Your Namak for Sunday, September 11
Five POWs return to Armenia, Armenian soldier killed in border incursion, and Russian-Armenian billionaire announces move to 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.
Five POWs Return to Armenia
On September 8, five Armenian prisoners of war returned home from captivity in Azerbaijan. European Council President Charles Michel celebrated the news on Twitter, noting that this was the first time Baku handed over POWs directly to Yerevan without third party mediation. In a statement, Armenia’s National Security Service said it welcomed the action “as a step toward normalizing relations.”
Armenian Soldier Killed in Border Incursion
On September 5, Azerbaijani troops fatally shot one Armenian serviceman in a clash in Armenia’s eastern Gegharkunik region. In a statement, Armenia’s Defense Ministry said the conscript’s death was being investigated. Following the ceasefire and transfer of territories that ended the 2020 Nagorno-Karabakh War, fatalities of Armenian soldiers have become a regular occurrence along the country’s borders with Azerbaijan.
Russian-Armenian Billionaire Renounces Russian Citizenship, Announces Move to Nagorno-Karabakh
Russian-Armenian businessman and philanthropist Ruben Vardanyan announced that he is renouncing his Russian citizenship and moving to Nagorno-Karabakh, where he will establish the Artsakh Security and Development Front. “Using myself as an example, I want to show how important Artsakh is for me and for all of us,” Vardanyan said in a video posted on his Facebook page on September 1. Some observers saw the move as an effort to avoid possible sanctions on Russian businesses and wealthy individuals, although Vardanyan denied that the step was financially motivated. Vardanyan has spearheaded numerous philanthropic and educational projects in Armenia, including founding the Aurora Humanitarian Initiative and the United World College in Dilijan, an elite primary school.
Nairi Simonian: Meet an entrepreneur breathing new life into Armenia’s cultural scene
“It’s about heritage, it’s about re-appropriating our culture, excelling, meeting and collaborating with others, and sharing what’s ours with the world.”
Nairi Simonian seems to have lived several lives already. Switching from Armenian to English or Russian in a second, he calmly and fiercely talks about his vision and projects in Armenia.
The 38-year-old architect and entrepreneur was born in the town of Martakert, Nagorno-Karabakh, in 1987. His family fled the first war between Armenia and Azerbaijan in the 1990s. Nairi was then six years old. He has lived in many countries including Lithuania, Russia and the United States.
Nairi says he was not really close to any other Armenians for a long time. He had an interest in arts and urban development, and decided to become an architect and graduated from the Moscow Architectural Institute in 2007. He also played in bands, founded a marketing company, worked in bars and the music industry.
“I like having fun, so I have involved myself in industries that plan and make fun happen,” he says.
As a young adult, he started having more and more Armenian friends, and together they would often talk about returning to their ancestral homeland. “It was something we always said with other Armenians in the diaspora: ‘One day we will go to Armenia blablabla,’ but we just said it and said it for years without doing anything,” Nairi recalls. “In November 2018 we were at a bar, at 4am, and had that conversation again. But this time, I bought the ticket, and so did all my friends. When we arrived in Armenia I think we might have been still drunk,” he says, smiling.
Nairi ended up moving to Armenia permanently, because as he describes it, it felt right. “My life changed. I stayed here. Very early on, I realized that even though it was going to be pretty tough, taking into account the realities of this society and this economy, I would never regret my decision to come to Armenia and Artsakh. I will never question what I am trying to do here for one second, nor regret being here,” he says.
Before starting a new project in Armenia, Nairi wanted to understand how business and administration worked in the country. “I thought organizing a festival would be the fastest and best way to understand how things work here,” Nairi says. “You need to create an LLC, you need to hire people, to work with several companies. In two months, I understood how business and many things work.”
That’s how the idea of the Urvakan Festival, which he co-founded, was born. There are several dimensions to this event, one of which is of course, music. “We have young artists and more confirmed ones, a lot of experimental music,” Nairi explains. But that’s not it. Urvakan is not just another festival with the line-ups and artists you are used to seeing everywhere.
