To Jermuk

Jermuk

Driving through Yerevan, snippets of history float by as I navigate the series of boulevards that eventually lead to the southern exit of the city:  Komitas, Heratsi, Tigran Medz, Arshagunyants.  As I turn onto the straight stretch of Arshagunyants, by queue, Ararat appears dead center – no matter how many times I see this mountain, each perspective brings its own moment of exhilaration.

Once on the principal highway south, the Armenian history lesson continues:  Artashat, Dvin, Khor Virap.  Having just read “the 10 Greatest Armenian Kings”, each of these names has a new meaning, and I imagine King Artashat I choosing this location, at the edge of the Ararat valley with protective mountains behind, to establish his capital city.  Khor Virap flashes by, a lonely but ardent statement of Armenian identity framed by Mt. Ararat.  Then comes the town of Ararat, recognizable only by its ugly cement factory.  The last stretch through the Ararat plain goes by quickly.

Then, forty miles south of Yerevan, a left turn signals the beginning of the ascent of the first set of Armenia’s southern mountains.  I turn off the cruise control, raise the volume, and prepare for my favorite stretch of driving road in Armenia – from the plain up and over the first range, and down to Areni, heart of Armenia’s wine country.  The legendary straight six BMW engine, even after 10 years, wakes up and jumps to 3000 RPM through the climbing turns.  With the music blaring, I’m dancing with the steering wheel as I float by trucks and Soviet-era cars.  I pass the turn where Paruyr Sevag tragically met his end and a bit later, through his native village, Zangakatun, then Yelpin and Chiva.  

The scenery, in the late afternoon sun, is mesmerizing, and as bring the engine back down to a more relaxed pace, I see the little church on the mountain side that signals the entry into Areni.  I’m already preparing for what comes next:  the right turn into the road leading to Noravank, one of the most magical monastery complexes in Armenia.  Do I turn or not?  A turn will mean a 2-hour meditation among the red rocks – very tempting, but not for today.

The next stretch of fifteen miles follows the Arpa river as it winds through the same beautiful red mini-cliffs, eventually reaching Yeghegnadzor, the gateway to the series of churches and monasteries that lead up to Lake Sevan in the north.  I breeze through Vayk, admiring the still snow-capped mountains of Zangezur to the southeast. 

Suddenly, time to turn left for the climb to Jermuk.  Beautiful topography and, once again, a chance to put the car through its paces.  Finally, Jermuk appears in the distance, and just as I approach the entrance to town, Lilit Pipoyan’s “Cilicia” floats through the car.  And it strikes me that here I am, hundreds of kilometers from Cilicia, home to all four of my grandparents, yet I feel right at home, right where I belong. 

Accompanying iPhone playlist:

Cascade Folk Trio – Old Street

Element Band – Yev O Phe

Armenian Public Radio – Retrograde

Le Quator Komitas – Komitas Instrumental

Lilit Pipoyan – One Day in the City

And, as I write this:

Tigran Hamasyan – A Fable

A few images from today:

Zangakatun

Looking southeast

The magic of Vayots Dzor

Entering Areni

Noravank - to turn or not?

Arpa River

 

Climbing to Jermuk

Doing it right, Jirayr-style

A few weeks ago, we were invited to have dinner at Dolmama, by now a culinary landmark and foodie tourist destination in Yerevan.  It had been years since my previous meal there - somehow it had fallen off of our list of regular haunts to frequent.  I remember Jirayr Avanyan opening a tiny restaurant on Pushkin with 3-4 tables and a simple cooktop in the corner of the dining area many years ago; following a very creative series of expansions, Dolmama has grown in size but fortunately not in spirit or ego.

Two days ago, we reciprocated the invitation to our very close friends.  Of course, no dinner at Dolmama would be the same without Jirayr's heartfelt welcome into the world he has created.  We sat in the grape-vine covered back yard, an oasis of calm and serenity in the otherwise crowded and busy "little center" of Yerevan.  We enjoyed an amazing leisurely dinner, with appetizers and main courses transporting our taste buds to truly unique places in Jirayr style, accompanied by the wonderful Artsakh-produced Kataro red wine.

Dolmama has achieved a "premier" reputation as the place to eat foodie-level Armenian food, and there are many examples of of similar restaurants becoming spoiled, blaze or over-confident in the process.  Wednesday's meal reminded me that this need not always be true.  Jirayr, thank you for remaining so passionate and positive about your move to Armenia, and for giving us the opportunity to ride on your magic carpet, again and again!

