Russians will manage, what they do best: turn their friends into enemies....

[lampron]

Re: Russians will manage, what they do best: turn their friends into enemies....

Where would Armenia be today without the Russian alliance ? Most likely it would be a provincial hamlet of the filthy Turks. We would not even exist in the map; we would be embraced under the tag, eastern Anatolia. Armenia will never be able to restore and integrate Western Armenia, ( occupied Turkey) without Russian endorsement. It is natural that Russian and Armenian political interests are aligned. There are a hard core of Russophobes, misguided derelicts. malingerers and traitors to the nation.

Correct

It was Russia that created the "Armenian district" around Yerevan in 1828. By the time Russia arrived Armenians were a minority in that land, maybe only 25%

Without that event it is unlikely we would have Armenia today

The question is not whether Russia is good or bad. All countries have self interest. The real question is why have Armenians been useless at organizing themselves and fighting for independence?

Instead of wasting page after page trying to convince everyone how terrible Russia is, Vrej1915 and other anti-Riussian agitators should answer this question

Where were Armenians in the year 1500?
And in the year 1600? and in the year 1700 ?
When there wasn't a single Russian in the region to blame?

[Artsakh]

Re: Russians will manage, what they do best: turn their friends into enemies....

The question is not whether Russia is good or bad. All countries have self interest. The real question is why have Armenians been useless at organizing themselves and fighting for independence?

[/B]

That's a good question. And the answer is that, like the good old Armenian Bolsheviks, many Armenians were pre-occupied with selling themselves to further foreign interests. Now in this day and age it makes no difference to me whether that foreign interests in the US/West or Russia. Foreign is foreign, i.e., other than Armenian.

Let's focus on what further's Armenia's interest. In Armenia today, I think and want to believe that we have a regime that is for the furtherance of Armenian interests...a balanced foreign policy aimed at furthering Armenian interests--or putting another way, making wrongs right

[Vrej1915]

Re: Russians will manage, what they do best: turn their friends into enemies....

Correct


Where were Armenians in the year 1500?
And in the year 1600? and in the year 1700 ?
When there wasn't a single Russian in the region to blame?

In 1500, there was no kurd in Armenia.
In 1700 they were only present as nomads, south of Daron/Moks/Vaspurakan.
In 1850, we still had absolute, or relative majority in most of Erkir.

[Vrej1915]

Re: Russians will manage, what they do best: turn their friends into enemies....

Correct


Where were Armenians in the year 1500?
And in the year 1600? and in the year 1700 ?
When there wasn't a single Russian in the region to blame?

In 1500, there was no kurd in Armenia.
In 1700 they were only present as nomads, south of Daron/Moks/Vaspurakan. There were still virtually no turks, as those arrived in form of Muhajeers from North Kavkaz (tcherkez settlers), due to exchange of populations between the Tsar and the Sultans. And of course, what a pitty, there were no Armenians in Krasnodar, Adler, Novi Armavir.... and virtually not in Tiflis.
In 1850, we still had absolute, or relative majority in most of Erkir. Muhajeer/cherkez/turks and kurds were still minority in all of Erkir.

Anyone refurbishing turkish propaganda of less than 25% Armenians in parts of Eastern Armenia is an ignorant.
He needs to study other sources than bakinski rabotchi....

Never the Russian Tsarist regime decided to create majority Armenian provinces.
The so called Armiyanski Gubernya was an error the novice in the region, Tsarist regime revised and disbanded in less than a decade....
The contrary is widely proved, when Zankezur and still 95% Armenian Artsakh (that is not only nowday NKR, that represents only southern Artsakh, divided by the Mrav range) were included in a larger Elisavetpol province, or 95% Armenian Lori, or Javakhk were included in Tiflis province..., to make sure Armenians were a minority, hampering the Tatars or Gruzin, but certainly not to exist as an ethnos.



NB: Na ov Arevelyan Hayasdani pokr Hanrabedutyune zdel e Torkitz Russe tchi, ta hayi khelken a, en el hentz rssi patzagayityan orok.... ov badmutyun kidi togh garta, imana.
Ov gartal tchkidi, togh mi had Talini, Garnu, Vetu, gam Massisi bidzeki hed khorada ani.....
Herik esh esh tzer tchnamu sude gul dak, ter mi had el daradzek.

