This week’s chat was with Timur Nersesov, an Armenian originally from Baku, who shared his personal experiences and thoughts of Baku as a child and on the recent conflict that erupted in Nagorno-Karabakh. He was interviewed by our collaborator Leyla Eminli.

Arnold Alahverdian, our co-director, interviewed Agshin Jafarov for our second Garden Chat.

In our first Garden Chat, Dr Ani Kalayjian was interviewed by our co-director Rauf Mammadov to discuss about trauma from an Armenian perspective.

For our 8th meeting we were joined by clinical psychologists Rovshan Suleymanov and Arthur Tonoyan to discuss the status of mental health in Armenia and Azerbaijan and how the war and the conflict between both countries has affected the local populations.  }

Bright Garden Voices (Պայծառ Պարտեզի Ձայներ - ParlaqBağ Səsləri - Голоса из Светлого Сада) is a grassroots initiative which provides a platform for constructive dialogue between Armenians and Azerbaijanis. We host online meetings and events where guests from both sides share their experiences and ideas related to the Azerbaijani and Armenian conflict and issues surrounding it. Each meeting also includes audience member participation. The meetings are recorded and made available online. Bright Garden Voices is not affiliated with nor funded by any organization or government, and does not purport to represent any state or group.  

You can also find us on: 

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/BrightGardenVoices

Twitter: https://twitter.com/brightgardenv

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/brightgardenvoices

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/brightgardenvoices

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/bright-garden-voices

Our 7th meeting "Motherland, Fatherland" featured Marat Grigoryan and Julian Senders, both of mixed Armenian-Azerbaijani heritage. We discussed what it is like being from a mixed family background and how this influences their opinions and perspective about the conflicts between both nations.

Bright Garden Voices (Պայծառ Պարտեզի Ձայներ - ParlaqBağ Səsləri - Голоса из Светлого Сада) is a grassroots initiative which provides a platform for constructive dialogue between Armenians and Azerbaijanis. We host online meetings and events where guests from both sides share their experiences and ideas related to the Azerbaijani and Armenian conflict and issues surrounding it. Each meeting also includes audience member participation. The meetings are recorded and made available online. Bright Garden Voices is not affiliated with nor funded by any organization or government, and does not purport to represent any state or group.

You can also find us on:

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/BrightGardenVoices

Twitter: https://twitter.com/brightgardenv

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/brightgardenvoices

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/brightgardenvoices/

Our 6th meeting "Building Bridges" featured individuals who have started or taken part in an initiative aimed at building bridges between Armenians and Azerbaijanis, to get to know about their motivations and hopes. 

We were joined by Rosa from Kavkazskiy Perekrestok, Khoren from Armeno-Azerbaijani Transformation #NoWar,  Lamiya from Kamancha Project, and Aisel Guseinova.  

Bright Garden Voices (Պայծառ Պարտեզի Ձայներ - ParlaqBağ Səsləri - Голоса из Светлого Сада) is a grassroots initiative which provides a platform for constructive dialogue between Armenians and Azerbaijanis. We host online meetings and events where guests from both sides share their experiences and ideas related to the Azerbaijani and Armenian conflict and issues surrounding it. Each meeting also includes audience member participation. The meetings are recorded and made available online. Bright Garden Voices is not affiliated with nor funded by any organization or government, and does not purport to represent any state or group.  

You can also find us on: 

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/BrightGardenVoices

Twitter: https://twitter.com/brightgardenv

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/brightgardenvoices

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/brightgardenvoices/

Our fifth meeting "Deportations & Pogroms" had four refugees from Armenia and Azerbaijan and guests. Anna, Farid, Stanislav and Zaur shared their experiences when they and their families had to flee their homes, their opinions about the conflict and hopes for the future.  

Anna Arutyunova is a cancer researcher at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia and is pursuing her graduate degree. She was born in the US to an Armenian family, originally from Baku, Azerbaijan. In order to escape the January 1990 pogroms, her family initially fled to Armenia. In 1992 her family obtained refugee status and were received by the US in a small town in Idaho.  

