branch of the State Institute of Theatre and Film,
explained that the Academy had been created
taking into consideration the traditional artistic
bent of citizens of Gyumri, but that the
institu-tion had gradually acquired regional
signifi-cance.
"We have students from the neighboring Lori
Marz and from the Javakhk region. There is no
need to go to Yerevan," Hakob Chilfimyan said.
The branch has ninety students in its
depart-ments of acting, directing, set design, dance, and
cinematography. The first graduates are already
working in Gyumri theaters. The director hopes
that some graduates will stay on to teach,
replac-ing lecturers invited from Yerevan.
Silva Vardanyan, a department head at the
branch of the Conservatory, presented their
achievements in numbers. "In 1997 we had only
eleven students, and now we have ten times as
many." Academy students have taken part in a
number of national and international contests. In
2005, for example, they went to Austria, had a
brilliant concert tour and received new
propos-als. Among these Silva Vardanyan singled out
the first national festival, "Classics of Armenian
Music", stressing that such endeavors were
important not only for the educational process,
but for stimulating the cultural life of Gyumri as
well.
The director of the branch of the Institute of
Fine Arts, Hambardzum Ghukasyan, said that
the present facilities were insufficient, and that
they had to use the basement and the attic of the
[
14-15
]
building as well. It could not have occurred
to designers ten years ago that the local art
school would have five departments and
175 students. But this comes as no surprise
to the director, since Gyumri has always
been a city of the arts, and many famous
Armenian artists are either from Gyumri or
from the Shirak Valley. "In the past there
was no opportunity to get higher education
in the city and every one had to go to
Yere-van," Hambardzum Ghukasyan said.
Fine Arts Students have already shown
their work in art exhibitions. Four artists
from Gyumri had exhibitions in Austria. "It
wasn't something accidental. They followed
our students for quite a long time and
even-tually made their choice."
Ten years is a fairly short period of time
for an institution to become known, but the
Gyumri Academy of Art is an exception,
bringing together artistic tradition and
con-tinued effort.
healthcare
The Yerevan Children's Hospital #1, now
renamed the University Clinical Hospital, has
long been a center of attention for the Hayastan
All-Armenian Fund. Since 1997, the hospital's
laboratory, surgical department and intensive
care unit have been reconstructed. All three
proj-ects were funded by Argentine-Armenian
phi-lanthropists.
The building, which was erected in 1928 and
last renovated in the 1960s, did not meet
present-day medical requirements. "Our department is
the only intensive care unit for infants in the
republic; newborn children in critical condition
are brought here from all over Armenia," said the
head of the intensive care unit, Hrant
Kalen-teryan.
Pediatric intensive care is the hardest and, at
the same time, the most expensive branch of
medicine. "It is several times more expensive
than cardio surgery," the head of the ICU said.
"We use very expensive equipment and the
treat-ment is time-consuming."
The philanthropists didn't limit themselves to
reconstructing the building. They provided and
continue to provide the hospital with the
neces-sary medical equipment as well. "If it weren't for
the Hayastan Fund projects, the hospital would
not exist today," said the head of the surgical
department, Avet Aslanyan.
Thanks to Argentine-Armenian
philanthro-pists Armen Exerjian, Samuel Margossian and
Eduardo Sarian, not only was the hospital
pre-served but it also has become a part of the
Med-ical University, which enables the doctors not
only to treat patients but also to engage in
research and train future doctors as well.
A SECOND LIFE
[
16-17
]
It is impossible to picture any health
insti-tution without a laboratory. The small
labo-ratory located in the basement was
ill-equipped to service the surgical department
and the ICU. To complete the other two
projects, a new laboratory was set up, which
concurrently services other University
hos-pitals as well.
"From year to year the number of hospital
clients increases, naturally, as a result of the
quality of the medical care. People feel
bet-ter in these conditions and their trust in
medicine grows," the laboratory head Vigen
Asoyan said.
Children who were born with health
problems are born again in this institution.
If it weren't for the donations by
Argentine-Armenians, it would be hard to imagine the
situation in these most important areas of
medicine.
[
... If it weren't for the Hayastan Fund projects, the
water supply
We asked the first man we met on the streets
of Martakert about the water supply. He didn't
say anything, just pointed to a dried up spring.
