Golden Palace Hotel Resort and Spa is a hotel in Tsaghkadzor , a popular resort town in Kotayk Province , Armenia . It was opened in 2013.
118-652: With 120 guestrooms, the Golden Palace Hotel is the largest hotel in Armenia outside the capital Yerevan. The 5-story domed Golden Palace Hotel was officially opened on 2 March 2013 in the presence of president Serzh Sargsyan . It is the second hotel opened by the Golden Palace LLC in Armenia, after the Golden Palace Yerevan (later turned into Radisson Blu Yerevan ). The Golden Palace Hotel Resort and Spa
236-579: A gross domestic product of over 4 trillion U.S. dollars (PPP). The EEU introduces the free movement of goods, capital, services and people and provides for common transport, agriculture and energy policies, with provisions for a single currency and greater integration in the future. Sargsyan made his first address in front of the 63rd session of the United Nations General Assembly in New York on 25 September 2008. In his speech he referenced
354-488: A "power grab" and there were large-scale protests against him. On 22 April, Sargsyan held a three-minute televised meeting with opposition MP and leader of the protests Nikol Pashinyan . Sargsyan accused the opposition of delivering an ultimatum for his resignation instead of engaging in dialogue, and left the meeting early; Pashinyan was detained by police hours after the meeting. The continuing protests were eventually successful in pressuring Sargsyan. On 23 April, Pashinyan
472-531: A double team of interrogators. Bukharin's confession in particular became subject of much debate among Western observers, inspiring Koestler's acclaimed novel Darkness at Noon and philosophical essay by Maurice Merleau-Ponty in Humanism and Terror . His confessions were somewhat different from others in that while he pleaded guilty to "sum total of crimes", he denied knowledge when it came to specific crimes. Some astute observers noted that he would allow only what
590-509: A fabricated confession by the interrogators. After the interrogations the files were submitted to NKVD troikas, which pronounced the verdicts in the absence of the accused. During a half-day-long session a troika went through several hundred cases, delivering either a death sentence or a sentence to the Gulag labor camps. Death sentences were immediately enforceable. The executions were carried out at night, either in prisons or in secluded areas run by
708-474: A final negotiated solution to the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict and that this was the reason for his decision to remain as prime minister in 2018, which led to protests that forced his resignation. He denied that he had deliberately delayed the negotiation process in order to maintain the status quo or that he had ever held the view that "not one inch of land" could be handed over to Azerbaijan in order to resolve
826-772: A massive scale as victims of the repression. In addition to ordinary citizens, prominent members of the Communist Party were also targets for the purges. The purge of the Party was accompanied by the purge of the whole society. Soviet historians organize the Great Purge into three corresponding trials. The following events are used for the demarcation of the period: Between 1936 and 1938, three very large Moscow trials of former senior Communist Party leaders were held, in which they were accused of conspiring with fascist and capitalist powers to assassinate Stalin and other Soviet leaders, dismember
944-480: A more consolidated government effort to eradicate corruption, Armenia's corruption rating improve[d] from 5.50 to 5.25." During Sargsyan's presidency the record of the freedom of speech and the freedom of press in general also improved in Armenia. Internet penetration rose sharply – from 6.2 percent in 2008 to 37 percent in 2011, providing greater access to online media, which rapidly grew in number, including blogosphere – with over 10,000 bloggers in 2011. After
1062-644: A national hero, hampers the negotiation process and proves, in Sargsyan's words, that "the Azeri propaganda brings up an entire generation in the atmosphere of xenophobia and intolerance." Sargsyan has also clearly stated: The Armenophobic and aggressive stance of Azerbaijan reinforces our conviction that Nagorno-Karabakh has no future within Azerbaijan. Moreover, Azerbaijan has neither legal nor political or moral grounds to claim over Nagorno-Karabakh. In his speech made at
1180-656: A number of meetings with the president of Azerbaijan within the framework of OSCE Minsk Group. On 2 November 2008, Ilham Aliyev and Serzh Sargsyan traveled to Moscow for talks with Dmitry Medvedev . The talks ended in the three Presidents signing a declaration confirming their commitment to continue talks. The two presidents met again in 2009 in Saint Petersburg and on 22 November 2009, together with several world leaders, in Munich where President Aliyev once more threatened to resort to military force to reestablish control over
1298-588: A number of the Soviet Union's diaspora nationalities: the Finnish , Latvian , Estonian , Bulgarian , Afghan , Iranian , Greek , and Chinese . Of the operations against national minorities, it was the largest one, second only to the "Kulak Operation" in terms of the number of victims. According to Timothy Snyder , ethnic Poles constituted the largest group of victims in the Great Terror, comprising less than 0.5% of
