This led the government to propose reconstruction of the Armenian Atomic Power Station at Metsamor, which was closed after the 1988 earthquake because of its location in an earthquake-prone area and which had the same safety problems as reactors listed as dangerous in Bulgaria, Russia, and Slovakia.

Ter-Petrosyan had been elected head of government in 1990, when the National Democratic Union party defeated the Armenian Communist Party.

Following the assassination in Parliament of Prime Minister Vazgen Sargsyan and parliament Speaker Karen Demirchyan and six other officials, on 27 October 1999, a period of political instability ensued during which an opposition headed by elements of the former Armenian National Movement government attempted unsuccessfully to force Kocharyan to resign.

A new party, the Republic Party, is headed by ex-Prime Minister Aram Sargsyan, brother of Vazgen Sargsyan, and has become the primary voice of the opposition, which also includes the Armenian Communist Party, the National Unity party of Artashes Geghamyan, and elements of the former Ter-Petrosyan government.

All churches apart from the Armenian Apostolic Church must register with the government, and proselytizing was forbidden by law, though since 1997 the government has pursued more moderate policies.

New sectors, such as precious stone processing and jewelry making and communication technologyArmentel ( left fromt the USSR era ), which is not even owned by the government or Armenian investors.

This was owing to bad weather, a lack of a government stimulus package, and the continuing effects of decreased agricultural subsidies by the Armenian government ( per WTO requirements ).

The Armenian government receives foreign aid from the government of the United States through the United States Agency for International Development and the Millennium Challenge Corporation.

With the Armenian government needing more anti-crisis loans from the World Bank and other foreign donors, the debt-to-GDP ratio is expected to exceed 40 percent in 2010.

The official warned that the debt servicing payments of the Armenian government will surge by 2013 and absorb " quite significant part of tax revenues.

As of October 2008, the Armenian government is considering implementing an ambitious project to build a railway to Iran.

In August 2002, the Armenian government sold an 80 percent stake in the Armenian Electricity Network ( AEN ) to Midland Resources, a British offshore-registered firm which is said to have close Russian connections.

In September 2002, the Armenian government handed over Armenia ’ s largest cement factory to the Russian ITERA gas exporter in payment for its $ 10 million debt for past gas deliveries.

In January 2003, the Armenian government and United Company RUSAL signed an investment cooperation agreement, under which United Company RUSAL ( which already owned a 76 % stake ) acquired the Armenian government's remaining 26 % share of RUSAL ARMENAL aluminum foil mill, giving RUSAL 100 % ownership of RUSAL ARMENAL.

On November 1, 2006, the Armenian government handed de facto control of the Iran-Armenia gas pipeline to Russian company Gazprom and increased Gazprom's stake in the Russian-Armenian company ArmRosGazprom from 45 % to 58 % by approving an additional issue of shares worth $ 119 million.

This left the Armenian government with a 32 % stake in ArmRosGazprom.

Critics of the Kocharian government say that the Armenian administration never considered alternative ways of settling the Russian debts.

Political observers say that Armenia's economic cooperation with Russia has been one of the least transparent areas of the Armenian government ’ s work.

The Armenian government ’ s stated efforts to strengthen and reform the military are called into question by continuing non-combat deaths and other violent incidents in the army ranks, which have come under greater public scrutiny in 2010.

From 1899 to 1910, he travelled through the Armenian highlands and collected more than 3, 000 folk tunes many of which he harmonized and transformed into Lieder.

He collected and researched old Georgian chronicles and analyzed Greco-Roman and Armenian sources on Georgia.

* 1972 Armenian Dances Part 1, inspired by a collection of Folk Songs collected by Komitas Vardapet ( 1869 – 1935 )

For the basis of the work, he took chants sung by the eldest priests and upgraded it with typical (" cleaned " of foreign influences ) Armenian music elements from his collected material.

S. Lazzaro houses a 150, 000-volume library, as well as a museum with over 4, 000 Armenian manuscripts and many Arab, Indian and Egyptian artifacts collected by the monks or received as gifts.

Later, in medieval times " Azatavrear " cavalry or Armenian heavy cavalry was collected from nobles ( youngest sons of Armenian lords ) and was known as AYRUDZI ( man and horse, horseman ).

M. Kegham -- the name is a pseudynom -- was a teacher in Bucharest and a member of the Armenian Revolutionary Federation ( ARF ) -- two reasons the Communists put him away when they arrived in 1945.

One, the ABCDE order later used in Phoenician, has continued with minor changes in Hebrew, Greek, Armenian, Gothic, Cyrillic, and Latin ; the other, HMĦLQ, was used in southern Arabia and is preserved today in Ethiopic.

It is a peninsula bound by the Black Sea to the north, Georgia to the north-east, the Armenian Highland to the east, Mesopotamia to the south-east, the Mediterranean Sea to the south, and the Aegean Sea to the west.

Under this definition, Anatolia is bounded to the East by the Armenian Highland, and the Euphrates before that river bends to the southeast to enter Mesopotamia.

Turkey's First Geography Congress in 1941 created two regions to the east of the Gulf of Iskenderun-Black Sea line named the Eastern Anatolia Region and the Southeastern Anatolia Region, the former largely corresponding to the western part of the Armenian Highland, the latter to the northern part of the Mesopotamian plain.

Eastern Anatolia roughly coincides with the western half of the Armenian Highland.

During the 1st century BC the Armenians in what had been Urartu established the powerful Armenian kingdom under Tigran who reigned throughout much of eastern Anatolia between the Caspian, Black Sea and Mediterranean.

During World War I, the Armenian Genocide, the Greek genocide ( especially in Pontus ), and the Assyrian Genocide almost entirely removed the ancient communities of Armenian and Assyrian populations in Anatolia, as well as a large part of its ethnic Greek population.

* 1869 – Levon Shant, Armenian playwright, novelist and poet ( d. 1951 )

Justice Commandos Against Armenian Genocide claim responsibility, saying they are avenging the massacre of 1. 5 million Armenians in the 1915 Armenian Genocide.

The transfer of the property of the 4th Army ( except for part of the property of the 366th Motor Rifle Regiment of the 23rd Motor Rifle Division captured by Armenian armed formations in 1992 during the regiment's withdrawal from Stepanakert ) and the 49th arsenal was completed in 1992.

The Azeri armed forces took a series of devastating defeats by Armenian forces during the 1992 – 1994 Nagorno-Karabakh War, which resulted in the loss of control of Nagorno-Karabakh proper and seven surrounding rayons, comprising roughly 16 % of the territory of Azerbaijan.

Azerbaijani sources insist that Armenian victory was largely due to military help from Russia and the wealthy Armenian diaspora.

Armenians partially deny the allegation, claiming that Russian side was equally supplying Armenian and Azerbaijani sides with weapons and mercenaries.

The Armenian Government is working toward closing the Armenian Nuclear Power Plant as soon as alternative energy sources are identified.

Twenty-five million years ago, a geological upheaval pushed up the Earth's crust to form the Armenian Plateau, creating the complex topography of modern Armenia.

To the southwest of the range is the Armenian Plateau, which slopes southwestward toward the Araks River on the Turkish border.

On the Armenian Plateau, the mean midwinter temperature is, and the mean midsummer temperature exceeds.