Water is supplied to the town once a day for
two hours. People collect it and use it
sparing-ly, because sometimes even this schedule is not
kept.
What water the residents of Martakert get is
pumped from artesian wells. It takes a lot of
electricity to operate the pumps and this
increases the fee.
"We just saw that a water pipeline from the
mountain is being built and it has already
reached Maghavuz," said Martakert resident
Rafik Baghunts. He believes the project is thirty
years overdue. "At that time they wanted to
bring water from Khotorashen to Martakert but
Baku objected because they wanted to divert
the water in their direction," Rafik recalled.
In Khotorashen there are high-quality water
sources that have for years flowed into the
rivers. The altitude makes gravity water supply
possible. "If they build it with quality, the good
thing about this water is that it will flow by
itself, by gravity," Razmik Baghryan said.
He will turn eighty soon. He has lived all his
life in Martakert, and remembers that the
town has always lacked water. "Not just this
town but those upper villages, too, lacked
water, and the spring water would flow and be
lost," he said.
The pipelines laid from Khorotashen to
Mar-takert have two branches - one will supply
Mets Shen, and the other the villages of
Maghavuz and Varnkatagh. "When they use
that water they feel secure," Razmik Baghryan
said. "They drink the water, do their laundry,
water their trees and plants."
Water is the hope for the future for the
resi-dents of Martakert. Razmik Baghryan has
noth-ing but praise for the soil of Martakert but says
that though they live on fertile lands, they can't
make use of its bounty if they are unable to
water the land. "If you water your garden even
once a year you can make it bear fruit," he said.
When asked, "Will the Khotorashen water be
enough for drinking and irrigation?" Rafik
Baghunts replied, "We'll have to work hard not
to be washed away in it."
WAITING FOR WATER
[
18-19
]
[
If you water your garden even once a year you can
make it bear fruit
]
water
For millennia, people have established their homes in places where there is
water. Water has been a prerequisite for life. Over fifteen years, the
Hayas-tan Fund has provided that prerequisite, realizing 35 water supply programs.
Programs have been implemented in the Karabakh regions of Martakert,
Hadrut, Askeran, Martuni, Shahumyan and Kashatagh, the city of
Stepanakert as well as the provinces of Aragatsotn, Armavir, Ararat, Tavush
and Syunik in Armenia.
education
"I'm glad we're here. I don't know what would
have happened to us if by some chance sister
Arusyak hadn't knocked on our door," said
twenty-one-year-old Irina Harutyunyan, one of
fifty-four students of the Our Lady of Armenia
Boghossian Educational Complex. Irina and her
sisters Louisa, Mara, and Elsa have lived in this
charity institution for five years now.
Complex director Sister Arusyak says that
when she first visited the girls she was shocked
by their living conditions. "It was a poorly
fur-nished one-room apartment - two beds in one
corner, a wardrobe with a broken door in the
other. Three little girls were sitting at a wobbly
table and there was just one piece of bread and
two tomatoes on the table. That was their daily
bread that they had gotten from a stand across
the street on credit."
For the Harutyunyan sisters, the Our Lady of
Armenia Boghossian Educational Complex was
simply a place to live. They can't imagine what
they would have done without this opportunity.
The stories of other students here are similar.
They have all been brought to this institution by
family tragedies, unstable socioeconomic
condi-tions, the indifference of the community.
And for all of them, ending up at the Our
Lady of Armenia Boghossian Educational
Com-A PLCom-ACE TO LIVE
[
20-21
]
plex was a miracle as unlikely as the
estab-lishment of the complex itself.
"We had a small house in Gyumri and
had been organizing summer camps for
needy children," Sister Arusyak recalled.
"One day we were watching a video we had
made at the camp when Albert Boghossian
appeared in the doorway of the house and
asked what we were watching."
When he saw the video of the camp for
orphans and children from needy families,
Albert Boghossian asked why they didn't
keep the children the whole year round.
" 'How? Where?' I wondered, explaining
that all we had was that small house," Sister
Arusyak recalled. After that, the
philan-thropist decided to found an educational
center where orphans and children who
needed care could live and study.
