Corruption in University Dormitories

Corruption has unfortunately infected all aspects of Armenian higher education and its adjacent services including student housing.

The situation at university dormitories is, however, a subject that is seldom discussed as it does not concern local Yerevan students. Those who stay in dorms are basically students from less affluent families coming from provinces and from abroad.

In a recent article signed by Christine Aghalarian and Shoushan Stepanian and published in Hetq daily, the deplorable situation at Zeytoun dormitory complex has been exposed.

The Zeytoun complex is the largest dormitory complex located in outskirts of Yerevan. It is composed of several buildings that are allocated based on various criteria; few buildings are for students from provinces, a building is for exchange students, another one houses foreigners, etc.

Fluctuating Rates

According to the 2 reporters, some students residing at Zeytoun dormitory pay more than the state regulated rate. Students claim, however, they have no choice given that they would have to pay several times more if they left the dorm and rented rooms in Yerevan. An apartment with full facilities in Yerevan suburbs goes for around 50,000 [160 USD] AMD per month, or 500,000 for the academic year (10 months). The dorms normally cost one tenth. But “normally” doesn’t mean much in certain circumstances.

“I am paying 100,000 AMD [per year] from the first day. I didn’t know that the price was actually 50,000” says Anna. In 2007, she paid 80,000 AMD.

According to the Ministry of Education and Science (MES), the annual rate this year for one person at Zeytoun dorm complex has been set at 50,000 AMD. Last year, it amounted to 44,000 AMD. Moreover, the law requires that the dorm management informs students of rates and the residency rules.

The Paret as Powerful Lord

Some of the students who Ms. Aghalarian and Stepanian talked to complained that they were not aware of the rules and didn’t even know anything about the state regulated rates. “The amount they quoted was what I paid to the paret (dormitory manager),” Anna stated.

When it comes time to register for occupancy, it is taken into account that the rooms are intended for 3 people. Also, siblings aren’t allowed to share rooms.

One of the parets states that, “the rules dating back to the Soviet period don’t allow for brothers and sisters in the same room, but many do it if they receive a special permission from the MES.”

Armen, a graduate of Yerevan State University, vouched for what the students claimed. Armen had stayed at Zeytoun dorm up till 2007. His brother had joined him sometime after he had arrived. “When my brother arrived and we decided to live together the paret stated that we were not allowed. But he said he could arrange it for an additional 50,000 AMD. The paret also claimed that only students at public universities could reside in the dorm. But my brother was enrolled in a private institution. So he stated that we had to pay for 3 spots [150,000 AMD]. We did the math and saw that it was still cheaper [than renting elsewhere], so we paid.”

The MES regulations state that if a student wishes to reside in a room alone, he/she is obliged to pay for the other two spots – a total of 150,000 AMD. Several students, however, told Hetq reporters that they had been obliged to pay more than 250,000 AMD.

A paret also declared that to rent a room on exclusive basis, the student must pay for the other spots but the additional payments may differ according to whether the student is registered at a public university or a private one. But he couldn’t state for certain what those additional amounts were.

Thanks to the recent renovations at Zeytoun dorm, the living conditions are more favorable even though students continue to share kitchen and bathroom. The 2 reporters specify that “there is even a central heating system that operates during the winter months.”

No Evidence, No Offense

After paying the rent to the cashier, the student normally gets a receipt, in 2 copies. The student keeps one copy and submits the other one to the paret. However, students who claimed they have paid more than the state regulated rate had no receipts. They had paid directly to the paret who had not given them any receipt.

Mr. Vahram Mekhitarian, Executive Director of Zeytoun Student Fund, told the 2 reporters that they issue receipts to everyone. “Some people don’t take their receipt ... I cannot imagine that extra money has been collected from students. Those with complaints should come and see me and state … who took the cash.”

The two reporters went to see Mr. Ara Khachatrian, the head of the Financial Division of MES, who stated that the Ministry “isn’t authorized” to review the operations of Zeytoun Student Fund. “The only connection [with Zeytoun Student Fund] is that the Minister of Education is the President of the Fund’s Board of Trustees,” Mr. Khachatrian explained!
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ASAU Goes to Artsakh

The Public Radio of Armenia reports that the Armenian State Agrarian University (ASAU) will open a branch campus in Artsakh (de facto independent republic of Nagorno Karabakh) in January 2009.

The news was announced after a meeting between President Bako Sahakian and the President (Rector) of the University, Arshalouyce Tarverdian.

According to a press release by the Presidential Office, Mr. Sahakian considered the opening of the new branch institution very important, given the fact that agriculture constitutes the main sector of Artsakh economy.

