In the framework of the initiative 100 Doors, commemorating the Armenian Genocide centennial, a cycling race kicked off in Yerevan, with more than 70 cyclists participating.

The name of the initiative symbolizes the 100 Armenian churches in Eastern and Western Armenia, as well as in Javakheti (Javakhk), president of the Amateur Bicycle Sport and Bicycle Tourism Federation of Armenia, Arman Andonian said, according to Novosti Armenia.

Wearing T-shirts with the inscription “Our wounds are always open,” the participants started from the Republic Square and headed towards Tsitsernakaberd, the Armenian Genocide memorial, where they paid tribute to the memory of victims.

“The project aims to make people understand that we should visit Tsitsernakaberd not only on April 24, or immediately before it, but whenever we feel like,” Andonian said.

Rupen Janbazian
The Armenian Weekly

For the first time, teams from Diyarbakir and Dersim will participate in the Pan-Armenian Games in Yerevan. They join 57 other teams this summer from cities in Armenia, Russia, Georgia, Lebanon, Iran, France, the United Kingdom, Argentina, Uruguay, Brazil, the United States, and more. The players from Diyarbakir and Dersim will participate in futsal, which is a variant of soccer that is played on a smaller field and considered as a version of five-a-side soccer. Soccer teams from Sasun and Istanbul will also be participating for the second time.

The organizers of the Diyarbakir group are members of the Surp Giragos Dikranagerd Church Restoration Committee. Since the restoration project was a global initiative with many donors and supporters from North America, Armenian athletes from the U.S. and Canada with roots in the region were invited to be part of the team. Five players from Turkey and five from North America (two from Canada, and three from the United States, including the captain of the U.S. Eastern Region Homenetmen soccer team, Asadur Tufeckgian) make up the team.

“I was honored to be invited on the team by the Church Restoration Committee,” said Toronto resident Daron Bedrosyan, who will represent Diyarbakir at the games. Speaking to the Armenian Weekly, Bedrosyan said that participating in the Pan-Armenian Games in the year of the Centennial of the Armenian Genocide was especially meaningful for him. “My family’s history in Dikranagerd [Diyarbakir] dates back as far as we can trace our roots—at least two centuries back. This has been a historic year for all of us as Armenians with everything that transpired for the Centennial commemorations. The Pan-Armenian Games will also be a significant commemoration in this regard,” he said.

A group from Diyarbakir and Dersim will also travel to Yerevan to support the athletes and participate in the Ari Tun program organized by the Armenian Ministry of Diaspora. This will be the second time that Armenians from the region will participate in the program. The main objectives of Ari Tun are to introduce Diasporan Armenian youth to Armenian history, culture, public life, religion, and family traditions. Participants will visit historical and cultural sites in Armenia, and attend concerts, festivals, exhibitions, and plays. Courses will also be offered in Armenian language, literature, dance, history, and church traditions.

Last year, 50 “hidden Armenians” from Diyarbakir participated in the program; they were led by Canadian-Armenian pianist and engineer/constructor Raffi Bedrosyan. This year, a group of 86 hidden Armenians from Diyarbakir, Dersim, and the Hamshen regions of Turkey will participate in the Ari-Tun program to rediscover their roots.

“We arranged for the hidden Armenians’ trip to coincide with the Pan-Armenian Games so that there will be more occasions for them to interact and experience Armenian events,” said Raffi Bedrosyan of the Church Restoration Committee.

Daron Bedrosyan says he’s grateful for the opportunity to represent Dikranagerd. “To have the chance to represent my family’s hometown 100 years after losing it is definitely a special opportunity that I’m grateful for. My teammates feel the same way. It will be even more special being able to share the experience with them… Our ancestors who lived together would all be proud of us.”

The Pan-Armenian Games will run from Aug. 2 to 13. The opening ceremony will be held at Yerevan’s Hrazdan Stadium and over 6,200 athletes from 36 countries will be participating.

The courses for young Diaspora Armenian journalists, part of the 2015 “Diaspora” Summer School Program, continue at Yerevan State University. The participants are quite young, but they have already managed to achieve great heights in their careers.

