City Council commemorates 96th anniversary of the Armenian Genocide

Today I joined with Councilmember Paul Krekorian, our Council colleagues, and members of Los Angeles's Armenian American community in the city's official remembrance of the Armenian Genocide, during which 1.5 million Armenian men, women, and children lost their lives and 500,000 survivors were expelled from their homes.

As part of the presentation, we honored Professor Richard G. Hovannisian, an American historian and scholar who was the first holder of the Armenian Education Foundation Endowed Chair in Modern Armenian History at UCLA.

This year marks the 96th anniversary of the Armenian Genocide, and today we recognize those who have the courage and are working to ensure that it never be lived again.

Armenian Genocide remembrance

On Friday, we took a moment in Council to recognize and remember one of the most horrific events in world history -- the Armenian Genocide.

Beginning in 1915, the genocide was carried out by Ottoman Turkey and resulted in the death of more than 1.5 million men, women, and children. The remaining survivors were expelled from their historic homeland.

In Council Chambers, we honored Dr. J. Michael Hagopian, a survivor of the Armenian Genocide who has dedicated his life to documenting the stories of survivors on film. Dr. Hagopian, 96, is pictured above at the podium.

Maya Angelou once wrote, "History, despite its wrenching pain, cannot be unlived but if faced with courage, need not be lived again." We recognize the wrenching pain of this moment in our history and strive to never let it be lived again.

Free Small Business Tax and Opportunities Seminar

On Friday, August 28, all are invited to attend a free small business tax and opportunities seminar. Some of the topics that will be covered include tax law changes, business opportunities, tax credits and incentive programs to help small businesses during challenging economic times.

The seminar is hosted by State Controller John Chiang in collaboration with the Armenian National Committee of Hollywood and the Armenian American Chamber of Commerce - Little Armenia Chapter. It will be held at Karapetian Hall (1614 N. Alexandria Ave.) from 8:30 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. There will be free parking on-site.

RSVP by emailing Audrey Noda. For more information, please call (213) 833-6020.

Armenian Genocide Remembrance

Every year the City Council remembers the Armenian Genocide with a presentation in City Council Chambers. This morning I was pleased to welcome dignitaries from Los Angeles's active Armenian community to City Hall for this somber, but important occasion.

The attempt to exterminate a people and their culture became a model for all subsequent genocides in the 20th Century, including the Holocaust. During the Armenian Genocide, nearly 2 million Armenians were expelled from their homes. Only 500,000 survived and those who did were exiled from their historic homeland. Remembering this horrific time in world history will help us to ensure that it never happens again.

Young artists beautifying neighborhoods - RaeVaughn

This is the second blog in a series in which young artists talk about the art they created on city traffic control boxes as part of our effort to beautify East Hollywood, Thai Town, and Little Armenia. LA Commons -- a non-profit organization that works with communities across the city to highlight their ethnic, historic and cultural assets -- enlisted the artists who are from local neighborhoods. To protect the art, the boxes have an anti-graffiti coating.

Artist: RaeVaughn

Traffic control box location: Southwest corner of Hollywood Blvd. and Alexandria

Message from the artist: I started this project with Grace at Hollywood Youth and Family Center as a part of community service. When that service was done I kept on going because I love this project and I want to be a part of future art projects. One more thing I have to say (about the 27 fellow youth artists) ... we started out strangers and ended up friends."

Young artists beautifying neighborhoods: Eddie Cortez

I was pleased to partner with LA Commons -- a non-profit organization that works with communities across the city to highlight their ethnic, historic and cultural assets -- to enlist young people to create works of art on city traffic control boxes in East Hollywood, Thai Town, and Little Armenia. To protect the art, the boxes have an anti-graffiti coating.

This is the first blog in a series in which the artists will introduce their work.

Artist: Eddie Cortez
Traffic control box location: Northeast corner of Hollywood and Western
Message from the artist: I started with ideas that I had in my head. The first thing I drew was a tree. I went through a Thai art book and got ideas for how to make my design more Thai-like. Then it just fell into place. I created the Dancing Trees. It just means to go green and to save this planet. People need to get more involved with what goes on.

Yerevan, Sister City

Yerevan, Sister City
Originally uploaded by CD-13

Yerevan has long been a sister city in our hearts. Now it's on our sign.

