free

ляжки то какие, а сиси маленькие. несоответствие понимаешь.

а чё это вы тут делаете, а? вооооюююююеееттте?

генерал абиев продвигает свои бравые отряды по низинному Арцаху и на свое удивление не встречает там ни какого сопротивления. На пути попадаются развалины древне армянских поселений среди которых, встречаются единичные ослики. Они бурно приветсвуют непобедимую армию великих олбанцев ИА-канем. Абиев заявил прессе, что тем самым эти ослики выражают свою преданность его высокосвятейшенству нашему президенту ИА. Пресса Азербайджана в полнейшей просрации - не зная к чему бы это. генерал манвел решил перехитрить абиева и в свою очередь со своими бравыми отрядами продвигается совершенно в другом направлении - компас подвел - через казах на барду и что удивительно, также не встречает ни какого сопротивления. народ Казаха приветствует его цветами - но он как истинный мужик не терпит такого отношенияч к себе, но все таки скрепя сердцем принимает их. Повозка с цветами движется сразу же за кортежем генерала и её размеры угрожающе увеличиваются на глазах. Пресса Армении также в просрации - не знают что и как коментировать - нет директив сверху. с начала объявления войны прошло 2 недели. К удивлению международных наблюдателей пока не прозвучало ни одного выстрела. вот такая вот война.

предлага создать для них вольер и посадить на карантин и не выпускать из этой темы до решения их основного вопроса :hehe:

спасибо Diana, эти изречения нужно ну просто запинить на флагштоке ОА и в умах простых горожан - патрициев страны Вирмении.

пришли за евреями я промолчал пришли за соседями - я промолчал пришли за мной - не кому уже говорить.

У Ганиры Пашаевой появился дар ясновидения. Она может с точность на 90% предстказывать будущее на 90 лет вперед п.с. посмотрите какой проницательный у нее взгляд.

Fitch revises VTB Bank (Armenia)'s outlook to positive Fitch Ratings has revised the Outlook on VTB Bank (Armenia)'s ("VTBA") Foreign and Local Currency Issuer Default ratings ("IDR") to Positive from Stable. Its ratings are affirmed at Foreign and Local Currency IDR 'BB', Short-term Foreign and Local Currency 'B', Individual 'D/E' and Support '3'. The revised Outlook reflects the recent change in the Outlooks of Armenia's Foreign and Local Currency IDRs to Positive from Stable. The IDRs were affirmed at 'BB-' (BB minus). Were the sovereign ratings to be upgraded, this would be likely to signal a reduction in Armenian country risks, in particular transfer and convertibility risks, which at present constrain VTBA's ratings. VTBA is one of the largest banks in Armenia with about 10% of the banking system's loans and retail deposits at end-2006. VTBA (formerly known as Armsberbank) has a long history of operations in Armenia and traces its origin to a branch of Sberbank of the former USSR, established in 1923. The bank services both corporate and retail clients, supported by an extensive branch network consisting of 100 branches located all over the country. The bank is majority-controlled by Russia's VTB (IDR 'BBB+'). Re-disseminated by The Asian Banker https://www.theasianbanker.com/A556C5/Updat...AF?Opendocument