Activating the hidden network

In my last post, I spoke about significant investments made in Armenia by Armenians living abroad (TUMO, AYB School, Luys Foundation), and how these are redefining the narrative in the country.  There are additional great examples of successful and wealthy Armenians living abroad "giving something back" to their homeland: Mr. Eduardo Eurnekian with Yerevan's International Airport, Mr. Ruben Vardanyan with the Wings of Datev, the AGBU with the American University of Armenia, Boghossian Gardens/Lover's Park.

There is another type of investment in Armenia that is less publicized, but is just as, if not more, important than these examples.  If one studies the opening of Armenia branches of well-known multinational companies, an interesting pattern appears:  many of these investments were made because of highly-placed, well-respected Armenians in these companies making a "pitch" to consider operations in Armenia, based on a well-educated workforce and tradition of achievements, especially in the core sciences and information technology.  This is true for companies such as Synopsys, Virage Logic, National Instruments, Mentor Graphics and others.

This phenomenon should not be overlooked, and indeed should form the basis for attracting new foreign direct investment into the country.  The emigration that we so worry about, starting 100 years ago as a result of genocide, continuing in the second half of the 20th century because of civil wars and unrest in Armenian communities in the Middle East, and finally the post-independence waves leaving Armenia in the past 20 years, has created a global network of successful Armenians in a number of fields, most notably in medicine, information technology, jewelry and several other fields.  This is the "hidden network" that we need to bring to life to flow private sector, for-profit investment into Armenia.

As an example, I am working on an initiative to attract a Research and Development lab of one of the world's largest consumer electronics companies to Armenia.  Our initial contact with this organization was through an Armenian (originally from Yerevan) who had risen through the ranks of the company's R&D division in their HQ in Asia.  The relationship was developed and confidence gained as a result of a very high-quality, globally competitive research project led by a local Professor and Member of the Academy of Sciences.  During this last phase, we discovered that there are 17 other Armenians working in R&D for this company that we will now leverage to continue to build the relationship.  We are working on weaving all of these threads into a viable investment opportunity for this company in Armenia.  Similarly, there are senior Armenian executives in many of the world's best-known technology firms.

How do we "activate" this network?  Why should a successful executive risk his position/reputation sponsoring such an investment given the "negative" narrative in Armenia?  It's a great question that deserves a comprehensive answer.  Here's a starting point:

1) Present this as a win-win opportunity:  The investing company gets access to a highly-educated workforce at a very attractive price, in a country that is secure, socially cohesive and now well-connected via state-of-the-art communications;  the local workforce has an opportunity to work in a western-managed company with attractive salaries and overall compensation; the government gets to publicize this kind of investment as a result of its efforts to liberalize the investment climate and drive economic growth

2) Achieving the win-win, however, requires commitment and in some cases leaps of faith by all involved.  In particular, the investing company (and in particular the Armenian executive sponsoring the investment), must find the right local partners to help them navigate through Armenian legislation and the reality on the ground.  Potential employees (and in particular graduating students) need to understand that these are highly-valuable positions that require full commitment and preparation from their side, and that compensation will rise according to productivity improvement.  Most importantly, the government must understand that this is a long-term, paradigm-shifting strategy and not a short-term tactical pursuit of cash infusions characteristic of previous sales of national assets. Furthermore, a comprehensive overhaul of the public university educational system is absolutely necessary.

3) Armenians (both in Armenia and abroad) that believe in the value of the hidden network and the importance of raising the standard in Armenia to attract these companies must collectively develop the "face" of Armenia to this network and their parent companies.  This means developing the right narrative, repeating the success stories, and connecting the best local talent with this network.

These successes will not materialize overnight; on the other hand, they are within reach and require focus, dedication and the firm collective belief that we have the ability to redirect the future path of Armenia.

The road less traveled, the story less shared

The popular narrative on Armenia continues to weave its course around the negative issues of the day:  emigration, election fraud, corruption, emigration, selling off national assets, oligarchy, emigration.  It’s easy to be carried by the same current, the same negative narrative echoed by people on the street, by opposition political figures, and magnified thousand-fold by Facebook posts, shares and comment strings.  After all, the latest net emigration numbers are published; post-election videos showcasing Yerevan’s “finest” are making their rounds online; political commentators are raising the crescendo of negative “I told you so’s”.  Blame is the most widely-circulated currency:  blame the government; blame the oligarchs; blame Raffi; blame the rest of the opposition; blame the “thick-necks” in the courtyards for forcing the vote in favor of the incumbent; blame the Diaspora for not caring; blame the Russians; blame the Azeris; blame the Turks.

