Attempts to accuse me of cooperating with the Russian special services are all absurd

Firstly, I would like to underline, that it is the first time the Armenians living in Tbilisi have started organised consultations with leaders of political opposition parties. Literally, next week there is a meeting on the agenda with Gia Tchanturia, a candidate of the Christian-Democrats for the post of Mayor of Tbilisi. We also intend to propose to the current Mayor Mr. Gigi Ugulava, as well as to other candidates, to hold similar meetings. Only after these meetings shall we be able to make a decision to support this or that candidate. It is not excluded that the outcome of the forthcoming elections may depend on the choice of Armenian community. According to very modest calculations, Armenian community makes up approximately 7% of the electorate.

Political elite of Georgia has so far obstructed participation of Armenians at the decision-making level in every possible way. As it seems, Armenians are mostly considered not as potential in the state building process, but as a fifth column, at the best. This attitude towards us has not changed even today; however, obviously, our approach is changing towards such state of affairs. I think this election will be a test and we should not expect much at once. Although I hope that because of our pre-election activities, we can name from two to four candidates for the majoritarian list and it is not ruled out, that representatives of authorities take measures and put forward other ethnic Armenians, loyal to them, as candidates. In any case, Armenians will run for the posts, and as it now seems, with the support of minimum 2-3 most solid political parties.

At the time of Shevardnadze government, the Georgian Parliament had 235 members, now their number is 150. Therefore, difference in percentage is not big: Armenians in the parliament never were more than 2%, and according to our data, Armenians constituted 7% of the entire population of Georgia. However, the problem is not the quantitative indicator. We should firstly tackle the quality of representation. Accordingly, in this context, it is difficult to speak about the limited role of Armenians in the country’s political life. It is close to null, despite existence of several deputies. I mean no offence to Armenian deputies, but it is their fault. The problem here is mostly of systemic character.

Despite the fact that there is certain difference among us, still we are similar. It would be correct to call this diversity of interests, rather than conflict of interests.

The situation is much more serious in Javakheti. The region is practically closed for real political opposition parties. It is a kind of political reserve, which the political groups can access with special permits granted by the central authorities. Nevertheless, there is, of course, plurality of views in the political elite of Javakheti and I hope that in some way it can have an impact on the elected local administration body. However, regretfully, the possibility of rigging elections may be still high.

I think that pre-election atmosphere in Tslaka is cardinally different from that of everyday life. Despite the presence of Internal Affairs Ministry forces, deployed in Tsalka several years ago to lower tension in the region, the situation remains explosive, and, most likely, it will not change as long as there are certain conditions putting one group of population in a prevailing position over the other. For instance, groups of migrants from mountainous regions of the western Georgia are allowed to carry large daggers, which are not considered as cold weapon, but as an element of tradition. However, others are not allowed to do so. It may as well be understood that people living there do not care about the political twists and turns.

The threat is implied in the question as you have just formulated. The term “accepted to believe” brings us to legitimizing inactivity. Many blame the leaders of the Union of Armenians for their passiveness, but I am not inclined to think so. The problem consists in the relations of the authority with its own population, including particularly relations with ethnic communities. Roughly speaking, all of us are, firstly, seen as electorate, whose support or absolute passiveness is a guarantee for maintaining power. It would be better-formulated to say that authorities use the existence of the branded Armenian organisation as a declaration of its support, at least at the level of statements made by one of its leaders. Afterwards, it is a matter of technique how to provide real support, e.g. try to bring the electorate to the ballot boxes (that is more expensive and difficult) or act in a different way while taking advantage of passiveness of voters (that is simpler and cheaper, e.g. in Samtskhe-Javakheti and Tsalka). In any case, the problem is not the authorities, but the relationship.

