The latest buzz around town.
Many stories similar to the one below about impoverished and desperate villages at the borderlines.
Some use the phrase “RE-opening”.
The Artskah saga was a dream come true to those canines, when they promptly RE-sealed it.
“RE-opening”?
I recently read somewhere that the border was never open, not only since 1945 when the “ïron curtain” came down but much before that. The only time the border was open, if you will was in May 21-29 , 1918 during the attack on Sardarapat and Vanadzor in an attempt to remove all the obstacles between ankara and baku.
And now, they are saying that the border will not open until and unless all the Ts are crossed and the Is dotted, to once again sign at the “dotted line” just as we did at the so called Treaty of Kars and other such comedy sessions.
Note that the village of Margara is only a few km from Ejmiatsin/Vagharshapat. Many of us have often been to Ejmiatsin and Khor Virap/Artashat, how many have been to places like Margara?
What if, some day, the villagers like Margara, in desperation decide to secede from the territory of Yerevan and join the territory of Igdir and Agori? Of course, they will have to divert the only obstacle the Araks River.
http://www.armeniano...i...231&lng=eng
QUOTE
(April 17, 2009)
Thoughts near Ararat: Geopolitics as seen by residents of a borderline village
By Karine Ionesyan
ArmeniaNow reporter
Published: 17 April, 2009
A full-flowing river, valleys of various shades, a poplar tree, a famous bird standing on one leg – the stork, and, of course, biblical Mount Ararat in the image of the Sleeping Beauty.
This is how Western Armenia usually looks on the canvases of Armenian artists. And the villagers of Margara witness the reality depicted on those canvases every day, but the happiness of enjoying the scenery is given only to the characters in the painting – the storks. This is where Armenia and modern Turkey are divided by a 268-kilometer border that has remained closed since the 1930s (in 1991-1993 the border was briefly opened for trade). First it was where the Iron Curtain ran during the Cold War era separating Soviet Armenia and NATO-allied Turkey. But since the break-up of the USSR and Armenia’s independence Turkey has made the opening of the border conditional on the resolution of the long-running Nagorno-Karabakh dispute. Turkey insists on a settlement that would favor its ethnic ally Azerbaijan as well as the end of the worldwide Armenian push for the recognition by the world’s governments of the World War I-era killings of 1.5 million Armenians in Ottoman Turkey as genocide – something that the successive Turkish governments have vigorously denied for decades.
In the recent period, Armenian-Turkish political relations have undergone new developments.
Conversations around this topic of opening the Armenian-Turkish border began to circulate in the village of Margara, in Armavir province – some 40 kilometers southwest of Yervan – as this is the only village that has a possibility of an immediate borderline connection to Turkey – a concrete bridge – over the river.
Most of the 1,500 residents of the village believe that after the opening of the border they would see improvement in their lives.
“I get a pension of 42,000 dram (about $110), but I have six children with their families, none of whom works,” says 75-year-old resident Kostan Philiposyan. “The border will be opened, trade will develop, the price of land will increase, tourists will come, and our folks will have jobs.”
Should the border open, Kostan says his first steps would be to go see his mother’s birthplace in Igdir, the town closest to Margara – about 18 kilometers away.The elderly man tells with tears in his eyes that his mother lost almost all her relatives at age 16. “My grandfather had said to my mother and uncle that he was going back for their relatives. He marked a stone with red to be able to find the way back afterwards, but he never came back. So, only my mother and brother were saved thanks to the bridge leading to Margara, which was made of wood then.”
Kostan says that the opening of the border does not mean that they are forgetting everything and forgiving the Turks, nor are they ready to return Karabakh’s lands, “even if the authorities decide so, the people will oppose it, as we had shed blood there.”
In any case, the villager says he is ready to accept Turks as neighbors. “My father died during World War II in Germany, does that mean we must not communicate with Germans?”
Kostan wishes for the Margara bridge to be opened as it was opened once in the 1993, when 4,000 tons of wheat were brought to Armenia from Greece (via Turkey). But for 20 years conversations on opening it have led to stalemate.
“When the Armenia-Turkey soccer game took place, we thought the fans would come through Margara, but that did not happen. If they want to open it now, they must start construction work on the roads already. They haven’t started yet, therefore I don’t believe the border will be opened. They may open it near Gyumri, as there’s a railway there, but here? – I don’t know,” says Hayk Aramyan, who has been headmaster of a local school for 16 years.
Aramyan says the 200 children studying at school are also excited by the speculations about opening the border – according to him, the young generation understands well what is profitable for today. “Once in 1994, Turkish businessmen came to Armenia. They decided to take a walk around Armenian markets as well, after which they said that if the border was opened, the prices of the goods imported from Turkey would be twice as cheap.”
It is mostly Kurds who reside on the Turkish side of the borderline regions, with whom Turks often have disagreements. Aramyan wishes for the border to open, but he has one concern, “if it is opened, the Kurds will also get rich, and I don’t think Turks need that.”
The school headmaster doesn’t think there can be contradictions between Turks and Armenians. He says that during so many years he has been cautious, but also on some occasions happened to share both food and drink with Turks.
Margara village has only 300 hectares of farmland, of which 200 hectares are in the monitored zone. Every year, village residents get special permits from locally stationed Russian border troops to get access to their farmland across the barbed wire.