“We want to be a reference in de-colonial/anti-imperialism experimental arts. We do sonic resistance and activism,” he says.
One of the concepts illustrating this work is the project “Discotchari,” which is “more than just a fun name and good music,” according to Nairi: “During the Soviet era, we started having recordings. That was major, for transferring memory and cultural identities. Before that, a grandma might sing something and someone wrote the notes and that was it. But during the Soviet times, recording times were limited, and because of that, so many nations part of the Soviet Union had only three percent of the time at the studio to record their traditional folk songs. So a lot was lost.”
Nairi explains that in Armenia and other regions, the Soviet leadership sought to “erase singularities and national identities as much as possible.” But Armenians had a weapon against this erasure that other Soviet republics lacked.
“We did have one chance as Armenians: the diaspora. Some songs were recorded abroad in the Armenian communities so we have them. Otherwise we would have lost even more,” Nairi says. “Other nations like the Tcherkesse, Dagestani, for example, have lost a lot of their folk songs. Among them, some try to go and record in the mountains and look for that heritage. They are here at the festival this year. So it’s not just a trendy, vintage, vibe, we are trying to sell. This is existential and important.”
Nairi is also an architect, so places and spaces matter to him. Urvakan takes place in the resort town of Dilijan this year, and the festival’s team intend to develop it in more remote areas far from the capital Yerevan.
“We looked for abandoned places in the country, because it’s a shame that some places are in such a state, it’s our heritage, incredible architecture. We do not appreciate what we have in this country. We were inspired by those places and also tried to use them, give them a new life,” Nairi says. “We marketed just as it was: cool music in the middle of nowhere.”
The first edition in 2019 was a success: organized in just two months, it attracted 1,700 people from more than 30 countries, and received much praise in the international press.
“We realized that with our high-quality program, thousands of people, who did not necessarily know about the country or anything, came to Armenia just to attend Urvakan,” Nairi says. “It had a great economical and touristic impact too. We continue on working to develop the festival, even though we were slowed down by the pandemic and the war.”
The young entrepreneur did not stop at the success of the festival. In 2021, he co founded Science and Spirit, a company exploring Armenia’s botanical heritage to produce 100% made in Armenia products. The name is a reference to its scientific approach and “spirit because I can tell you, you need some to do such a project,” Nairi jokes.
“I made a dream team of alcohol and cocktail connoisseurs from all over the world, with the idea of developing a drink made in Armenia,” he says. “We are building the machines, finding the natural resources/plants here, producing it here, everything.”
They research, collect data on the botanical resources in the country, analyze it, make maps, and work with the botanical university to digitalize all the information. In the process, Nairi and his team realized an absence of information about Armenian plants and natural resources. So they spent a lot of time in nature and villages to better understand and map the local landscape.
It took the team a year to launch its first product, gin, called Astronomer. “We want other people to have access to it, and not lose as much time as we did! Because in the end, the goal is for the industry to grow, not just to make our own product by ourselves,” Nairi adds.
Armenia has a winemaking tradition, and also produces brandy and beer. Gin, absinthe and other drinks might be able to be fully made in the country with all this knowledge.
“We make gin, we make a festival, it’s actually all related. It’s not just another product or festival. It’s about heritage, it’s about re-appropriating our culture, excelling, meeting and collaborating with others, and sharing what’s ours with the world,” Nairi says.
To attend: Urvakan Festival, an immersive arts and music festival to be held in the Armenian resort town of Dilijan from September 23 to 25. The program offers live performances and bold commentary on the themes of de-colonialism and resistance.
To watch: Հասցեն իմ նույնն ա (My address is the same), a new song and music video by Nagorno-Karabakh-born and -based rapper Lyoka, whose raw and deeply personal lyrics touch on themes of displacement and belonging.
That’s it for today, see you next week!
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