The Our Lady of Armenia Boghossian
Educational Complex opened its door in
1998. In addition to secondary education
and training in aesthetics, children also
receive practical skills. Girls may stay on at
the Complex after they turn eighteen until
the time they get married. Over the last nine
years, six of them have started families.
Sis-ter Arusyak is proud to have six
grandchil-dren already. "They left their 'paternal
home' with dowries as befit Armenian
girls," she said, adding that the former
stu-dents keep in touch with the Complex, they
call and visit and if there is a problem in the
newly fledged families, the Complex always
helps.
[
...I don't know what would have happened to us
communication
A structure can be seen on the top of a hill
called Cherkez at a height of 1,850 meters above
sea level in the northeastern part of Goris - the
city's retransmission tower.
Before 1991, the city of Goris and the
sur-rounding villages received radio and television
broadcasts from the Katari transmission tower
located on the Armenian-Azerbaijani border. In
1992 Azerbaijani forces bombarded the Katari
broadcast tower, and the people who lived here
could no longer listen to the radio or watch TV.
For the region lying in the war zone, this meant
total isolation.
One of the priorities of the Hayastan
All-Armenian Fund established in 1992 was the
Zangezur Project, aimed at rebuilding the
infrastructure of the Syunik Marz. And one of
the most important elements of the Zangezur
tower was the construction of a new broadcast
tower.
"The construction of the retransmission tower
was necessary for Kashatagh and Artsakh as
well. It enabled the people of these regions to
watch Armenian broadcasts," said Vladik
Var-danyan who in those days headed the Zangezur
regional radio and television company.
Besides providing quality transmission of
radio and television broadcasts, the new tower
allowed for additional channels for
radiotele-phone communication. "350 voice band channels
were established between Goris and
Stepana-kert, and the existing 60 voice band channels
between Goris and Yerevan were upgraded to
480 voice brand channels, in other words 480
people were enabled to simultaneously
tele-phone the capital city," Vladik Vardanyan
explained, adding that the tower also made
pos-sible mobile radio-telephones in cars and
satel-lite communication.
"We were receiving the Second Russian TV
Channel via satellite and retransmitting it."
Today these benefits may seem outdated,
since everyone now uses a cell phone and can get
any number of TV channels with satellite
anten-nas, but fourteen years ago those things gave
people the hope of life and progress.
THE HOPE OF PROGRESS
energy & communication
The Fund realized programs in the energy sector mainly during the first five years of its
existence. Most of them were in the border regions of Armenia or in Nagorno Karabakh.
The necessity for these programs arose in the aftermath of the war. The province of Syunik
had been cut off as a result of bombing, while the residential areas of Karabakh had no
electricity. Programs which set up electric lines and renovated power stations were
imple-mented in the Karabakh regions of Hadrut, Martuni, Shushi and Martakert as well as in the
city of Stepanakert. Overall, the Fund has set up 71.4 km of electric supply lines.
rural development
"Twenty three jobs have been created. Even if
there is nothing else, this in itself is a major
achieve-ment," said Valeri Khachatryan, president of the
Agricultural Services company in Martakert.
All the proceeds from the Hayastan
All-Armen-ian Fund's 2005 telethon were sent to the Martakert
region. For the first time, an agricultural project
was included in the infrastructure development
program, and today it has become a reality. This
was the creation of a tractor and farm machinery
base which would serve Martakert and the
eight-een communities located around it. It was meant as
a helping hand to those villagers who have been
given ownership of land, but do not have the
resources to cultivate it.
Agricultural Services received seven Belarus
tractors through the Fund program. Mechanical
ploughs, seed drills and three trucks were
import-ed from China. The base will soon also have three
combines. Overall, the Fund has bought more than
US$ 1 million worth of agricultural machinery.
"There is a lot of enthusiasm now," said Valeri
Khachatryan, "Last year, people didn't believe that
such a program was possible, so few people came
to ask for our services." In 2006, the base served
landowners in the city of Martakert and four
adja-cent areas, while this year they will be working in
seventeen communities.
"We interact with community leaders on a daily
basis," said Khachatryan, "We have meetings to
plan our future work - how much machinery, for
how many days, which community - so that we can
finish all the work on time."
