 Think Tech Away. Civil engagement lives here. Good afternoon. Welcome to Global Report. I'm your host Leong. We have with us today Mr. Pavel Karapatian, who is a businessman here in Singapore. Welcome to the show, Mr. Pavel. Yes, hello. Hi. Now, Mr. Pavel, how long have you been in Singapore? I moved to Singapore 10 years ago and by almost 10 years. Almost 10 years now. Well, we're here at the new Armenian Heritage Gallery in Singapore. And this is also the first Armenian museum in Asia. Am I correct? Yes, that's right. It was opened exactly one month ago on 24 May. We had a big celebration. We had a big opening. And it became the first heritage center, first heritage museum in Southeast Asia. So it was supported by community in Singapore. We had a committee who worked for almost one and a half years on design, on fittings. And as well, we had a big support from some Armenians living outside. And as well, this project was supported by National Heritage Board of Singapore as well. Wonderful. Now, from the time of inception, when was the idea first, when did it first come about? Oh, the idea came about seven years ago. Seven years ago. But it was just an idea. And for so many years, actually, we don't have much funds. And whatever we raised, it was used mainly for Armenian church, our church building itself. Because it's much older and it needs much more attention as a national monument. Slowly, slowly, we started rising the funds and we had a big donation from one of our friends from Russia. He based in Russia, but usually come to Singapore and he offered his help. So that was like kick-off to start this project. Is he Armenian or is he actually Russian? He's Armenian. He was born in Armenia, but he lives in Russia. And his daughter, she studies in Singapore. So they lived here for almost three years. So that's why Singapore was chosen. Yes, correct. I see. Now, when did the first Armenians first arrive in Singapore? When did the early Armenians first arrive in Singapore? Actually, they arrived together with Ruffles in 1819. Ruffles came to Singapore with Austin Den Company in January 1819. And next year, it will be 200 years anniversary of Singapore Foundation. Yes, correct. And actually Armenians, they moved to this region 300 years ago, but initially they were based in India. And slowly together with Austin Den Company, they moved to Bangladesh, Myanmar, Malaysia and then later to Singapore. From 1820, there was already company founded here, Armenian by Armenian, which was mainly for important exports. So Armenians, they were traders and they were first developers in Singapore. So they first arrived as businessmen and traders. Correct, correct. They started their businesses and slowly another Armenians moved here and they started doing another businesses as well. How much was the community back then, when they first came? Oh, interestingly, there was only a few Armenians in 1516. But when the church was built in 1835, there were only five families. Only five families? Yes, 80-35 Armenians living in Singapore. It was amazing. Like, when you think Singapore was a tiny, small fisherman village, and only a few families were able to build such a big church. I was just going to ask, how did five families bring about the establishment of the first church in Singapore? It was first, it was not first. There were a few small churches before. Actually, even Armenians, they had a play for prey, which was next to current Raffles Hotel, which was later also was founded by Armenian family. So they had a small place, then they write a letter to Queen and requested to ask for a land to build a bigger church. So this is how the church was built. But this is the oldest church today? At the moment it's the oldest church and currently it's the oldest building which was kept unchanged for 160 years. Wow. We did not have any structural changes for this building for 160 years. And also it was one of the first buildings in Singapore which had electricity. So the first electrical lamp and first electrical fan was installed in our church as well. You mentioned that it was the first historic monument in Singapore. It was the first, this building became the first national monument. It was gazetted by government by Singapore National Heritage Board in 1973. So it's become the first national monument of Singapore. I think that's amazing. You mentioned that the Armenians were small in numbers, but you built this church that's still standing today. And you mentioned that the Raffles Hotel was also started by the Armenians? Yeah, it was started by Armenians, but it was much later than the church was built. So currently, I think this year they celebrated 130 years anniversary of Raffles Hotel. Actually the founders of Raffles Hotel, Sarkis Brothers, they did not just built Raffles Hotel in Singapore. They had a few hotels in the region and which are still standing. Strand Hotel in Myanmar, in Yangon, another hotel in Penang, Eastern Oriental. This is a Raffles Hotel in Singapore