i have found these photos here. vachagan made them back in the winter 2014.
that was the next day after a car crash accident. in front of me there were two girls and one guy from azerbaidjan. vachagan was asking them about differences and similarities between azerbaidjani and turkish language. they said that formerly they were watching movies on tv or in cinema in russian, they were receiving films from russia. now they receive films from turkey, with turkish translations. she said, when the film comes to the end i realize that i didn’t even notice that it was in turkish, not in azerbaidjani.
we also asked them about the orthography. she answered that they’ve changed orthography 5 times - they were writing with arabic letters, then, during short independence in 1918-20 in latin letters, then cyrillic letters, then now again latin. she said “our president gave a promise that in two years all books will be reprinted with the new orthography”. “and, did they manage to reprint them?” - i have asked. “no” - she answered.
also she said very interesting and typical thing for someone from a country with authoritarian regime: she said she does not see any other good candidate rather than their ilham aliyev. she said “if not him - then who?”. well, isn’t it obvious that he did everything for you to think like that, my dear?
then they started to ask us about the language. they’ve said “we know there are eastern and western armenian languages. do you understand each other? how do you live in one small country and speak two languages?”
i have answered, that well, languages do not differ that much, and we perfectly understand each other, except for a couple of words that may have a bit different meaning. and i have added, that western armenian is spoken in the west only - in europe, usa, latin america. not in armenia as a rule.
and she asked naively - “why?” i hate mentioning the “genocide” word and the theme, so i remained silent for some time.
then the azerbaidjani guy who sat next to her, a guy in a shirt with some horizontal fur line on it, he smiled happily and started to whisper something in her ear. his face exprecced great satisfaction.
she said “ah, i understand”.
#film #photo #zenit #helios #tbilisi #restaurant #girl #chatting #armenia #azerbaidjan #armenian #azerbaidjani #turkish #genocide #armenian-genocide #language #orthography #evening #talk
it turned out, our beautiful modernistic gull, hated by Khrushchev, our symbol of freedom, have been privatized. Now it is located in the restaurant, and her wing stretches above the fence.
#armenia #gull #seagull #freedom #modernism #photo #fence #restaurant #privatization #bird #architecture