In the sphere of agriculture, it is very important
to get the work done on time. "This isn't a factory,
where one can say, 'OK, we couldn't finish it today,
we'll finish it tomorrow.' Everything here depends
on the weather," he said, "The sowing has to be
done in October, for example, latest by
mid-Octo-ber. If you're late, don't expect a good harvest.
There used to be people who would only manage
to sow by the New Year, because they didn't have
money earlier or their turn with the machinery had
come only then."
In the past, a hectare of land in Martakert would
yield 8-10 centners of wheat. In Valeri
Khacha-tryan's opinion, it was better to do nothing, because
this harvest would not even cover its own costs.
"According to my calculations, each hectare of
land that we cultivate should yield 18-20 centners
of wheat. This calculation does not consider the
kind of wheat being sown," he said, "If we
pro-vide the seed as well, then the yield could reach
25-30 centners per hectare, which corresponds to
a big profit."
There are other problems with the seeds which
cause problems while harvesting. Sometimes
farm-ers cannot buy all the seeds they need at once,
because of financial problems, so they end up
planting a variety of different kinds. Different
kinds of seeds go through different stages of
matu-ration and have to be harvested separately, at
dif-ferent points in time. Knowing all this, Valeri
Khachatryan has written a proposal to set up a seed
supply unit next to the base, which would ease the
villagers' problems procuring seed, and the base
would be able to fully guarantee a high quality
yield.
"We came across a lot of problems over the past
year, but we overcame them. Now we are using the
Fund to create a base in Hadrut, which will be
smaller. But we already know the potential
prob-lems they might face and have prepared for them
in advance," said Valeri Khachatryan and added
that the best part of this program was that it
weaned people off of humanitarian aid, "We're not
giving the villagers humanitarian aid, but rather
telling them, 'Work and live.'"
WORK AND LIVE
VALERI KHACHATRYAN
rural development
Robert Movsisyan of the village of Janyatagh
in the Martakert region works at a tractor and
farm machinery base set up by the Hayastan
Fund in 2006. He is one of 23 workers at this
newly created institution. "After I was
dis-charged from the army I couldn't find work for
two years," Robert said. " It's a good thing this
base opened.. I work as a welder now."
Robert comes from a big family-his mother,
father, and nine children. Like others in
Martak-ert, they experienced the ordeals of the war and
felt the bitterness of destruction and expulsion. "I
was a little boy. We left the village and stayed in
other places. Then when the war was over we
came back to our village," he remembered.
"What village? There was no village,"
inter-rupted Maxim Petrosyan, the chief engineer at
the station. Like many other villages in
Martak-ert, Janyatagh was completely destroyed by the
Azerbaijani forces, but people have returned and
are trying to render it habitable again.
Robert is twenty-two years old and
unmar-NOW WE Kunmar-NOW THERE ARE PEOPLE
WHO CARE ABOUT US
[
24-25
]
ried. "I don't have the means to support a
family," he exxplained. His family owns
eight hectares of land but barely manage to
cultivate three. "We were in a very bad
situ-ation," Maxim Petrosyan said. "People had
to go and ask other people to come and
plough their land, then to reap. Sometimes
they were late, sometimes a car would break
down and it cost the villagers more money.
And all the payments had to be in advance."
Robert's family was able to plough all of
their land for the first time in 2006, thanks to
the newly created station. The difference
between the old days and now is easy to see.
"I paid 20,000 drams per hectare in
advance," he said. "They came and plowed
the land, took the seeds from my house to
the field in a truck, sowed them and
culti-vated the earth. And in summer they will
reap."
The cost for cultivating one hectare of
land is 48,000 drams; the villagers pay
20,000 drams in advance payment and the
remaining 28,000 after the harvest. The cost
has been cut down by 8,000-10,000 drams
per hectare, and the payment schedule
makes life a lot easier for the farmers.
"We don't feel constrained by anything,"
Robert said. "In the past, we had to wait and
see if we could do any work. We could wait
until it was too late to reap. Now we know
that there are people who care about us."
[
They took the seeds from my house to the field in a truck, sowed
them and cultivated the earth. And in summer they will reap...
