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[Mesrob]

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Monday, July 9, 2001

Police badge waits at end of long, hard road

Woman overcomes war, looks forward to entering academy

By Katie Matvias

Lansing State Journal

 

After fleeing war-torn Armenia, learning a new language and finishing her associate's degree at Lansing Community College, Oksana Mkrtychyan is confident she can graduate from the rigorous police academy.

 

"It's six miles a day for 15 weeks," she said, laughing. "I'm just going to keep going."

 

It's been about seven years since she and her family fled Armenia. She says her dream to become a police officer has kept her going.

 

"I feel like I'm floating," the 21-year-old said. "I got an e-mail saying there was a green light for me to go to the academy. I printed it out and I'm going to frame it."

 

She starts at the Mid-Michigan Police Academy on July 30, and upon graduation she will work for the Lansing Police Department. She has been a police cadet for two years.

 

In 1988, when Mkrtychyan was only 8 years old, Muslim leaders forced her family to leave Azerbaijan and move to neighboring Armenia, a predominantly Christian nation.

 

In Armenia, her father was a baker and the family owned a restaurant. Her family was forced to move into a rat-infested basement when, during the country's conflict with Azerbaijan, bombs destroyed their home.

 

Underground they were safe. The Mkrtychyans lived there for two years.

 

"In one day it was like World War II - there was army everywhere," she said.

 

Most men were sent to fight but her father was the town baker - the only person there to make bread - so he was allowed to stay, she said.

 

"We're pretty much the only family who didn't lose someone," she said. "The men either killed themselves because they didn't want to fight or they just never came back."

 

Then one day they were walking by their ruined house when a mailman, with a package from the United States, found them, she said. He'd searched for the family for days and was about to send the package back to America.

 

An uncle who lived in Michigan had been working on getting the family to the United States. The package was a request to come to Moscow to start the process.

 

"My mother had to sell her jewelry to buy the plane tickets to go," she said. "We lived there in a hotel for about eight months. When we came here we had one bag of clothes and a $1 bill."

 

Mkrtychyan and her older brother Artur - who's now 23 - were enrolled at Eastern High School as soon as the family settled in.

 

They couldn't speak English.

 

"It's a terrible thing to be alone," she said. "I couldn't go to prom or participate in school activities because I never felt like I belonged."

 

But she fought the urge to quit, learned English in about a year and graduated from high school on time. In high school she worked at a nearby dollar store where she said she spent most of the day looking at the merchandise trying to learn the language.

 

Helen Cirrito of Lansing helps Armenian immigrants who settle in the city. She helped enroll Oksana and Artur in school and helped her parents, Vladimir and Susanna, with appointments.

 

Her brother now works for Commercial Blueprint Inc. Her father is a baker and her mother works for Meijer Inc.

 

Cirrito, who's of Armenian descent, is a board member of the nonprofit Armenian Resettlement and Refugee Assistance Trust Fund. The trust was set up to help families buy cars and other necessities after they move to the Lansing area.

 

"For any immigrant it's very difficult but because they came from a war area they saw a lot," Cirrito said. "All of the opportunities were here and it was up to her to go for them.

 

"Oksana is one of the ones who worked very hard."

 

It's her strong work ethic that showed Lansing police Lt. Raymond Hall she was ready for the academy. Hall was her supervisor in the central services office downtown.

 

"She's been one of the more focused cadets to come through in quite a while," Hall said. "She gets the job done, she offers no excuses and she delivers. If she remains as focused and determined as she is today, her chances to complete the academy are good."

 

Contact Katie Matvias at 267-1301 or kmatvias@lsj.com.

[Mesrob]

France's Pernod puts post-Soviet Armenia's economic climate to test in fight over brandy

 

By ANGELA CHARLTON

The Associated Press

7/8/01 2:02 PM

 

 

YEREVAN, Armenia (AP) -- From neighboring hilltops overlooking Armenia's capital, two distilleries are dueling over a biblical brand name and this desperately poor nation's biggest export: brandy.

 

One distillery is run by a fastidious French executive, the other by a flamboyant Armenian magnate. Both sell brandies called Ararat, after the mountain where Noah's Ark came to rest and where legend says Noah planted the grapes that began Armenia's winemaking tradition.

 

The struggle over the tawny, aromatic brandy could help determine the direction of Armenia's economic future, signaling whether it is warming to foreign investors or clinging to the cronyism and protectionism of its Soviet-ruled era.

 

From his roomy corner office at the Yerevan Brandy Co., Pierre Larretche presides over monthly production of 250,000 bottles of golden liquor. Fountains trickle softly on the distillery's tidy grounds, and the air is, well, intoxicating.

 

Yet behind this pleasant facade, Larretche has grappled with patent disputes, street protests and officials resistant to foreigners taking a piece of Armenia's proud brandy heritage.

 

French beverage giant Pernod Ricard bought the company in 1998 in a $30 million privatization deal -- a big investment in this landlocked, Maryland-sized nation of 3 million people, 80 percent of whom live on less than $25 a month.