and a hotel in Surabaya. And actually they were not just only hotels, standalone hotels. It was the first hotel chain in Asia. So travelers, they were able to book. Now we have new technologies and we're able to book all our itineraries straight away, but before that it was quite difficult. So during those times, travelers from Europe, they were able to book four hotels of the entire itinerary and travel in Asia. Were they the first to study the concept of chain hotels? It was the first hotel chain. It was the first hotel in the world. No, in Asia. It was the first in Asia. That's still an amazing feat. Of course. Those hotels are iconic hotels in all the countries. Strand Hotel is one of the most famous hotels in Myanmar. Eastern Oriental in Penang and Raffles Hotel is an iconic hotel in Singapore. It's one of the symbols of Singapore. Yes, with the colonial structure and everything. Now what about the other Armenians? So Raffles Hotel, we have the church. And I think the national newspaper was also started by Armenians, am I correct? Yes, currently the most sellable newspaper, Straight Times, was also founded by Armenian guy, Ikhachik Mofses. He started that business. Later he sold it, but actually it was founded by him and currently Straight Times is the most popular newspaper. And I think every day one million copies are sold in Singapore. So another impact in Singapore's history was made by Agnes Joakim or her Armenian name is Ashken Hava Kimyan. So actually she hydrated the national flower of Singapore National Orchid and later it was named after her Miss Vanda Joakim Orchid. And now it's a symbol of Singapore. It's really amazing, it's proud for us that symbol of Singapore is named after Armenian lady and has Armenian name, Armenian roots. And not only that, I think because Orchid has become the national flower, when we have VIPs coming through, we have a habit of naming some of the flowers after the VIPs. Correct, but actually that was also the first hybrid in the world, which was done by Armenian lady. Now she had a pretty sad story. I understand that she passed away pretty young. In fact, a couple months after she won an award for the flower, is that correct? She won an award for a few other plants, but during her time of course she was not so famous and she became famous when the flower became the national symbol of Singapore. And her legacy still lives on today because it's a national flower. This year we celebrated 125th anniversary. Now fast forward to today. How large is the Armenian community in Singapore today? It's still very tiny. For so many years we never had more than 100 Armenians living on the same time. Currently we have 40-50 Armenians living here. Are these full blooded Armenians or mixed blooded? No, actually, currently we have Armenians from Armenia. Armenians living in diaspora from many different countries. Actually Singapore is a good place for people to work. Most of the Armenians are expatriates who come here and work on a contract basis. So they live here for a few years. Some of them they become permanent residents, some of them they moved back to their home country. So the Armenians in Singapore today are not really Armenians that were descendants from the early Armenians. Here they are the new expatriates. There is a part from descendants, but in a smaller part I guess. Currently the community is divided into three parts. Armenians from Armenia, like myself and Armenians who came from diaspora. Do they tend to engage in interracial marriages or do they tend to stay in their own clade? It depends actually. The community is so small so we have all different... And how active is this 40-50 Armenians? We are quite active actually. We are quite active every 2-3 months. We don't have a permanent priest in Singapore, but every 2-3 months we invite priests from neighborhood countries. We have a big community in Australia. We have a diocese in Australia. And we invite priests from Australia, from Yangon, from India, and we have a services. So church is still alive. And the community is always happy to come for the services. And not only for services, almost every month we gather together. We celebrate all Armenian holidays. I was about to ask, what kind of Armenian festivals are being celebrated here in Singapore? National days, Easter, Christmas. Do you get together and do cooking? Yeah, we bring some food, some Armenian drinks, Armenian home food. Is there any Armenian restaurants to be found here? Unfortunately, no. Well, waiting for it. I'm thinking for it. The idea came a few years ago, but it's also quite tricky. FNB Business in Singapore is quite tricky. So we are thinking about this. Hopefully, after we finish all this project, it may come true. And Armenian food is, it takes a lot of labor, doesn't it? Yeah, and it's not very common for this region. Because it's a lot of meat, this place is more used to seafood. Would it be easy to find the ingredients you need to start an Armenian restaurant here? Many, many