A friend sent me his thoughts and impressions on “hunger strike” in Glendale, in front of Armenian consulate.

Subject: notes from the hunger strike last night

Hola folks,

I drove by the hunger strikers this morning at 6:15. This time there was no one awake, no guard or “pahak”. One person was seated on the ground, but it looked like he had dozed off. I stopped the car in the street, right in front of him, but did not sound the horn, he did not look up. I pushed on the gas pedal and stopped again, but he was asleep.

I wonder how safe they are in this condition. They seemed so vulnerable, in the wind and the damp floor.

Last night was very inspiring. They have a program for the visitor’s rather than the other way around. They recite poetry, read short notes from Genocide survivor’s memoirs and sing.
Allen, Asik’s son, was running the whole thing. I approached him and asked how the hotel deals with this, he said that the land is not part of the hotel and it belongs to the city. Glendale city officials and the police have been very cooperative with the strikers. He said the night before 500 people had come to show their support.
Yesterday, too, they asked people to come and show their support.

After the striker’s each made their short presentation, visitor’s were given the hand held microphone to speak their mind. One woman, spoke very eloquently. She said that one of her children had left her family and had come and joined the strikers. She said that therefore, now she had 34 children (the number of the strikers went up from 28 to 34) and that they were like flowers with no soil under their feet, transplanted and brought here. She almost made it sound poetic.
She then said that she has gathered soil from many parts of Armenia and tonight, she had brought soil from Edjmiatsin to the hunger strike. She had put a small amount in small bags and distributed them to all the strikers, for them to put under their pillow or under the make shift bed, so that the flower can grow in it’s proper soil. She spoke in Armenian. She was amazing.
All the participants were quite moving. I had seen one guy who looked particularly moved in the photos online, who was there and he narrated a poem. He turned out the one with the most fervor.

Allen announced on the speaker, that no one from the consulate, had come out to talk to them, or ask their opinion. Nothing. Silence. They urged people to send webfaxes (from stoptheprotocols.com) which I just did and to call the consulate and complain about the protocols. (818) 265 5900.
He said they get text messages at the hunger strike from all over the world in support.

One man, who had returned from Armenia two days ago, who has been living in LA for 20 years, said that there is only one man who runs the show and makes decisions there.
He said that a few years ago in Los Angeles, we said farewell to one “aavaanaak” Levon Ter Petrossian and now we said farewell to another one. No one objected and everyone clapped.

Allen said that during the day, they make signs. there were paint cans. One of the large signs had photos of the Glendale rally. The “mi davajanir” truck is parked on Central, across from the consulate building. Pretty much the four corners of the intersection is covered. A huge sign that says “Hunger strike” and one that says honk for freedom in Artsakh.

I think it is very worthwhile to join them there.

For photos click here

There is a flight Yerevan-Tbilisi operated by Armavia I think everyday. So after careful consideration I thought may be it is worth traveling to the neighboring country and see what is it about. First thing I did I logged in to expedia.com, silly me: No flights were found between Yerevan, Armenia (EVN-Zvartnots Intl.) and Tbilisi, Georgia (TBS-Tbilisi Intl.) that matched your request.

Then I thought may be Armavia would have at least the prices on their website so I logged in to armavia.am and to my surprise there was an online booking system. I thought sweet, I wan’t have to go to an agency, will save time and will be using the convenience of the internet, and to a degree will feel back in the developed world … Not so fast. You book a flight for two and they ask the name of one person only :O How are they suppose to know who is the second person. So I called Armavia to figure out.

- Hi, I am trying to reserve a ticket online but the system does not allow me to type in the name of the second person.

A girl from the other end replies

- You know, I’m not sure if you can do that without assistance from our clerk, could you please call this number and ask for assistance.

No kidding!

- As long as I am on the phone could you please book me a ticket, the dates are …?

- There is no need to do that, I see that there are still 10 seats left so if you come by our office today you most probably will get a ticket..

- OK, can you please reserve it before I get there what if you run out of seats.

- That’s hardly possible but if you REALLY want it spell me your name.

- And then we go on a rollercoster of different perceptions of English letters where letter i is “ketikov eeee” and “e” is Russian “ye” and y is “igrek” :DDDD

who said that reserving online makes sense when you can call and learn the alphabet from a different angle

I am sure each and everyone who tried applying or actually applied for an Armenian citizenship have gone through several stages of disappointment and rage…

It’s an amazing experience of running around with a stack of papers to several government agencies that have no clue what they ought to do and where you should apply for yet another piece of paper or a statement that does not make sense to begin with… you gotta have a serious amount of patience and almost twice as much time to get to the end of this long process.

You gotta spend at least several days in OVIR (the passports and visa department of the Armenian police), trying to find out how and where should yo go. The offices do not have descriptions only name plates, you get in and you see a lot of doors with Mr. X….yan on the door, what exactly he or she does, what are the departments and the divisions… God knows. The simple thing is to ask and then you get an answer with an attitude as if you already owe them big time.

After finding out where you should go and who you should talk to you get a list of different papers that you should bring in order to start the application process. Several documents like a statement about employment
in Armenia have to be issued by various entities in Armenia. Forget about the idea why on earth do they need me to bring it myself, isn’t there a database they can connect to and find out in several minutes if I am paying taxes here or not. They send you to ZHEK (the remnant of soviet legacy, sort of like building or district administration that deals with collecting the fees for the garbage pick ups, building clean ups, etc.). You go to ZHEK and an old lady that has no clue what exactly you want sends you to another government agency, where you are told that you should go to State department for labor and social services. Another old lady there looks at you and asks do we do this?! Yes. Of course you do. You can check the database and check if I paid the social security tax, right? Oh, right. Leave us your contacts and call us in four days. You would think they would do something in four days. After four days you call them and they send you back to ZHEK ))) The familiar old lady at ZHEK looks at you and takes a piece of paper and writes that you came in to ZHEK and said that you are not working and she certifies that. With the same success she could certify that I am the superman or James Bond.

After similar ridiculous rounds with other agencies you are finally set to go back to OVIR and finally give the papers and get done with it.

In OVIR a lady looks through all the papers makes you go to the neighboring xerox place and copy everything and then asks you to proove that you are in fact Armenian. I speak Armenian, my last name ends with ian and my parents’ last names are in ian I also happen to have my certificate that I was baptized in an Armenian church, but all that does not count. She says may be you are not Armenian. Could you please tell me what should i do to prove, a DNA test?!

After long fight they finally take the documents conduct a test on the knowledge of Armenian constitution and language and let me go promising to get back to me in a year

It’s been already several days since the police in Armenia started to enforce the “fasten your seatbelt” rule. No warnings, no ad campaigns, all of a sudden you get pulled over and are fined because you are not buckled up in a country where no one paid attention to fastening seat belts. Why not spend a bit and make public aware? Why not print brochures and let the drivers know? At the end of the day the ultimate goal is the safety on the roads, or is it?

Amazing how even positive changes can leave a negative impression.