 

Armenian factories have closed or slashed production during the past decade, which saw Soviet-era infrastructure crumble and a war with neighboring Azerbaijan drain resources. Economic reforms have lagged. Armenia has gotten $1.4 billion in U.S. aid, but little investment from the huge Armenian diaspora, which fears corruption and economic uncertainty.

 

Foreign business leaders in Yerevan warn that Pernod's experience is scaring away other investors and dooming the country to deeper poverty.

 

"The environment was not very good. It was hard for certain politicians to accept us," Larretche said. "We had to fight to get here."

 

Thousands of Armenians staged anti-Pernod protests, claiming a national asset was being sold off cheap. Talks on a price dragged on for months.

 

Then, as Larretche was settling in to his new job, a tough competitor emerged: the Great Valley Co., which in 1999 resuscitated the near-defunct distillery on the next hill and reportedly enjoys close ties to the Armenian political elite.

 

In Soviet times, both factories were part of the state-run company Ararat, which split up with Armenia's independence in 1991. Now both claim the company's 114-year-old history, its recipes and the Ararat name.

 

Great Valley insists the industry needs competition to stimulate growth. And its director, Tigran Arzakantsian, touts himself as a national hero for investing in his homeland.

 

Arzakantsian, 35, earned his fortune as a professional boxer and liquor baron, and has homes in Monaco and Russia.

 

"I wanted the money to be of use to Armenia," said Arzakantsian, perched in his office at a table laden with melon, grapes and three kinds of brandy. His conversation was interrupted by a cell phone call from a vice prime minister.

 

Since production began in the late 19th century, brandy has become the national beverage, shared over grilled lamb picnics, honeyed desserts and breakfast coffee. Here and throughout the former Soviet Union it is known as "konyak."

 

The Soviets nationalized the distilleries, and Josef Stalin forbade exports to the West. But he gave Winston Churchill a bottle of 10-year-old, 100-proof Armenian "konyak" in 1943, and it reputedly became the British leader's favorite drink.

 

Russia accounts for 70 percent of Yerevan Brandy's sales and 90 percent of Great Valley's, but its 1998 financial crisis shriveled sales just as Larretche took over Yerevan Brandy. Since then he has ratcheted up sales, which rose 183 percent in the first four months of this year, compared to 2000.

 

But Great Valley is growing, too. Last year Arzakantsian claimed production of 3 million bottles. Yerevan Brandy churned out 1.7 million, well below the 4 million of 1996.

 

As for the Arafat name and recipes, Pernod says the privatization deal gave it exclusivity, but it took years of court battles to stop three Russian distilleries from producing Ararat brandy.

 

Pernod, the world's fifth-largest wine and spirits producer, had less luck fighting Great Valley's flagship brand, Great Ararat.

 

The French management complained to government officials of lax enforcement of patent regulations -- a problem many businesses here have lamented -- to no avail.

 

Last September, an Armenian court barred Great Valley from using the Ararat name on its three-star brandies. Pernod lawyers called it a half-victory, saying the ruling left loopholes. It took effect in March, and Larretche said it's too early to judge the results.

 

Larretche is reserved in his criticism of Great Valley, but other Yerevan Brandy employees, speaking on condition of anonymity, accuse Arzakantsian of pilfering their recipes and bribing government officials for the gentle court ruling.

 

Arzakantsian is reticent about the provenance of his recipes, but strongly denies offering bribes. He insists he is doing well because he understands his market better than Pernod.

 

"They want a monopoly," Arzakantsian said. "That's not realistic."

 

Larretche denies that: "We didn't come here to have exclusivity."

 

His company made a $1 million profit last year on Pernod's $50 million investment so far.

 

Some $20 million of that came from the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, whose president, Jean Lemierre, urged Armenia's government to strengthen the legal and regulatory system, "because this is fundamental to doing business in Armenia."

 

Pernod has installed Italian bottling equipment in the Yerevan production hall and is gradually replacing dented metal casks with new oak barrels.

 

Walking among those casks, Bagrat Palian, a storage supervisor at Yerevan Brandy under Soviet, Armenian and now French management, said he hopes things end peacefully.

 

"It is not important who is in control, the French or the Armenians," he said. "It's important that they respect the konyak."

[Kazza]

I really liked reading the first post. I thought it was completley excellent!

[MJ]

Shame on her. Perhaps this was part of their schema to get visa to move to the US and to get a Green Card. But shame on her for such an outrageous and undignified lie.

[Kazza]

We have all got to survive. Good on her-sometimes you question "morality" and "ethics" to whether it it really IS right or not. Right for whom? Certainly not for peole like this girl.

[MJ]

But we don't have to lie about others for the sake of our survival.

[MJ]

Sorry, I meant to quote her saying "The men either killed themselves because they didn't want to fight or they just never came back."

 

By a mistake I quoted a different statement of hers, which was an innocent statement.

[Kazza]

If a situation demands it sometimes you do.