ingredients can be found here. But of course, we will need some spices, some special ingredients from Armenia as well. I see. Well, thank you so much, Mr. Pavel. We're going to take a little short break. When we come back, we'll learn more about the Armenian history, in Singapore originally. Thank you. Thank you. Aloha, my name is Mark Shklav. I am the host of Think Tech Hawaii's Law Across the Sea. Law Across the Sea is on Think Tech Hawaii every other Monday at 11 a.m. Please join me where my guests talk about law topics and ideas and music in Hawaii, Anna, all across the sea from Hawaii and back again. Aloha. Welcome back to the show. This is Global Report. We're here today with Mr. Pavel Karapetian, who's here with us to share with us the Armenian history in Singapore and beyond. Welcome back to the show, Mr. Pavel. Now, Mr. Pavel, three years ago, there was 100 years memory day of the Armenian genocide, and we're sharing somewhat a history of that in the past. Unfortunately, it's one of the darkest pages in our history. 100 years ago during World War I, Ottoman Empire were fighting against Russia and a few other countries, and they took that opportunity to kill, I can say wipe of the Armenian population in current Turkey, but for us it's Western Armenia. So more than one and a half million Armenians were killed, and about one million were deported to different countries. That is why at the moment we have about three million Armenians living in Armenia and seven to eight million Armenians living outside. So we call them diaspora. Our diaspora is spread all over the world. The biggest communities are currently in Russia, in America, in France, and through other countries. Now, what's the reason for the invasion of the Ottoman Empire? It seems that Armenia has been a target even before the Ottoman Empire. What is the reason for that? Is it because of your natural resources? Is it because of your strategic location? Not really, actually. I can say it was because of the religion. Armenia is one of the Christian countries. In fact, it's the first. We are the first Christian country, but in the region it's only Armenia and Georgia, which are still Christians. Armenians were quite rich and successful in Turkey, so by doing this Ottoman Empire actually acquired all the wealth and businesses which were in current Turkey. So by year, correctly, there was the reason for pertaining to religion. There was a compulsion to convert? Correct, correct. It was because of the religion, it was because of nationality, it was because of the wealth, because of the success of Armenians. And how long was this massacre? Actually, it was started in early 1980s and then continued for many years, but the main killings and deportation was started in 1915. And why we chose 24th of April as a memory day? Because during that day, the biggest part of Armenian community was arrested in Istanbul, including famous poets, composers, businessmen, and that day was, I can say, the worst in that history. And Armenians has the largest dyes for our community, more than any other nationality throughout the world, is that correct? Since you said only 3 million are living in Armenia and 6 to 8 are outside of Armenia. Yes, correct. And unfortunately it was due to this genocide. And we are thankful to countries who recognized the genocide. At the moment 28 countries recognized it as a genocide. I know that the Dutch were the most recent ones to recognize it. Last year was German-Dutch, at the moment it's 28 countries. Including 48 states of the United States. But the country by itself didn't recognize it. And every year, on 24th of April, for so many years, every American president has a speech on the date, forwarded to Armenians. But so far they did not recognize it. They promised it every year before the election. During the campaign. To get Armenian votes, but unfortunately it's not recognized yet. So, what are the present-day Armenians doing to get more countries to recognize this genocide? Is there a movement? Of course, there is a movement not only in Armenia. Our diaspora is forcing, whenever there are Armenians, they are forcing their local governments, local communities to recognize it. And every year we have more and more countries who are joining for this movement. And I believe there's a very strong Armenian community in Los Angeles. It's one of the biggest. There were few districts, the barbs, in Los Angeles, which are much populated by Armenians. Little Armenia, Glendale, Burbank. So these are the places when Armenian community used to live in these days. Now going back to history, how successful were they in trying to convert, or how successful were they in the Ottoman Empire? If religion was one of their prime goals, how successful were they? Of course, they were Armenians who were converted. And till now, there are a lot of Armenians who recognize their Armenian roots. But they were converted to Islam, but they still keep the roots. I met a few Armenians, even here in Singapore, who