By Gevork Gevorkyan on March 24, 2010
For the first time region Javakheti (often refered as Javakhk by ethnic Armenians) is mentioned in the historical source about Georgian king Parnavaz, where it is said that Javakheti (Javakhk) is administrative entity of Kartli kingdom that has its own ruler Eristavi (Georgian: ერისთავი) meaning Head of a Nation.
In the I century BC Greek geographer Strabon in his work indicates that Armenia that was initially very small grew larger during Artaxias (Armenian Ruler). Strabon also tells that Armenia managed to occupy foreign territories namely Paradre (modern Parkhal), Khorzene (part of modern Samtskhe-Javakheti), Meskheti and Gogareni (Modern Lower Kartli). Strabon clearly states that these territories (including Javakheti) were integral part of Ibeian Kingdom (ancient Georgian state) that was temporarily occupied by Armenians during short period of time. Continue reading “Javakheti (Javakhk): Real History”
Posted in Armenia, History | Tagged Armenia, Georgia, Javakheti, Javakhk, Meskheti, Samtskhe-Javakheti |
By Gevork Gevorkyan on March 16, 2010
Russian-Georgian War
Recent conflict in Georgia left much space for evaluation and analysis. These events turned out to be absolutely unexpected for western leaders. Russia’s step – invading into sovereign country, occupying parts of its territory and declaring there independence was something that western leaders thought could have happened in 19-20th centuries, but deemed unacceptable for world of 21st century.
Most probably West considered such a scenario having the same chance as an gigantic asteroid falling on the planet earth and probably that was why it took west so long to respond to this challenge. Besides the nature of this response left an impression that it was made without any clear strategy or plan. Initially EU leaders talked about imposition of economic sanctions, exclusion of Russia from G8 and preventing it from WTO membership. However later on they found these proposals to be unfeasible and eventually EU just expressed “concerns” several dozen times and “deep concerns” a bit fewer times that seems quite weak measure in the given circumstances. Continue reading “Western Neutrality & Russian-Georgian War”
Posted in Georgia, Russia | Tagged Europe, Georgia, Russia, War, West |
By Gevork Gevorkyan on March 16, 2010
Russian Skinheads
“There is a rise in racist aspirations in Russia” states member of European Commission against Racism and Intolerance (ECRI) Michael Had. ECRI is a commission founded by Council of Europe in 1993 for monitoring racist and xenophobic issues in the member states. Had also stated that the public opinion towards ethnic minorities has significantly worsened recently and racist statements are often made by politicians as well.
It very hard not to agree with Michael Had’s position. Historically Russian society at some point created a concept of so-called “member of smaller nation”. This is a person, who is a Russian citizen, is integrated in Russian society, shares Russian culture, but at the same time hates the society he/she is part of and by all means tries to harm it. In this way Russian society created a group of individuals towards which the entire “xenophobic energy” of the nation was diverted. Anyone could be regarded under this concept: Jew, Georgian, Azeri, Armenian, Chechen, Latvian, Lithuanian, Kazakh, Kirghiz and so on. Continue reading “Experts Report Rise of Xenophobic Aspirations in Russia”
Posted in Ethnic Tensions, Russia | Tagged Chauvinism, Russia, Skinheads, Smaller Nation, Xenophobia |
By Gevork Gevorkyan on September 30, 2008
In one of the previous posts we discussed the issue of sustainability of Georgian growth, where it was identified that the growth was fully sustainable assuming that there was no change in exogeneous factors that would affect investors’ decision to make investments in Georgia.
For the sake of clarity we should go through balance of payments figure for 2006. There was large (around 18%) deficit in current account composed of significant deficit in goods and small surplus in services and transfers. Surplus in capital account was composed of large surplus in foreign direct investment and a small surplus in portfolio investment. To summarize the basics: country’s imports were comfortably accommodated by large FDI inflows ensuring stability in foreign balances and good conditions for economic growth.
It is worth noting that current account deficit has been rising during recent years making Georgia more dependent on FDI inflows.
