 Mark Schwab, I am the host of Think Tech Hawaii's Law Across the Sea program. Today we're going to talk with Arsind Tavadyan, an attorney who has come across the sea from Armenia to Hawaii. Arsind is a partner in the Turtaqian Law Firm and an associate professor at Yadavan State University in Yadavan, Armenia. I've asked Arsind to help us discover Armenia. Okay, welcome Arsind, it's good to see you. How are you? Aloha friends, aloha Mark. Thank you, fine. I'm enjoying my time in Hawaii in O'ahu. Let me ask you, first of all, why are you? I mean, what brought you to Hawaii? And then I want to ask you a little bit about your practice. And then I want to ask you to help us discover Armenia. But first of all, why did you come to Hawaii? What purpose, what are you, why are you here? Yeah, thank you. So there is this program by the Department of State of U.S., which is called Professional Fellows, PFP, The Abbreviation. The intention of this program is to bring young professionals from basically the former USSR countries to the corresponding institutions in U.S. And to present basically how the U.S. works. So I was sent to, I participated in this program and was chosen to come here. And my host organization in Hawaii is the Supreme Court of Hawaii. And my host here is Associate Justice Todedens, who is a great host and tells me a lot. And we speak a lot, we discuss a lot of issues. So that's how I ended up here. Oh, that sounds like a great program. And you're a lawyer in Armenia. And what is your practice like? What kind of practice do you have? Yeah, thank you. I am mainly dealing with business law issues and contracts, civil law, tax issues, administration. And my practice is corresponding with the major branches of Armenian economy. For example, we have wine producing, we have mining, we have IT. So my practice, I'm dealing mainly with mining, again, wine producing, agriculture and IT. Well, I mean, that is actually, I've already learned a lot about Armenia, I didn't know. But let me ask you, I mean, what can you tell us about Armenia? How can we discover more about Armenia? Is there an English translation of the name Armenia and where is Armenia? Okay, so the term Armenia is not translated actually. So if you are speaking about Armenia, there is this historical Armenia, which has very complicated and long history, which goes back to a couple of millennials before Christ. So we don't want to dive into that subject. It will take many, many lectures. But modern Armenia can regain its independence after the collapse of Soviet Union in the 1991. And it is a small country situated in a region which is often called southern Caucasus or Trans-Caucasus or generally Caucasus. Sometimes Armenia is included in the greater Middle East. But usually it is called, this region is usually called Caucasus. So it's a mountainous region and Armenia is a small country, which is basically situated in the mountains. We have a lot of mountains. I think 85% of our territory are mountains. We don't have access to sea, we are a landlocked country. Only 3 million population there and Yerevan is the capital of Armenia. It's I think 1,200,000 people reside there. And that's the general information about Armenia. We have neighbors, as you see. We have four bordering countries, Azerbaijan on the east, Turkey on the west, Georgia on the north, and Iran on the south. Yeah, I would like to dive into that in a minute, but I also want to take a look at that first map that was put up, that first map. You know, do Armenians consider themselves part of Africa, part of Europe, part of Asia or all of the above? What can you tell us? But when I see Armenians right in the middle of everything. Yeah, actually it's a very, very interesting question because this region, as I told you, sometimes it is included as a part of Eastern Europe. Sometimes it is considered Asia, sometimes greater Middle East. Certainly not Africa because Africa is quite far from us. Armenian culture as, so it includes a lot of features of European, actually Mediterranean or South European culture, a lot of features of Middle Eastern. And actually, as we were part of Soviet Union for 70 years, we have a lot of things that are coming from this Soviet culture. I can state like that. So it's very hard to set to tell which continent Armenia belongs to, especially when you consider that Europeans or Asians, again, they are very divided and very diverse. For example, East Asia and West Asia, they are completely different than South Europe and North Europe, they are again completely different. But Armenia has features of Mediterranean culture, of Middle Eastern culture, of Russian culture, of even French culture because we have a lot of French Armenian connections. There we have Armenians as a nation have all these things and we are very diverse but united. Okay, well, that is a nice comment about your country. Diverse but united, that's great. And so there is many different cultures and everybody relates to all of them. Is that correct? We all have the features of all cultures, but we also have our