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#17328581906751416-598: A part of the opposition I Have Honor Alliance . Serzh Sargsyan (born Serzhik Azati Sargysan) was born on 30 June 1954 in Stepanakert in the Nagorno-Karabakh Autonomous Oblast . He is the son of Azat Avetisi Sargsyan (1929–2013) and Nora Sargsyan․ His father's family hailed from the village of Tegh in the Armenian SSR , and moved to Stepanakert after the arrest of Serzh Sargsyan's grandfather during
1534-625: A police headquarters in Yerevan in July 2016 and took hostages, demanding Sargsyan's resignation. The crisis, which coincided with mass protests in support of the attackers, ended with the surrender of the gunmen on 31 July 2016. Reflecting on his presidency and the negotiation process after the 2020 Nagorno-Karabakh war, during which the Armenian side lost much of the territory it controlled in and around Nagorno-Karabakh, Sargsyan stated that he intended to achieve
1652-721: A position he held until the dissolution of the government in August 1992. Sargsyan then became a member of the seven-man State Defense Committee of the NKR (effectively the government of the NKR) which was formed in August 1992. Sargsyan held the position of minister of the army within the State Defense Committee. From 1993 to 1995 he served his first term as Armenia's Minister of Defense under President Levon Ter-Petrosyan . In 1995 he became Minister of National Security of Armenia (initially called
1770-565: A reversal was made, President Sargsyan's administration was determined to further EU inspired reforms in law and governance, and this led to Armenia signing the Comprehensive and Enhanced Partnership Agreement with the European Union on 24 November 2017. Behind the scenes, Russia granted approval to Armenia to sign the deal after any economic provisions were removed from the deal. Major protests against Sargsyan's regime began in 2011, with
1888-462: A state of emergency was imposed for 20 days, ending on 20 March 2008. Serzh Sargsyan was sworn in as president at the Yerevan Opera House on 9 April 2008. Referring to the "painful events" that followed the election, he " urge[d] everybody to look forward, together, to seek and find the way for reconciliation, development, and future of Armenia." He appointed Tigran Sargsyan , who had been
2006-576: Is below the pre-crisis levels. During his first term of presidency, the official poverty rate doubled and reached 32.4% in 2012. According to official data, some 213,000 people have left Armenia from 2008 to 2013. In 2012, Armenia was ranked 39th out of 179 economies according to the Index of Economic Freedom and ranked 19th freest among the 43 countries in the Europe region. In September 2013 and under Sargsyan's direction, Armenia announced its intentions of joining
2124-426: Is debated by historians, but there is consensus that Kirov's death was the flashpoint at which Stalin decided to take action and begin the purges. Some later historians came to believe that Stalin arranged the murder, or at least that there was sufficient evidence to reach such a conclusion. Kirov was a staunch Stalin loyalist, but Stalin may have viewed him as a potential rival because of his emerging popularity among
2242-579: Is fluent in Russian and also knows Azerbaijani . He is not related to the former Prime Minister of Armenia , Tigran Sargsyan , who served under him, nor to his successor as President Armen Sarkissian . Starting in 1979, Sargsyan held several positions in the Stepanakert Komsomol Committee: first as division head, then second secretary and first secretary (his long-time political ally Robert Kocharyan served as his deputy). He then became
2360-401: Is home to four conference halls, a health and spa centre, an indoor swimming pool, an indoor tennis court, and a large billiards hall. The hotel is topped with a gold-coloured central dome, while the building is covered with white marble. Inside the dome of the hotel, the work of artist Ruben Yeghiazaryan can be seen on the ceiling. The hotel has two restaurants and a cigar bar. The lobby bar of
2478-618: Is located on a hill near Mount Teghenis of the Tsaghkunyats mountain range, approximately 2100 meters above sea level, around 55 km north of the capital Yerevan . The resort is adjacent to the Tsaghkadzor ski resort and the Tsaghkadzor ski lift, on 34/1 Tandzaghbyur Street. The Tsaghkadzor Olympic Sports Complex is also very close to the resort. The hotel has 120 guestrooms, including 26 suites (with royal and presidential suites). The hotel
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#17328581906752596-577: Is no alternative here." Responding to the persistent war rhetoric of Azerbaijan, Sargsyan has condemned it as a violation of the norms of the international law, as the parties had signed a truce which Azerbaijan, the "defeated aggressor", had asked for. He repeatedly said that his country is categorically against the resumption of military hostilities, but at the same time is ready to counter any military aggression. In 2014, Sargsyan stated "We don't want war and never wanted, but at that time [i.e. during Nagorno-Karabakh war] we had to defend our Motherland. If
2714-590: The 2008 South Ossetia conflict and emphasized the need for the United Nations to help bring peaceful resolution to armed conflicts around the world, including the one in Nagorno-Karabakh . He also mentioned how Azerbaijan 's military buildup along with increasing war rhetoric and threats risked causing renewed problems in the South Caucasus . Sargsyan continued the policy towards the peaceful resolution of