Clash of civilisations May 17th 2007 | KARS From The Economist print edition Beleaguered Armenians in Turkey—and a closed border with Armenia FOR a seasoned diplomat, Hasan Sultanoglu Zeynalov, Azerbaijan's consul-general in Kars, eastern Turkey, is unusually indiscreet. He openly complains about Naif Alibeyoglu, the mayor, who is promoting dialogue between Turkey, Azerbaijan and their common enemy, Armenia, just over the border. “I don't believe in dialogue,” Mr Zeynalov snorts. He recently ordered his compatriots to boycott an arts festival organised by the mayor after finding that “there were Armenians too.” Like his masters in Baku, Mr Zeynalov is unnerved at the thought of his country's biggest regional ally suddenly making peace with Armenia. He will have been cheered by the victory of Serzh Sarkisian, Armenia's nationalist prime minister, in a general election on May 12th. Mr Sarkisian is said to have engineered a last-minute ban on Turkish observers of the election. “I think it would be unnatural to receive observing representatives from a country that does not even wish to have a civilised official dialogue,” he commented. Mr Sarkisian's hawkish views are echoed by Robert Kocharian, the Armenian president, whom he is tipped to succeed in a presidential election next year. Both men hail from Nagorno-Karabakh, a mountainous enclave wrested by the Armenians from Azerbaijan in a vicious war in the early 1990s. This prompted Turkey to seal its border (but not air links) with Armenia in 1993. The effect on Kars's economy has been disastrous, which is why Mr Alibeyoglu is so keen to reopen the border. Ethnic Azeris, who make up a third of his city's 80,000 residents, are less enthusiastic. They are likely to vote in droves for the far-right MHP party in Turkey's parliamentary election on July 22nd. The party's fortunes have risen on a tide of xenophobic nationalism that has engulfed Turkey. Dismissing opinion polls that give Mr Alibeyoglu's AK party a big lead over its rivals, Oktay Aktas, the local MHP boss, confidently predicts victory. He would like Turkey to invade northern Iraq and to hang the Kurdish PKK rebel leader, Abdullah Ocalan. He also says there is no question of easing the blockade on Armenia—certainly not until it stops referring to his region as western Armenia and calling the mass killings of Ottoman Armenians in 1915 a genocide. The sensitiveness of the genocide issue was reflected in January in the killing of Hrant Dink, an ethnic-Armenian newspaper editor in Istanbul, who had talked openly about it. The killer was a school dropout from the port of Trabzon. Mr Dink's lawyer, Ergin Cinmen, says there is compelling evidence that the Istanbul police were given warning of a planned attack at least a year ago, but they did nothing to protect Mr Dink. This week Istanbul's Armenians were shocked once again by a letter sent from Trabzon warning them to defend Turkey against the genocide claims or “face the consequences”. It was delivered to an Armenian primary school. Such threats have dispelled the surge of goodwill that followed a huge turnout at Mr Dink's funeral and the reopening in March of an old Armenian church restored by Turkey's AK government. Etyen Mahcupyan, who replaced Mr Dink at his newspaper, says some of his kin are now talking of leaving Turkey for good. The border may stay closed for many more years. http://www.economist.com/world/europe/disp...tory_id=9202614

А по моему в Армении скоро будет аж 3 кроличьи фермы так что готовтесь пробовать "деликатесы" насильно.

есть какието другие данные об таковых шагах? Хотя бы на уровне слухов??

если чиновники получили такие инструкции от высшей власти Армении, и это мнение не личное мнение Вигена Саркисяна, то в случае если будут сделаны конкретные шаги по осуществлению этого намерения, то ... будет плохо. ИМХО

Предположим, что что-то назревает в августе-октябре. 1. Кочаряну осталось до конца срока 10 месяцев. 2. В конституции Армении прописали, что Президент не может быть осужден за исполнение своей работы - в любом случае. 3. Мерзляков может быть и дезу закинул, чтоб прозондировать реакцию армянского общества. Вполне вероятно, что Кочарян подпришется под каким то документом, если этот документ будет четко формулировать: 1. статус Арцаха, то бишь его независимость от Азербайджана 2. Невозможность возврата Лачина и Кельбаджара в состав Азербайджана 3. Совместный контроль остальных территорий вместе с международными силами для обеспечения возвращения туда аз-джанских беженцев и обеспечения безопасности армян проживающих на этих территориях. 4. О не возможности нахождения азербайджанских вооруженных формирований, а также милиции в этих районах - ну например лет так на 20. 5. если в документе будут прописаны сдерживающие механизмы - обеспеченные Вооруженными Силами тройки посредников. 6. Граница Арцаха и Армении с Азербайджаном будут четко прописана и оговорена. подписав такой документ Кочарян может попасть под немилость армянского народа, но юридически не ответственным за этот документ. Пойдет ли он на это - думаю нет. Если его припрут к стенке, где уже не будет возможности маневра, то возможны с его стороны следующие шаги: 1. Ссылка на то, что этот документ должен быть одобрен на общенациональном референдуме 2. Ссылка на НКР как субъект, который должен сам дать на то согласие, то бишь провести референдум в Арцахе Если же эти две оговорки не сработают, то у него остается один единственный шанс, чтоб не подписывать этот договор и одновременно похерить весь процесс переговоров - это отставка. В этом случае все придется делать сначала, а это как минимум лет 5. Пойдет Кочарян на это шаг - я думаю да. Если других вариантов не останется. Месяцем позже, месяцем раньше уйдет - какая разница. Следует ли подписывать договор - на данном этапе это по крайней мере глупо, потому, как на повестке международного сообщества стоит вопрос о признании независимости Косово. Хотя бы из тактических сооброжений необходимо дождаться самого факта признания независимости его от Сербии. Имея на руках этот факт можно будет в договоре с Азербайджаном получить намного больше, чем сейчас. Думаю, спешить сей час вовсе не нужно. Если же Америке и Нато нужно иметь войска на границе с Ираном, то пожалуйста пусть там дислоцируются, Но вместе с Армянскими. А решение вопроса Арцаха подождет.