unique culture there which we are a nation, we are living in this region for many thousands of years and we have developed our own culture which also has features and similarities with our neighboring countries and countries a little bit far from Armenia. Okay, well, let's take a look at the second map that came up, it's a little bit simpler and you mentioned four countries around you and what are the relationships with those neighboring countries and Armenia? I mean, we've heard a lot about Turkey, quite recently in Iran. Georgia we have not heard, Azerbaijan we've heard about but what's the relationship between your country and these other neighboring countries? Okay, so again, this is a very big subject and we can dive into history but considering all the peculiarities of our recent 2000 years of history, I just can say that we Armenians have tensions with our Eastern neighbors, with Azerbaijanis and with our Western neighbors, Turkey and these tensions go back to 100 years I think and starting from the Armenian genocide that took place in the beginning of 20th century, we still cannot recover our relations with Turkey and we have a conflict with Azerbaijan for a region which is called Nagorno-Karabakh or Artsakh in Armenian, it's the region that is populated by Armenians but Azerbaijan tries to control it so that's why we do not have good relations unfortunately with our neighbors, with Eastern and Western partners, with Georgians we have very good relations, we are culturally very similar nations, with Iran again we also have good relations and Armenian and Iranian relations go back to thousands of years, yeah. Okay, now you've talked about and I know this is a big subject, can you give me just a kind of a short, maybe that's unfair to ask but a short idea of Armenia's cultural background and how it came into existence as a country historically? Okay, so Armenia is one of the credals of Middle Eastern culture, this when you consider starting the history, starting from the Neolithic period where the people domesticated animals and domesticated crops, Armenia was one of the regions that this happens, so and we have very ancient ancient proto-states here, which are called differently in Hittai sources, our states are called Hayasa, Azzi, in Assyrian sources there are Armenia or Urartu so basically the name of Armenia, this region gained the name of Armenia starting from 6th century BC, but though this term Armenia was Armenia was used with a couple of other terms by Assyrians and Hittites starting from the 3rd century BC, so the first state in the territory of Armenia is called Urartu and it existed starting from the 9th century BC. Some of the sources use Urartu and Armenia as a synonyms, especially there is this Behistun inscription in Iran which was made in the 6th century BC where Urartu and Armenia are used as synonyms and basically the statehood in this territory dates back to the 9th century, so and Armenia was a kingdom starting from the 9th century till the 5th century, 8th AD when we lost our independence then regained it in the 9th century till the 14th century where the kingdom and what is modern day Turkey in Kilikia in the southern Turkey, then a lot of nomad people came, Turks, Mongols, Seljuks and we lost our independence and regained it in the 1918 and we had a very tragic page in our history the Armenian genocide that took place in the beginning of the 20th century and up to one and a half Armenians were massacred by the Ottoman Turks. One and a half million? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Wow. It's a very tragic page in our history and but after that Armenia managed to regain independence in 1980 and in the end of 1920 Soviet army gained so they took control of Armenia and Armenia became one of the founding republics of Union Soviet Socialistic Republics and after the collapse of Soviet Union in 1991 we again regained our independence and we are a republic which has the modern Armenian republic as a history of 32 years starting from 1991. So the Turkish massacre of Armenians is what still brings a division between those your two countries and that continues until this day the historical background from that, is that right? Is that correct? Yes, yes, yes. And I want to state that Turkey still denies the fact of these massacres. It calls this genocide as a tragic event but does not want to face with the facts there but majority of countries in the world has recognized this fact as a genocide. US, Russia, France, I think Germany has recognized the fact that in the beginning of 20th century up to one and a half Armenians were massacred by the Turkish authorities. Wow, and that is an issue that is unresolved. Yeah, to this day. I see, it continues. Now, I mean, the history of Armenia as you've described it, I mean, it's freedom and then someone takes over. Yeah. Freedom, then someone takes over and including the Soviet Union. Now, what is the relationship now? I mean, now we're involved with Ukraine and is that an issue for Armenia? What is Armenia's relationship with Russia now? And is