By Paul Chaderjian
December 1, 2006
@ 6:04 A.M., Thursday, Thanksgiving Day 2006, California
The elevator’s dull bell dings and its golden polished brass doors part to reveal the glamorous Arsinée Khanjian. The award-winning actress, celebrated for her leading roles in Atom Egoyan’s mainstream and art films, steps out, ready for her close-up and ready to raise 15 million dollars during the Thanksgiving Day Hayastan All-Armenian Fund international telethon.
Waiting for the Canadian-Hollywoodian-Lebanese-Armenian actress--a cross between Isabella Rosellini and Juliette Binoche—is a panic-stricken driver named Vartan. The immigrant from Armenia doesn’t care who’s who in the group of hosts gathered in the lobby; he just knows he has to deliver the talent to the studio by 6:30 A.M. He knows there is a rehearsal before the eight o’clock opening of the 12-hour fundraiser, and he’s been hired to get the talent to the studio on time...
@ 1:35 P.M., Sunday, October 16, 2005, Karabagh
One year earlier and a world away, in the northernmost remote hills of the Armenian Republic of Nagorno Karabagh, Valentine, a widow in her late 30s, is walking with empty buckets to the nearest source of clean water.
Valentine lives with her two kids in the village of Gishan, north of Stepanakert. Her husband was killed when he was fighting to liberate this region of Karabagh from Azerbaijan. Her only source of income is her late husband’s pension of 40 dollars a month. Her only source of water is a faucet about a ten-minute walk from her home.
“This is no condition to live in,” she says. “If they would help me, please help. I don’t know how to live on 15 thousand drams a month. I don’t know how to feed my children. Take me away from this place. This is no condition.”
Valentine doesn’t hide the fact that if she had the means to leave Karabagh, she would. Not only does she have to live without running water at home, but her house is also falling apart. When it rains, the roof leaks and the paint and stucco on her brick walls crumble with the slightest touch.
@ 6:35 A.M., Thursday, Thanksgiving Day 2006, California
Thousands of miles away and a year later, southbound on Brand Avenue in Glendale, in the beige SUV delivering the hosts to the Glendale Studios, the driver Vartan asks me if I work for the men who orchestrate the year-round philanthropy of Armenia Fund - Ara Vardanyan and Sarkis Kotanjian. I say no and that I have been a volunteer for the Fund since its inception and that I work for Armenia TV. He asks whether I work with Artak Herikian, who is also hosting. I say, no, Artak works for Armenian State Television, H1, and H1 is a different television network than the Cafesjian Foundation-funded Armenia TV. Artak and I are employed by competing stations, I say, but all of us volunteer together on one global 12-hour broadcast.
“I forgot my notes,” says Arsinée. The index cards she carefully prepared for the telethon have been left in her room on the 15th floor. Someone needs to go and retrieve them before eight o’clock. I check to see if I have my notes in my pocket. My notes are there. My cheat sheets. With facts and figures about the 160 million dollars the Fund has raised in 15 years, notes about the thousand projects it has completed, the trivia about the north-south highway it has built in Karabagh, the lifeline highway through the Lachin corridor linking Artsakh to Armenia, the hospitals it has renovated, the scholarships it has handed out, the apartment buildings it has built in the earthquake region, the ambulances it bought for the Martakert region. All this work of nation building through the diligent fundraising of its 20 affiliates around the world.
@ 9:35 P.M., Friday, October 14, 2005, Stepanakert
The Republic of Nagorno-Karabakh president’s first assistant, Eduard Atanesyan, is leading me, my cameraman and producer Sargis Torosyan, and our driver up the stairs to President Arkady Ghoukassian’s office. We are here to interview him about Martakert and find out why it’s important for Diasporans to support the redevelopment of the region. I know the answer. We need to stop the depopulation. But I need him to give me the sound bites with which I can tell the story.
“Martakert has both cultural and historic significance in Armenian history,” says the president. “The region was also one of the most agriculturally productive areas in the former Soviet Union. When irrigation systems, roads and commerce were at their peak, the region was home to hundreds of acres of vineyards, produced wheat, fruits, and vegetables for regional consumption, and had the best grazing land for livestock.”
The Martakert region suffered the greatest amount of damage during the Karabagh liberation war between 1991 and 1992. The region was occupied and pillaged. The 11 thousand-square-mile region was home to more than 42 thousand Armenians before the war. Some 40 percent of the homes were destroyed. A few thousand of them are still being used, but they lack necessities like running water. Now, there are only about 19 thousand residents. With no roads, no jobs and no income. There is little to keep residents here.