Head of the rural administration Khachik Asatryan says that no extraordinary cases of border conflict were registered during these years.
Asatryan has no answer to the question whether the border will eventually be opened or will remain closed. He says he is “too small a person” to make conclusions. “But if the President of the country makes such statements, that’s probably how it’s going to be.”
No matter, he says he will continue to look at Ararat every day, even at night, with his children, telling them about the historical lands of Western Armenia and the Genocide, as his parents once told him, and as their parents had once told them.
© Copyright ArmeniaNow.com 2002-2008. All rights reserved.
Articles may be reproduced, provided ArmeniaNow.com is cited as the source
Thoughts near Ararat: Geopolitics as seen by residents of a borderline village
By Karine Ionesyan
ArmeniaNow reporter
Published: 17 April, 2009
A full-flowing river, valleys of various shades, a poplar tree, a famous bird standing on one leg – the stork, and, of course, biblical Mount Ararat in the image of the Sleeping Beauty.
This is how Western Armenia usually looks on the canvases of Armenian artists. And the villagers of Margara witness the reality depicted on those canvases every day, but the happiness of enjoying the scenery is given only to the characters in the painting – the storks. This is where Armenia and modern Turkey are divided by a 268-kilometer border that has remained closed since the 1930s (in 1991-1993 the border was briefly opened for trade). First it was where the Iron Curtain ran during the Cold War era separating Soviet Armenia and NATO-allied Turkey. But since the break-up of the USSR and Armenia’s independence Turkey has made the opening of the border conditional on the resolution of the long-running Nagorno-Karabakh dispute. Turkey insists on a settlement that would favor its ethnic ally Azerbaijan as well as the end of the worldwide Armenian push for the recognition by the world’s governments of the World War I-era killings of 1.5 million Armenians in Ottoman Turkey as genocide – something that the successive Turkish governments have vigorously denied for decades.
In the recent period, Armenian-Turkish political relations have undergone new developments.
Conversations around this topic of opening the Armenian-Turkish border began to circulate in the village of Margara, in Armavir province – some 40 kilometers southwest of Yervan – as this is the only village that has a possibility of an immediate borderline connection to Turkey – a concrete bridge – over the river.
Most of the 1,500 residents of the village believe that after the opening of the border they would see improvement in their lives.
“I get a pension of 42,000 dram (about $110), but I have six children with their families, none of whom works,” says 75-year-old resident Kostan Philiposyan. “The border will be opened, trade will develop, the price of land will increase, tourists will come, and our folks will have jobs.”
Should the border open, Kostan says his first steps would be to go see his mother’s birthplace in Igdir, the town closest to Margara – about 18 kilometers away.The elderly man tells with tears in his eyes that his mother lost almost all her relatives at age 16. “My grandfather had said to my mother and uncle that he was going back for their relatives. He marked a stone with red to be able to find the way back afterwards, but he never came back. So, only my mother and brother were saved thanks to the bridge leading to Margara, which was made of wood then.”
Kostan says that the opening of the border does not mean that they are forgetting everything and forgiving the Turks, nor are they ready to return Karabakh’s lands, “even if the authorities decide so, the people will oppose it, as we had shed blood there.”
In any case, the villager says he is ready to accept Turks as neighbors. “My father died during World War II in Germany, does that mean we must not communicate with Germans?”
Kostan wishes for the Margara bridge to be opened as it was opened once in the 1993, when 4,000 tons of wheat were brought to Armenia from Greece (via Turkey). But for 20 years conversations on opening it have led to stalemate.
“When the Armenia-Turkey soccer game took place, we thought the fans would come through Margara, but that did not happen. If they want to open it now, they must start construction work on the roads already. They haven’t started yet, therefore I don’t believe the border will be opened. They may open it near Gyumri, as there’s a railway there, but here? – I don’t know,” says Hayk Aramyan, who has been headmaster of a local school for 16 years.
Aramyan says the 200 children studying at school are also excited by the speculations about opening the border – according to him, the young generation understands well what is profitable for today. “Once in 1994, Turkish businessmen came to Armenia. They decided to take a walk around Armenian markets as well, after which they said that if the border was opened, the prices of the goods imported from Turkey would be twice as cheap.”
It is mostly Kurds who reside on the Turkish side of the borderline regions, with whom Turks often have disagreements. Aramyan wishes for the border to open, but he has one concern, “if it is opened, the Kurds will also get rich, and I don’t think Turks need that.”
The school headmaster doesn’t think there can be contradictions between Turks and Armenians. He says that during so many years he has been cautious, but also on some occasions happened to share both food and drink with Turks.
Margara village has only 300 hectares of farmland, of which 200 hectares are in the monitored zone. Every year, village residents get special permits from locally stationed Russian border troops to get access to their farmland across the barbed wire.
Head of the rural administration Khachik Asatryan says that no extraordinary cases of border conflict were registered during these years.
Asatryan has no answer to the question whether the border will eventually be opened or will remain closed. He says he is “too small a person” to make conclusions. “But if the President of the country makes such statements, that’s probably how it’s going to be.”
No matter, he says he will continue to look at Ararat every day, even at night, with his children, telling them about the historical lands of Western Armenia and the Genocide, as his parents once told him, and as their parents had once told them.
© Copyright ArmeniaNow.com 2002-2008. All rights reserved.
Articles may be reproduced, provided ArmeniaNow.com is cited as the source
