A city symbol of the Armenian resistance. Razed twice to the ground, first by the Ottoman troops and then by the terrible earthquake of last winter, Van seems to share its destiny with the beautiful Tamara, a legendary figure disappeared in the abysses of the lake it looked over. The eighth episode of our report, “From the Caucasus to Beirut”
Donors hardly ever support projects if they are not partially co-financed by the applicant. In principle, this makes total sense, but in practice the rule often sets off creative accounting and limits NGO capacities
When a State is founded on a myth, that myth is to be defended at all costs. These words by an Armenian university professor come to Paolo’s mind while walking through the cold rooms of the Turkish Genocide Museum, in Igdir. Here, history becomes myth and the past is turned upside down. The seventh episode of the story “From the Caucasus to Beirut”
As a young child, she always wondered why she lived in Yerevan when her father was born in the U.S. and her mother was from Lyon. Then she understood. With an historical-artistic project, Hazel Antaramian Hofman follows the footprints of those people, who, from all over the world, decided to migrate to Armenia after the Second World War
In Sarajevo, a new space dedicated to the memory of Srebrenica lives on Turkish funds, with little support from local institutions. Art, memory, and cooperation in an interview with Ivica Pandžić, spokesperson for the association that manages the memorial gallery
The European integration process of Bosnia and Herzegovina is on stand by until the country adapts its Constitution to the standards required by the European Court of Human Rights. Sarajevo between human and ethnic rights, the Komšić factor
Desolate lands, where the mountains of the Caucasus descend towards the Anatolian plateau in big steps, and names come from politics rather than history. The sixth episode of our report “From the Caucasus to Beirut”
Caught in the grip of economic crisis, Croatia is desperate for investments. So much that the centre-left government is reconsidering the long-opposed Pelješac bridge
The "circle of injustice" that leads to continuous violence in Ingushetia and throughout the North Caucasus is the focus of a recent report by Amnesty International. Irina Gordienko, special correspondent of Novaya Gazeta, tells OBC readers about it
He's the only Macedonian politician who has been riding the crest of the wave since the '90s. Branko Crvenkovski seems to have reached his final challenge: the next local elections. He would do anything to win them, even shaking hands with former arch-enemies
In the north there are frequent cases of blood revenge. Killings occur in the name of the Kanun, the traditional law, which in fact is not observed. And women are targets too. Marjola Rukaj explains why the Kanun, tradition, and Lek Dukagjini are not the main causes of the problem, but its symptoms
The meeting with Vartuhi and with the fate that divided her from her sister in 1946. She lives in Musa Dagh, in Armenia, where a huge hawk reminds travellers of the Armenian fighters who in 1915 opposed the Ottoman troops. The fifth episode of the story “From the Caucasus to Beirut”
A few kilometres off the coast of Istanbul, in the Sea of Marmara, the Princes' Islands are the tourist destination for those who want to leave behind, at least for a few hours, the frenzy of the immense metropolis on the Bosporus. These islands have been for millennia a laboratory of cultural contamination, as testified by recipes, smells, tastes, and words – suspended between memory and oblivion
Vartuhi left Beirut in 1946, to reach Soviet Armenia aboard a ship called "Pobeda". In Stalin's land, however, the survivors of the genocide saw the dream of a homeland turn into a nightmare. Travelling to the Caucasus on the paths of migrations. Fourth episode of the story "From the Caucasus to Beirut"
Two weeks ago, 16 items allegedly belonging to Prophet Muhammad arrived in Grozny. It is not the first time that alleged relics of the Prophet have arrived in the Chechen capital - it has become a frequent occurrence lately – yet such events never fail to find an audience
As soon as the Eurovision song contest ended, Azerbaijan was once again out of the world media spotlight. Baku's authorities did not lose any time getting back to cracking down on international human rights organizations and local activists
Professor Adakessian’s slow pacing up and down the halls of the Armenian University of Haigazian, Rafi and his shoe factory in centre city Beirut, the present that shows up again in the old pictures of the Pobeda, the Russian ship that carried thousands of Armenians from the Lebanon to Soviet Armenia. The third episode of the story “From the Caucasus to Beirut”
Arafat’s bodyguard, then on the front line in the Armenian armed struggle and for 10 years a prisoner in a Syrian jail. “When I came out, everything had changed. The USSR no longer existed”. The meeting with Sarop, in Beirut’s Armenian quarter. The second episode of the report “From the Caucasus to Beirut”
The economic crisis in Europe is stirring up animosity and distrust, especially in places marked by the wounds of history. Like Distomo, a village in western Boeotia, where one of the worst massacres in Nazi-occupied Greece took place in 1944. Here, recriminations against Merkel's austerity pair up with claims – never met – for compensation. A report
In the Bekaa valley, in Lebanon, in the company of Hrayer, a boy from the local Armenian community. Among fruit trees, vegetables and a tragic past. The first episode of the report “From the Caucasus to Beirut”