@ 6:45 A.M., Thanksgiving Day 2006, Southern California
We hug. I ask her about her kids and whether she saw them off to their camping trip when she got home late from the dress rehearsal. She tries not to reveal her sadness and says the kids had already left. Rehearsal at two was supposed to have been done by four; we hadn’t left the studio until seven.
Her name is Alina. Alina Dorian. Dr. Alina Dorian. We are positioned next to each other, often called the Dynamic Duo, and for four years now, we have been paired up to pitch during the Telethon as a team. We are standing in front of a green wall as a technician adjusts the lights above to make sure we are well lit during the show. There are strips of masking tape marking the spot from where we cannot budge.
Dr. Dorian is a modern-day fedayee. What else can I call her? A professor of public health and disasters, a mother of three sons, the woman who wrote the Republic of Nagorno Karabakh’s national health plan, and the Diasporan scientist whose vision for a free clinic in Stepanakert materialized last summer after dozens of trips to Karabagh, after taking vacation time from work and leaving her kids behind for weeks at a time.
During the show, the huge green wall behind us will look like a television or movie screen. Through the magic of computers, the audience at home will not see the green, but will see American and Armenian flags, video of Armenians constructing the north-south highway, scenes of the millions who gathered in Armenia demanding independence back in the late 1980s, the raising of the Armenian flag in Republic Square, the economic blockade, the severe winters in the early 1990s when the population had no electricity, no food, and little hope. Then we’ll see the progress, the formation of the Armenia Fund, deliveries of humanitarian assistance, the orphanages that were given heaters, the schools that were remodeled, and the highways that were built.
Dr. Dorian in front of a computer-generated Armenian flag is the perfect image with which to demonstrate to the young people watching, the young volunteers, and the generations to come the idea that fedayees now, modern-day, 21st-century Armenian fedayees fight with intellect and education.
@ 2:00 P.M., Tuesday, May 2, 2006, Martakert
It’s been six months since the telethon that raised nearly eight million dollars for the Martakert redevelopment plan, and I’m on a two-day road trip with representatives of the Western Region of the Armenia Fund. We are here to unveil the plans developed by architects in Los Angeles for how to renovate the aging and rundown hospital.
Tenders have been announced, bids have been received, and contractors are being hired by the Yerevan office. Now, a massive water-pipeline project is under construction to bring drinking water from natural springs in the mountains to the city of Martakert and other nearby villages, and four new ambulances are serving the population of the region.
There are also acres upon acres of land being tilled and planted by Martakert farmers, thanks to more than a dozen new tractors. In addition to the machinery, farmers have received expert help from scientists, have been given wheat seeds, and have hope of bringing to market some of their produce this year on the roads constructed by the Fund.
@ 7:00 A.M., Thursday, Thanksgiving Day 2006, Glendale
Another hug. More hellos. Salpi Ghazarian is in the make-up chair. I’m waiting my turn. She has traveled from Yerevan for one day to participate in the Telethon. We need clones of Salpi, I say, because she’s not only an advisor to the foreign minister, but she’s the most articulate, bilingual, well-read, and get-it-done person I know.
My mother and Salpi happened to sit next to each other at a teachers’ conference in 1989. I was a producer at the Disney Channel, and she was on a committee that was about to launch a weekly television program for the Armenian National Committee in Los Angeles. Mothers boast about their sons and soon Salpi had my number to get an Armenian not involved in the Armenian community to help his people launch a television show. In 1998 when I had strayed away and was reporting drive-by shootings in Fresno, Salpi assigned me to go to Yerevan for the first time and write about the Presidential elections. In 2003, she recommended me when the Cafesjian Family Foundation needed someone with Western media experience to work with their television station in Yerevan.
For the next 13 hours, Salpi, Arsinée, and the others have to communicate what we know while studio technicians, Executive Producer Ara Madzounian, and nearly two hundred volunteers create a television event with cameras, microphones, and a few pretaped reports from Karabagh. This year, the focus is on the southern Karabagh region of Hadrut.
The collective team, all from various careers, countries, and subcultures, will create an unprecedented event, a global connection between Armenians in all the remote corners of the world, in the homeland, in the Diaspora, via television, cable, satellite, radio, and the Internet. This wasn’t possible ten years ago, but now it’s the Information Age. Everyone can be a filmmaker; everyone can produce a television show. Cameras are cheap, computers can edit, and thousands of cable channels are hungry for material.