there a concern? What is the position of Armenia with respect to Ukraine? So that's kind of two questions. Armenia, so we have our own conflict in Armenia as I've told you, the conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan. And it's the main thing that we are now trying to resolve. Of course, Ukraine conflict is a tragedy for Armenians because we considers ourselves both as a nation which are very close both to Russians and to Ukrainians historically. Okay. We as a nation want these two countries to find the peace amongst themselves. But again, one of the major issue in Armenia is a conflict, a very, very bloody conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan which is continuing started from 1988 and the latest, so it's now a conflict that it's not in an active phase but the latest active clashes were there and it took place in 2020 where it's, and when we lost up to 4,000 victims there. And so we have our own conflict which we try to resolve hoping again that we will find peace with our neighbors and hoping that again, the peace with our neighboring nations will occur and Ukraine and Russia could reach to peace agreement bit amongst themselves. So I hear you telling me that there are current problems currently existing Armenia that things are not always peaceful. Yes. There are some problems that still exist after all these years and Armenia is still trying to deal with them. Can you tell me what kind of a government you have in Armenia, what's it like? Maybe give us some comparison with other countries including the United States. So actually we have a parliamentary system. It means that we choose only the MPs, the members of the parliament and Armenia, the government system of Armenia is very likely to Germany, Italy, England, the United Kingdom. Of course, we don't have a queen or queen but we elect a parliament and parliament appoints a prime minister. We have a president which is again elected by the parliament but president is a nominally head of state and it doesn't have any authority and is very similar to UK United Kingdom's queen which is a nominal state of state without any authorities. Yeah, if you know about the government system in Germany you will, it will be very easy for you to understand how the government of Armenia works. So it's the parliament has the power. Yeah, yeah, yeah, the parliament has the power. And the prime minister, is that a powerful position or is that, oh, I see. Yeah, because the prime minister is usually a person who is the leader of the party who holds the majority in the parliament. So basically a prime minister is a person who is the head of the government, the euro and the fact of the head of the parliamentary majority. So it's quite a powerful figure there. Okay, and the people get to choose the power. And so it's a democratic as we would consider in America, a democratic. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And we are very proud of that because if you look through all the, there are a lot of reports and ratings about the democracy, democracy index, anti-corruption index and Armenia is one of the leader in this region. Of course we have many problems as a new emerging democracy, but I can proudly say that we do not have autocratic regime. Armenia's government is appointed and chosen through elections. Though I have some criticism about our governmental system, and I'm not fond of our current government, but as you see, I'm not speaking with you behind the jars. So I will go back to Armenia and will freely continue to criticize my government as I usually do. So we are very proud of that. Of course we try to develop our democracy because I think that it's one of the major things for a new country for emerging country. And unfortunately our neighbors usually tends to go to limiting of the democratic values. For example, our neighboring Azerbaijan is a country which is actually the family dictatorship where the post of the president goes by heritage from father to son. So we don't have that thing in Armenia and I am very proud of that. And what I hear you also saying is that it sounds like you have freedom of speech and you're not afraid to talk and you're not afraid to criticize or and in light of all the problems that you've expressed about Armenia facing, it sounds a little hopeful at least in this country is something that provides hope for you. Yes, yeah, again, we have a lot of free speech and there is this democracy index and I think Armenia is again ahead of many countries in Europe by the index of freedom speech. Of course I would like to have more quality freedom of speech because in the era of social media, criticism is usually tweets in social media with only 140 symbols and just a criticism for criticism without any content. I would really like to have more professional media but I think that is a problem which occurs in all the countries now because of the social media. Yeah, that is something that we're all encountering everywhere. Now, tell me a little bit, what is your legal system like? Can you give me some description of