]
education
Almost every settlement in the Lori Marz was
hit by the 1988 earthquake, but Arjhovit
(former-ly Ghursali) stands out. Before the earthquake, it
was populated by Azerbaijanis. After the Sumgait
massacres they left. Four hundred Armenian
fam-ilies deported from Azerbaijan settled in this
vacated village, only to face a second calamity
-the earthquake.
Today there are six hundred people living in
Arjhovit. Seventy out of 250 families have stone
houses; the rest live in temporary cabins. The
cit-izens of Arjhovit are proud that the oldest
spiri-tual structure in the Spitak region, the seventh
century Church of St. Gevorg, is located in their
village.
"When we arrived the church was already in a
bad condition," recalled Rafik Harutyunyan,
for-mer head of the village administration. After the
quake it caved in even more, but people would go
to the ruins to light candles and make offerings."
He said that there had been so many problems
in the village that they hadn't even had time to
THE SCHOOL AND THE CHURCH
[
26-27
]
think about restoring the church. "We had to
deal with the housing problems, with the
school that had not been destroyed, but was
in an emergency situation."
In 1999 an anonymous philanthropist
from Montreal offered to restore the church.
"We couldn't tell the man that instead of
building the church he should build the
school," said the former village mayor. "So
we said, 'it's good, an ancient monument is
being restored.' And also we thought that
when the church was rebuilt other
opportu-nities would open up."
And that was in fact what happened. In
par-allel to the restoration of the church, the
con-struction of a new school began. The Hayastan
Fund and the Fund for Social Investments
jointly financed the school construction and
the American organization Knights and
Daughters of Vartan invested the ten percent
required from the community.
After huddling in temporary shelters for
fourteen years, the children of Arjhovit at last
found themselves in a decent environment
for their studies. "Now the conditions have
improved," said Marietta Zargaryan, who
has taught Armenian at the school since
1989. "We have nicely furnished classrooms
which we decorate with flowers."
A computer class was opened last
Septem-ber. Principal Garegin Karhanyan says that
this is not a luxury but a necessity, because
the children use computers to conduct
exper-iments in physics and chemistry, and to learn
new things.
The village of Arjhovit still has many
problems, but the villagers think that the
most important buildings, the school and the
church, which have always been the
founda-tions of our nation, have been restored.
There is a saying that the future is the
unful-filled promise of the past. This might have been
said about the Hayastan All-Armenian Fund,
whose projects bring the future closer.
The Baghumyan Polyclinic and the
Hovnan-ian Diagnostic Center in Stepanakert are among
these projects. If you've seen the old polyclinic
you don't need any explanation. The new
build-ing is like a dream of the future.
Head physician Karina Andryan, who has run
the Stepanakert Polyclinic for ten years now, has
trouble comparing the old building with the new
one. "We've always done our job, in the past and
now, " she said. "No patient has gone without
treatment."
Yet she believes the new facilities build
peo-ple's confidence in the health care system. "Just
imagine, a patient comes to a building with
leaking ceilings, with no water in the doctor's
office, and he or she starts imagining what
treatment will be like," Karina Andryan said,
adding that in conditions like that, health care is
more like first aid.
A main goal for the philanthropists who
undertook the construction of the Stepanakert
Polyclinic and the Diagnostic Center was that
people would visit the doctor not just to treat
ill-nesses but to prevent them, to stay healthy.
And the new environment encourages that,
with its comfortable, pleasantly furnished
con-sulting rooms, good sanitary conditions, and
modern equipment. "We have a new X-ray
machine, it's great," said the head physician,
"and the computerized tomograph is a dream
come true."
The polyclinic serves the adult population of
Stepanakert, some 40,00 people, free of charge.
Patients are also treated at home. "They call
doc-healthcare
THEY MUST NOT BE UNHEALTHY
[
28-29
]
tors in and each doctor knows his or her
patients and if there are seriously ill they
visit them regularly," she said.
Doctor Andryan is confident that the new
polyclinic will improve people's health and
change their psychology as well. "When
they see this investment by philanthropists
that they couldn't have imagined a few
years ago, people will understand that they
must not be unhealthy."