On this day, this annual Thanksgiving tradition since Armenia’s independence, Armenians who know something about television have gathered to use their skills to raise money for the homeland, specifically for the Hadrut region in southern Karabagh, and to validate the essence of cultural unity. Telethon 2006 will also create and reaffirm the psychological ties that bind all members of the small tribe of people known as Armenians.
@ 2:05 P.M., Saturday, October 15, 2005, Stepanakert
There are landmine warning signs as we drive through the muddy trail that is supposed to be a road. We are heading to Martakert to shoot a couple of stories for Armenia TV, and I promise myself not to return here until the north-south highway is fully constructed. I’m car sick and my cameraman and driver won’t stop smoking. It was a six-hour drive from Yerevan to Stepanakert, and now there is another two-hour drive to Martakert. The cameraman doesn’t understand why I am dragging him here. He doesn’t understand the curse of the Diaspora, the psychological price one pays for the amenities, the clean bathrooms, the paved roads, the isolation of being an outsider, the longing for a homeland, a place to belong.
This region is like an island, a place that time forgot and war ravaged, leaving the remaining citizens without hope. The plan to rebuild Martakert through the upcoming Telethon 2005 includes a massive redevelopment plan, created by experts in their fields. Scientists, academics, planners, and social workers put their heads together to come up with a multipronged program that included road improvement projects, the creation of new roads to connect rural villages with bigger cities, the building of new schools, a gas and water distribution system, agricultural irrigation systems, the establishment of regional and central health care clinics and hospitals, and even minute details like job training, counseling and giving repatriates hard currency for coming back to the area and for having children.
The biggest issues were basic needs like water and health care. If a villager were to need emergency medical service here, his or her only hope would be to stay alive until reaching the hospital in Stepanakert, because the area has no medical emergency response system. If it was winter or the roads were muddy and not maneuverable, a heart attack could mean death; a woman in complicated labor could see the loss of a child, a mother, or both.
“If someone has an emergency, your neighbor is your nearest hospital,” says a farmer whom I interview on our way up to Martakert the following morning.
@ 8:00 A.M., Thursday, Thanksgiving Day 2006, Glendale studios
...3 ...2 ...1 and Hrair Sarkissian, the floor director, cues the talent to talk. We’re on live. No going back. No room for mistakes. The message has to be clear. The unscripted words have to be concise, to the point. Armenia Fund Director of Communications and Development Greg Boyrazian is in the control room keeping us on message and making sure what we are saying and why we are saying it are accurate. There's no retake. We have to know our talking points before the red lights on the cameras light up and Hrair gives us the cue.
There is panic at the phone banks; too many people are calling in and the computer system is overwhelmed by entries. Thirty thousand names transferred from the European phone-a-thon have crashed the server connecting the 60 operators fielding calls from prospective donors. The teenagers who were chosen from a pool of 500 applicants, who trained on the system weeks ahead of the Telethon, who are all wearing their white “I [a pomegranate with a heart shape inside] Armenia” t-shirts can’t record the calls they are receiving in the computer. The system has crashed and the cyber-experts are trying to fix the problem.
Armenia Fund Western Region executives are trying to keep the kids motivated, animated, and on task. Without computers, with calls coming in, with a live television show underway on the same stage, a collective panic attack this early in the marathon, this early in the endurance test of more than 200 people was the last thing anyone needed.
And about that pomegranate on the Telethon 2006 logo. Clever. Helena Gregorian designed this year’s campaign and logo. She’s been a volunteer and designed last year’s campaign as well.
“I always felt that the noor (pomegranate) was a prominent symbol of our culture,” she says. "It also symbolizes fertility and life and was something that no matter where you were in the world or your age, as an Armenian you could identify with and understand. When I was given the direction that they were looking for-- Seerom Em Eem Yergire or 'I love the homeland'--I thought about this for a good while. Once I looked at the final concept, I thought, How could it be anything else?”
@ 7:25 P.M., Saturday, November 4, 2006, Martakert Regional Hospital
A year has passed since the 2005 telethon, and four brand-new ambulances are now serving the Martakert Regional Hospital and nearly 20 thousand residents in the area.