Off to Beirut!

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As you might remember, last August I traveled to Yerevan, Armenia to finalize the Sister City Agreement between the two largest Armenian cities in the world. After traveling throughout Armenia, taking in the captivating scenery, historic landmarks, and delicious cuisine, I made my way to Beirut with the hope that Los Angeles could also become a Sister City with this diverse, robust metropolis at the heart of Lebanon. Now, nearly 10 months later, I am headed back to Beirut with my colleague, Lebanese-American Councilmember Dennis Zine, Sister City Agreement in hand.

A bustling city of over 1.5 million residents, Beirut serves as a model of diversity. Arabs, Palestinians, Kurds, and Armenians live side-by-side and converse in languages ranging from French and English to Arabic and Armenian. Councilmember Zine and I will be meeting with Lebanese Prime Minister Fouad Seniora, Minister of Interiro Ahmand Fatfat, and many other official, religious, and social leaders as we work to broaden our ties with Beirut and Lebanon in general.

The Sister City program continues to open dialogue between cities and between cultures. It provides student and professional exchange opportunities and strengthens international ties. The dynamic relationship between Beirut and Los Angeles will continue to flourish. You can track our progress on the Los Angeles-Beirut Sister City website, providing updates on news, events, and opportunities associated with the Sister City Agreement.

Bulky Items Pilot Program

Bulky Items Pilot Program

I joined Councilmember Tom LaBonge to announce a pilot bulky item pick-up program in two new neighborhoods of Los Angeles. We chose neighborhoods that were blighted with high concentrations of household items left on the streets or on the parkway. Couches, mattresses, refrigerators, you name it: if it doesn't belong, it's going to the dump.

Under the pilot program, city truck crews will routinely survey the streets to collect items left at the curbside. (You can still arrange a bulky item pickup by calling 3-1-1 from anywhere in the city, of course.) The target areas are in the Wilshire Center/Koreatown /Beverly-Kingsley area and in Little Armenia. The program will be in effect through the end of the year.

My hope, which I share with Tom, is that we can expand this program city-wide, possibly establishing a collection fee to help defray the costs of the service. Nobody wants this two-ton litter problem. Tenant advocates, renters, property owners, city unions and private waste haulers have all worked with us to find a solution.

So, today, whether you're inside or outside of the pilot area, why not make a note of that errant sofa you see on your commute? Let's get that seat off the street.

Earthquake Town

Spitak

On the way back to Yerevan on Tuesday afternoon, we drove through Spitak, epicenter of the 1988 earthquake that leveled huge portions of central northwest Armenia. The earthquake occurred in the morning. Many people were at work. Students were in school buildings. The earthquake destroyed countless buildings, burying their inhabitants. It killed more than 25,000 people.

Foreign assistance helped rebuild Spitak. As you drive through the town, you see that one of the best-kept and newest cities in Armenia has emerged from the tragedy.

We stopped at a church built in the Armenian traditional style, with one exception. Draped in uncharacteristic steel siding, the church was erected in about 45 days. The accelerated timetable was necessary to accommodate the thousands of funerals for Spitak's earthquake dead. Surrounding the church are tombstones in the traditional Soviet style, with pictures of the deceased etched into the stone (a feature now seen widely in Los Angeles, for example at the Hollywood Forever cemetery in CD13). The church is now abandoned, with a rusty lock that looks like it hasn't been opened in years. Like much of Armenia, Spitak would rather look to the future than back at the sadness of its past.

Lake Sevan

Sevanavank Monastery

Lake Sevan is one of the highest freshwater lakes in the world and sits in the center of the Republic of Armenia. We stopped by Sevanavank, a monastery situated atop a peninsula that juts into the lake from its western shores. The peninsula was an island until the 1930s, when overuse of the lake eventually depleted its waters, lowering the water level by 19.5 meters and making a peninsula out of the former island. I ate some of the famous Ishkan Trout, found only in Sevan. Today, the trout is an endangered species; the trout we were served was a legal, farm-raised species.