recognized their Armenian roots. But unfortunately they lived in Turkey, so culturally they were grown up in different environments. But they still recognized their roots. Now if we look at Armenia today, it's about one tenth of the size of what it used to be. Unfortunately. Despite the small size, are there efforts on the part of the government in trying to get the diaspora community back into Armenia? We have very strong ties with diaspora. And there are a lot of programs and activities in Armenia to bring the diaspora, to involve them in the current development of Armenia. Every year many camps in Armenia are specially organized for kids, students from diaspora. And every year we have more and more Armenians from diaspora joining, coming to Armenia and joining for these initiatives. Does Armenia welcome these people with blood ties to Armenia? Do they welcome them to become citizens of Armenia again? Definitely. As I know there are special rules which make it much easier to get the citizenship of Armenia for those who are interested to be Armenian citizens as well. Now there's also the territorial dispute in Nagorno. Nagorno-Karabakh, Artsakh, we call it Artsakh. The historical name is Artsakh. Yes, so I know there was a temporary peace that was broken by the Russians but after the fall of the Soviet Union, the dispute came about again. How is the situation today? Actually, it's still ongoing. Karabakh was not Artsakh. Historical Artsakh was not recognized as an independent country yet and unfortunately military actions are still ongoing. Two years ago, on the 2nd of April, Azerbaijan tried to move forward in few directions but our soldiers, they succeeded to stop them and they made a big damage to military, Azerbaijan military and army. So it's still not peace but it's not war but every day there's something happening there and unfortunately we are losing a lot of brave soldiers, a lot of young Armenians on the border. What about intervention from the other international players like Russia, UN Security Council? Yes, Armenia is quite small and we were always between the big players. As I said, we were always in the crossroads of empires and big countries and we hope big countries will take actions against Azerbaijan but it's not always possible because politicians have their own way of thinking and it's not always succeeding. It sounds like they are actually advocating for the territory to be ceded to Azerbaijan. For the sake of peace, is it something that Armenia can compromise on? Actually, the historical arts have been compromised for the last 100 years and unfortunately for so many years during Soviet time the huge territories was given to Azerbaijan. Nakhichevan, which is currently in Azerbaijan, it was also a historical Armenia. One of our most successful cities, Julfa historical cities was there and unfortunately we had a huge, big place in Julfa with old Armenian hajkars which was recognized as a heritage by UNESCO but it was fully destroyed, it was ruined and there is no even signs of that hajkars now in that place. So for so many years we compromised but I guess we can't do it anymore. And Mal Eraraj, the symbol of Armenia, now is sitting on the land of Turkey. Yeah, it's sitting in Turkey but it's always in our heart and it's always in our mind. Could you tell us about this? This is the map of genocide where it was taken. You can see the big cities, the big ones are the biggest cities where Armenians were killed and from where Armenians were deported. So actually this part is western Armenia but currently we have only small peace left which is currently independent Armenia. Is there a particular area that has the highest concentration of the best? Actually you can see, yeah, it's all over the current Turkey. And from here they were deported to Syria, to other eastern countries, to Cyprus, to Greece and by sea they were deported to Europe, to America and to South America. So that's west and that's east. Is that what brings about the, you know, that's also the western Armenian language, not eastern Armenian language? They're a bit different because traditionally western Armenian was used in west part and modern Armenia was always changing for the last 100 years but still we understand each other and of course it's the same language. So the western Armenian speaking people will understand eastern Armenian? Definitely, definitely we will understand. I think we will understand by heart as well so it's not just only the language. What other written form is it entirely? It's almost the same, the alphabet is exactly the same, the only pronunciation and using different words, I mean, the spelling of the words are different. What about the preservation, we talked briefly about food and restaurants earlier what about the preservation of the culture in all these dice for our community? Actually most of them they preserve it quite well and a lot of Armenians in diaspora they speak in Armenian, they celebrate all Armenian holidays. Do they visit