ребят, я вот чего не пойму, впендрючили обижникам - очень даже корошо а вот стоит ли об этих сосунках стока говорить? чем больше об юродивых говоришь, тем больше даешь им шанса восстановиться пусть такими зае**ными и остаються междусобойчики устраивают

Tribeca Movie Review: A Story of People in War & Peace Posted on Monday, April 30th, 2007 at 6:37 am by: Francisco Saco The following movie was reviewed at the 2007 Tribeca Film Festival. A Story of People in War & Peace World Documentary Competition 2006, Armenia Dir: Vardan Hovhannisyan In 1994 a truce was arrived at between Armenia and neighboring Azerbaijan, ending a bloody confrontation that had swept both nations after the fall of the Soviet Union. These two former satellites of the Soviet empire were newly independent and both desperate to claim land they both believed pertained to them. During the war, photojournalist Vardan Hovhannisyan followed a small platoon of men, and one female nurse, through their harrowing ordeal. Twelve years later and Vardan realizes that the memory of the incidents is slowly being forgotten by the younger generations. The reasons why the war was fought are being disregarded and overlooked. So Vardan retraces his links to his fellow soldiers and decides to search for them so as to gain a better comprehension of what they as a people lost and won as a consequence of the war. He wants to see how his fellow men live in peace, opposed to how they lived in war. What he encounters is beyond him. He finds one of the men had an ugly divorce from his wife and is now on bad terms with his children. Another one of the men is in jail, and still another is locked up in a mental institution, haunted by nightmares of the battlefield. He is able to converse with every member of his unit, and comes to the startling realization that not only were these people victims of war, but they were also victims of peace. The stories of unquantified loss are tear-filled and confoundedly real, as each person struggles with the recollection and retelling of the events during the war. Yet, with such a horrible moment of time burned into their minds, all the soldiers continue to foster a great love for their country and retain ultimate pride in having fought for their nation. For them, it was an honor to serve their homeland, and no matter how many hard times they face, they will never forget that. The film is short and concise. It knows what its aims are and accomplishes them thoroughly. But perhaps it is a bit too short. As soon as you start caring for the men and women interviewed and establishing some emotion for their agony, they are gone. The film leaves one with the up-close knowledge of a horrible event, yet leaves the person as detached as it did before it had been shown. But then again, Vardan maybe realized that this subject was too hard to dig up and that making his fellow Armenians remember those days of combat and upheaval was something quite difficult, but at the same time utterly necessary. http://www.slashfilm.com/2007/04/30/tribec...e-in-war-peace/

OMX lands Armenia OMX Group has signed a letter of intent to buy the Armenian Stock Exchange. Armex, based in Yerovan, is assumed to be a relative minnow in the the pan-Nordic exchange’s expansion plans. Yet on this historic occasion, it is well worth a closer look at OMX’s newest acquisition. The website informs us that it is the only stock exchange operating in Armenia and there are 37 listed companies. These range from the alluringly named “Selena” to the more prosaic “Cascade-Credit Universal Credit Organisation.” But OMX might have its work cut out: in Armex’s latest newsletter, the exchange announced that “the total number of trades [on the equities market] in January, 2007, was 21 with total value traded of AMD 3,639,227 ($10,127). Compared to January, 2006, the number of trades, number of stocks traded and total value traded decreased by 70.83%, 94.71% and 99.67% accordingly.” Nevertheless, compared to December, 2006, “the total value traded increased by 160.02%.” OMX descibes its Armenian project as “long term”. http://ftalphaville.ft.com/blog/2007/04/27...-lands-armenia/