We drove through Ijevan and enjoyed a stiff cup of Armenian coffee before departing the city where the Soviet Army first entered Armenia in 1920. Passing close to the Azerbaijan border on our way, we saw some burned-out villages that had been Azeri exclaves in Armenia, bringing to mind the war that shook this idyllic landscape and did not now seem so distant.

We crossed the border into the Republic of Georgia just after a motorcade that included the Georgian Defense Minister (who was on his way to visit his Armenian counterpart) crossed in the opposite direction.

Armenia-Azerbaijan border

The Eternal Flame

Eternal Flame

The afternoon after our visit to Khor Virap, we went to the Genocide Memorial in Yerevan. Built during Soviet times in response to demands from the local population that the USSR recognize the mass killings of up to a million and a half Armenians living under the Ottoman Empire, it has the clean lines, severity, and simplicity of many other Soviet monuments.

And like many memorials, it is no less moving for its lack of adornment. The memorial features an eternal flame surrounded by twelve obelisks. The obelisks symbolize the twelve historical population centers the Armenian people. Together, Governor Dean and I planted a pine tree in a grove where elected officials from around the world have done the same in remembrance of the genocide.

Onnik Krekorian's links have more about our visit to the memorial.

The First Christian Nation

Ararat as seen from Kohr Virap

Armenians are proud that they were the first nation to accept Christianity as the state religion, in 301 AD (Georgia and the Roman Empire followed later). Saturday we set off to Khor Virap, in the shadow of Mount Ararat, where St. Gregory the Illuminator first brought Christianity to Armenia. Around 288 AD, King Trdat III threw Gregory in a pit at Khor Virap with the intention of killing him for his Christian proselytizing. For thirteen years, Gregory lived in this pit, fed by the king's sister, and living by little more than his faith. Finally, in 301, Gregory cured the king of a terrible disease (in more extreme versions, he turned into a boar after killing two nuns), and the king accepted Christianity and adopted it as the state religion.

Our delegation went down into the pit, which has been preserved all of these years. A 17th century church (very modern by Armenian standards) sits atop the pit, but on a summer day, it is a pretty miserable place to be. Thirteen years down there is unimaginable.

The Armenian Church is neither Eastern Orthodox nor Catholic, but is a separate branch of Christianity with its own Catholicos (or pope) and liturgy. Saint Mesrop developed the Armenian alphabet in order to spread the Christian Gospels to Armenian-speakers. This was the first of many ancient sites we are to visit, in a country where a 12th or 13th century church is hardly old. Meeting with the mayor of Yerevan the day before, I told him that Los Angeles would celebrate its 224th birthday in two weeks, to which he replied that Yerevan celebrates its 2768 birthday this year. Kind of puts things in perspective.

The Two Largest Armenian Cities Meet (L.A. and Yerevan)

Yerevan city hall

Remember how we had a luggage mix-up at the airport? The suitcase with all of my business clothes never made it to Yerevan. Someone lent me a suit that, despite being a few sizes off, was sufficient for the task at hand. The Friday that we arrived was full of meetings: with the Deputy Foreign Minister, with members of the ruling coalition and of the opposition in Parliament, with a legislative friendship association, and finally with the Mayor of Yerevan, Yervand Zakharyan. The meetings were all very encouraging about establishing a Sister City agreement with Yerevan and using the Sister City relationship to promote economic, cultural, and political interaction between the two municipalities. DNC Chair and former Governor Howard Dean, whom I had invited to come to Armenia earlier this year, joined us for some of the meetings. His focus has been on American foreign policy towards Armenia, especially on the issue of the Armenian genocide.

We visited Mayor Zakharyan in the gleaming new Yerevan City Hall, one of the most beautiful buildings in the city. The mayor agreed to sign the agreement to form a Sister City relationship with Los Angeles. We spoke about emerging industries in Yerevan and throughout Armenia and about links to with Los Angeles companies. We looked at cooperation on the issues of law enforcement: a criminal wanted by the LAPD was arrested in Armenia just before we arrived. And we explored possible cooperation around seismic standards for buildings, considering we both live with fault lines in and around our cities. The State of California is establishing a trade office in Yerevan, and we are looking at possibly co-locating our Sister City initiative with them in order to enhance some of their economic projects in Armenia.