Farid Salimzade is a medical student in Turkey. He was born in Baku in 1995. Farid’s relatives were forced to leave Armenia in late 1987 due to pogroms. He lived in Russia and then in Baku again before moving to Turkey for his studies.  

Stanislav Sarkisov is a lawyer from California. He was born in Baku in 1985, leaving to Moscow in 1988, when tensions against Armenians started to arise. He lived with his family in Russia for a couple of years until they all moved to the US, settling down in Utah.   

Zaur SadigBayli is a lawyer and a civil administrator in France, helping with the administrative issues of people seeking refuge or moving to France to start a new life. He was born in Yerevan in 1976, and had to leave Armenia in 1988, when he was 11.5 years old. Zaur’s family fled to Azerbaijan and Zaur later moved to France to pursue his undergraduate studies, where he finally settled down and continues to reside to this day.  

Bright Garden Voices (Պայծառ Պարտեզի Ձայներ - ParlaqBağ Səsləri - Голоса из Светлого Сада) is a project that intends to provide a platform for constructive dialogue between Armenians and Azerbaijanis. We host Zoom meetings where guests from both sides share their experiences and ideas concerning all matters relating to Azerbaijani and Armenian conflicts and issues. Each meeting also hosts an audience which is able to propose questions or comments to the moderators to be voiced. The meetings are recorded and made available online. This project is the initiative of three enthusiasts for peace and dialogue who want to build bridges between Armenians and Azerbaijanis. We are neither affiliated with nor funded by any organization for this undertaking.   

You can also follow us on: 

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCvD-kkmxYjvxqey8siYc3tQ

Twitter: https://twitter.com/brightgardenv

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/brightgardenvoices

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/brightgardenvoices/

Our fourth meeting is titled "Women & Patriarchy", with Zümrüd Jalilova and Anna Shahnazaryan as our guests. The issue of gender is at the cornerstone of both the traditional Armenian and Azerbaijani societies. In order for Azerbaijanis and Armenians to understand each other’s society it is vital that they be able to reflect on the structure of their own society and relate it to that of the other. Nowadays, both countries are experiencing a women’s rights activism spring.  Zümrüd Jalilova is a Diversity and Inclusion Advisor and a Project Manager. She is the co-founder of Gender Talks, which is a social learning platform on Facebook. 

Zümrüd holds a Master of Science degree in Gender and International Relations from the University of Bristol. She took part in an internship with the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe (UN ECE) in Geneva, and she is the winner of the UK Social Impact Alumni Award for 2019. She is an incoming Schwarzman Scholar and is the founder of the start-up Unpuzzle, a jigsaw puzzle on gender equality.  

Anna Shahnazaryan, born and raised in Sevan, currently based in Yerevan has been engaged in environmental and feminist activism in Armenia for over a decade. Her key political concerns are all forms of exploitation which neatly coalesce in the current heteronormative capitalist patriarchal world order. Having struggled on the field against resource extraction and environmental degradation, Anna has come to realize how closely interrelated the exploitation of the Earth and female bodies are, while the latest brutal war in Karabakh has shown that male bodies are disposable too. Anna is an optimist and does her best to sustain her efforts in subverting the vicious cycle of exploitative systems. Her activism includes direct actions and discourse change.

Anna Shahnazaryan's article mentioned in the meeting, in Russian (https://epress.am/ru/2021/03/01/%d0%bf%d0%be-%d1%82%d1%83-%d1%81%d1%82%d0%be%d1%80%d0%be%d0%bd%d1%83-%d0%b2%d0%be%d0%b9%d0%bd%d1%8b-%d0%bf%d1%80%d0%b5%d0%b4%d0%b0%d1%82%d0%b5%d0%bb%d0%b5%d0%b9-%d0%b8-%d1%81%d0%bf%d0%b0%d1%81%d0%b8.html) and in Armenian (https://epress.am/2021/02/25/radical_choice_statement_1226.html​).

Zümrüd's Gender Talks group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/gendertalks/

Bright Garden Voices (Պայծառ Պարտեզի Ձայներ - ParlaqBağ Səsləri - Голоса из Светлого Сада) is a platform for constructive dialogue between Armenians and Azerbaijanis. We host meetings where guests share their experiences and ideas concerning all matters relating to Azerbaijani and Armenian conflicts and issues. Each meeting hosts an audience which is able to propose questions or comments. We are neither affiliated with nor funded by any organization for this undertaking.