The Waas brand four-wheel drive vehicles are equipped with state-of-the-art emergency medical care technology. From cardiopulmonary resuscitation equipment to emergency care medication, the ambulance is serving the population of Martakert, not only responding to emergencies, but also bringing women in labor to the hospital from remote villages some 35 miles away and also reaching out to rural communities with monthly house-call visits.
The shift doctor on this Saturday night is actually excited about the idea of going out with the ambulance. For a man who has had to sit in a 20-year-old Ford when responding to an emergency, riding in a real ambulance is like being on an E-ride in Disneyland. Having real equipment and a real ambulance with which to treat his patients is something this gray-haired physician could have never imagined after years of hardship at this hospital.
@ 8:55 A.M., Thursday, Thanksgiving Day 2006, Southern California
The server remains crashed. The volunteers on the phones are writing down donors’ names on pieces of paper. Rock and Roll. What else can they do?
On stage two is the star of the year, Andre. I introduce him, Andre, last name unknown, a Karabaghtsi who represented Armenia at the EuroVision talent show with his song “Without Your Love.” His controversial video featuring a priest professing his love to a woman in red upset the catholicos, and Andre became a pop idol overnight.
Take 2: Andre was chosen by State Television as Armenia’s representative at the Eurovision Song Contest. With his hip look and his way-too-pop tune, Andre beat out nearly two dozen other acts to win eighth place in the concert. A huge number of votes came from Turkey.
Today, he is performing “Mi Bood Choor,” a song asking for a drop of water from the homeland. In his talk after the song, Andre asks viewers and his fans to call in this time and vote with their dollars and to vote for Armenia Fund and for Karabagh.
@ 3:30 P.M., Thursday, Thanksgiving Day 2006, Glendale
Two young boys who wanted to raise money for Armenia sold lemonade in front of their house. Their parents brought their earnings and them to the studio. $101. There is applause. A younger generation learning about giving, learning about the idea of cultural preservation, the homeland.
Across the stage is Harut Sassounian, longtime community leader, activist, writer. He is here on behalf of Kirk Kerkorian’s Lincy Foundation, and he is about to make an announcement that Mr. Kerkorian is going to give the Hayastan All-Armenian Fund another two million dollars.
@ 9:17 A.M., Thursday, Thanksgiving Day 2006, Southern California
A text message appears on my cell phone, and it’s from Houri Vartanian on California’s Central Coast. “Looking good,” she writes. “Energetic. U R great.” I know that our images are electrons flowing through the airwaves, radio frequencies, 0s and 1s on people’s computers, and I’m wondering if anyone is watching the web stream on their cell phones. I’m sure in time we’ll be even more connected. More than we are during these 12 hours.
@ 11:25 A.M., Saturday, October 15, 2005, Stepanakert
I’m interviewing Michel Tankrez, who is the representative of the Hayastan All-Armenian Fund in Nagorno Karabakh. He tells me that one of the initiatives being proposed to help repopulate the border regions in the Republic is a five-thousand-dollar allowance for newlyweds. Couples who choose to get married would be given five thousand dollars, and these loans would be forgiven if couples were to have three babies within six years of their marriage. Each child born would translate to a thousand-dollar credit, and the entire loan would be dismissed if the newlyweds had three children.
The Armenia Fund is also considering giving repatriates 500 to one thousand dollars in an attempt to lure former residents of the region back. Tankrez says the dollar amount would be adjusted if there are newborns or depending on the number of family members.
@ 11:30 A.M., Thursday, Thanksgiving Day 2006, Glendale studios
Nune Yesayan, dubbed by the media as Armenia’s ambassador of song, takes the Telethon stage to perform Sayat Nova. She has just returned from a tour in South America, and she and the host introducing her know that her fans down south are watching her performance. Musician Ara Mardirossian, the man who composed the theme of the 2006 Telethon, is accompanying her on the piano.
@ 11:35 A.M., Saturday, October 15, 2005, Stepanakert
The interview continues on the main street of Stepanakert. Michel is talking about the issues the population of Martakert, Hadrut, and other remote parts of Karabagh are facing. The Soviet-era factories are gone, and people don’t have the skills to take up specialties like animal husbandry or agribusiness. Previously, the area was home to factories, timber mills, flour mills, and vineyards. Now the residents of the area have to be retrained because those factory jobs are gone.