Paytz dkedneri ou gamavor gureri hamar badmutyun bedk tchi. Irantz atchki aratch dessadze tchen uzum havadal.
Et Artsakhum rssi orok yen Torkerin larel? te hentz rssi patzagayutyan garj jamanagum??

Tchbi sirel votch rssin, votch ankliatzun, votch nemetzin, votch fransuzin, votch amergatzun, votch barsigin.... votch....., votchmegin.
Bidi sires kez, Hayin, u miyayn Hayin.
Yete tu kez tchsiress u bashdess, hasdad urishe ta tchi ani.
Namanavant nakhkin gaysrutyune, vor linum e ko tulutyan hashvin, arudur e anum ko shaheri hashvin.

Tu yeghir URUYN, ko asdghe or tche votch, ge payli.
Yeghir tzangatzadz gayssri krbani kopek, or te ush, ge kharjen....

[lampron]

Re: Russians will manage, what they do best: turn their friends into enemies....

Anyone refurbishing turkish propaganda of less than 25% Armenians in parts of Eastern Armenia is an ignorant.
He needs to study other sources than bakinski rabotchi....

Never the Russian Tsarist regime decided to create majority Armenian provinces.
The so called Armiyanski Gubernya was an error the novice in the region, Tsarist regime revised and disbanded in less than a decade....

No. Foreign travellers have said the same about Armenians being a minority in the former khanate of Yerevan (Lynch History Travel Van Erzeroom Caucasus ) and Abovian more or less says the same

It doesn't matter if it was revised in 1840. The important thing is for the first time since 1375 the word "Armenia" appeared on a political map

The word "Armenia" appeared on a political map not because of Armenians organizing themselves to fight for independence. 100,000 Armenians moved from the ottoman empire and Persia into this Armenian district created by Russia

Again, why couldn't Armenians do this by themselves in 1400, 1500, 1600, 1700.....?

This answer is much more important than telling everyone how terrible Russia is !

[Vrej1915]

Re: Russians will manage, what they do best: turn their friends into enemies....

No. Foreign travellers have said the same about Armenians being a minority in the former khanate of Yerevan (Lynch History Travel Van Erzeroom Caucasus ) and Abovian more or less says the same

It doesn't matter if it was revised in 1840. The important thing is for the first time since 1375 the word "Armenia" appeared on a political map

The word "Armenia" appeared on a political map not because of Armenians organizing themselves to fight for independence. 100,000 Armenians moved from the ottoman empire and Persia into this Armenian district created by Russia

Again, why couldn't Armenians do this by themselves in 1400, 1500, 1600, 1700.....?

This answer is much more important than telling everyone how terrible Russia is !

Forein travelers were nor historians, nor statisticians.
They even could not distinguish between ethnicities... had a sight limited maximum to the horizon, which is less than a couple of kilometers in oiur montainous highlands, travelled along trade roads...
Yerevan was a small town, insignifant.
As every administartive center in such poor province, the dominant empire did create a majority of muslim in its garrison towns, such was Yerevan. Yet Yerevan did not mean Ararat valley.
And those who cleansed the districts your sources did pass trough, to form such an ungrouded idea, were certainly not russians, nor had russian patronage.
Read what I posted in Armenian.

What history says: Eastern Armenian republic was largely purificated in 1918-1920, by Erkir survivors.
Yet just after sovietisation, most of the cleansed tatar districts were refilled by Tatars returners, backed by russian XI army baionets.
( facts: Virtually all Gaban district, entire Keghi valley, 42 villages cleansed by Njdeh.
Most Tatar villages in Massis/Zangibassar, at doors of Yerevan returned.
All villages in Vartenis, Jamparak returned.).

Virtually no Armenian villages in Azerbaijan could return.
On the contrary, even heroic villages having survived 3 years of Tatar siege, were deported during soviet/russian rule.
Ex: Harar village in Kashatagh, deported in 1922.

Nakhitchevan province, previously part of Yerevan province, was 50% Armenian before 1914.
Not only the Armenians deported before sovietization did not return, but those remaining in impregnable montainous villages were deported after return of russians between 1922-1959.