Worst of all, some of the bravest and most dedicated young voices of the generation coming to the age of political influence are echoing the same words of despair, apathy and resignation, and planning their own departures.  If so many people are repeating the same story, it must be true, right?

Not necessarily.  At the same time, in the same Armenia, there is a different narrative being discussed, debated, and created.  This narrative is woven not out of indifference, aloofness or despair.  Its threads are based on experience, vision, rational and pragmatic thinking, and most importantly by a deep sense that the future of Armenia does matter, that it’s worth fighting for.

Becoming part of the solution

Last week, almost 100 Armenians and non-Armenians from abroad joined a large group of local Armenians to monitor the Yerevan municipal elections as part of a local NGO operating under Armenia’s law on election monitoring.  The energy focused on preparing for, actively participating in, and then documenting their observations post-fact was palpable, and was noticed as much by the local observers as by the startled precinct election commission members, political party proxies and their loyal “thick-necks”.  While the election results came out as expected, the process has changed – their slogan was “it’s not who, it’s how” created a completely different reality in the 60 precincts they were monitoring.

Brain Gain

They join those that preceded them with a vision and the will to make it happen.  For me, TUMO (www.tumo.org) is impressive not because of the amazing interior space and the investment in technology and curriculum.  TUMO is impressive because it has a direct impact on 5000 12-18 year olds, showing them a different reality, and helping them write their own new narrative.  AYB School (http://www.aybschool.am) is impressive not because of the striking architecture, but because each year, a new graduating class is equipped with the education to prosper on a global scale.  Luys Foundation (http://www.luys.am) makes a world-class education at least thinkable, if not completely within reach to all who seek it.  And in response to the common criticism that these programs are helping more of our best and brightest leave Armenia, the cold reality is that some will have to leave in order to gain the education, perspective and experience to come back and turn Armenia into the country we all want it to be.  And believe me, some (but definitely not all) will come back.

Why are you going the wrong way?   
This week, I met/interacted with the following people in Armenia:  a partner at McKinsey & Co, the most prestigious strategy consulting firm in the world; a PhD candidate at Cambridge; a Harvard PhD and a Harvard MBA; graduates of the Ecole Nationale d’Administration and the Sorbonne, two of France’s most prestigious universities; a graduate of Lomonosov/Cambridge/Oxford.  All of these young professionals have countless opportunities to leverage their education in lucrative positions around the world.  Yet they focus on Armenia:  they live here, they work here, or they spend evenings and weekends working on making Armenia a better place for all Armenians.  They are joined by artists, directors, photographers, photojournalists, musicians, businessmen, winemakers, restauranteurs, doctors, lawyers, teachers and designers, all driving forward, rather than commenting bleakly from the sidelines.  

Too often, the first question that I get as a Repat is "why did you move here?  Were things not going well for you in the US?"  Ask each of the people listed above, or the hundreds of others who have made the same journey, and the response is most often:  "No - I wasn't running away from something - I was running toward my homeland."  These people are writing a new narrative - one that is based on action, not apathy; on finding a solution, not repeating the same problem; on seeing Armenia as the center of the solution, not the source of the problem. 

Afterword
Having almost finished this note, I learned of the tragic deaths of two young recent repats to Armenia, Allen Yekikian and Sose Thomassian.  The news of their untimely death in a car accident in Georgia has shaken the Repat community in Yerevan, and I thought twice about posting a "positive" note as we come to terms with this terrible event.  Then, I read the following sentence in a post by one of their friends:  "They had a dream, and they lived it."  At the candlelight vigil in their honor tonight, someone else said: "they came here to make Armenia a better place - let's honor their memory by getting it done".  Here's to Allen and Sose, and all of those who want to take the road less traveled, and tell the story less shared.

Virtually there . . .

As someone that came of age about the same time as the internet, and whose early experience of being "connected" was based on dial-up modems, 256k DSL connections and the ever-exciting experience of trying to download large email attachments in random hotel rooms around the US, I continue to be amazed by how easy it's become to stay connected these days, even in an emerging market such as Armenia.  I mean, given that a significant portion of my disposable income has flowed right into Apple Inc.'s market cap (and various ISPs/mobile operators), I'm now online almost constantly (although I do turn off all WiFi/3G connectivity before going to sleep).  While there's nothing particularly revealing about this observation, I do want to comment on a couple of recent experiences.

After moving to Armenia in 2008 (and immersing myself into my new company and local market), I slowly drifted away from the technology and business trends that dominated my attention span in my former life in the US.  I even learned to live without my beloved The Economist and New Yorker print editions, as I couldn't quite get myself to read either publication on a laptop.  Even subscriptions to various industry publications just resulted in emails piling up in my inbox unread.