Aram Hunanian is one of those young people. He has traveled from the Russian Federation to his homeland after a four-year interval and admits that he had always wanted to visit Armenia not only to see it again, but also to gain more knowledge and experience. And now, Aram’s wish has come true. He represents the Armenian Youth Association of Moscow, the goal of which is, as he mentions, to bring Armenians together so that they can work together or a common interest.

“We carry out several activities. We provide legal consulting, carry out charity acts, as well as organize sporting events and educational visits, each of which is a function. For instance, in terms of education, we help Armenian children prepare for their exams since we have also taken exams in the not too distant past. We share our knowledge and experiences and provide them with books and professional literature for free,” says Aram.

He also emphasized the fact that most Armenians in Russia don’t know the laws of the country. They also face difficulties alone and can’t afford to pay for legal consulting. Knowing this, the Association has started organizing free consultations for Russian-Armenians with the help of experienced lawyers. The Association protects their civil rights and even defends Armenians’ interests in court, if necessary.

As for charities, we organize events, raise funds and send the money to socially disadvantaged children,” Aram adds. He proudly mentions the fact that they struggle for the preservation of the Armenian identity and try to instill in the minds of Armenian children the Armenian identity.

Aram says the courses for young Diaspora Armenian leaders help him gain comprehensive knowledge in order to organize future activities the right way. “When we return, we’ll always keep in touch with Armenia. We know whom to address. We were also introduced to Armenians from different countries. We exchanged our experiences and will be keeping in touch with them,” says the young leader. Aram and his friends are so devoted to their job that they carry out their mission voluntarily and turn every idea into a reality on their own, without any sponsors. “We wouldn’t mind having sponsors, but we can still do a good job without them,” says Aram.

Tamara Simonyan, another participant of the courses for young Diaspora Armenian leaders, has traveled from Tbilisi and represents Hayartun Educational and Cultural Center. She studies at the local university and is the coordinator of Hayartun’s doctors’ club. Tamara is one of the few young Armenians who always keeps in touch with the homeland and has participated in the “Ari Tun” Program, the “My Armenia” Pan-Armenian Festival and the “One Nation, One Culture” Festival. She and the members of the Armenian community of Tbilisi carry out many activities, as well as help the local Armenians and organize daily activities for the community.

“We have an Armenian Sunday school where children learn Armenian, as well as about Armenian history and literature. There are children who don’t know Armenian. We try to help teach them and bring them closer to their roots,” says Tamara. However, they don’t limit themselves to that. They also organize various events and gatherings. The young leader was especially proud to recall the events devoted to the Armenian Genocide.

“For the past decade, we have been gathering at the Armenian church and moving towards the Turkish Embassy with flags every April 23^rd. On April 24, we organize a protest that brings together the local Armenians and foreigners. We prove that even though we Armenians are a small nation and have experienced genocide, we have a great and rich culture and history,” says Tamara Simonian.

Let’s wish the young leaders success in the future and hope they achieve success by using the knowledge that they gained in the homeland.

A two-day linguistics conference entitled “Issues of Convergence of Western Armenian andEastern Armenian” is currently underway in Yerevan, with linguists, literary scholars, and other specialists from various fields in Armenia and the Diaspora in attendance.

Minster of Diaspora Hranush Hagopian opened the conference on Wednesday by stating that the Armenian Genocide was a major blow to the Armenian language, causing it to dissociate from the Armenian homeland, spread around the world, and became eradicated, resulting in the loss of many dialects.

“Among the irrevocable losses we suffered because of the Armenian Genocide are our language losses, we have a lot to do to overcome these losses. Dozens of Western dialects were lost, standard Western Armenian became deprived of its historical homeland and opportunity for development. Western Armenian needs great support because it carries out the important function of Armenian identity preservation in the Diaspora,” Hagopian said.

“Today the convergence of Western Armenian and Eastern Armenian is very relevant as there are certain regulation issues to the enrichment of the language and word groups. The relevance of these issues becomes more exacerbated as the geography of language use and the language users themselves gradually reduce,” said Yuri Suvarian, member of the National Academy of Sciences.

According to Hagopian, a package of proposals is expected to be formed by the end of the conference. The proposals will be voted on and the most optimal variant will be chosen.