And there is more. These regions have a great need for communication infrastructure. There is one paper in the city of Martakert, but outlying areas have no communication with the center of the region. Right now, all that Armenians in the region can watch and listen to are broadcasts from across the border, 24 hours a day of Azeri TV, 24 hours a day of Azeri radio, Azeri music, Azeri news, Azeri fashion, Azeri culture and Azeri dramas. No other choice. No other options. However, the government has plans for television and radio broadcasts and wants to connect all the villages to the Internet.
@ 11:49 A.M., Thursday, Thanksgiving Day 2006, Southern California
Another text message appears on my cell phone from my colleague Armine Amiryan in Armenia. It reads, “You are great. I am proud of you. Everyone is speaking about you.” Along with the text message comes news that the server is working, and people from Australia, Dubai, Russia, the Middle East, and across the U.S. are making online donations using their credit cards. Bits and bytes are bringing Armenians together.
@ 6:34 P.M., Wednesday, May 3, 2006, Goris-Stepanakert highway
Deep Canyons, picturesque valleys, and green fields are the essence of Nagorno, or Mountainous Karabagh. From Armenia, the shortest and safest road is the Hayastan All-Armenia Fund highway through the Lachin Corridor, a road that has been the metaphoric and literal connection between the Diaspora, the Republic of Armenia and the Nagorno-Karabagh Republic.
“I’m grateful to our Diaspora who stood behind us during the independence movement and during the liberation war,” says Ghoukassian. “And together we have already solved many problems. The proof is in the road that you took to reach Stepanakert. That’s the Goris-Stepanakert highway. It was built by the means of the Diaspora and there is now a very important symbolic move--that which links Karabagh to Yerevan and to the Diaspora.”
President Arkady Ghoukassian says he is convinced that without the Diaspora and without Armenia, it would have been difficult for Karabagh to have its big victory in the battle field. And today, the president says, without Armenia and the Diaspora, it would be difficult to ensure Karabagh’s economic development.
@ 1:45 P.M., Thursday, Thanksgiving Day 2006, Glendale
On the air is a segment produced by the students of the AGBU’s Demirjian-Manoukian school. These passionate teens have been working all year to raise money for Armenia Fund. They have held walk-a-thons, car washes, bake sales, and even a fashion show. Penny on penny, dollar by dollar, their laborious projects have added up to... drum roll please... 117 thousand dollars.
@ 6:36 P.M., Wednesday, May 3, 2006, Goris-Stepanakert highway
We’re racing back to Yerevan’s Zvarnotz airport to welcome Mark Geragos. He’s been named to the Board of Trustees of the Hayastan All-Armenian Fund, and he is arriving in Armenia for the annual board meeting. The famed attorney’s arrival to the homeland comes on the same day that Armenia is mourning the crash of Armavia Flight 967 into the Black Sea. In the days following the crash, Armenia Fund announces a $25 thousand donation to the families of the victims.
The news of the crash has a numbing effect, especially on a day when the staff of the Martakert Regional Hospital celebrated the launch of the hospital’s renovation project. The hospital exchanged hands several times, and it is where the victims of the liberation war received life-saving treatment. Before news of the crash came, hundreds had gathered for the unveiling of the architectural plans that will mean running water inside surgery rooms, patient rooms no longer having to be heated with wood fires, and modern x-ray machines and four new ambulances.
@ 4:30 P.M., Thursday, November 23, 2006, Glendale studios
Arby and Vartan Vartanian are standing in front of the Armenia Fund banners that feature a prominent pomegranate between the letter I and the word Artsakh. The Vartanian family donated ten thousand dollars in 2005 to help pay for one of the ambulances serving Martakert. This year they are making a $25,000 donation to buy another ambulance for the Hadrut region. Their mother Freida is at home, watching as she prepares the family’s Thanksgiving dinner.
The four ambulances cost the Hayastan All-Armenian Fund more than $100,000. They were purchased with donations made during the 2005 Telethon. Emergency care was only one of the multilevel assistance programs. In addition to health care, the Martakert Redevelopment Program focused on water.
“First and foremost is our need for water,” says one farmer. “There is water in the region, and plenty of it. The Tartar River flows nearby and takes the ample resource north to Azerbaijan. If our people could have water, they could plant crops. They could get rich. And the government could get rich, and all the roads could be constructed.”
@ 2:35 P.M., Sunday, October 16, 2005, Stepanakert
In an open parcel of land in the middle of the capital city, young men and women are learning how to unearth and defuse mines. Landmines are a daily threat for people in the region, and the Armenia Fund is helping a nongovernmental agency, HALO trust, work daily to continue mine-clearing operations.