2832-598: The Eurasian Economic Union with Belarus, Kazakhstan and Russia. The Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU or EEU) is an economic union of Belarus , Kazakhstan and Russia , and came into force on 1 January 2015. Treaties aiming for Armenia 's accession to the Eurasian Economic Union was signed on 9 October 2014. Armenia's accession treaty came into force on 2 January 2015. The Eurasian Economic Union has an integrated single market of 176 million people and
2950-699: The French Revolution 's Reign of Terror . The purges were largely conducted by the NKVD (People's Commissariat for Internal Affairs), which functioned as the interior ministry and secret police of the USSR. Starting in 1936, the NKVD under chief Genrikh Yagoda began the removal of the central party leadership, Old Bolsheviks , government officials, and regional party bosses . Soviet politicians who opposed or criticized Stalin were removed from office and imprisoned or executed by
3068-550: The Gulag labor camps . The NKVD targeted certain ethnic minorities such as the Volga Germans , and Soviet citizens of Polish origin, who were subjected to forced deportation and extreme repression. Throughout the purge, the NKVD sought to strengthen control over civilians through fear, and frequently used imprisonment, torture, violent interrogation, and executions during its mass operations . In 1938, Stalin reversed his stance on
3186-527: The Nagorno-Karabakh conflict pursued by his predecessors, which constitutes one of the main goals of the Armenian foreign policy . Sargsyan repeatedly stated that the Armenian side is interested in finding a just and exclusively peaceful solution to the conflict and that the OSCE Minsk Group is the viable format within which the peace talks should continue. He continued negotiations with Azerbaijan and had
3304-717: The Supreme Council of Armenia in 1990. During the First Nagorno-Karabakh War , Sargsyan was involved in organizing the defense of Nagorno-Karabakh and the formation of the NKR Defense Army in various capacities. In January 1992, when the first government of the Nagorno-Karabakh Republic (NKR) was formed with Oleg Yesayan as prime minister, Sargsyan was appointed head of the Defense Committee,
3422-753: The Trial of the Twenty-One , is the most famous of the Soviet show trials, because of persons involved and the scope of charges which tied together all loose threads from earlier trials. Meant to be the culmination of previous trials, it included 21 defendants alleged to belong to the "Bloc of Rightists and Trotskyites", supposedly led by Nikolai Bukharin, the former chairman of the Communist International , former premier Alexei Rykov , Christian Rakovsky , Nikolai Krestinsky , and Genrikh Yagoda , recently disgraced head of
3540-499: The Tsarist regime , former members of political parties other than the communist party, etc.). They were to be executed or sent to Gulag prison camps extrajudicially, under the decisions of NKVD troikas. The following categories appear to have been on index-cards, catalogues of suspects assembled over the years by the NKVD and were systematically tracked down: "ex-kulaks" previously deported to " special settlements " in inhospitable parts of
3658-674: The "commission" authorized by the Politburo and gave assurances that death sentences would not be carried out. After the trial, Stalin not only broke his promise to spare the defendants, he had most of their relatives arrested and shot. In May 1937, the Commission of Inquiry into the Charges Made against Leon Trotsky in the Moscow Trials , commonly known as the Dewey Commission, was set up in
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3776-694: The 1937 Great Purge . He entered Yerevan State University in 1971 and served in the Soviet Armed Forces in the Ural region from 1971 to 1972. He began his career in 1975 at the Electrical Devices Factory in Yerevan . He graduated from the Philological Department of Yerevan State University in 1979. In 1983, he married his wife, Rita (née Dadayan). In addition to his native Armenian, he
3894-475: The Armenian people. While one part was for the opening of the border and fostering trade with Turkey the other part was concerned that by this move Armenia would be forced to make concessions to Turkey in the most vital and strategic matters. Armenian influential opposition parties, most notably the Armenian Revolutionary Federation were categorically against the signing of the protocols, given
4012-517: The Azerbaijani side. In his electoral program of 2013, Sargsyan promised to increase the security guarantees of Nagorno-Karabakh and its people given Azerbaijan's policy of Armenophobia . He also highlighted the importance of strengthening the defensive system of Armenia "as a factor restraining the Azerbaijani aggression and ensuring stability in the South Caucasus". He also promised to take all
4130-561: The British Chatham House Sargsyan said: Our belief is that the settlement of the Karabakh conflict should be based on human rights and the will of the Karabakh people… It is the only way to achieve lasting, feasible, and peaceful settlement. The alternative to this settlement is the forcing of the Karabakh people back into Azerbaijan, which will inevitably lead to attempts of new ethnic cleansing of Armenians in Karabakh. There
