Armenia

A month ago an old friend from London contacted me with regards to designing a web site to promote sustainable and ethical tourism to the mainly Kurdish-inhabited town of Dogubayazit on the other side of the Turkish border near Mount Ararat. As I believe that sustainable and ethical tourism is vital for developing countries I jumped at the chance, and not least since there are precious few projects of a similar nature in Armenia.

Dogubayazit is a Kurdish town in Turkey that has suffered more than most from decades of war and under investment. With the changing political environment that has come over the last 6 years there is now the opportunity to develop tourism to this town that has so much to offer and we are proud to be involved with this project.

Anyway, the site has just gone live and there’s even been some press coverage about the larger intiative to attract ethical tourism to Dogubayazit in the Kurdish media.

Initiatives to improve tourism give yields in Agri’s Dogubeyazit District which contains many historical and natural places like Ishakpasa Palace, Ehmed-e Xani Tomb, Priest’s Garden, fortress remained from Urartus, Nuh’s Ship, Meteor Hole, Ice Caves, Agri Mountain. Maintanance works continues in the road leading to Ishakpasa Palace. Also works of forestation near Tomb of Ehmed-e Xani picked up speed. One thousand unit saplings were planted around Ishakpasa Palaca and Tomb of Ehmed-e Xani.

[…]

Mukaddes Kubilay, chairman of Dogubeyazit, said that they prepared several projects to develop tourism in the region. Stating that he held negotiations to improve tourism in the visit he made to England, Kubilay, said that ‘’ A corporation will be build up to attract foreign tourists to here, this work will center around representing the district and our historical places.’’

There’s still some tweaks to do to the site, but the site is pretty much complete at this stage and can be accessed at http://www.noahsarkholidays.com. Incidently, I had designed and implemented a site to promote sustainable tourism to Armenia, but it’s currently offline. Anyway, if you were thinking of visiting Eastern Turkey this year, take a look.

By Nessuna

On Friday, May 5, I had the pleasure to be present at a lecture entitled “Globalization and Transition to Market and Democracy: The Lessons from Polish Experience.” The lecture lasted two hours longer than scheduled, and it was probably one of the most interesting and informative lectures I have been to.

The lecturer was “a key architect of Polish reforms”, who used to hold the position of the Deputy Premier and Minister of Finance in Poland in 1994-97 and 2002-03 who now works as the Director of TIGER as well as being a professor at the Leon Kozminski Academy of Entrepreneurship and Management in Warsaw.

He is also the author of 35 books and over 300 articles and research papers that are published in 23 languages around the globe.

According to his biography, the UN, IMF and the WB “have sought his expertise” and “he has accepted invitations for visiting professorships at Yale, UCLA and the University of Rochester, New York.” On top of that all he is “a marathon runner and world traveler who has explored over 120 countries.”

I was surprised to know that even though Professor Grzegorz W. Kołodko had only a few days in Armenia he managed to balance his meetings and lectures with traveling outside of Yerevan. Apparently, he even paid a visit to Tatev monastery, 20 km to the south-west of Goris, which was unfortunately covered in fog.

One can find many of Professor Grzegorz W. Kołodko’s publications online, and that is why I will highlight only some of the key points made during his lecture.

It is believed that Poland has handled the challenges of 15 years of transformation better than other economies. Professor Kołodko disagreed with the term “shock therapy” used with regards to the Polish experience because “it is misleading.” Poland did not undergo shock therapy, but it was rather “shock without therapy” at the beginning and then “therapy without shocks” later.

One of the reasons behind Poland’s “economic miracle” is that it has not only managed to have the “dynamics of growth,” but also to properly distribute “its fruits.” Of course, it isn’t a secret that geopolitical position is also very important. Poland has the most favorable geopolitical position, as opposed to Armenia which has “the most awkward one” in the region. However, and while there is more than a grain of truth that geopolitical position matters, so does policy.

