Yerevan, Armenia, July 2010

At the “Research Center on globalization and regional cooperation”, directed by Stepan Grigoryan, in Yerevan, you understand that also in the Caucasus there are advanced peaks of a culture of dialogue, mixed to incredible strictness and propaganda. Armenia is a nation that has spread around the world and counts with 7 million people in its Diaspora.  Within its national borders live only 3 million Armenians. This double condition of the population makes the half casts express a deep and open culture, even if the issue of the genocide of 1915 is still present and makes reflection harder.

The biggest diasporas, in an organic relation with Yerevan, live in Russia, the United States, Lebanon and France. There is also a Ministry for the Diaspora and we are received by its vice minister. A young man that got back from Russia two years ago makes us well understand the point of view of this population with such an original story. When he says that the third objective of his ministry is the project “return” we smile with the Rondine students. We also have a “return” project, supporting the young students, after their long stay in Rondine, in the delicate phase of reinsertion in their own societies. We tell them that, after the first failures, we are very satisfied having seen with our own eyes the first young Caucasians that have returned and are well inserted in roles of protagonism both in their professional and civil life.

At the Research Center a serious debate opens with analysts and politicians, journalists and personalities committed to Caucasian society: you can breathe future. There is also a Turk, in Armenia, speaking with an open attitude and thinking about when the two countries will have normal relations and the misunderstandings on historical readings of the past will be overcome. Thorns in one’s side at every step, in this friendship trip in the South Caucasus, one hundred year-old wounds open as if they were yesterday’s. It’s the wounds that the young students take to Rondine’s International Hall of Residence and that we try to cure together.

Those who know the Caucasus, know it’s a tormented land, but crossing it and meeting very different people belonging to different social classes shows peoples that are more similar and united than they admit to be, influenced by the epics of a past that will not return, a severe geography that separates them and the impossibility to use their resources freely. It’s a great puzzle, with untidy and small pieces. But the pieces here are people and populations, we cannot take them off and put them back. The only possible space is to be found inside, it’s cultural and spiritual. We have to make room for “others” to avoid that sense of claustrophobia communicated to us by a young Armenian, in front of an old map: “the great Armenia went from sea to sea”. Rondine’s group, soaked with the Tuscan spirit, jokes: “In the past, with the Emperor Traiano, we also arrived here where you are!”

During the different stages of this trip we often have the impression of a collective representation on stage for interests that are not here. Facts, daily life is further on. As soon as they hear Italy, Europe, the young ones surround us to see if they can come, know, study.

Nagorno-Karabakh, the territory contended between Azerbaijan and Armenia, is a few miles from here and Rondine could go and visit. One of the objectives of the trip is that of crossing borders, breaking walls and  communicating. We talk about it and decide, with sacrifice, not to cross the border. It’s possible. Armenians understand and respect the choice of a non-governmental organization which doesn’t want to be used for political reasons. Every person who goes to Nagorno is taking a stone for the construction of the independent Republic. Rondine keeps out from this game, it works for the future of young generations. The relation with Azerbaijan has just started and must be cultivated with patience. Trust needs time. Rondine knows that also in Armenia it has found honest friends that understand its mission.

With more institutional meetings we set the bases for the selection of the first students residing in Nagorno-Karabakh: this is Rondine’s contribution to a future of pacific coexistence among peoples. It’s not easy to make youth get out of the traps of history. Here, in the Southern Caucasus, there are at least three: they are called Abkhazia, South Ossetia and Nagorno-Karabakh. Children live in these traps, they don’t leave them and there is no great interest for them to do it. They prefer to feed the propaganda made of pre-confectioned slogans dividing the good from the bad. To go away, to travel as we do, are the solutions for change. A population’s maturity has deep analogies with personal maturity: an exodus always has to be accomplished. Monsignor Giuseppe Pasotto, Latin-rite catholic bishop, reminded us of this in Tbilisi commenting on the scriptures: “To be so, a population must undertake pilgrimage and even experiment exile”.

Franco Vaccari, president of the organization Rondine Cittadella della Pace