[
The new building is like a dream of the future
]
healthcare
The 34 programs realized in this area over 15 years have not only solved
everyday problems, but have also raised the quality of healthcare in
Arme-nia and Karabakh. The Fund has not limited itself to the construction,
reconstruction and renovation of hospitals and treatment centers. After
con-struction, they have been furnished and provided with modern medical
equipment. In some cases, training sessions and continuing education has
been provided for personnel.
education
Tigran Melikyan attends the Artashes
Shahinyan Special Physics and Mathematics
School of Yerevan State University. He came here
after finishing seventh grade in the village of
Voskevaz in the Aragatsotn Marz. He has taken
part in city and national math competitions,
tak-ing first and second places respectively.
"Com-pared with the village school it's great here," he
said. "We do our homework three times a day for
two hours each, the conditions are okay, and we
have all the prerequisites for learning."
The Special Physical and Mathematical School
has been in operation since
1965. It has had about 4,500
graduates over the past 40
years. Among them there are
30 Doctors of Science and 300
Candidates of Science who
have played a significant role
in science not only at the
national level but
internation-ally as well.
The school was unique in
the republic, but after years of
neglect it began to flounder.
In the early 1990s the number
of students dropped from 600
to 250, due to the desolate
conditions of the school
build-ing and the dormitory.
In 1996 the Hayastan Fund
began the reconstruction of the school building
and the dormitory a year later. "Construction
workers came and tore everything down,
leav-ing only the outside walls and staircases,"
Princi-pal Haykaz Navasardyan recalled. "They
rein-forced the building, replaced the old wooden
floors and ceilings with concrete, replaced the
doors and the windows. It turned into a good,
comfortable building. They did the same with
dormitory."
According to the principal, since it was rebuilt,
the school has regained its old fame. At present
there are 570 students from sixth to tenth grads.
The students are selected through difficult
exams in physics and mathematics. Forty of
them come from different
regions in Armenia and live in
the dormitory.
"Ther are meals in the
dor-mitory five times a day, we live
two to a room, and everything
is free of charge," Tigran
Melikyan said. Haykaz
Nava-sardyan confirmed that, and
recalled that before the
recon-struction eight, sixteen and at
times even twenty students
lived in one room. "But our
benefactors and we wanted
everything to be up-to-date
and comfortable," he said.
In 1989 the Physics and
Mathematics School opened a
branch in Stepanakert. "It was
a traveling school," history teacher Gayane
Musaelyan recalled. "We were moving from
school to school taking everything along with us;
WORK FOR THE FUTURE
[
30-31
]
[
...our benefactors and we wanted everything to be
up-to-date and comfortable
]
even during the war we didn't interrupt the
lessons."
"There had been a need for the school for
a long time," said the principal of the
branch, Vitaly Gabrielyan. "The school had
opened but facilities were lacking, yet we
could not close it down, so we appealed to
the Hayastan Fund."
The government allocated a plot of land
and the Fund began erecting the school
building and the dormitory for the
Stepa-nakert Branch of the Physics and
Mathemat-ics School. Two years later the new school
opened its doors. There are 240 students at
the school now; some of them from the
regions of Karabakh.
Davit Martirosyan, who has come to the
school from the village of Azokh in the
Hadrut region told us that his brother
attended the school before him. "He
gradu-ated from the school and went to Yerevan;
he is studying at the Medical University
now," Davit said. "I'm graduating this year
and will continue my education in the field
of applied mathematics."
We asked Vitaly Gabrielyan what their
students do after getting higher education
in Stepanakert or Yerevan. "They work here
in Stepanakert," the principal said. "When
the Karabakh Telecom Company opened
some of our graduates started working
there."
In parallel with economic development,
the significance of technology and science
will grow, and the future experts in the area
of technology and science are now studying
at the Yerevan and Stepanakert Physics and
Mathematics Schools.
education
"After the earthquake the school was housed
in temporary cabins," recalled Andranik
Soghomonyan, the principal of the Arjut village
school in the Lori Marz. "In 1995 the cabins burnt
down and we moved to the former cattle-sheds
nearby."
Though the cattle-sheds were built of stone,
they clearly had not been envisaged for
educa-tional purposes. The children of Arjut spent
three years in these conditions, waiting for their
new school to be built.