At the same time, the soundness of policy does not depend on institution building alone. It depends on other factors such as economic doctrine or the skills of policy-makers.

Here is an interesting fact for you. According to some American survey, when asked “Do you believe in Hell?” and “Do you believe in Heaven?” more people answered “yes” to the second question. We soon believe what we desire. Yet, how can one believe in the existence of Heaven while denying the existence of Hell? If there is right, then there is wrong — one cannot exist without another.

Yet, there is no Hell and no Heaven, it is the same place. This is to say that “the flow of capital,” for example, can turn into a good or bad experience depending on the policy the government pursues. Yet no policy maker will ever say they are doing badly because they were wrong. Policy-making is indeed more art than science, and somewhere where one has to combine so many things at the same time.

In fact, the point that Professor Grzegorz W. KoÅ‚odko’s emphasized many times during the lecture was that “things happen the way they do because many things are happening at the same time.”

One lesson that Armenia can learn from Poland is that “the main source of development is domestic capital accumulation.” Foreign capital cannot be a substitute for national savings. In other words, having foreigners investing in Armenia is good, but it is much more important to create the necessary conditions for domestic capital accumulation. Tourism is one sector of the economy that Armenia can benefit from. However it requires proper infrastructure, knowledge and management.

Much attention is paid to the question whether democracy facilitates economic growth or not, and while it is generally believed that the answer is “yes”, it was pointed out that this also depends on the decision-making processes that take place. Thus, sometimes enlighted dictatorship works much better in terms of achieving economic growth that democracy can. China is a perfect example of this. However, the question one should ask is do we want economic growth at the expense of democracy?

Quoting Professor Kolodko, “democracy is a value per se, disregarding economic growth.” Interestingly, he also said that in Poland, the market economy works better than democracy.

Speaking of globalization, it was mentioned that this is the only logical path of development, whether we like it or not. It is not always fair, and there are losers and winners, but it is nevertheless “the end of history” as we know it. We can try to impose tariffs, or dismantle McDonalds stores as French farmer Jose Bove did, but the process of globalization is irreversible.

When asked about Armenia and neighboring countries, Professor Kolodko replied that ideally, Armenia should strengthen its ties with Turkey and Azerbaijan, engage in trade, open its market, and integrate to the fullest. However, because of historical and political connotations, this option is not foreseeable in the near future.

At the end of the lecture, Professor Kolodko, promised to visit Armenia again, provided there won’t be any fog in Goris.

PanArmenian.net reports that Armenian MP Tigran Arzakantsyan has been mugged in Moscow. According to the report, Arzakantsyan was robbed of possessions worth over $54,000 and is in hospital with head injuries. Nice to know what business interests sit in Parliament, how much money they have, and what they get up to while in Russia.

April 5 the Prosecutor’s Office of the Western District of Moscow instituted proceedings on a criminal case on robbery article of the Russian Criminal Code on the fact of attack against Armenian MP. As it was possible to specify in Yerevan, Executive Director of Great Valley Brandy, Wine and Vodka Company Tigran Arzakantsyan, 39, is the victim of the attack. He was attacked March 29 at a casino in the Minsk Street in Moscow. At about 4:00 a.m. a group of unknown persons beat the MP and then they took away his Frank Muller watches and cellular phone. The stolen things are estimated to cost 1.5 million rubles. March 30 the victim was hospitalized with a cranial and cerebral injury. April 4 one of the assistants of the beat Deputy called the police and reported the happening. The malefactors are being identified at present, reports IA Regnum.

No wonder this guy sits on the Standing Committee on Financial-Credit, Budgetary and Economic Affairs and is part of the ruling Republican Party faction of the Armenian Prime Minister, Andranik Markarian. Still, I wonder if Mr Arzakantsyan’s local constituents will be too concerned about this incident and his well-being. Probably not.