Hovik Chaparian, my cameraman, videotapes the trainees as they use metal detectors to locate the replicas of explosives and dig the dirt as if there were real bombs buried there. They wear protective masks and shrapnel-proof vests, but kids playing in the fertile and mined open fields of Karabagh and farmers who want to grow crops are not protected, and most don’t even know the danger right under their feet.
According to HALO trust, six bombs exploded from January up until this day in October 2005. Two people were killed as a result and six others were wounded. The most recent explosion happened in the village of Chankatagh, where a 13-year-old boy discovered a mine and pulled the ring of the grenade without knowing what it was. In 2004, 25 mines exploded, killing ten people and injuring 32. In 2003, there were 25 accidents. Nine killed, 27 wounded. The government says a majority of the explosions happen when people are tilling the soil for harvest, while others happen because of carelessness.
@ 7:45 A.M., Thursday, Thanksgiving Day 2006, Glendale studios
Maria Mehranian, chief financial officer for a multimillion-dollar engineering corporation and chairwoman of the Western Region Armenia Fund, is practicing reading the teleprompter. She is delivering the opening message to thousands of viewers from New York to Los Angeles, Yerevan to Australia.
Dozens of terrestrial broadcast stations, cable networks, satellite channels, and the Internet will be taking her message to a wide demographic of non-Armenians, European Armenians, American-Armenians, and people in Stepanakert and the villages of Karapagh, where the people who fought in the liberation struggle have dedicated their lives to their ancestral homeland and the region that gave birth to the Mashdotz alphabet.
@ 1:15 P.M., Thursday, Thanksgiving Day 2006, Glendale studios
On stage Tatevik Ekezian introduces Nune Yesayan, Nune's former voice teacher, jazz legend Tatevik Hovanisian, and musical prodigy Tigran Hamasyian.
Nune has sold out concert halls all over the world. From Lincoln Center in New York to the Universal Amphitheater in Los Angeles, from the Kodak in Hollywood to the Pasadena Civic Auditorium, from the Karen Demirtjian Complex known as the Hamaleer to the Opera. She’s a pop icon with media mentions in the LA Times and NY Times, CNN, the Boston Globe, and this paper you are reading.
Across from her is a modern-day jazz legend, Datevik Hovanisian. She’s performed with a who’s who of the jazz world, recorded hundreds of songs, performed on stage, on television, and on movie soundtracks. From PBS to BET, she’s been everywhere and was once dubbed “the first lady of Jazz” in the Soviet Union. Did I forget to mention that her musical genes come from father and mother? The latter happened to be Ophelia Hambartsumian, the renowned master of Armenian folk songs.
Behind the keyboard is a 20-year-old USC student who can only be described as a child prodigy. This year, the Thelonious Monk Institute of Jazz presented Tamazian with its first place award in the International Jazz Piano Competition. The honor two months before the telethon came to a kid from Gyumri who began to play the piano at the age of ten. Since then, he has performed around the world at concerts, festivals, and competitions, winning first prize at the Monaco Jazz Soloist Competition.
In a rare performance, these three legends in their own right came together for one cause, the Hayastan All-Armenian Fund, and the music they made together was magic. The pop star, the jazz legend, and the child prodigy, on one stage, at the same time, connecting three different worlds, three different histories, and thousands of homes throughout Armenia and the Armenian Diaspora.
“We are all connected,” says Madzounian. “The collaboration was something that had never been tried, and that moment in the Telethon was a rare and precious moment. It would probably never happen again.”
@ 4:45 P.M., Thursday, Thanksgiving Day 2006, Glendale studios
Another panic attack. Another rare moment that everyone hopes will never happen again. The switcher in the second floor control room is on the fritz. When Madzounian tells the technical director which one of the cameras on the stage he wants to route through to millions of homes, the buttons on the switcher don’t respond.
“It was a total nightmare through the end of the show,” Madzounian says, reflecting on the experience. “This was the biggest challenge during the Telethon and one of the reasons live programs are more difficult to produce.”
Production staffer Harut Arakelian gathers up backup tapes that would air in case of an emergency like the switcher completely going dark. For the next four hours, the panic mode continues, Ara and his control room staff not knowing whether they have control of the show or not.
