The kings of Armenia might hold the secrets

by Maria Titizian

Published: Saturday January 26, 2008 in Living in Armenia

I once read somewhere that it took Europe 14 centuries to achieve relative stability after the collapse of the Roman Empire. To expect peace and stability in the Middle East today when the collapse of the Ottoman Empire happened less than a century ago then is to be overly idealistic and optimistic.

Why I want to impart this piece of interesting information has to do with an exchange of letters I have been having with a friend abroad. He was complaining about life in North America and I was complaining about having to go to the OVIR (Passport and Visa Office) in Yerevan. It had been a particularly frustrating day and any dealings I need to have with any government agency or office in Armenia plays havoc with my patience and good grace, which I fear I am fast losing.

The service industry in Armenia has been steadily improving. There isn't anyone who used to come to Armenia in the early 90s who can deny that today we are experiencing a whole new set of improved standards in the service sector. However, as with all countries, the state apparatus in Armenia is lagging far behind the private sector in terms of improvements of services to customers.

I do my best to avoid any government office, agency, building, or even official, unless absolutely necessary. Rudeness, lack of professionalism, and mediocrity seem to be the prerequisite to conducting business in most government offices in Armenia.

For me it all began many years ago with the customs department when I was working for a Canadian-Armenian business enterprise and was trying to import/export merchandise. Back then the bureaucratic red tape, lack of standardized forms, and laws which were left up to the interpretation of individual customs agents meant that to process a single transaction could take days and a significant amount of funds.

I then moved on to the taxation department when I was working for a charitable foundation and found similar tendencies. You had to go from one office to the next to file a simple tax remittance and oftentimes you would go from floor to floor, door to door, to find the appropriate agent to negotiate with, cajole, or persuade that all your papers were in order.

The first week after arriving in Armenia, we went to the OVIR to apply for our 10-year special residency passport. We went up to the second floor where the office responsible for foreign nationals was located. We were then directed back to the first floor, where a woman sitting behind a small window would write your "timum" for a fee of 500 AMD. A "timum" is not an application form. It is a letter you have to write for every single transaction. (I once even had to write a timum, which must be written in a very specific way and always, always with blue, never black ink, so that my children could take part in art classes one summer when we were visiting Armenia).

With our timum in hand we proceeded back up to the second floor only to be told that now we had to go and get photocopies of our Canadian passports and pictures for our new Armenian passport; we could get those once we exited the building and walked across the courtyard to another office.

That done, we went back up to the second floor. Now we were told to go down the hall to another office and fill out another application. All of this would have been digestible if there weren't line ups which weren't really line ups but crowds of people pushing and shoving to move ahead of you.

While trying to figure out where to go, whom to see, and what to do, we had to deal with state officials who were, as a rule, rude or indifferent and very sparing with their instructions. It was almost as though they wanted to confuse you so that you would keep asking them for help so that in the end when all your papers were finally in order you would be so relieved that you would give them a little something on the side for all their gracious assistance.

My son's OVIR experience last week was no less frustrating, except that this time I wasn't the one with him. At the tender age of 15, my son quickly learned, perhaps he already knew anyway, that nothing is ever easy in Armenia. He was told he needed a letter confirming that he was a student here from his school. This is the sixth time we have applied for an annual residency card for him (one needs to be 18 to receive the special residency passport in Armenia) but this time around they requested school records. The school transcribed his name in a way that the OVIR didn't agree with, so the very same Daron Titizian, aged 15, Canadian citizen, couldn't have been the same child because in one document his name is spelled Daron and in the other, Taron. A process that should have been completed in one hour has yet to be resolved after three days of coming and going to the OVIR.

It was in this frame of mind that I wrote to my friend complaining about life in Armenia. However his response made me stop and think about the 14 centuries it took for Europe to evolve and become Europe and the geopolitical mess left behind in the Middle East after the collapse of the Ottoman Empire. So why is it that I, with my North American attitudes still fully ingrained, demand so much from a country that has been independent for less than 2 decades; which hasn't had statehood for the last six centuries with the exception of two short years back at the turn of the century; a country which is still learning to take its first steps; a country which is trying to understand how to govern itself; a newly formed nation that is trying to understand what it means to have statehood?

We have a long and painful journey ahead of us. We will make many mistakes, trip and fall along the way, and our judgment will be clouded by decades of Soviet rule for some generations to come. Once we wipe out the Soviet experience, we will then have to reach further back and wipe out the Ottoman experience. If we can find the fortitude and integrity, perhaps we can reach back far enough to the time when Armenian kings ruled over the Armenian highlands. Maybe only then will we be able to discover the pride and ownership of our nationhood.