I am in the village Alvank (Red Temple) in Syunick region, which was called Aldara when Azerbaijanis lived there. Here there are beautiful medieval Armenian khachkars – cross-stones, churches, mills, etc.
Soldier of the Artsakh war, now – retired Lieutenant Colonel Sargis Qaryan introduced me to the Tovmasyan family – refugees from Baku. Their sons – Ararat and Masis are militarymen, serving in one of the military units of Artsakh, and their daughter Ani is a one-year student at the Military Institute after Vazgen Sargsyan. Since childhood, the children heard about the atrocities committed by Azerbaijanis in Sumgayit, Baku, Gandzak, the heroism of our soldiers during the Artsakh war and made this decision independently. The family decided – after Ani’s graduation, they will move to live in Artsakh.

The Artsakh war gave us heroes who today have become a way of raising the generation.
November 22 marks the 73rd anniversary of the birth of one of those heroes – Leonid Azgaldyan. Since February 1990 he led the command of “Independence Army”, organized self-defense of Vardenis, participated in the liberation battles, including – the first attack of Nyuvady.

I serve in the frontier military unit. It is a year of my service, but cross-border service, or as we say, the real service is half a year. The first six months have been easy, but on the border… On the border even wake up and going to sleep, your actions are quite different. You serve even in a dream, because here the burden of responsibility is very great. Even the army bread is delicious… You eat it – and you are happy, because this right you have worked by your honest and faithful service. On the border the service lasts 24 hours and not a minute less.

Early morning. Nature of Tavush is unimaginably beautiful. We came to a crossroad. They attached a sign where it was written by hand: “Be careful, the enemy shoots!” However, the villagers are not very serious about this sign: “If we, “be cautious “, then we have not go out of the house”, – they scoff.
To my surprise, there are many young people in the village. They accompanied us to their pantheon-memorial where are sleeping peacefully the men who died in the battles for the defense of the village.

On November 27, in the meeting room of the Scientific Council of Yerevan State University a presentation of the book “The Armenian-Azerbaijani war and the heroes of our day” (author: Edgar Elbakyan, editor: Alvina Aghababyan) was held.
The book was created in collaboration with Research center “Armses” NGO and the Research Laboratory for Strategic Studies of Yerevan State University within the framework provided by the grant program to NGO-s by the administration of the President of Armenia and the announced competition of the Youth Foundation of Armenia.

After November 24, when the Russian Su-24 was shot down, the Russian-Turkish relations are deteriorating day by day, and in fact they have entered into the stage of an undeclared war. Ankara, in response to the Russian government’s introduced economic sanctions, unilaterally decided to break the special status of the Bosporus and Dardanelles straits, preventing the entrance and exit of Russian ships in the Black Sea. However, a larger confrontation can happen in Syria.

The President of Armenia, Supreme Commander Serzh Sargsyan on November 18th made a working visit to the defense positions at the north-eastern border area of the Republic of Armenia. Accompanied by the Minister of Defense and the highest command of the RA Armed Forces, the President of Armenia toured military units, visited the defense positions, observed firsthand the combat readiness of the troops and the ongoing process of army building.