today? As I said, every year we have 100,000 Armenians from diaspora visiting Armenia every year, thousands and thousands of Armenians are coming back to their country and it's not just only once, every year there are subsequent visitors and we are happy, we welcome them with big heart and we welcome them every time. Now Mr. Parvel, we know that even though Armenians are small in numbers but they have some amazing contributions to mankind, not just in Singapore but throughout the world could you name some of the accomplishments please? As I mentioned we have 3 million Armenians living in Armenia we have about 7 to 8 million living outside and of course Armenians they contributed to different sphere of industry, arts, culture, music not much people knows but the first ATM was also invaded by Armenians, Simijan and we have a lot of famous artists of course we are proud to have we have Charles Laznaur, the famous French singer, Serge Sarquissian, American singer we have sportsmen David Nalbanzan, Andrei Agassi and one of our latest stars Henry Khmejitaran who is currently playing in Arsenal and actually Armenians they contributed to all the parts of the industries and culture. That's wonderful, that's truly wonderful. Thank you. Now Mr. Parvel, could I also get some of your thoughts on what's going on back home? I know here in Singapore things are very peaceful but I know that Armenia recently transitioned from a presidential system to a parliamentary system and there was also a change in Prime Minister and presidency. Actually we had circled revolution, we called it revolution of love, revolution of peace two months ago. Armenia became independent about 25 years ago and unfortunately the party which were ruling the country for 25 years they did not succeed in many directions especially they were not able to fight against the corruption which had a big impact on the country progress. So people in Armenia they were not happy with the process with the development. Since 25 years ago has it always been Serge Sarquissian who has been a Prime Minister? No, no, no, we had three presidents. The first president was Levante Petrosyan and after a few years Robert Kocheran. But was Sarquissian the Prime Minister during that time? He was eight years, Serge Sarquissian was a president for eight years and he decided to become a Prime Minister. When did he become President, what year was he at? Eight years ago, so he was in place for two subsequent terms, so for eight years and then when last year country has been changed to parliament, parliamentary country, so system he decided to become a Prime Minister. But citizens, people in Armenia they didn't agree with him. He had actually mixed up his term but he amended the constitution. He amended the constitution and he was sure he will be able to continue as a Prime Minister but plans have been changed and now we have a new Prime Minister. And just within last few weeks I can say it's just only one month, one and a half months. There was a big process, progress in fighting against the corruption in Armenia. We had a few big cases and I guess it will go on. Now if we look at Middle East today we know it's a complete mess. The removal of Saddam Hussein and the removal of Gaddafi in Libya and there was so much bloodshed. But here in Armenia there was a revolution but it was bloodless. During the revolution everyone mentioned nobody can compare what happened in Armenia with happenings in Middle East and it was totally different movement. And there was no foreign intervention? No foreign intervention, there was no foreign impact. So actually people of Armenia they decided they want to have a new Prime Minister, they want to have a new party, ruling party, they want to have a new direction. So that was all. So there was no international impact from big countries, from European Union, Russia or America. So this which makes our revolution I can say unique and we call it revolution of peace, revolution of love. So fortunately citizens, people in Armenia they succeeded in the action. Well congratulations on your Prime Minister. Thank you very much. We hope that this will bring Armenia to another level in its development and the country will progress much faster than before. And I think the way that you guys could bring about revolution in a peaceful manner that's something that the world can look up to and you know following the steps of. We're also like last few weeks people were thinking that the revolution may stop and the tourism in Armenia but it's become vice versa. So people are coming to Armenia to see how the country, to see the country where the revolution can be done in such a peaceful way. So this even promote, actually revolution promote our country and not made any disadvantages. Well thank you so much Lefavelle. Thank you so much for the time today. And I'm so excited that we have this Armenian Heritage Gallery right here in Singapore. You know the first in Southeast Asia too. So well thank you so much. Thanks for.