The recent Russian provocation caused a massive outcry in world media and can be undoubtedly considered as a ”bad news of the month”. The events had a negative effect on Russian economy. During first days of the conflict 7 billion US dollar of investments were withdrawn from Russia and the tendency continued afterwards as well. Falling of RTS index (Russian Stock Exchange Index) accelerated and reached unprecedented levels.
What concerns Georgia, during first few weeks foreign reserves of National Bank of Georgia (NBG) (1.5 billion Us dollars) declined by 200 million US dollars. This process reversed soon afterwards, but situation is still shaky.
Posted in Uncategorized |
By Gevork Gevorkyan on August 14, 2008
Along with declared war that Russia openly conducts against Georgian state Russia also launched full-scale cyberwar that resulted in the hacking of Georgian news sites and web sites of several governmental agencies.
Web sites Rustavi2 and Civil.ge (leading news agencies) were down for two days. Although the third large news agency Newsgeorgia.ge was operating during the entire period, administration of the agency spread special note warning visitors that they could have a problem accessing news due to frequent hacker attacks.
As an answer Georgian authorities officially banned all Russian TV channels saying that they were one-sided and did not objectively reflected the reality.
The largest internet forum Tbilisis Forumi has been closed down for several days and is still inaccessible for visitors. Another internet forum politforumi.com that was considered to be prorussian was also hacked and as the message left by hackers implies it was done by people that did not like statements that forum users made in their posts.
Besides news sites and internet forums hackers also attacked web site of president of Georgia and the web site of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MFA) and MFA temporarily moved to http://georgiamfa.blogspot.com since Google servers were completely secured from Russian hackers.
Posted in Georgia, Russia | Tagged cyber war, Georgia, Russia, War |
By Gevork Gevorkyan on May 30, 2008
Although Armenians have large and rich diaspora in the world, foreign direct investment (FDI) has been historically low in Armenia. Although FDI growth rates remain high, Armenia still lies behind the countries in the region. To illustrate, FDI inflows in Armenia in 2006 were 450 US dollars, while foreigners invested around 1 billion dollars in Georgia, 3.7 billion dollars in Azerbaijan and 20 billion dollars in Turkey. Relative to neighboring countries FDI in Armenia stay at extremely low levels.
For 2007 Armstat reports 670 million dollars, while the same figure for Georgia is above 1.5 billion dollars. It is difficult to figure out its causes, however possible explanation can blockage that Armenia has been experiencing already for a decade.
Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged Armenia, FDI, Foreign Direct Investment |
By Gevork Gevorkyan on March 30, 2008
Sustaining Karabakh problem in the present state is extremely risky for Armenia. Azerbaijan’s military strength is steadily increasing and the proof to that is last military parade, where Azerbaijan had opportunity to demonstrate this. It seems that Azerbaijan considers war scenario as one of the most probable way of resolving the conflict.
It is noteworthy that Azerbaijan is oil exporting country with 10 million inhabitants (vs. Armenia – a bit less than 3 million) and over 10 billion USD foreign reserves that are ready to use during the possible war scenario . Taking this into consideration and the fact that Armenia has full access to the rest of the world only through neighboring Georgia that strongly depends on Azeri gas and has closed borders with Russia, the situation for Armenia does not look very promising.
In case the war breaks out, Armenia will face it with very limited human, material and financial resources. Although many Armenians I have talked to truly and unconditionally believe that Kirk Kirkorian and other members of Armenian diaspora will be able to provide enough resources to cover this difference, I strongly doubt that the diaspora will be able to provide enough funds in a short periods of time.
It should be mentioned Armenia, like Georgia and unlike Azerbaijan strongly depends on foreign direct investment inflows that is major source of import financing. Since FDI is extremely vulnerable to instability, it very well may happen so that investors will not find Armenia the best place for their investments that may prove to be extremely harmful for the balance of payments. Therefore prolonged war can be devastating for Armenian economy.
Posted in Uncategorized |