Armenia’s Big Dance
By Gegham Vardanian under Mount Aragats (CRS No. 289, 02-Jun-05)
Gegham Vardanian is a journalist with Internews in Yerevan.
One step forward, one step back. Around a quarter of a million of Armenians performed this simple manoeuvre last week in a mass display of national unity. Participants in the Round Dance of Unity symbolically embraced Mount Aragats - Armenia’s highest mountain - on First Republic Day, May 28, by dancing hand in hand for 15 minutes.
Around 250,000 dancers formed a 168 kilometre ring around Mount Aragats in an event that organisers hoped would show the world that the Armenians are a united nation and give them an entry into the Guinness Book of Records. [...].
[...]
The ranks were especially thick where Armenian president Robert Kocharian was dancing and the cameras focused their lenses on him. He danced hand in hand with an old man in national Armenian clothes, a young boy, and an elderly woman, all smiling broadly as they kept time with the music.
[...]
“We are inspired by the fact that the Armenians can unite and organise themselves,” said Shushan, a student at the Academy of Arts, told IWPR. She and her friends stayed on the slopes of Aragats after the dance was over and went on dancing.
However, the organisation of the event actually fell well short of promises made beforehand. The organisers of the dance had said they would slaughter animals for meat, supply drinking water and plastic sacks for rubbish and build field toilets. In the event, there was one toilet per 1,000 people and there were few plastic sacks. Piles of rubbish were left at the foot of the mountain when people went home after the ceremony.
[...]
Aghvan Hovsepyan, Armenia’s chief prosecutor, the head of the union from Aparan, the area around Mount Aragats, spearheaded the event. He took ten days’ leave ahead of the ceremony to make it happen but had planned it over four months.
Hovsepyan is one of Armenia's most prominent officials and received support from politicians, businessmen and public servants. Each group of a thousand people had its leader, who was responsible for bringing people to the dance and supplying food, water, and transport.
[...]
Everyday reality returned all too quickly. On his way back from Aparan, a car driver took a look at the heaps of rubbish on the mountainside and remarked bitterly, “The Armenians have been here.”
One peasant from Aparan, a short old man with a wrinkled and sunburned face, shouted out “What are you doing?” as expensive cars moved across a ploughed field to beat the traffic jams. He had a wooden stick in his hand and beat the sides of the vehicles with it as they bumped past.
Note: Above are excerpts from the article. The full article appears Here. Clarifications and comments by me are contained in {}. Deletions are marked by [...].The bold emphasis is mine.
Gegham Vardanian is a journalist with Internews in Yerevan.
One step forward, one step back. Around a quarter of a million of Armenians performed this simple manoeuvre last week in a mass display of national unity. Participants in the Round Dance of Unity symbolically embraced Mount Aragats - Armenia’s highest mountain - on First Republic Day, May 28, by dancing hand in hand for 15 minutes.
Around 250,000 dancers formed a 168 kilometre ring around Mount Aragats in an event that organisers hoped would show the world that the Armenians are a united nation and give them an entry into the Guinness Book of Records. [...].
[...]
The ranks were especially thick where Armenian president Robert Kocharian was dancing and the cameras focused their lenses on him. He danced hand in hand with an old man in national Armenian clothes, a young boy, and an elderly woman, all smiling broadly as they kept time with the music.
[...]
“We are inspired by the fact that the Armenians can unite and organise themselves,” said Shushan, a student at the Academy of Arts, told IWPR. She and her friends stayed on the slopes of Aragats after the dance was over and went on dancing.
However, the organisation of the event actually fell well short of promises made beforehand. The organisers of the dance had said they would slaughter animals for meat, supply drinking water and plastic sacks for rubbish and build field toilets. In the event, there was one toilet per 1,000 people and there were few plastic sacks. Piles of rubbish were left at the foot of the mountain when people went home after the ceremony.
[...]
Aghvan Hovsepyan, Armenia’s chief prosecutor, the head of the union from Aparan, the area around Mount Aragats, spearheaded the event. He took ten days’ leave ahead of the ceremony to make it happen but had planned it over four months.
Hovsepyan is one of Armenia's most prominent officials and received support from politicians, businessmen and public servants. Each group of a thousand people had its leader, who was responsible for bringing people to the dance and supplying food, water, and transport.
[...]
Everyday reality returned all too quickly. On his way back from Aparan, a car driver took a look at the heaps of rubbish on the mountainside and remarked bitterly, “The Armenians have been here.”
One peasant from Aparan, a short old man with a wrinkled and sunburned face, shouted out “What are you doing?” as expensive cars moved across a ploughed field to beat the traffic jams. He had a wooden stick in his hand and beat the sides of the vehicles with it as they bumped past.
Note: Above are excerpts from the article. The full article appears Here. Clarifications and comments by me are contained in {}. Deletions are marked by [...].The bold emphasis is mine.
posted by Vahe Balabanian at 6:56 AM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home