The Armenian Community of Tbilisi and particularly of Javakh becomes the subject of mere political speculation

PanARMENIAN.Net - It has been written more than once that Armenia has no territorial claims on Georgia. However the Armenian Community of Tbilisi and particularly of Javakh is turned to a subject of mere political speculation by those who are obviously interested in deterioration of the Armenian-Georgian relations and who most probably are from Baku or Ankara. On the site of Day.az an announcement is disseminated by "the Union of Compatriots of Georgia" (UCG), who "unleash a war against the Armenian occupants of Samtskhe-Javakheti". The statement signed by the UCG chair says, "Starting from this day (September 18) the UCG, where about 2500 Georgian patriots are voluntarily involved, unleashes a war against the Armenian separatists". There are two important factors to be paid attention to. Firstly, for some reason the statement is published only in an Azeri site, and secondly; the style and the vocabulary of the given announcement reminds "the revelations" of Azeri political scientists.


According to the representative of Georgian Eparchy of the Armenian Apostolic Church (AAC) Levon Isakhanyan, the announcement is "mere nonsense". "Even if it happened, the Georgian security service would immediately suppress such movements. Besides, it is simply funny to think that 2500 people can do anything against almost about 100.000 population of Javakh. But the most interesting thing is that the given announcement is disseminated by Azerbaijani information portal, Georgia doesn't even know anything about this," said Isakhanyan.

Another problem is the reconstruction of the historical region of the center of Tbilisi, the Armenian district of Havlabar. Armenians living in Havlabar say, that the government of Georgia has decided to raze the historical Armenian district of Tbilisi to the ground. According to the inhabitants, an expensive district is going to be built here. The government warned the local Armenians whose families had been living in Havlabar for decades, that about $906 for each square meter will be paid to them and that they will be resettled in the uptown of Tbilisi. In case they refuse to obey the decision the inhabitants of Havlabar will not get a penny and will be resettled by force. Earlier it had been said that in the place of old houses new residence of President of Georgia would be built. The truth is though, it was announced in Tbilisi City Hall that there were no programs on building a new elite district in the place of Havlabar. We cannot confirm any of these statements, but it is quite obvious that there is some kind of political motives underlying all this. The problem with Havlabar is that it is a historical district which needs to be reconstructed. After a significant part of the historical Tbilisi, i.e. Vake, Saburtalo, Sololaki, was reconstructed the time for Havlabar to undergo reconstruction works had come. According to the historian and political scientist Sergey Minasyan, it is a historical district, which has always been populated by poor Armenian people and consequently the houses there are also poor and in bad condition, something which cannot be said about other regions of Tbilisi populated by the Armenian people. In fact, Havlabar is the front of Tbilisi, but it is too uninviting for being that. The historian Samvel Karapetyan, who is engaged with the issue of the Armenian monuments abroad, thinks that the government's decision to reconstruct Havlabar is quite natural. "One should not be concerned about pulling down the houses in Havlabar, but about destruction of Khodjivank and constructions of Georgian Orthodox temples in the Armenian cemetery sites," he says.

Meanwhile, the Armenian linguist Raffi Dikranian from Canada, having visited Tbilisi on September 6 or 7, visited the Armenian district of Havlabar and was shocked by the fact that in the place of old Armenian cemetery situated between the recently built Orthodox Church of Holy Trinity and the Armenian "Pantheon of the Great" a huge trench was dug intended for Georgian theological seminary. Raffi Dikranian called upon all the interested parties to inform UNESCO about the destruction of the Armenian cemetery, as well as to turn to the Georgian President and demand to treat the Armenians of Tbilisi with respect, to organize the reburials of the remains the way it is done in the civilized world and allow the Armenians to remain in Havlabar. It should also be mentioned that it was announced in the Georgian Eparchy of the Armenian Apostolic Church, that the mentioned cemetery was destroyed already 80 years ago during the Soviet Times…