Your Namak for Friday, March 4
Armenia withholds condemnation for Russia on international stage, new Armenian president elected and Azerbaijani troops threaten villagers in Nagorno-Karabakh.
Hi there, here’s your weekly briefing of Armenian news in English, curated, reported and fact-checked by journalists Astrig Agopian and Maral Tavitian.
Armenia Withholds Condemnation for Russia on International Stage
Armenia has largely stayed silent as Russia’s war on Ukraine worsens, a position dictated by Yerevan’s economic and security dependence on Moscow. On February 26, Armenia was the sole member of the Council of Europe to join Russia in voting against expelling Moscow from the organization. On March 2, Armenia abstained from a widely supported United Nations General Assembly resolution condemning Russia’s aggression against Ukraine and demanding an immediate cessation of hostilities.
Armenia hosts a Russian military base and is a founding member of the Collective Security Treaty Organization, an intergovernmental military alliance that includes Russia and five post-Soviet states. Russia also played a crucial role in negotiating the ceasefire that ended the 2020 Nagorno-Karabakh War, and has deployed a peacekeeping contingent to protect the region’s Armenian residents.
Vahagn Khachaturyan Elected Armenia’s President
On March 3, Armenia’s National Assembly elected Vahagn Khachaturyan as the country’s fifth president. All 71 parliamentarians from the ruling Civil Contract Party confirmed Khachaturyan, while the opposition “Armenia” and “With Honor” factions boycotted the vote. An economist by profession, Khachaturyan served as mayor of Yerevan from 1992 to 1996 and was appointed Minister of High-Tech Industry in August. His election as head of state follows Armen Sarkissian’s abrupt resignation from the post on January 23.
Azerbaijani Troops Threaten Villagers in Nagorno-Karabakh
Speaking in Armenian on loudspeakers over the course of three days, Azerbaijani soldiers repeatedly demanded that residents of Khramort village in Nagorno-Karabakh evacuate their homes. The Azerbaijani servicemen reportedly asked the villagers to leave immediately, or else they would “have to use force.” In a statement, the Human Rights Ombudsman of Artsakh (Nagorno-Karabakh) Gegham Stepanyan said that these actions are “planned by Azerbaijani leadership and carried out with their coordination.”
Hrag Kalebjian: Meet an Armenian-American entrepreneur taking his family’s coffee tradition to the next level
“I treat my business like I would my family. That means my staff are my kids. My customers are my cousins and my aunts and my uncles. I focus not on money but on the relationship.”
Hrag Kalebjian wants you to feel at home in his coffee shop. This is perhaps because he grew up at Henry’s House of Coffee in San Francisco’s Sunset District, where he spent weekends helping his father manage the family business.
Hrag’s father Henry immigrated to Northern California from Lebanon in the early 1970s. He began his career as a draftsman, but like many Armenians, possessed an intuitive entrepreneurial spirit and the work ethic to follow it. Eager to build something of his own, Henry turned to a familiar community institution for guidance.
“Being Armenian, the church is the place where you go to kind of figure out what’s going on,” Hrag says. “A member at the church said, ‘Hey, there’s a place called House of Coffee that’s up for sale.’”
The coffee house’s original Armenian owners founded the shop in 1965, and Henry purchased it from them in 1983. He first learned to roast coffee beans over an open flame in Lebanon, where his own father owned a small bakery that served coffee with sweets. Hrag became the next generation of coffee roasters, although he was initially reluctant to embrace his family’s craft.
“You know, old-school Armenian dad wanted me to be involved in the business,” Hrag says. “I’d have to come into the shop on the weekends, which I hated because I wanted to watch cartoons and skateboard. I didn’t want anything to do with it.”
The 44-year-old studied economics at the University of California, Davis and worked in finance for nearly a decade. The time he spent in the corporate world opened his eyes to the possibility of expanding Henry’s House of Coffee beyond a brick-and-mortar storefront. In 2013, Hrag returned to his childhood workplace with a vision to develop the coffee shop into an online brand.
He launched a website with a robust e-commerce component, making his freshly roasted coffees available to a national audience. Hrag aims to convey the experience of visiting the shop to his online customers.
“I treat my business like I would my family,” Hrag says. “That means my staff are my kids. My customers are my cousins and my aunts and my uncles. I focus not on money but on the relationship.”
In addition to standard menu items like filter coffee and iced lattes, Hrag honors his heritage through serving traditional Armenian coffee. Ground to a powdery texture and prepared in a stovetop pot called a “jazzve,” Armenian coffee can be jarring to an untrained palate. Yet Hrag estimates that half of his non-Armenian clientele have tried the unique offering –– his way of sharing a bit of his culture with customers.
“For me, Armenian coffee is really not about the coffee,” Hrag says. “It’s about the experience of sitting down with your mom or your friend who just came by, your neighbor. You’ve got the pot on the stove and you’re stirring it and you’re talking about the news or you’re talking about school and your children. That’s Armenian coffee.”
To listen: Silk Road: Journey of the Armenian Diaspora (1971-1982), a groovy compilation of Armenian disco, funk and soul tracks curated by DJ Darone Sassounian. The records are a testament to the ingenuity of a population that has always responded to threats of erasure with art.
To read: Armenia’s miserable dilemma, an article by Ani Avetisyan addressing the feelings of Armenians and their view of the war in Ukraine. Two years after the 44-Day Nagorno-Karabakh War, Armenians reluctantly rely on Russia more than ever, while also sympathizing with Ukrainian civilians.
To watch: Our century (1982), a film by Artavazd Pelechian. The United States, USSR, space, war, a man’s intellectual quest, feeling lost in his century… Pelechian’s masterful approach to personal drama and the tragedies of nations makes his film a philosophical poem. With the war in Ukraine, the themes are also terribly contemporary.
That’s it for today, see you next week!
Questions? Story ideas? An urge to say barev/parev? You can send us a secure email at namaknews@protonmail.com.