Armenia's artistic bridge from East to West By Souren Melikian Published: April 27, 2007 PARIS: It is not easy to display the art of a major culture left in tatters by organized physical destruction over centuries that reduced its territory to a tiny fraction of its historical dimension. What mostly survives is the art of religion, the hard-core to which the persecuted cling and carry away if portable. Otherwise it is fragments collected from ruins. Hence the title of the Armenian art show on view at the Louvre until May 21 - "Armenia Sacra." The exhibition book is as much about history as about art, a necessity when introducing a culture known to few other than specialists. It might have been worth mentioning that Armenia had a very long past when King Tiridate made it the first country where Christianity was declared the state religion around 313, when Byzantium only made its worship permissible. The origins of Armenia are steeped in mystery. How the Armenians, whose language is Indo-European, substituted themselves for the non-Indo-European inhabitants of the preceding kingdom of Urartu around the 7th century B.C. is unexplained. If there was a fusion of two groups, history says nothing about it. Armenia was included in the empire founded by the Persian Achaemenid dynasty in the mid-6th century B.C. and from the beginning had close links to Iranian culture while maintaining an utterly different identity. Some magnificent silver wine horns in Achaemenid style, excavated in Armenia after World War II, are usually described as Iranian and yet they can be seen at a glance to be aesthetically different from the vessels excavated in Iran. This Iranian connection persisted through time. Linguists say that well over a third of words in the Armenian vocabulary today are of Iranian origin, ranging from Parthian Pahlavi of the late 2nd or 1st century B.C. to present-day Persian. The other part of the world to which Armenia had ties was the Roman Empire - the land was split again and again between Iran and Rome, later replaced in the East by the Byzantine Empire. This twin connection with East and West remained perceptible throughout Armenian history. It was the case with the first art spawned by the advent of Christianity of which the earliest surviving fragments do not predate the 5th century A.D. However disparate these look stylistically, they mostly share a monumental quality and an austere gravity maintained even when startling irony creeps in. Figural art, sometimes rough, invariably explodes with vigor. On one capital of starkly geometrical shape from Dvin, a Virgin and Child carved in low relief stare hypnotically at the viewer. It has a Romanesque feel to it but is not later than the 5th or 6th century A.D. The stem of a stone cross also from Dvin is topped by the head of Jesus in a style strangely reminiscent of the human masks found in early 1st millennium B.C. bronzes from Luristan, in western Iran. This aesthetic diversity was maintained into the 7th century A.D. if the datings suggested by art historians are right. Sacred art and irony continued to be paradoxically associated. In a roundel carved in sunken relief, Jesus ascends into heaven, standing in a mandorla held up by two angels while worshippers below raise their hands in prayer. All have incongruous goggle eyes - again these call to mind the art of Luristan with its funny human heads topping bronze ensigns. No archaeological context throws light on this intriguing sculpture. But even a documented context does not necessarily resolve enigmas. On a huge stone capital nearly two meters, or six and a half feet, long recovered from the church at Zvartnots, an eagle spreads its wings horizontally. This is a distant offshoot of Roman iconography, with some input from Sasanian Iran. Its meaning in a church remains open to speculation. Iranian reminiscences kept surfacing in early Armenian art as they do in two 6th or 7th century folios inside a 10th century Gospel from Echmiadzin. Syria, inspired the triangular tops flanking the rounded arch of a niche, but the outfits of the Magi are borrowed from late Sasanian conventions, as the art historian André Grabar noted long ago. Riddles continue to stake out the evolution of Armenian art well into the 9th century. Wooden capitals from a church at Sevan, which were published long ago, induced one of the contributors to the exhibition book, Yvetta Mkrichian, to characterize their shape as "singular." They actually relate to models found later in the domestic architecture of Iranian Central Asia. The carved pattern draws its motifs from the repertoire of contemporary Iran and transforms them aesthetically. Again one wonders what meaning these had in the context of an Armenian church. One of them, hitherto unrecognized, reproduces the eagle wings of the Sasanian royal headdress as seen by artists from Islamic Iran. The key to such riddles surely lies in Armenian and Persian literature. One of the great masterpieces in the exhibition, the A.D. 1134 wooden doors and their frame removed from the Monastery at Mush (pronounced "moosh") shows that the link with Iranian art kept being renewed at intervals. The commentator in the exhibition book appears to be unaware that the figural scenes featuring two jousting horsemen and two other mounted heroes on the lintel deal with Iranian literary themes, as do the two rounds of animals carved on each side. The geometrical patterns in the main areas could again be seen as part of an Iranian rather than Arab influence. Aesthetically, the transformation is as obvious as the consummate mastery. This is a masterpiece in isolation that bears witness to an otherwise vanished school of architectural woodwork. The confidence with which Armenian artists, from stone or wood carvers to painters and goldsmiths, borrowed from the outside world and recast the loans on their own terms is a feature shared by all powerful cultures from Iran to India to China. What makes Armenia astonishing is its eclecticism and its aptitude at welding together seemingly incompatible components. A striking case is offered by the incorporation of formal Islamic patterns into Christian art. The early 13th-century cornice of one of those tall stelae with crosses carved in sunken relief known as "khachkar" is carved in the center with the figure of Jesus enthroned under a polylobed arch. On the book that Jesus holds open on his lap, the verse from John: 8.12 reads in its Armenian version: "I am the Light of the World." On either side, dazzling patterns of swirling scrolls have a rhythm and a complexity that makes them utterly different from those of Iran to the east or of the Arab areas of Iraq to the south. This aptitude at creating afresh, however hybrid the mix, comes out most astonishingly in the manuscripts copied and illuminated in Cilicia along the Mediterranean shore of present-day Turkey. A Franco-Armenian kingdom came into existence in the area following the wedding in the late 11th century of a French nobleman and an Armenian princess. By the 12th century it had a large population of Armenians driven away from their homeland by incessant warfare. For a century and a half or so, Cilicia became a second Armenia, leaving astonishing castles and ramparts that still stand at Yilankale or Anavarza and giving birth to an art of the book that blends Byzantine iconography, the color scheme of French medieval manuscripts and formal ornament from Islamic Iran. A lectionary copied in 1286, perhaps in the town of Sis, offers a remarkable example of this blending of artistic syncretism. Cilicia thus became the first true meeting ground of East and West, relatively immune from the violent antagonism that characterized it in Sicily and Spain. The Cilician experience probably paved the way to the easy transition that some Armenians made to the West, creating an even more hybrid art of the book in places such as Perugia in Italy. Cilician art also traveled back East. It left its imprint on the Gospel illuminated in 1323 at Glajor in the Siunik Province to the northwest of Iran. But the painter, Toros of Taron, owes to Syrian book painting from the time the baroque rockery and plants - which the exhibition book does not say. Internationalism began centuries ago and few practiced it with greater alacrity in art than the Armenians. http://www.iht.com/articles/2007/04/27/art...ik28.php?page=1