Formation of the organisation is not over yet, it is still a project, creation of which is opposed by representatives of the authorities, as well as, unfortunately, by some influential Armenians, including but not limited to community organisations. Maybe, because the path is quite thorny, the process has been lasting for already a year. As it seems, politics is a “swamp”, where all processes have long been ceased, except the process of decay, which suits many. In this way, the situation is calmer and more predictable. The goal of the Assembly is to create a strong mechanism able to act as a mediator between the Armenian population, political elite, international organisations, Armenian Diaspora in various countries, and the Republic of Armenia. It would be impossible to resolve a range of urgent issues, including preservation of churches, raising the quantitative and qualitative involvement of Armenian citizens of Georgia in the life of the state and the society, as well as lots of cultural and social issues, without implementation of the above-mentioned goal.

How can it like our activity after all I have just said? The criticism from our side may be strong, but sometimes not that harsh depending on the issue. Sometimes we support the authorities, in particular on the issues related to protection of the minority rights (e.g. with regard to the ratification of the Council of Europe Framework Convention on the protection of Ethnic Minorities by the Parliament of Georgia). Sometimes we are subject to open hostile acts, in which, I am strongly confident, people working in the government structures may be involved. For instance, burglary committed in our office several years ago ended in stealing only data storage blocks of our computers, leaving all other things intact.

Agreement between Armenian and Georgian churches may be the way out of this situation. However, it seems to be the most difficult way. There is still another way. If we put aside the issue of the status of churches and instead focus on their preservation as monuments having cultural and historical value, it might offer better solution to this issue. Currently, these churches are on the balance of the Ministry of Culture of Georgia, which has not so far done anything to rehabilitate the churches, or even render minimal support. If it continues in the same way, the churches will be destroyed or will collapse in coming 10-20 years. All these churches are in emergency state. At the same time, the Ministry of Culture spends large sums on many other projects and, logically, there is a question: why are the Armenian churches, being on the balance of the mentioned Ministry and at the same time situated in the touristic zone of the city, neither rehabilitated, nor protected from intrusion? We have already applied to the Ministry of Culture with the request to provide us with the provisional expenses allocated for the rehabilitation of cultural and historical monuments. Presently, we have started a programme of holding regular meetings of Armenian community of Tbilisi at these monuments, where representatives of the diplomatic Corps accredited to Georgia, journalists and representatives of the Government are invited.

I would love to joke on this subject and say that not that much to be enough to hire good lawyers and fight the black PR. I may also add that some would be even proud about their names being included in the list of the so-called FSB agents, where a considerable part is dedicated to the Georgian intelligentsia, well-known public and cultural figures. To be more serious, this is entirely absurd. All is so dilettantish, that I even pity them. About a year ago “the powerful of this world” on a local scale attempted to blackmail me, implying that if I did not stop my activities (part of which I have already spoken about above), I would be charged with spying and, maybe, even arrested. It seems that after my rejection of their request, the first thing to happen was the visit of a tax inspection officer to undertake inventory in the small food store belonging to my father and situated in the suburbs of the city, as well as in an Ltd. (of which I happen to be a co-founder), which promoted Armenian wine in Georgia. These points have been sealed and closed for already 6 months. It seems that the authorities once again were convinced that I am not at all influenced by their coercive “requests” and decided to make the next step, by announcing me a spy in several Georgian yellow newspapers, which copied this absurd from some unknown Russian internet-forum.

I am not only involved, but our organisation is one of initiators of the Russian-Georgian civil society dialogue. Although I cannot boast with concrete outcomes, the fact that we could establish constant dialogue with the Russian side, as well as our colleagues from Sukhumi and Tskhinvali, is a prerequisite to move from the language of war to the language of peace in our relationship. By the way, the last meeting within this format was held in February in Yerevan.

Unfortunately, neither country bordering Armenia and Georgia can accept harmonization of Armenian-Georgian relationship due to some reasons. As long as we are on different sides of the geopolitical orientation, as long as we have diverging views about the security system of the South Caucasus, political interests of Armenia and Georgia will remain conflicting with each other. However, it should be noted that authorities of both countries put forth strong efforts to stabilize bilateral relations and they are often doing well, rather than the opposite. Maybe, the reason is that there is no other way. I think that, in this case, we should rely on the authorities, but we should also beware not to make a mistake. I am glad that a dialogue was launched between the public representatives of Armenia and Georgia (and I am happy to be involved in it) and it seems that it has a good chance to be a success in future.