A Cocktail of Falsehood and Intellectual Dishonesty

 Vartan Matiossian

The Istanbul bureau chief of The New York Times, Carlotta Gall, appears to have been in her latest destination long enough to learn and internalize some of the crassest tactics of Turkish denialism.

She could not refrain from turning her dispatch from Baku, “Roots of War: When Armenia Talked Tough, Azerbaijan Took Action” (The New York Times, October 27, 2010), into the usual mix of reporting and opinion that characterizes “journalism” these days. One wonders if she used to do the same when reporting from Chechnya and Afghanistan. In any case, this article will hardly earn her a prize for journalistic fairness. She omitted the point already raised by Turkish presidential spokesman Ibrahim Kalın in last May, who extended greetings to Azerbaijan on its Republic Day, wishing “more beautiful, brighter and stronger days” in the future as “one nation, two states,” to hammer on its Armenian equivalent “Artsakh is Armenia” (mentioned by Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan in August) as unofficial spokesperson to Azerbaijan president’s foreign policy adviser Hikmet Hajiyev’s lame justification for Azerbaijan’s aggression: “The final nail in the coffin of the negotiation process was when he said that Nagorno-Karabakh was Armenian.”

Armenia, entre resabios soviéticos y su histórica identidad cristiana

Daniel Vittar

 

En la cima de la ciudad de Shushi, a unos 1500 metros sobre las montañas verdes de Nagorno Karabagh, se levanta una antigua catedral gótica cuyos cimientos son de mediados del siglo XIX. Atrás del atrio, atravesando una puerta angosta se llega a una escalera húmeda que desciende en peldaños pequeños y pronunciados. Abajo, en penumbra y silencio, se abre un recinto sagrado excavado en forma circular en la piedra volcánica. Es único en el mundo por su acústica: si se ubica el centro exacto del lugar, la oración dicha en voz alta replica con un eco hondo, místico, sobrecogedor. La gente del lugar asegura que si uno implora allí con arrepentimiento sincero, los pecados son perdonados, misericordiosamente. Pocos se atreven a semejante misión.

The Armenian Obsession with Churches

Raffi Bedrossyan

 



When someone visits Armenia for the first time, the tour itinerary invariably includes a multitude of churches and monasteries. Modern Armenia is the land of churches.

Historic Armenia in Anatolia was also a land of churches, with nearly 4000 churches and monasteries. The Van Lake region alone had over 300 churches. The ancient City of Ani, dubbed the City of 1001 Churches, contained 40 churches.

We are proud of our churches, awed at their architectural beauty and intricate construction techniques, amazed at their settings perched on inaccessible mountaintops.

Visiting Nagorno Karabagh – Easier Than You Might Think

Daniel Hamilton

I’m passionate about Nagorno Karabagh – or Artsakh, as the locals call it – and I’m incredibly keen for more people to see this beautiful, inspiring and incredibly moving part of the world.

Do you really want to visit Nagorno Karabagh?

Going to Nagorno Karabagh is not a small undertaking.

If you’re travelling from London, you will have to factor costs of around £400 for a return flight to the Armenian capital Yerevan, £50 for the transportation from Yerevan to Karabakh’s capital Stepanakert and hotel accommodation in both cities.  While the cost of food and travel inside Nagorno Karabagh is cheap, your flights and accommodation costs are likely to set you back at least £600 before you’ve even set foot in the region.