Armenia gets a new provider of telecommunications services New provider Armenian Datacom Company (ADC) appeared on the market of telecommunication services in Armenia. During the opening ceremony ADC General Director Harold Gritten said that the XXI century telecommunication network will operate in Armenia, which provides super modern corporative networks with powerful coverage and access to the Internet. "We are the first company in Armenia which has a license for providing public telecommunication services in accordance with new laws and regulating orders," he said. He said that the founders of the company considered of priority the development of infrastructures in accordance with Armenia's economic growth. "Telecommunication services are of vital importance in the implementation of business aims and government orders, which will provide Armenia with equal terms with all the partners in the availability of modern telecommunication solutions in the commerce sector," he said. In his turn, RA Minister of Trade and Economic Development Karen Chshmarityan pointed out that the arrival of the ADC to the Armenian market is a happy event for the country's population, and it testifies that the policy of assigning priority status to Armenia's IT-sphere showed its results. "The coming of a new company to Armenia is a result of consistent policy that was directed to encouraging foreign investments and creating favourable conditions for them in the country, particularly, work of improving systems of electronic communication in the IT-sector," he said. Chshmarityan said that Armenia's Government is interested in the investment project and will salute any similar initiative. "I hope that the ADC will become one of the leaders in Armenia by providing services and assistance to effective work of economic infrastructures, as well as stable communication of local enterprises with foreign partners and worthily introducing Armenia to world markets," he said. Armenian-Norwegian Armenia Datacom Company LLC was founded in Armenia in 2006. The company's authorized capital makes EUR 1mln. The share participation is not announced. - Source: Arka News http://www.huliq.com/20196/armenia-gets-a-...ations-services