"When they were building the new school we
came here a lot. We
would bring water
for the construction
workers and watch
them working. We
knew the school was
being built," tenth
grader Arayik
Dal-lakyan recalled.
On April 21, 1999
the school that had
been built thanks to
financial support
from the Armenian
community of Valence, France opened its doors
to the students. At the donors' request, the school
was named for the writer Shahan Shahnour. The
school opening was a holiday not only for the
kids but also for everyone in the village, most of
whom are refugees from Azerbaijan.
"Yes, I remember the opening," Arayik
Dal-lakyan said. "It was cold and windy. I remember
a girl speaking French and a boy saying thank
you in English."
Eighth grader Hayarpi Khachatryan started
her schooling in the new building and can't
imagine how it was possible to study in cabins or
cattle-sheds. "I guess I can try to imagine it, but
it would have been hard to learn anything in
conditions like that," Hayarpi said.
Seventh grader Arman Mkrtchyan, who like
Hayarpi had always gone to school in the new
building,
dis-agreed. He said
proudly that his
sis-ter and two
broth-ers had studied in
these horrible
con-ditions, graduated
with honors and
went on to
universi-ty. He himself plans
to become a
geolo-gist and explore
Armenia's
under-ground resources.
When we ask about the differences, the kids
have difficulty comparing the past and the
pres-ent. "What can we say? Just imagine coming out
of a cattle-shed and entering a place where the
classrooms are clean and the desks are brand
new. You can't compare one with the other."
A VISIBLE DIFFERENCE
[
32-33
]
"When we married in 1988, Artur already seemed
to be full of that spirit, he always talked about
Karabakh, the Sumgait massacre. I was against his
joining any military unit, but the flame was burning
inside him," tells Hripsime, the wife of freedom
fight-er Arthur Gharibyan. Despite that, in 1989, Artur was
already enlisted in the Arabo unit, where he later
became the deputy commander in charge of military
operations.
"I didn't know he had joined the Arabo unit. When
he showed me his membership card the first time, he
said it was just a driver's license. But then he started
to come home late in the evenings and once he told
me he had to stay on night duty at the unit," Hripsime
Gharibyan recalled, "I always argued with him and
wanted him to stay back, but to no avail. My
mother-in-law was against it, too. She told him, 'You have a
young wife, two children, and a third one on the way.'
But he didn't listen."
In 1990, Artur moved with the Arabo unit -
some-times in Shahumyan, other some-times near the borders of
Armenia. Hripsime recalled that day in June 1992,
when her husband said goodbye to her for the last
time, as though it were yesterday. "The last time he
left was in June 1992 for the battle to liberate
Martak-ert. He promised be back in three days for my sister's
birthday party."
Fierce fighting was going on in the Martakert
dis-trict in June 1992. The Armenian forces ultimately
suc-ceeded in taking back the villages of Levonarkh,
Hasagaja, Magavuz and Hakob Kamari. One June 29,
1992, 21 fighters from Arabo and about 50 fighters
from other units who had joined to fight with them
were encircled by Azerbaijanis. That was their final
day, and there has been no news of them since then,
even fifteen years on. The boys are considered
miss-ing in action.
"I haven't lost hope and from the very beginning I
have always believed that the boys will be back. I have
told the children, too, that their father will be back one
day, but only God knows when," Hripsime said and
then grew quiet for a moment, "My son, a seventh
grader, has never seen his father, but he talks about
him all the time and wants to be like him."
Hripsime is raising her two daughters and son
with the help of her mother-in-law. Her eldest son is
in university, the younger one will soon finish
school. Her mother-in-law is retired, while
Hrip-sime has no work. "Thank God, they have not
for-gotten us, they try to help us whenever they can.
We've been getting an allowance from the Hayastan
All-Armenian Fund since the 1990s for my three
small children - they have been giving us 2000 drams
for each. It's true that it's a small sum, but we are
glad that we have not been forgotten," said the
widow of the missing soldier.
social projects
I BELIEVE THE BOYS WILL COME BACK
social projects
In 1995, the Hayastan All-Armenian Fund began its "Aid to the Children of Martyrs of
War and First Degree Disabled War Veterans" program. It aimed to provide financial
assistance to the families of those who had died in the war or had become disabled.