No example of Armenian "expension" in previously Armenian regions incorporated into Azerbaijani SSR nor georgian SSR-s, after return of russians.
The contrary is evident fact.
In 1988-89 basically we had do clean the same districts, yet again russians guns were not on our side.
Contrary was true.

In 1989-92, more than 50 Armenian villages were deported by russian troops in Artsakh, handed to Torks.
Do I need to name them?

I personally do not know of one village liberated by russians, handed to us.
If you do, Pajalsta!

The questions you ask on 1400....are such simplistic and irrelevant, answering them would imply talents I harly have.
In same mode and style, I could say, without the russian arrival, the Armenian Ethnos would have represented more than 20 Million individuals today, occupying a space roughly 300.000 Km2 (if we are 10 Million christian Armenians dispatched by today (not counting the couple of million islamised ones in Erkir), and considering more than 50% of the nation was massacred between 1878-1923, so that gives minimum 20 Million...)

Short: Land belongs to whom who lives on it.
Even without brain, if you have the number and presence, others will make you exist. Brightest example is Kurds nowdays.

And if you simplify the russian role that much, the contrary works as well.
If 40 Million Kurds, with all their failures, can grab a space of more than 450.000 Km2, than 20 Million Armenians would have certainly done at least as well....

[Haykakan]

Re: Russians will manage, what they do best: turn their friends into enemies....

The likes of Vrej have always failed to answer the simplest of questions when it comes to Armenian Russian relations. Why has Turkey not attacked Armenia for over 90 years? Was it because Armenia was so strong? Was Turkey afraid of the USA? or Europe?or.... The fact is Turkey would have finished the Genocide and realized its panturkik dream long ago if not for Russia. Yes Armenians were majorities in many parts of our historic range but why did we so easily become replaced? You can't blame this xxxx on the Russians. Sometimes your biggest enemy is the one looking back at you in the mirror but admitting that is way too high a dose of reality for most people.

[londontsi]

Re: Russians will manage, what they do best: turn their friends into enemies....

The likes of Vrej have always failed to answer the simplest of questions when it comes to Armenian Russian relations. Why has Turkey not attacked Armenia for over 90 years? ......

Fair question and of course we know the answer.

What Vrej is raising, what has been the cost or price for this insurance policy.

When you insure your car or house the insurance company does not help itself to your spare tyre or the steering wheel as an example nor negotiate away part of your garden.

Also when we refer to the insurer, it carries the whole risk for a price.
It does not have any other benefits over above that price.
Nor does it have the right to negotiate with the opposing party at your expense.

It is important to be aware of the price/cost we have paid.
Also what premium we are expected to pay when the next demand comes in.

Lets not forget that the insurer is also benefiting from our purchased insurance policy.

.

[Vrej1915]

Re: Russians will manage, what they do best: turn their friends into enemies....

FINANCIAL TIMES- London

March 11, 2016
Turkey and Russia — friends for a while, now foes once again
Norman Stone

In modern times, relations have been at the very least correct, often warm, writes Norman Stone

High-level gossip in Ankara has it that there is a personal element to President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s desire to overthrow the regime of Bashar al-Assad in Syria. Back in the days when Syria and Turkey had close relations, the Assads went on holiday with the Erdogans.

It is said that afterwards, Mr Assad’s wife, Asma, sent an email to her husband pleading never to be asked to do that again: this was a couple with no languages, she is alleged to have said — he a thug who has read only one book, she a frump interested only in shopping. The email came to the attention of Turkish intelligence, and the rest is history.

However, Mr Assad has survived, thanks to the Russians. And, in November, the Turks shot down a Russian plane for violating their airspace for all of 17 seconds. President Vladimir Putin is also not a man to forget grievances. He has read more than one book, and speaks more than one language; he thinks things through.

Russia’s revenge so far has meant a steep decline in Turkish exports. And the absence of Russian tourists means that more than 400 hotels in the resort of Antalya alone, a favoured destination, are up for sale. It probably also means the recovery of the city of Aleppo by Mr Assad, and maybe also Russia’s encouragement of a Kurdish state which would have a frontier on the Tigris, well inside Turkey.

This might cause commentators to recall the Russo-Turkish wars of the19th century, and various other episodes in the Caucasus or the Balkans. In modern times, however, relations between Russia and Turkey have been at the very least correct, and often warm.

