A Day at the Opera

Here are some notes on the inauguration of Armenia's new president last week, from my column in The Moscow Times. The photo (from ArmeniaNow) shows the view most journalists had of the proceedings. The photo-journalist Onnik Krikorian has more images from inauguration day here.

From my balcony in the centre of the Armenian capital, I heard a sudden volley of bangs, as flashes of light illuminated the evening sky. A few weeks earlier, I’d been standing in the same place as the crackle of tracer bullet fire lit up the night on what some came to call ‘Bloody Saturday’, when nine people were killed in pitched battles as riot police put down protests against Serzh Sarkisian’s disputed presidential election victory. But this time, the explosions were celebratory – a display of fireworks ending the day last week when Sarkisian was sworn in to office. This time, nobody died.

From morning, the city centre had been under lockdown, with baton-swinging cops enforcing a huge cordon around Yerevan’s Opera House, where the inauguration ceremony was to take place. After last month’s unrest, nobody was taking the risk of letting any member of the public anywhere near Sarkisian on his big day. Inside the cordon, Yerevan was quiet and still: an empty theatre with a virtual audience who were only permitted to watch their new leader take power on screen. Even journalists covering the event were confined to a room deep within the Opera House, and told they also had to watch it on television. Desperate cameramen shot footage of journalists sipping their complementary Nescafé while Sarkisian strode towards the podium to take his oath, in the same building but seemingly distant.

Ranks of soldiers goose-stepped past their new president as a military parade brought the inauguration ceremony to its conclusion: a show of strength on the fortieth day after the deaths on March 1 – the day when, according to tradition, the souls of the departed should be commemorated. Beyond the cordon, on the street where the clashes took place, women cried bitter tears as they faced down a solid wall of riot shields, and laid flowers in memory of those who died.

As they did so, they could hear echoes of pop music from nearby Republic Square, where a hot-air balloon display and concert was being held. Children gazed, transfixed and oblivious to everything that was going on around them, as the huge balloons rose gracefully into the sky. A few opposition protesters tried to disrupt the festivities by chanting slogans, but were rapidly dispersed. An image captured by one photographer shows a man standing apart from the crowd, holding up a portrait of a youth who was killed on March 1, its gilt frame wrapped in black ribbon. Behind him stands a line of riot police, ensuring that his lonely statement goes almost unnoticed by the evening revellers.

Anatomy of a Failed Uprising

My Ukrainian friend Iryna Chupryna, who was involved in the Pora youth resistance movement during the Orange Revolution, has published an analysis about why the recent mass protests in Armenia did not turn into another 'coloured revolution'. She argues that international election observers' failure to expose large-scale fraud at the polls and the opposition's "dubious quality" were major factors, and suggests that Armenia is now "dramatically backsliding to authoritarianism". Read more here.

Blood and Oil

A reporter for the satirical Moscow journal The Exile claims to have found the Holy Grail of post-Soviet travel journalism - in Azerbaijan: "I surveyed a deathscape of trash fires, abandoned oil derricks, ghost processing plants, and crumbling concrete structures with no obvious purpose. In every direction, garbage, oil pipes, and the decaying carcasses of Baku street dogs and other mammalian vermin who came here to scavenge and never left..." Read the whole piece here.

Candles in the Wind

Some notes from Yerevan after the state of emergency was lifted, from my column in The Moscow Times.

A cluster of women stands obstinately in front of the police line, clapping and whooping and belting out a ragged rendition of the Armenian national anthem. As the commanding officer raises his loudhailer and urges them to disperse immediately or face the consequences, officers with riot shields and batons shuffle forward menacingly. Some of the women scream curses or burst into tears, but nevertheless they begin to fall back, while an unidentified character with a camera scurries around like a nervous rodent, capturing faces on video.

Political rallies aren’t permitted in the Armenian capital, Yerevan, despite the recent lifting of the state of emergency which was imposed on March 1. That was the day when eight people died during pitched battles after riot police moved in to end more than a week of unauthorised protests against the results of presidential elections which the opposition claims were falsified. More than 100 opposition figures have since been charged with fomenting violent unrest and attempting to stage a coup.

But some of the most committed activists have been trying to use their creative ingenuity to circumvent the protest ban by holding what they call “peaceful daily strolls”. Directly after the emergency measures were lifted, several thousand people held a solemn procession through central Yerevan, many carrying flowers, candles and pictures of those who were killed, injured or arrested. In recent days, the shadowy organisers of these supposedly spontaneous gatherings have asked people to bring chess sets and hold casual open-air tournaments, or to read aloud from books. Dozens of them have been detained by police anyway, to stop their gatherings growing.

The protesters insist they’re not just supporters of Levon Ter-Petrossian, the Armenian opposition leader whose determination to challenge the election results led to the current political crisis. One woman told me they were freedom fighters against a regime which had revealed itself as corrupt and brutal.

Earlier that day, I heard a very different version of events. In the opulent halls of the presidential palace, Ter-Petrossian is seen as the malevolent instigator of an armed uprising which was righteously thwarted. A spokesman for Robert Kocharian, Armenia’s outgoing president, said two major opposition parties had just joined the governing coalition, leaving the more radical opposition increasingly isolated, desperate and aggressive.

“It’s clear that they won’t succeed,” he insisted calmly, “but unfortunately it’s also clear that the organisers of these actions are trying to continue their policy of political destabilisation, which is very sad.”

Back in the centre of Yerevan, an elderly man was sitting quietly on a bench, apparently ignoring the protest. But then he lit a candle, and the police quickly ushered him away.