Each minor receives 2000 drams monthly. Since 2002, the Ororots (cradle) program
for national care to newborns has worked to increase the birth rate in Armenia by
providing aid to financially insecure families. Both programs are in progress.
President’s Prize
Armenia is unique in that the best high school
and university students in the field of
informa-tion technology receive prizes and scholarships
from the president of the republic.
When he met with President Robert
Kocharyan in 2005, the executive director of the
company Synopsis-Armenia, Rich Goldman,
suggested establishing a prize by which the
pres-ident could encourage students who stood out
for their achievements in the area of information
technology.
His suggestion was welcomed and for two
years now, the most prestigious educational
institutions in the field of physics and
mathe-matics have hoped to see their students win the
award funded by the Synopsis for Armenia
Fund. The requirements are good progress,
par-ticipation in national and international
competi-tions, and published papers.
It was decided that the contest would be
organized by the Hayastan All-Armenian Fund,
taking into consideration its experience in
organ-izing contests in the area of science and culture.
A commission was set up to decide in advance
the list of schools and universities eligible to
nominate candidates. Those institutions are
selected which, according to the Ministry of
Edu-cation and Science, have expertise in teaching
physics and mathematics and take part in
national and international competitions.
The institutions selected submit
approximate-ly ten candidates each year. The eight members
of the commission, who represent various
edu-cational institutions and organizations, choose
the winners.
In 2005 only the relevant departments at
Yere-van State University (YSU) and the State
Engi-neering University of Armenia (SEUA) were
eli-gible to nominate candidates. In 2006 the
Ameri-can University of Armenia was added. And in
2007 the Russian-Armenian (Slavonic)
Universi-ty will also be able to submit candidates. Among
schools, the Physics and Mathematics School
associated with YSU, SEUA's Preparatory
School, Quantum, and Anania Shirakatsi in
Yere-van, and Photon in Gyumri schools may take
part in the contest.
"Our task is not to examine the candidates'
professional knowledge, but the level of their
intellectual maturity. We converse with them on
various subjects, for example, about
globaliza-tion, the foreign policy of Armenia, important
events taking place in the world. We want to see
their awareness, their ability to construct
argu-ments and express their personal opinions,"
explained commission chairman Hovik
Musayelyan.
The categories for the annual President's Prize
are the best post-graduate, masters, bachelors,
and school student and best pupil. Prizewinners
are awarded not only certificates but monetary
awards of between $100 and $1,000 as well.
Vahe Musoyan was one of last year's winners
in the category of Best Bachelors student. Vahe is
now a third-year student of the Department of
Applied Mathematics and Informatics at
Yere-TOMMOROW’S SPECIALISTS
[
34-35
]
van State University. Since the age of
four-teen he has participated in many
informat-ics and mathematinformat-ics Olympiads and
pro-gramming contests.
Vahe's main problem related to his
stud-ies is the unavailability of professional
liter-ature. "It's hard to make use of professional
books; there are not too many of them in
Armenia. When I try to order them over the
Internet and it comes to mentioning the
place of delivery, the computer turns the
request down since they don't deliver to
Armenia. To avoid problems with the books
I decided to spend the award money on
buying a printer to print out the necessary
materials from the Internet," Vahe said.
[
We want to see their awareness, their ability to
construct arguments and express their personal opinions
]
awards
In the early years, the Fund had provided awards to encourage scientists and
artists as well as talented children. However, award distribution has been
coordi-nated and organized in nature only since 2001, when the Robert Boghossian and
Sons Fund founded the annual President's Prize. President's Prizes are awarded
to people in the fields of science, technology, information technology, physics,
medicine, literature, humanities and philanthropy. There is also a youth award as
well as an award for notable contribution to Genocide recognition work. Over the
last five years, 76 deserving scientists, writers and artists have received a
Presi-dent's Prize.
President’s Prize
In the four-volume Greenwood Encyclopedia
of World Folklore and Folklife published by the
Greenwood Publishing Group, Armenia is
repre-sented in an informative article written by
ethno-grapher Verjine Svazlian.
Encyclopedia editor William M. Clements
turned to Verjine Svazlian after he visited the
ethnographer's website and found a wealth of
ethnographic material, collected over
