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6/1/1997
STRENGTH AND QUALITY: INDISPENSABLE ASSETS
Ukraine
by David Zenian

The Armenian population of the Crimea has jumped up from the mere hundreds in 1991 to more than 20,000 and is still growing, thanks to a handful of government officials who have gained the trust of the peninsula's Russian, Ukrainian and Crimean Tatar majorities.

Gone are the days when Crimean-born Armenians were exiled to Siberia by Soviet dictator Josef Stalin and prevented from returning to their ancestral homes.

The Crimea today is an Autonomous Republic where all citizens are equal under the law, and it is in this framework that the Armenians have found a place to call home, work and prosper.

They constitute less than one percent of the peninsula's 2.5 million population, but nevertheless play a vital role in the daily life of a region where ethnic Russians are still in the majority at 68 percent, followed by the Ukrainians at 22 percent and the Crimean Tatars at 8 percent.

There is Russian nationalism in Russia, but its not the same here in the Crimea. There also is Ukrainian nationalism, but that too is not accentuated in the Crimea. Armenians are better accepted here than probably in any of the former republics of the Soviet Union.

In Simferopol, the administrative capital of the Crimea, Armenians are one of the key players in government and the city's socio-economic life. Among the many Armenians, the two most prominent-and visible-are Anushavan Surenovich Tanelyan and Oleg Arshavirovich Gabrielyan.

The first is the Vice-Chairman of the 100-member Crimean Parliament. The second is the Vice-Chairman of Crimea's State Committee on Nationalities and Expatriated Citizens' Affairs.

Neither was born in the Crimea, but the same is true with thousands of others who until recently were the citizens of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics.

Tanelyan, who is 40 years old, was born in the southern Georgian town of Bolnis near the Armenian border and came to Simferopol in 1980 to study. He majored in history, graduated from university with honors, took on a job with the Communist Youth Organization "Komsomol" and stayed on.

One of the last things former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev did before the collapse of the USSR was to abrogate the Stalin-era laws which had kept hundreds of thousands of Crimea's ethnic Tatars in exile since the mid-1940's.

But the Tatars were not the only ethnic group to suffer Stalin's wrath. An estimated 30,000 Armenians were also deported to Siberia, and they had equal rights to return.

Enter Anushavan Tanelyan.

Soon after the 1991 breakup of the Soviet Union the people of the Crimea voted to become a republic, but after long, arduous-and at times thorny-negotiations between Ukraine and Russia, the Crimea stayed within the Ukrainian framework but nevertheless became an Autonomous Republic.

Crimea's first Parliament, assembled along the lines of majority ethnic representation, gave Armenians of the Crimea one seat. That Parliament elected a Crimean Tatar as its Chairman and Tanelyan as its Vice-Chairman was not because of the Armenian community's numerical strength, but because of his popularity and proven abilities as an astute administrator.

One of the first things Tanelyan did was to draft a new law, expanding the Gorbachev-era decision to open Crimea's doors not only to the exiled Tatars but also to the thousands of Armenians who were deported to Siberia in the mid-1940's.

Months after the ratification of the law in 1991, Tanelyan mobilized all available resources in search of Armenian deportees and their families.

"We used regional newspapers, television and radio in the central Asian republics, in the far corners of Russia and wherever we thought we could find them.

"Let's not forget that more than 50 years have passed since the Armenians were deported from the Crimea, so those we were able to reach were from the second generation.

"Several hundred have already come back, but unfortunately many have either died or have been assimilated though marriage. The law is still in place and we will continue helping whoever wants to come back to his native land," Tanelyan said in a recent interview at his office in Simferopol.

The law provides for immediate citizenship, a plot of land for housing and other assistance for the returnees including airline tickets.

On the outskirts of Simferopol, a new Armenian village has already started taking shape on 87 acres of land given by the government to help the returning deportees from Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Kirghizia and Siberia.

The village has been named "Haikavan", and 22 single-family units have been built and 30 others are under construction-a building project financed and supervised by the Armenian Community Council.

"In 1991, there were only a few hundred Armenians in Crimea, now that number is between 15,000-20,000 and climbing-the Armenian community is already a strong entity and it has its necessary infrastructure, but there is a lot of work ahead of us," Tanelyan said.

Helping the returnees is the State Committee of the Crimea Autonomous Republic on Nationalities and Expatriated Citizens' Affairs, whose second in command is Vice-Chairman Oleg Arshavirovich Gabrielyan, and a staff of more than 220 civil servants.

Born in Baku, Azerbaijan, in 1956, Gabrielyan first studied mathematics, served in the Soviet army, worked as a computer programmer before moving to Armenia in 1982 for his graduate studies. His Ph.D. dissertation was on conflict resolution.

In 1993 Gabrielyan came to Simferopol to attend a conference on "Conflicts in the post-Soviet regions"-which looked at issues involving not only the Crimea, but also Nagorno Karabakh and other trouble-spots.

Here he met Tanelyan who immediately "invited" him to join the Minorities and Expatriated Citizens' Affairs council and appointed him to the number two position. The committee is chaired by a Crimean Tatar.

"My department deals with all repatriated citizens which include not only Crimean Tatars and Armenians, but also ethnic Bulgarians, Germans and Greeks who were also deported by Stalin," Gabrielyan said.

"We provide financing for the cultural enhancement of the expatriates, and within this context we provide help to the Armenian community especially towards the renovation of historical churches in the Crimea along with educational and cultural programs," he said.

Seldom a week passes without the Armenian community turning to Tanelyan and Gabrielyan for financial assistance for projects such as the improvement of their newspaper, radio and television programs.

"We do everything we can to help everyone-within our budget," Gabrielyan said.

As an expert in his field, Gabrielyan, who is fluent in English, Armenian and Russian, has participated at a number of international forums, including the Center for International Affairs at Harvard along with seminars in Russia and Germany.

Tanelyan and Gabrielyan are two of the more visible and prominent Armenians involved in the political development of the Crimea-role models for a rapidly growing Armenian community, building on a long tradition of loyalty to the land which has been home to Armenians for centuries.

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