Then, two short years ago, Steve Jobs unveiled the iPad, and the physical and mental miles separating my life here and my former life there melted away as the iPad became my virtual bridge back to that world.  At first, I started to read the web-based version of The Economist, and immediately downloaded their app once it became available.  I cursed endlessly at the completely user-unfriendly New Yorker app (I'm still convinced that their app is really an electronic middle finger aimed at those who would dare to put down a hard copy for the lowly digital version).  But, as time moved on, as internet speeds increased, and as FB, Twitter, LinkedIn and other apps created digital tentacles to each other, I began to reconnect.  More recently, I've begun to download interesting reading as PDFs and read them in iBooks (including McKinsey reports, white papers, investment research reports).

Several days ago, I came across an upcoming Webinar on a subject that I'm particularly interested (Predictive Analytics, in case you're wondering).  Tonight, as the appointed time for the session neared (8 pm my time here in Yerevan), I had a momentary (panicky) lapse into the past, assuming that it would take me at least 30 minutes to get all of the parts working correctly to participate in the webinar.  Instead, the new world of the cloud and interoperability magically created the flawless user experience: When I copied and pasted the url into Safari, the iPad immediately pointed me to the GoMeeting app purchase, it downloaded in less than 30 seconds, and I was staring at the start screen for the webinar (and became frustrated as the presenters were 7 minutes late - how dare they?).  I should mention that I was doing all of this while eating dinner on the kitchen counter.  Having finished, I took the iPad out on the balcony and watched a beautiful sunset as the presenters were talking about virtual data marts, Hadoop and scoring models.

What's the big deal, you ask?  Even a few short years ago, it would not have been possible to stay this close to trends, events and opportunities happening across the world.  Today, between MIT and Stanford's open universities, Twitter, Flipboard and all of the myriad ways to broadcast (and capture) valuable insight, physical distance is no longer a barrier.  I am just as "connected" as I was in the days of constant traveling, conference participations and being at the heart of innovation in the Bay Area.  Ok, I might be stretching this a bit (the likelihood of running into a former colleague or fellow GSB alum while buying coffee or having lunch is admittedly lower here), but the point is that it is possible to be part of the next wave of innovation and opportunity - it's just a matter of being choosy and disciplined to separate signal from noise, and taking the time to synthesize incoherent streams of data into coherent vectors of insight (that's my predictive analytics pitch).  Oh, and it also helps that given the time difference, you can participate in most webinars/online conference presentations with a glass of wine, sitting on your balcony and watching the sun set near Mt. Ararat.

Last year, I spoke at TEDx Yerevan about living in Armenia but working abroad:  TEDx Yerevan - Electronic Brain Fill

Home Base Armenia - really???

Before moving to Yerevan in 2008, my wife and I wanted to make sure the kids developed a connection with Armenia, and therefore arranged to spend three successive summers here.  For the first two summers, I worked out of my company’s London office, commuting on Monday mornings and Thursday evenings (5-hr flight, shorter than SF-NYC).  The third summer, I actually spent the whole summer in Yerevan (except for one quick trip back to the US), staying connected with my company via email, conference calls and Skype.

What I learned during these summers (especially the third one) is with today’s modern technology and communication infrastructure, and the “road warrior” mentality long established among global (and increasingly domestic) businesses, one’s physical domicile no longer needs to be within car/public transport distance from the office.  Of course, there are many interactions/tasks that require physical presence/face to face with colleagues, customers, partners, etc., but increasingly, these can be planned ahead via “road shows” supplemented effectively with electronic communication as mentioned above.  Think of this opportunity as “global telecommuting”.

What’s more, with the proliferation of Twitter, FB, LinkedIn, various news aggregation services, the old adage that “you need to be where the action is” is changing to “you need to know what networks to be connected to.”  Again, it will be difficult to replace the “chance” run-ins at various Palo Alto or Woodside breakfast locations, or their counterparts near Silicon Alley, but the point is that the medium of interaction is swinging clearly toward digital, network-based.

Why do I bring this up now?  For those of you spread throughout the Diaspora, who often think that the move to the homeland can only happen upon retirement (or limited to occasional trips during summer vacation), perhaps it’s time to think out of the box and re-arrange the timeline.  As more and more modern conveniences become available in Armenia (subject of a future post), the central hesitation/challenge remains employment opportunities and financial security.  Well, what if you can arrange to keep your current job, but change the logistics?  This is already done by programmers, writers, graphic designers, web designers, editors, free-lance journalists, and in emerging fields such as telemedicine, audio/video/animation/special effects – can you make it happen in your field?