Armenia's diaspora funds a religious revival Armenians from all over the world are hoping to revive a church decimated by decades of communist rule. By Nicole Itano | Correspondent of The Christian Science Monitor Page 1 of 3 Lake Sevan, ARMENIA - On a windswept peninsula that juts out into the blue-black waters of Lake Sevan, the ancient meets modern. Cassock-clad young seminarians wander through a sparkling new building wired for the 21st century and outfitted with a contemporary gym. But the traditions here are among Christianity's oldest. In the corridor, between classes at Vaskenian Theological Academy, two students stop and bow to a bearded man with a large silver cross around his neck. "Father, bless us," they say, each putting a hand to their hearts. "God will bless you," replies Father Minas Martirossian, the school's deputy dean, who is helping to train a new generation of Armenian priests to repopulate the country's depleted ranks. Just a decade ago, the Armenian Apostolic Church was struggling to survive at home after decades of communist oppression. Today, the Church is undergoing a rebirth fueled by tens of millions of dollars from the global Armenian diaspora. "The first years were really difficult," recalls Mr. Martirossian, a former mathematics professor who helped restart the seminary in 1990 as the Soviet Union was crumbling and Armenia moved toward independence. "There was no electricity, no heating, no proper food for students. It wasn't just the seminary. It was the whole country." Underdeveloped, politically isolated, and partially devastated by a still unresolved war with its neighbor Azerbaijan that raged between 1988 and 1994 as the Soviet Union collapsed, Armenia depends heavily on support from its ethnic diaspora. Hundreds of millions of dollars have been poured into the country to do everything from rebuild roads to renovate water systems to feed orphans. A little help from Armenia's friends But perhaps nowhere has diaspora money played a more visible role than in the Armenian Church, which has been central to Armenian culture for centuries. Armenia first adopted Christianity in AD 301 and claims to be the world's oldest Christian nation. But under communist rule, religious life there was pushed into the shadows. Churches were seized and shuttered, priests persecuted and many baptisms were conducted in secret. By the time Communism collapsed in 1991, only about 150 priests still remained to serve a population of about 3 million people, largely because of government restrictions on the number of new priests who could be trained. The situation abroad was very different. Although the church played a pivotal role in cultural life for the approximately 7 million Armenians scattered around the world – primarily in America, Russia, and the Middle East – during the Soviet period, the practical influence of the mother church, located in the Armenian city of Etchmiadzin, and its highest religious leader, the Catholicos of All Armenians, waned. "The Church's primary responsibility is to lead people to God, but for many years the Armenian church has had a second burden, the protection of Armenianness," says Father Ktrij Devejian, a Armenian-American architect from Fresno, Calif., who in 2004 became the first American-born priest ordained in Etchmiadzin. "In the diaspora, the Church was involved in every aspect of life." Now, Armenians outside the country are helping to rebuild the church at home. In the past seven years, diasporans have donated at least $50 million for construction and fund 85 percent of the Church's overall operating expenses. Across the country, 52 new churches – and a giant new cathedral – were constructed, and 31 have been renovated. Five more are under construction and 10 more are being renovated. Today, Devejian – who returned to Armenia at the current Catholicos' request to help build the Church's international connections – marvels at the dramatic rebuilding and expansion underway at Etchmiadzin, the Church's historic headquarters. There's a large, bustling seminary, a new administration building, museum, and baptistery. And the original residence of the Catholicos is being renovated. "Etchmiadzin hasn't seen a building boom like this in maybe 400 years," says Devejian. "There isn't a building in Armenia under the authority of Etchmiadzin that hasn't been built with diaspora money." 'The difference today is freedom' The revival of a seminary at Lake Sevan is representative of a broader revitalization of the Armenian church in its birthplace. Under Soviet rule, the monastery there was shut down after more than a millennium in existence. In 1990, the peninsula was returned to the church. A few dozen Armenian students and teachers from New Jersey, including Father Minas, moved to the site to reintroduce religious instruction and a clergy. At first, they lived and worked in a single, unheated building. Six years later, a wealthy Armenian from Damascus funded the construction of a new seminary building and small church. Today the seminary houses 72 students and has helped double the number of priests in Armenia to more than 400. For the first time in many decades, Armenia is once again beginning to export priests to the diaspora. But Devejian admits there is still much work to be done to convince Armenians inside the country to return to the church's fold – particularly those raised under Soviet rule. Many of those being baptized today are adults, but Armenia's churches are still full of old women and young people born after the end of communism. Many Armenians raised under communist rule see no reason to abandon their secularism. "The Soviets did a very good job of destroying the role of the church as part of society," says Devejian, noting that Catholicos' main priority is to rebuild parish life by rebuilding churches and returning priests to communities. David Mangasaryan, a 21-year-old priest-in-training at Lake Sevan, is optimistic that Armenians will return to the church. "The difference today is freedom," says Mr. Mangasaryan. "Our generation is free. We can choose our God and we can choose our religion." http://www.csmonitor.com/2007/0416/p10s01-woeu.html?page=1