what it's like and maybe compare it to America and similarities and differences? We are which you Americans call civil law country. We have a civil code and a major source of Armenian law is a statute law, not precedent law as in U.S. or United Kingdom. So basically there are two major branches of legal systems. One is the Anglo-American or common law system. The other one is European or civil law system. So we have a separate civil code which is the major source of the regulation of civil actions and our civil code is designed in taking as a, so it's designed taking into account the German structure, the structure of German code, which is usually the lawyers call it Pandex system. So our civil code is Pandex. So by the structure, it is more similar to German civil code, the Bourg-Larische Gesetzbuch but by the regulation, by the context, it is sometimes more closer to the French civil code. So again, we are a civil law country and our civil code by the structure is similar to German one, but by the content is sometimes similar to the French civil code. Okay, and you, I mean, your sponsor is a Supreme Court Justice of the state of Hawaii. Do you have a Supreme Court or do you have court system and if a court rules a certain way, is that a precedent that controls? Yeah, so our precedent low and generally in Europe the precedents are not so powerful as in US but they have some authority. We don't have a Supreme Court as US does because in majority of European countries the constitutional justice is not conducted by the same court as conducts the general or the usual cases. So in Europe, you can find usually a separate constitutional court. So in Armenia, we also have the general jurisdiction or the courts that deal with all issues related to relations with the private actor or private actors in the state and there is a separate constitutional court which deals with the issues of laws and says if the corresponding law is in accordance with the constitution. So if a judge dealing with the case finds that certain law contradicts the constitution the judge cannot apply the constitution directly. The judge must apply to the constitutional court and ask if the certain law contradicts the constitution or not. So this is the major difference that you can find not only in Armenia, but in all the countries of Europe. Okay, and if I wanted to sue somebody in a breach of contract, I could go to court in Armenia. Yes. Now, you mentioned also the wine industry. I didn't know wine was a big thing in Armenia. Is that a big business? It's a big and it's getting bigger. And actually the oldest winery in the world which is 8,000 years old was found in Armenia. Wow. Yeah, yeah, the oldest winery and we are proud of our wine industry. We have not only wine we have also a cognac production or brandy production. So we have spirits made of wine and also wine, spirits made of grapes and also wine. And I think Armenian wines are good and they are getting better. So we invite you to Armenia and we can have a glass of wine in your event. That sounds like a good idea. I'd like to do that. And is there a tourist industry in Armenia too? I mean, is that big? Not as big as in Hawaii, but it's getting bigger. So we have 1,600,000 tourists per year. Not as 10 millions in Hawaii. And okay, we have just a couple minutes left. Is there, you've been here for a while. Is there any, do you see anything in Hawaii that reminds you of Armenia or that we share any feelings about that? I think it's unusual but some things are very similar. The thing that Hawaii is very small and Armenia is also very small. That means that personal connections are very expensive here. The people are very nice as in Armenia. There you are open-minded. And I think the Hawaiians are very, very honest, very hospitable and very kind people. I think I've never seen such a level of kindness in any state and in any country. I think that in this case we have some similarities. And one more thing, Armenia is a mountainous country and we do not have agricultural land and a lot of things are imported to Armenia. And that's the thing that economically unites Armenia and Hawaii. Well, thank you for giving us a start on discovery of Armenia. And as we closed out this session, are there any, Armenia has gone through a lot of difficult times that you've touched on and it still is, still has some problem that it deals with daily. Are there any words of wisdom or philosophy in Armenian culture that you would like to leave us with? I don't know about, I can't remember anything specifically Armenian, but I should say that if you work hard and believe that you can succeed, you will succeed. Okay, that's very good. Thank you very much, Arsene Tavadyan. I appreciate you being our guest today and giving us a touch of Armenia. Aloha. Aloha mahalo. Thank you so much for watching Think Tech Hawaii. If you like what we do, please like us and click the subscribe button on YouTube and the follow button on Vimeo. You can also follow us on Facebook, Instagram and LinkedIn and donate to us at thinktechhawaii.com. Mahalo.