It was a very productive day, and tough too—these meetings all took place between about 11PM and 5AM Los Angeles time. We had a great meal at an outdoor restaurant alongside the river with officials and our hosts and took in some jazz in one of Yerevan's vibrant outdoor cafés before calling it a night.

More Armenia pics and a note on the chronology

I've been shooting a good deal of pictures from Armenia, more than I am posting directly on to the blog. You can see my Armenia photo set here and watch it as a slideshow here.

Also, please know that as connected as I am, there is something of a time lag between my trip and my blogging. If a lot of posts all show up at once, they are probably drawn from events of a few days in a row. I'll try to keep you as updated as possible, do the work I came to do and enjoy the trip as well. Enjoy!

Approaching Ararat

Ararat

When dawn broke over Yerevan last Friday morning, the city came into full view for the first time. The center of the city sits like a wide stage in a giant amphitheater—open towards the west where Mount Ararat rises. Mount Ararat, where Noah is said to have waited out the flood in Genesis, has a central place in the heart of the Armenian nation. It is the tallest mountain in the land where Armenians have lived for millennia, and it rises above the Anatolian plane of Asia Minor with a drama surpassed by few other mountains in the world. There is a year-round snowcap at the peak; the Armenians call it the bridal veil. The mountain's rise from the fields below is so sudden and steep that the veil looks like a cloud sitting above the summer haze.

That Ararat now sits across the Turkish border makes this mountain also a symbol for the lost culture of Western Armenia. With few exceptions, Turkey prohibits tourists from traveling to the mountain. Cut away from the nation's boundaries, the mountain is as unreachable and omnipresent as a phantom pain, standing in for the suffering of Armenia's last 120 years. The poetry, music, and culture of the past invoke its greatness, while the current situation reminds the Armenian nation of its lost glories.

We visit Ararat tomorrow.

More from Armenia

Onnik Krekorian left some useful links to posts about our trip on the Oneworld Multimedia Blog in the comments section at my personal blog. See "Dean Vows Support For Genocide Recognition" and "Yerevan and Los Angeles To Become Twin Cities?". In the photograph (by Mr. Krekorian), I joined Governor Dean and Giro Manoyan from the Armenian National Committee in Tsitsernakaberd, Yerevan to plant a tree in memory of the 1.5 million Armenians who perished in the Armenian genocide.

Halfway around the world

Cross-posted from ericgarcetti.org/blog.

(this is my first entry, which I am typing in from a hotel room in Tbilisi, Georgia--it is my first handy internet connection when I have had a moment to come up for air. I am in Georgia for two days, but returning to Armenia later today, where I hope to download some photos and write a couple more entries that cover the first three days in Armenia--check out the comments section of the last posting for some links that others have put on the blog.)

On early Friday morning, after an exhausting 23 hours of travel, we touched down exactly halfway around the world from Los Angeles in Yerevan, Armenia. (Since Yerevan is twelve time zones from Los Angeles, I didn't have to change the time on my watch!). At the airport, a television camera waited for us until 3 in the morning, and there was a table set out with fresh fruit and cognac (I opted for the former, considering the hour). While British Airways lost two pieces of our party's luggage, we were mostly intact. I did a quick interview with the television camera bringing greetings from the world's second-largest Armenian city—Los Angeles—and setting out our trip's goal of establishing a Sister City relationship with Yerevan. It was no easy feat after almost a day of travel.

The Yerevan airport is an architectural marvel—it is like a giant octagonal beehive, with arrivals in the center and departures leaving from above. Built in Soviet times, it is a cement sculpture. The airport is currently expanding and the operations are being handed over to a foreign company in an ongoing wave of privatization.

On the way into town, we saw many casinos with names like Caesar's and Hollywood Casino, which we learned have been banished from the city center to the outskirts of town. On the road from airport, they have formed a kinda Yerevan Strip. We also passed the brand-new American embassy, built on one of the biggest pieces of land of any American embassy abroad. It was impressive.

We drove through the city center in the waning hour of the night, but its stateliness was easily apparent—a seemingly well-planned center, with a real European feel. There were cafes everywhere, some folks were still out at 4am roaming the wide boulevards, and there was a video screen up where the statue of Lenin once stood in the main square.

We settled into our hotel and prepared for the next day's meetings with government officials and Yerevan representatives.