[Kazza]

No, it's ok. I know it was, Perhaps there was a better way out than lying? I doubt it though. In an ideal world it's nice to tell the truth all the time. But I'd rather go out of this world (even if you get killed in the process) knowing I got the best out of it, like having the career you felt you were always meant to do, and opportunity, with a smile on my face than wait to die in poverty , misery and fear of war. Or in her case if she stayed she woudn't have to wait around for very long.

[MJ]

Let me respectfully but passionately disagree, please.

[Kazza]

OK, me too. But I still beleive it's better to live your life. Who would this girl be hurting anyway? I admire your respectful ness, though. I admire your intention to do the right thing, but I still passionatley, and strongly, dissagree, in matters like this.

 

My brother has a friend, just fresh from college, happenns to be doing work becase it's a breal from studying, you know how you think when your'e young. Happenes to be very racist, by the way. Anyway, the home office have employed him to decide who stays in the country and who gets deported. Just because he got a good mark in his degree.

[MJ]

I am not denying her right of survival. We all do something to survive. But it doesn't give us the right to lie about the others in such public media. She didn't need to get out of her way to make that statement. It neither has helped her, nor not saying it would've prevented her from getting visa or subsequent promotions.

 

It is a different thing if you say such things if your life, or the life of the people close to you is threatened. But this is not the case.

[Kazza]

It depends on opportunity, not intellect, or the ethics of a person. OK, perhaps it was silly of her to make it common knowledge to the world. Sometimes people don't always have the nesscessary opportunity to get what they deserve. Sometimes you have to MAKE the opportunity for yourself.

 

Her life was not threatened...yet. I think it was just a metter of time before it was.

 

[ July 24, 2001: Message edited by: Kazza ]

[MJ]

The issue here is not that she has maid public something that should’ve been swept under the rug. The issue is that she has lied in a shameless manner, without an extreme necessity for it. Or she is an idiot enough not to be able to make sense out of the ordinary things surrounding her.

 

Nobody had threatened her life, or her families life. In fact, because here father was the only baker, their family had enjoyed privileged conditions and, I am sure, better lifestyle than the others – others didn’t even have a father to provide for them. And I am sure that after ripping the rest of the village or the town off, and making enough money, they felt it is time to spend it in the US.

[Kazza]

It's not because it should have been swept under the carpet. I thought it was silly because the authorities might catch her.

 

How was she ripping the town/village off? Not having the choice and freedom for what you want is not a privalege, for a bakersdaughter. Everyone in the village was in the same boat.

If she went through the "right" channels then she wouldn't have been granted the place. Mabye other village members would have lost out, fair enough,,mabye it WAS a good thing it was in the papers because perhpas then it would encourage others in the town and the village to do the same. I'm sure her story and others have encouraged this "Mass exodus".

[MJ]

First of all, she resided in the US at the time of giving this interview.

 

The bakers in Armenia in the 1991-1994 period were some of the nations most stable (in terms of their income) people, when the nation was starving off of hunger due to the transportation blockade. Additionally, the bread industry has been part of the structures of organized crime in Armenia in those years.

 

The rest in her village/town would’ve not even had the money to buy ticket “for exodus.” With all due respect, you obviously are not familiar with the realities of the issue. Her story has nothing to do with the mass exodus. She is a totally irrelevant, and in fact, shameless person in that chain. When you cannot provide your children with minimal living, or when you have other aspirations, you don’t need her story to make a decision of exodus.

[Kazza]

I DO know. And I do appreciate the situation. I did not mean to bring the issue down by referring to a mass exodus. Wrong words, perhaps. But come on...people aren't exactly fooding into armenia at the same level of speed that people are going out are therey? There is a reason. Perhpas she could have handles the situation btter...but that is my whole arguement. Perhpas not. I think youare missing the point what I was trying to say, was whether or not you are perhaps a bit better position than others in the village it doesnt mean your life could become threatened. IF if was so for the others who is to say it might not turn around on her family? A reason she was in danger is that she couldnt predict.

 

Go on my son..you know it makes sense. Anyway, I want to take a bit of a break fromthis. My fave song is playing "Gloria" haven't heard this one for a long long time! tra -la-la she makes me feel alright..G-L-O0OOORIA

[bellthecat]

A while ago I knew a woman who worked as a volunteer in an Armenian charity organisation based in London. She was involved in helping migrants from Armenia.

She told me that NOTHING those people told her could be believed, they would effortlessly mix lies with truth, and think nothing of it even when caught out. In the end she left the organisation because, as she put it, "I volunteered because I wanted to do something to reinforce my Armenian identity but I had to leave because I saw I was becoming ashamed of that identity"

Steve

[MJ]

Yes, unfortunately, effective late 1988, Armenians of Armenia have entered an extremely stressful mode of life. It has been a combination of emotional and economic stress. Coping with it has required enormous strength. As always, some have been able to deal with it, others have not. Obviously, there are people from all walks in Armenia. Some invite admiration, others invite resentment.

 

It all depends on where are you looking for - you would find either the one or the other.

[MJ]

Actually, that's what I am struggling with.