Other topics relating to the development of science in the Republic were also discussed at the meeting.
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A New Center for Exploring Caucasus

Georgian educational authorities and institutions seem truly determined to promote academic research into the 3 Caucasian states of Armenia, Azerbaijan and Georgia, and the region in general. Yet another exemplary initiative:

A new research Centre for the Study of the Caucasus and Black Sea Regions was launched on 12 December 2008, in Tbilisi, Georgia. The Center is affiliated with the School of Humanities, University of Georgia.

According to the Center’s blog, the Centre aims to facilitate scientific research in these two regions. Its long term goal is to develop interdisciplinary research and international scientific collaborations, and encourage dialogue between scholars from different countries within these regions.

Ms. Janette Davies, one of current participants, told The Georgian Times; “The Caucasus and Black Sea regions are relatively unexplored in terms of social and cultural studies, though they are significantly interesting areas for Anthropology, Ethnography, Archaeology, folklore and the arts.” Ms. Davies is from the International Gender Studies Centre at the Department of International Development, University of Oxford, UK.

A Center Where All Scholars Feel “at Home”

The new Centre will create a comfortable research atmosphere and academic assistance for Georgian as well as foreign scholars, scientists and students who wish to conduct research into the Caucasus and Black Sea regions. The future projects will also include implementing joint research and projects, seminars, conferences and symposiums at a local and international level.

With these, the organization will promote an international cultural environment where academics will feel “at home in the world”.

The Centre is equipped with resources such as Internet access and a special purpose library.

The Centre’s Coordinator Mr. David (Data) Chigholashvili told The Georgian Times that the Center intends to “develop international academic networking and support researchers who are interested in examining the region’s social and cultural aspects. The Centre has also planned to organize international conferences in Georgia and other activities in the social and cultural studies. The Centre was established in August and has already helped several researchers such as Janette Davies.”
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For Sam'al, the Soul Lived in the Stone

Based on materials provided by the Oriental Institute at the University of Chicago, Science Daily, via Science Consciousness blog, reports on a sensational archaeological find in southeastern Turkey.

The Neubauer Expedition of the Oriental Institute at the University of Chicago found a 800-pound basalt stele, 3 feet tall and 2 feet wide, at Zincirli (pronounced "Zin-jeer-lee"), the site of the ancient city of Sam'al. Once the capital of a prosperous kingdom, it is now one of the most important Iron Age sites under excavation.

The stele is the first of its kind to be found intact in its original location, enabling scholars to learn about funerary customs and life in the 8th century B.C.

"The stele is in almost pristine condition. It is unique in its combination of pictorial and textual features and thus provides an important addition to our knowledge of ancient language and culture," said David Schloen, Associate Professor at the Oriental Institute and Director of the University's Neubauer Expedition to Zincirli.

German archaeologists first excavated the 100-acre site in the 1890s and unearthed massive city walls, gates and palaces. A number of royal inscriptions and other finds are now on display in museums in Istanbul and Berlin. Schloen and his team from the University of Chicago have excavated Zincirli for 2 months annually since 2006.

"Zincirli is a remarkable site," said Gil Stein, Director of the Oriental Institute. "Because no other cities were built on top of it, we have excellent Iron Age materials right under the surface. It is rare also in having written evidence together with artistic and archaeological evidence from the Iron Age. Having all of that information helps an archaeologist study the ethnicity of the inhabitants, trade and migration, as well as the relationships of the groups who lived there."

The stele was discovered last summer in a small room that had been converted into a mortuary shrine for the royal official Kuttamuwa, self-described in the inscription as a "servant" of King Panamuwa of the 8th century B.C. It was found in the outer part of the walled city in a domestic area—most likely the house of Kuttamuwa himself—far from the royal palaces, where inscriptions had previously been found.

The inscription reads in part: "I, Kuttamuwa, servant of Panamuwa, am the one who oversaw the production of this stele for myself while still living. I placed it in an eternal chamber (?) and established a feast at this chamber (?): a bull for [the storm-god] Hadad, ... a ram for [the sun-god] Shamash, ... and a ram for my soul that is in this stele. …" It was written in a script derived from the Phoenician alphabet and in a local West Semitic dialect similar to Aramaic and Hebrew.

The finding sheds a striking new light on Iron Age beliefs about the afterlife. In this case, it was the belief that the enduring identity or "soul" of the deceased inhabited the monument on which his image was carved and on which his final words were recorded.

The stele was set against a stone wall in the corner of the small room, with its protruding tenon or "tab" still inserted into a slot in a flagstone platform. A handsome, bearded figure, Kuttamuwa wore a tasseled cap and fringed cloak and raised a cup of wine in his right hand. He was seated on a chair in front of a table laden with food, symbolizing the pleasant afterlife he expected to enjoy. Beside him is his inscription, elegantly carved in raised relief, enjoining upon his descendants the regular duty of bringing food for his soul. Indeed, in front of the stele were remains of food offerings and fragments of polished stone bowls of the type depicted on Kuttamuwa's table.