It is true that Tsarist statesmen were required to claim Constantinople (“Tsargrad”) as theirs. But when they saw the problems that would follow, they drew back: better a weak Turkey, controlled by them through an autonomous Armenia, or perhaps even Kurdistan, than a troublesome colony or an English-managed Greek imposition.

In 1833 Russian troops stopped an Egyptian-Syrian army from taking Istanbul. And when, in 1920, the Ottoman Empire was finally collapsing, and the British were promoting the Greek and Armenian causes, the Russians came to the Turks’ rescue. Indeed, you have to wonder if Turkey would even exist without the help it received from Moscow then.

On the National Monument in Taksim Square in Istanbul there are four identifiable figures: Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, the founder of the Turkish republic, is the most obvious. Most surprising, perhaps, is Semyon Aralov, the first Soviet ambassador to Turkey. He co-operated with the Turkish nationalists who had opened up for business on a small scale in Ankara in 1919, resisting the western allies’ plans for Anatolia.

In the summer of 1920, representatives of Sultan Mehmed VI signed the treaty of Sèvres, creating a Greater Armenia, a Greater Greece and perhaps Kurdistan. The Sultan would have become ruler of a quaint emirate.

Resistance to the treaty gathered and won Soviet support. Just as it was being signed, there was a meeting in Moscow between Georgy Chicherin, Soviet commissar for foreign affairs, and Ali Fuat Pasha, who represented Ankara. They agreed that the Soviets would give up Armenia and the Turks would forget about Azerbaijan. Money and weapons then helped the Turks to defeat their enemies.

Each side mistrusted the west. Each also acted against the wilder manifestations of Islam. Atatürk (in his cups, not in public) considered it “a corpse draped round our necks”. His wife corresponded with the sister of Anatoly Lunacharsky, Soviet commissar for enlightenment, on how Turkish peasants could be made literate.
In 1929 Stalin expelled Trotsky, and could find no country willing to take him until the Turks obliged. Trotsky lived there for four years (his first visitor was a Belgian journalist by the name of Georges Simenon — he discovered Trotsky reading Céline).

This all went wrong in 1945, when Stalin blew the dust off old Tsarist dossiers. He took up the Armenian cause and demanded the return of three provinces in eastern Turkey. (NB: slight error, Stalin never asked Kars Ardahan for Armenian SSR, but for his native Georgian SSR....)

In 1947, Turkey got Marshall aid and later joined the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade, and Nato. And that has worked out to its profit. Stalin’s successor, Nikita Khrushchev, recognised what a mistake the Soviet policy had been, but it was too late for a reversal of alliances. Nevertheless, Soviet-Turkish relations were never particularly bad after that. And after Suleyman Demirel became prime minister of Turkey in 1965, there was intelligent co-operation. Certainly, no planes were shot down.

The justification for the fighter-downing in November so far has been formal. But Turkish aircraft frequently violate Greek airspace, without mortal consequences. Turkey’s response to a momentary Russian violation reflects something else. Russians have been winning wars against Islam since Ivan the Terrible took Kazan in 1571. Transitory grievances now combine with historic resentments to halt and reverse the Russo-Turkish collaboration that, in the past 15 years in particular, has been beneficial to both sides.

The writer is a fellow of the Batthyany Lajos Foundation and is on leave from Bilkent University, Ankara

[Azad]

Re: Russians will manage, what they do best: turn their friends into enemies....

FINANCIAL TIMES- London

March 11, 2016
Turkey and Russia — friends for a while, now foes once again
Norman Stone

In 1997, Stone left Oxford University to teach at the department of International Relations at Bilkent University, Ankara. In 2005 Stone transferred to Koc University, Istanbul. In 2007 he returned to Bilkent University to teach history. He also guest lectures at Bogazici University, Istanbul. Since moving to Turkey, Stone has been a frequent contributor to Cornucopia, a magazine about the history and culture of Turkey. In 2004, Stone took part in a letter exchange on the pages of the Times Literary Supplement, where he criticized Peter Balakian's 2003 book on the Armenian genocide The Burning Tigris, saying that Balakian "should stick to the poems."[9] In 2010, Stone published a book on Turkish history, from the 11th century to the present day, Turkey: A Short History.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norman_Stone

the British were promoting the Greek and Armenian causes,

Just like the Brits are promoting the Armenian Causes today.