Our third meeting is titled "Us & Them", with Nazrin Gadimova-Akbulut and Garine Palandjian as our guests. Matters relating to identity are hotly disputed among Azerbaijanis and Armenians, often carrying various preconceptions and stereotypes. Having gone decades without contact, the new generations of Azerbaijanis and Armenians know very little about the other’s sense of national identity. Our guests discussed the main pillars that constitute the identities of both peoples, and how these identities are constructed and reconstructed.  

Nazrin Gadimova-Akbulut is a Research Fellow at the Center for  International and European Studies at Kadir Has University in Istanbul, Turkey. She wrote her doctoral thesis on the topic of correlation of national identity and regional fragmentation in the South Caucasus and the prospect for building a common identity in the region.  

Garine Palandjian is a PhD Candidate in Educational Policy and Evaluation at Arizona State University Mary Lou Fulton Teachers College, USA. As a border thinker, Garine uses a decolonial lens for her dissertation research in Armenian education to explore how borders – and memories of bordering practices and experiences – redefine education and identities.  

Mentioned in this meeting was Garine Palandjian's virtual exhibition titled “Borders, Identity, and Pedagogy”, which features some of the stories, original photography, music, and sounds from her dissertation research on teachers’ memories and experiences of coexistence and crossing borders in Armenia, Turkey, and Azerbaijan. It can be accessed through this link: https://garinepalandjian.com/borders-identity-and-pedagogy/  

Also mentioned in this meeting was Mariam Avetisyan's documentary project "The Desire to Live": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BVW2jH2wxhw

Bright Garden Voices (Պայծառ Պարտեզի Ձայներ - ParlaqBağ Səsləri - Голоса  из Светлого Сада) is a project that intends to provide a platform for constructive dialogue between Armenians and Azerbaijanis. We host Zoom meetings where guests from both sides share their experiences and ideas concerning all matters relating to Azerbaijani and Armenian conflicts and issues. Each meeting also hosts an audience which is able to propose questions or comments to the moderators to be voiced. The meetings are recorded and made available online. This project is the initiative of three enthusiasts for peace and dialogue who want to build bridges between Armenians and Azerbaijanis. We are neither affiliated with nor funded by any organization for this undertaking.   

Link to the YouTube episode: https://youtu.be/1bewzqrfdbg

You can also follow us on: 

Twitter: https://twitter.com/brightgardenv 

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/brightgardenvoices 

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/brightgardenvoices/

Our second meeting is titled "Talking Through the Lens". Our guests were Arpi Bekaryan, a journalist and video maker from Armenia, and Orkhan Abbasov, photographer and filmmaker from Azerbaijan. We discussed how images shape perspectives of the conflict and how they can be a tool for dialogue.

Keep in mind that since the subject of this meeting is imagery, the podcast might lose some relevance without the visual support. The video is on Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FS50U--cIcI

Arpi's short films mentioned in the meeting:

"Safe Zone": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RZ4k4diJdLw

"Them, us and the ruins": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=clXVhFek3-0

Orkhan Abbasov's website: https://www.oabbasov.com/  

Bright Garden Voices (Պայծառ Պարտեզի Ձայներ - ParlaqBağ Səsləri - Голоса из Светлого Сада) is a project that intends to provide a platform for constructive dialogue between Armenians and Azerbaijanis. We host Zoom meetings where guests from both sides share their experiences and ideas concerning all matters relating to Azerbaijani and Armenian conflicts and issues. Each meeting also hosts an audience which is able to propose questions or comments to the moderators to be voiced. The meetings are recorded and made available online. This project is the initiative of three enthusiasts for peace and dialogue who want to build bridges between Armenians and Azerbaijanis. We are neither affiliated with nor funded by any organization for this undertaking.

You can also follow us on: Twitter: https://twitter.com/brightgardenv  

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/brightgardenvoices

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/brightgardenvoices