According to Schloen, the stele vividly demonstrates that Iron Age Sam'al, located in the border zone between Anatolia and Syria, inherited both Semitic and Indo-European cultural traditions. Kuttamuwa and his king, Panamuwa, had non-Semitic names, reflecting the migration of Indo-European speakers into the region centuries earlier under the Hittite Empire based in central Anatolia which had conquered the region.

But by the 8th century B.C., they were speaking the local West Semitic dialect and were fully integrated into local culture. Kuttumuwa's inscription shows a fascinating mixture of non-Semitic and Semitic cultural elements, including a belief in the enduring human soul - which did not inhabit the bones of the deceased, as in traditional Semitic thought, but inhabited his stone monument, possibly because the remains of the deceased were cremated. Cremation was considered to be abhorrent in the Old Testament and in traditional West Semitic culture, but there is archaeological evidence for Indo-European-style cremation in neighboring Iron Age sites, although not yet at Zincirli itself.

In future excavation campaigns, the Neubauer Expedition, under Schloen's direction, plans to excavate large areas of the site in order to understand the social and economic organization of the city and its cultural development over the centuries. Schloen hopes to illuminate Iron Age culture more widely, of which Zincirli provides a richly documented example.

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Picture: The funerary monument recovered in southeastern Turkey. Eudora Struble, University of Chicago, via Science Consciousness.
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Yet Another Hate Crime in Moscow

Foreign students are one of the most common and favorite targets of racist and xenophobe gangs in Russia.

According to a news report dated 16 December 2008 by Mr. John Wendle of The Moscow Times, a Kazakh student was stabbed to death at a bus stop in southwest Moscow in what authorities say may have been a hate crime.

Yerlan Aitymov, 18, was stabbed in the stomach by an unidentified assailant Sunday evening near the Kaluzhskaya metro station. Aitymov, a first-year student at the Gubkin Russian State University of Oil and Gas, lived in a dormitory near the university. He died in an ambulance on the way to a hospital.

The investigators are “not ruling out” the possibility that Aitymov's murder was racially motivated, RIA-Novosti cited, via The Moscow Times. "Detectives have no direct evidence that skinheads are responsible for the murder …At the same time, police officers note that southwestern and southern Moscow see the most attacks on natives of the Caucasus and Central Asia."

The Kazakh government has contacted the Russian Foreign Ministry and demanded "maximum cooperation" in solving the crime.

3 Killed / Month & 1 Injured / Day

At least 85 people – not all foreign students – have been killed and 367 injured in hate crimes so far in 2008 in Russia, according to the Sova Center, a nongovernmental organization that tracks racist violence in the country.

The week prior, an obscure group calling itself the Militant Organization of Russian Nationalists claimed responsibility for the murder and decapitation of a Tajik worker.

The group emailed a photo of the victim's severed head resting on a wooden chopping block as evidence of their role in the crime, said Galina Kozhevnikova, deputy head the Sova Center.
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True Educators Appreciated

Ms. Ayten Giyas, an Azerbaijani female blogger - a rare phenomenon in Azerbaijan and in the South Caucasus - and translator, has recently published an interesting post in which she pays tribute to her former university professors/educators/mentors and expresses some regrets regarding the persistence of corruption in higher education. She writes:

… 15 years ago, back in December 1993, I was among the students who got enrolled at Department of Linguistics of Azerbaijan State University of Languages to become a translator/interpreter.

I must also go back and say that in Soviet times it was virtually impossible to get enrolled at this and many other universities … without paying substantial amounts of money, unofficially of course…

According to Ms. Giyas the situation changed after the independence of 1991:

One of the first and best things that happened in Azerbaijan was the transfer to written test system … which enabled people to get enrolled at universities they wished without having to bribe anyone. In 1995 it was the second year when this new system was in place and I was one of the citizens who benefited from it.

The studies started weirdly in December because the country had no capacity to check the results internally and tests had to go to Turkey (I think) to be checked and shipped back. Nowadays, after 15 years, results are known the same day and future students are able to check the results on TV with live announcements...

According to Ms. Giyas, the change to standardized entrance exams does not, however, seem to have changed much. Corruption persists. This doesn’t mean that some very committed instructors were not or are not found in different universities in Azerbaijan (same in Armenia or elsewhere), instructors who are truly focused on educating their students. Ms. Giyas remarks:

… I must say that nowadays when I hear comments about corruption and low standards in Azeri universities I emotionally refuse to accept that this applies to each and all because that was not and I am sure is not true for many committed professionals that spend their life teaching those who want to learn, grow and develop…

I would like to thank Onnik Krikorian for signaling Ms. Giyas blog to me.

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