The AzerTag State News Agency reports that a conference dedicated to the Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) in Azerbaijan has been held in Baku. During the event, an award identifying Baku as the FDI European City of the Future for the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) was presented to Minister of Economic Development of Azerbaijan, Heydar Babayev.

Speakers have emphasized the main role of Baku in attracting of direct foreign investment. As was underlined, the city was successful in competition for this prestigious award against strong cities from Belarus, Ukraine, Moldova, Georgia and Armenia in the first round. In the second round, Baku was competing with Vilnius, Latvia and Brno, Czech Republic, which left even Budapest (Hungary) behind.

The fDi magazine published by the Financial Times Group which selects cities based on their performace including education, economic potential, cost effectiveness and quality of life, human resources and transport had this to say about Baku when it made it through the first round of judging in February.

EASTERN EUROPE/WESTERN CIS:

Winner: Baku, Azerbaijan

Runner up: Rivne City, Ukraine

With an estimated GDP of more than 12.6bn for 2005 and an economy growing at more than 10% a year, Baku is emerging as an important economic powerhouse for the Western Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) countries. The Azerbaijan government estimates that more than €4bn in FDI flowed into the city in 2005.

IT and communications are still catching up with EU standards, but more than one in four people have access to the internet, and data connection speeds of up to 500 megabits a second are available. Modern housing is available close to shopping areas where familiar outlets such as Polo, Benetton and McDonald’s have opened.

fDi magazine can be found online here.

For some reason I always wanted to work as a waitress. While the roots of such a desire are yet to be explored, I was happy to finally find a waitressing job in Yerevan last summer. Of course, I did not last more than seven working days with their crazy schedule and the pressure to quit the job.

Now, there is something very wrong about Armenian perceptions of the service industry in general, and waitressing in particular. Apparently, it is not half as shameful to waste your daddy’s money as it is to work as a waitress.

In fact, one of my friends tried to convince me to give it up, because it is beyond pride “to serve.”

Others were more supportive, but they still never liked the idea because there is this image of a waitress being somewhat “easy.” This was used as an argument by the same friend to keep me away from the job. There are men for whom waitresses are not much different from prostitutes.

And if you ever wondered why Armenian waiters and waitresses do not smile, maybe I can shed some light on the issue. First, it is virtually impossible to find a part-time waitress job here in Yerevan. As a rule, the job starts in the morning and ends late at night. Thus, on the average the working day lasts for 13 hours. With a work schedule like that by the end of the day you are anything but smiling.

Of course, there is a reason for this — namely that during the daytime there are not as many customers, and since waiting staff mainly rely on tips, nobody would prefer a slow daytime to busy evenings. Of course, there is solution as well, and perhaps a few restaurants do hire part-time workers after all, but from what I can judge, it is not a common practice.

Secondly, nobody was really happy with their jobs where I worked . It is hard to be happy waiting on people for 13 hours a day, and it seemed that I was the only one enjoying what I did. The only reason and motivation for the work for everybody else was the good pay — as on a average day you can make around 4,500 thousand drams — and the acute need for money.

They could not grasp the idea of being able to find another job and yet wanting to work as a waitress. However, and while it might sound strange, there’s something about serving food to people. It’s hard to explain, I guess.

It was educational certainly. For example, the owner of the restaurant used to dine out with his friends quite often, and whenever he would order we had to tell the cook it was his order to make sure that it was madeboth fast and of a higher quality. This came as a complete surprise to me. I would think that the owner of a restaurant shoud care about their customer, and therefore his own profit, more than anything else.

Guess not. A customer can wait for his food, and why not compromise on the quality of the food for a customer? And this is a privately owned business, mind you, so it kind of gives you a picture about how bad the situation is at the governmental level. Anyway, looking back at my time spent as a waitress there is a couple of things that I have learnt.

First, I now tip more generously than before, but more importantly, what it feels like to be a waitress in Armenia. Even now, I envy every waitresses when I go out.