Georgia’s The Tbilisi Times has covered the activities of the Georgian-Armenian Diocese of the Armenian Apostolic Church with an extensive article and a long series of photos.

According to “Armenpress”, the prestigious Georgian newspaper presents the efforts and activities of the Diocese. Presenting the history of the Diocese, representative of the press divan of the Georgian-Armenian Diocese Susanna Khachatryan mentioned that the Diocese has over 350,000 Georgian-Armenian followers and that the Armenian Apostolic Church has become a second home for many of them.

Khachatryan presented the issue of Armenian churches in Georgia in detail and talked about the Armenian Apostolic Church’s position on the issue and the list that the Diocese has submitted to Georgia’s spiritual leader with the demand for the return of the existing and dilapidated Armenian churches in the territory of Georgia.

The five Armenian churches located in the Tekor province of the Turkish state of Kars have been abandoned. Located at a 5 km distance from Tekor, the St. Sargis Armenian Church is the onlychurch that remains standing, but it is also on the verge of extinction, reports Akunq.net, according to the Turkish Milliyet Daily.

According to the source, if measures are not taken, the St. Sargis Armenian Church will become extinct, just like the other four churches. The walls of this church have collapsed, the stones have been destroyed and taken by the locals and some parts have been destroyed by treasure hunters.

The five churches in Tekor are the St. Karapet, St. Mary, St. Stepanos, St. Grigor and St. Sargis Churches. The monastic complex encompassing these five churches was abandoned following the Mongols’ raids in the 13^th century.

The monastic complex was renovated and reopened when Kars province went under Russian dominance in 1878.

In his new book “Armenia, Armenians, Justification”, Greek historian Teofanis Malkidis has touched upon the Armenian, Greek, Kurdish and Assyrian genocides that took place 100 years ago in the Ottoman Empire and has emphasized that even today, Turkey hasn’t changed its style and principles and continues to perpetrate genocide against the ethnic minorities in Turkey.

According to “Armenpress”, the book was released by the Armenian Genocide Centennial Committee of Greece and presents photos, episodes, documents and testimonies. “Over time, I realized how grateful I am to the Armenians. It is thanks to them that everyone is talking moreand more about the prevention of genocides today. They have made great contributions to changing world leaders’ conscience and leading a sincere struggle against genocides,” the historian declared, adding that even after 100 years, Turkey still has the same principles and the same working style.

“Turkey not only refuses to acknowledge the crimes that were committed against humanity a century ago, but also continues with its genocidal policy. The result is Hrant Dink’s murder, what happened to the Kurds and the mass killings in Syria,” the author said.

Harutyun Melikian, a second grade student at Stephan Jrbashyan Music School, took the second place prize at the  5th International Piano Competition María Herrero, which took place in Granada, Spain on July 20-24.

As reports Armenpress.am, Melikian, participating in the competition with the support of the Ministry of Culture of the Republic of Armenia, performed Ludwig  van  Beethoven’s “Rondo”, Edvard Grieg’s “Butterfly”, Isaac Berkovich’s “Variations on a Theme by Paganini”, Pyotr  Tchaikovsky’s “Waltz”, and Arno Babajanian’s ”Humoresque”.

67 participants from 26 countries took part in the competition.

After 2,700 years the walls of Urartu Castle have been unearthed in the Ayanis neighborhood of the eastern province of Van in Turkey. Reports Dogan News Agency.

Excavations at the Urartu Castle site, situated 24 miles from Van, have been ongoing for 25 years. After the discovery of the temple, this year the walls, a defining part of the castle, have been unearthed.

Some 25 years after its construction, the castle was damaged by an earthquake and fire, which was followed by the dismantlement of the adobes. The castle was later closed, head of the excavation team Dr. Mehmet Isikli said.

“Excavations at the castle have been going on for years. We have regained many important artifacts for the museum. However, 2,700 years after the construction of the castle the most enticing part of the castle, the walls, have been discovered. This made us very excited, as even though these walls witnessed great earthquakes, their architecture remained quite robust and unchanged. Also we learn so much about the history of Urartu from the walls. Lastly, even the earthquake in 2011 with a magnitude of 7.2 didn’t harm the building. The Ayanis Castle is full of surprises,” Isikli added.