“The challenge is not creating the errors for the viewer,” says Madzounian, “and it’s hard to have a seamless program when you are sitting in the control room and the only means of communication with the hundreds of people coming in and out of the studio are headsets. You have no total control of how the floor is managed, and donors and school kids’ excitement coming in and coming down, trying to make their donations is quite a challenge to handle.”
@ 12:30 A.M., Thursday, Thanksgiving Day 2006, Glendale studios
A satellite connection links European Armenia Fund chairs to the hosts in Los Angeles. On the video link are Bedros Terzian, head of the French affiliate, and Gilbert Momdjian, head of the German affiliate. Terzian announces that the European Phone-a-Thon campaign raised more than $1.5 million. The newly formed German affiliate announces a $60 thousand donation. During the interview, audiences across the globe watch footage of young European-Armenians on the phone, talking to donors, recording pledges, and cheering when there are major contributions.
@ 8:35 A.M., Sunday, October 16, 2005, Stepanakert
It’s Sunday Morning in Stepanakert. The market is slowly coming to life with people who have come from the villages by bus, or by car, but even getting a parking spot here is tough. They are here to buy lettuce, pick up some green onions, or eat some warm jingal bread, which is dough mixed with 27 types of greens.
The grapes attract only the bees, but very few shoppers at this hour. For sale in the market are lots of fruits and vegetables. The oranges are bright, and there are plenty of red and green apples. But stone-faced women wait for customers who are not there. A man carefully arranges the pomegranates he has for sale. There are also the green, leafy godem greens and yellow quinces. A resident who sees the camera kids that he needs to be paid if we are going to videotape him.
The fruit stands are ready and the jingal bread has been baked and is cooling, the parsley gathered, but little money is changing hands. There are bottles of oil and wine, and there is even coffee ready for the employees.
Outside the market, yet more people doing business, sidewalks full of people coming for fruits and vegetables, all to prepare their Sunday dinner. And the talk that is heard over and over again is jobs, how to feed the kids, the future of the republic, and how the people who put their lives on the line will survive the economic struggles ahead.
@ 5:20 P.M., Thursday, Thanksgiving Day 2006, Glendale studios
Young Tatevik, a radio personality in Fresno and newcomer to the Telethon, is rapping in Spanish. She’s talking with Buenos Aires and Jorge Vartparonian, the chairperson of the Hayastan All-Armenian Fund office in Argentina.
@ 7:56 pm, Thanksgiving Day 2006, Glendale studios
Creating the proper living conditions for residents of Karabagh was this year’s top priority for the Hayastan All-Armenian Fund. The decreasing population and decreasing growth rate are major challenges. Giving the region a new lease on life means creating a whole new infrastructure: roads, fuel distribution, delivering clean drinking water, giving farmers ample irrigation water, building canals, building schools and hospitals.
And all this will be possible. Donations continue to pour in, and we’ve already surpassed 13-and-a-half million dollars. We’re out of time, and Ara is ending the show with this year’s theme song music video, “Yes, Seerom Em Eem Yergire.”
There are hugs. Strangers who didn’t know each other prior to the event are now best friends. Bonds are forged. Old bonds are revived. We’ve created a community in the Diaspora. We have empowered the tribe called Armenians.
@ 8:55 P.M., Tuesday, November 28, 2006, Fresno
My Yahoo Messenger alerts me with a dull ding (déjà vu) that I have an e-mail. It’s from the Glendale Armenia Fund office, and it’s titled, "Unprecedented $13.7 Million Pledged. Telethon 2006 Marks All Time High, Breaks Records."
I read more. The subhead says, “Armenia Fund volunteers celebrating yet another successful Telethon.” True, I say. Feels pretty special to have been an extra on the Telethon set, to have helped in some minute way for projects that will help change the lives of those like Valentine and the countless others I may never meet in my lifetime.
I read the press release with the datelines of Los Angeles, New York, Paris, Yerevan and smile. If Genocide was the lemon, we’re making sweet lemonade.
Sarkis, Greg, and Ara are writing me and thousands of other Armenia Fund fans to tell us that the Telethon and Armenia Fund's 20 international affiliates are pleased to announce that an unprecedented $13.7 million was pledged internationally during various fundraising events held across the world. Nice.
“Armenia Fund's ambitious drive to raise critical assistance and funds for Nagorno Karabakh concluded with its 9th annual international telethon,” says the e-mail. I know next year, I’m going to be pitching for 150 rural villages in Armenia. The goal in 2007 will be to help eradicate poverty in rural Armenia.
I’m ready. Are you?