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Agence France Presse
Aug 13 2011
Armenian 'Olympics' seeks to combat depopulation
(AFP) - 7 hours ago
YEREVAN - Thousands of Armenians from all over the world gathered on
Saturday for the opening of an Olympics-style tournament aimed at
encouraging people of Armenian origin to return to their homeland.
More than 3,200 athletes -- representatives of the huge Armenian
diaspora as well as native residents -- will compete in Yerevan at the
Pan-Armenian Games, a showpiece nine-day event including sports like
football, tennis, swimming and volleyball.
Teams of diaspora Armenians from countries including the United
States, Iran, Iraq, Russia, Turkey and France joined a parade at the
opening ceremony, where an Olympics-style torch was brought from the
disputed region of Nagorny Karabakh, which Armenian forces seized from
neighbour Azerbaijan in a war in the 1990s.
"We talk a lot about migration, about the fact that many young people
leave the country, but these games are the opposite of that -- they
attract them back," the chairman of the Pan-Armenian Games World
Committee Ishkhan Zakarian told AFP.
Armenia's population is believed to have fallen by about one million
since it became independent from the Soviet Union in 1991, and the
number of ethnic Armenians living outside the country is much larger
than the 3.2 million who now live in the small Caucasus state.
Amid growing concerns about depopulation, the government has also been
running a scheme entitled "Come Home" in an attempt to reverse the
trend by bringing hundreds of ethnic Armenians to the country each
year for holidays, with the ultimate aim of convincing them to
resettle there.
From: Baghdasarian
Aug 13 2011
Armenian 'Olympics' seeks to combat depopulation
(AFP) - 7 hours ago
YEREVAN - Thousands of Armenians from all over the world gathered on
Saturday for the opening of an Olympics-style tournament aimed at
encouraging people of Armenian origin to return to their homeland.
More than 3,200 athletes -- representatives of the huge Armenian
diaspora as well as native residents -- will compete in Yerevan at the
Pan-Armenian Games, a showpiece nine-day event including sports like
football, tennis, swimming and volleyball.
Teams of diaspora Armenians from countries including the United
States, Iran, Iraq, Russia, Turkey and France joined a parade at the
opening ceremony, where an Olympics-style torch was brought from the
disputed region of Nagorny Karabakh, which Armenian forces seized from
neighbour Azerbaijan in a war in the 1990s.
"We talk a lot about migration, about the fact that many young people
leave the country, but these games are the opposite of that -- they
attract them back," the chairman of the Pan-Armenian Games World
Committee Ishkhan Zakarian told AFP.
Armenia's population is believed to have fallen by about one million
since it became independent from the Soviet Union in 1991, and the
number of ethnic Armenians living outside the country is much larger
than the 3.2 million who now live in the small Caucasus state.
Amid growing concerns about depopulation, the government has also been
running a scheme entitled "Come Home" in an attempt to reverse the
trend by bringing hundreds of ethnic Armenians to the country each
year for holidays, with the ultimate aim of convincing them to
resettle there.
From: Baghdasarian