4248-629: The Chairman of the Central Bank and is not a member of a political party, as Prime Minister. According to the Freedom House report "In 2011, the government took concrete steps to fulfill longstanding and often repeated promises to confront corruption. E-government services reduced opportunities for bribery, while new regulations and stricter enforcement led to higher numbers of corruption lawsuits and fines against senior officials and large companies. Owing to
4366-406: The Moscow Trials to be frame-ups." In the second trial, Karl Radek testified that there was a "third organization separate from the cadres which had passed through [Trotsky's] school," as well as "semi-Trotskyites, quarter-Trotskyites, one-eighth-Trotskyites, people who helped us, not knowing of the terrorist organization but sympathizing with us, people who from liberalism, from a Fronde against
4484-428: The NKVD was the largest of this kind. The Polish operation claimed the largest number of the NKVD victims: 143,810 arrests and 111,091 executions according to records. Snyder estimates that at least eighty-five thousand of them were ethnic Poles. The remainder were 'suspected' of being Polish, without further inquiry. Poles comprised 12.5% of those who were killed during the Great Terror, while comprising only 0.4% of
4602-447: The NKVD and located as a rule on the outskirts of major cities. The "Kulak Operation" was the largest single campaign of repression in 1937–38, with 669,929 people arrested and 376,202 executed, more than half the total of known executions. A series of mass operations of the NKVD was carried out from 1937 through 1938 targeting specific nationalities within the Soviet Union, on the order of Nikolai Yezhov . The Polish Operation of
4720-400: The NKVD. Although an Opposition Bloc led by Trotsky and with zinovievites really existed, Pierre Broué asserts that Bukharin was not involved. Differently from Broué, one of his former allies, Jules Humbert-Droz , said in his memoirs that Bukharin told him that he formed a secret bloc with Zinoviev and Kamenev in order to remove Stalin from leadership. The fact that Yagoda was one of
4838-579: The NKVD. Eventually, the purges were expanded to the Red Army and military high command, which had a disastrous effect on the military. The campaigns also affected many other categories of the society: intelligentsia , wealthy peasants —especially those lending out money or wealth ( kulaks )—and professionals. As the scope of the purge widened, the omnipresent suspicion of saboteurs and counter-revolutionaries began affecting civilian life. The purge reached its peak between September 1936 and August 1938 under
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4956-507: The Party, gave us this help." By the "third organization," he meant the last remaining former opposition group called the Rightists , led by Bukharin, whom he implicated by saying: I feel guilty of one thing more: even after admitting my guilt and exposing the organisation, I stubbornly refused to give evidence about Bukharin. I knew that Bukharin's situation was just as hopeless as my own, because our guilt, if not juridically, then in essence,
5074-730: The Secretary of the National Security Council led by President Kocharyan from 1999 to 2007. On 4 April 2007 Sargsyan was appointed as the Prime Minister of Armenia, following the sudden death of Andranik Margaryan . Sargsyan, with President Kocharyan's backing, was viewed as the strongest contender for the post of the President of Armenia in the February 2008 presidential election . Full provisional results showed him winning about 53% of
5192-405: The Soviet Union and restore capitalism. These trials were highly publicized and extensively covered by the outside world, which was mesmerized by the spectacle of Lenin's closest associates confessing to most outrageous crimes and begging for death sentences: It is now known that the confessions were given only after great psychological pressure and torture had been applied to the defendants. From
5310-417: The Soviet economy in the late 1920s, veteran Bolsheviks no longer thought necessary the "temporary" wartime dictatorship, which had passed from Lenin to Stalin. Stalin's opponents inside the Communist Party chided him as undemocratic and lax on bureaucratic corruption. This opposition to current leadership may have accumulated substantial support among the working class by attacking the privileges and luxuries
5428-568: The Soviet era was Russified as Serzh Azatovich Sargsyan (Серж Аза́тович Саргся́н). Great Purge The Great Purge , or the Great Terror ( Russian : Большой террор , romanized : Bol'shoy terror ), also known as the Year of '37 ( 37-й год , Tridtsat' sed'moy god ) and the Yezhovshchina ( Ежовщина [(j)ɪˈʐofɕːɪnə] , lit. ' period of Yezhov ' ),
5546-554: The Soviet government desired to put Trotsky on trial during the purge, his exile prevented this. Trotsky survived the purge, though he would be assassinated in 1940 by the NKVD on the orders of Stalin. Following the death of Vladimir Lenin in 1924, a power vacuum opened in the Communist Party, the ruling party in the Soviet Union (USSR). Various established figures in Lenin's government attempted to succeed him. By 1928, Joseph Stalin,
5664-549: The State Security Department) and from 1996 to 1999 he concurrently served as Minister of Interior. In February 1998, Sargsyan, along with then-Prime Minister Robert Kocharyan and Defense Minister Vazgen Sargsyan , forced President Ter-Petrosyan to resign in order to prevent him from accepting a peace plan for the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict put forward by international mediators in September 1997. The proposal envisioned
5782-808: The Stepanakert City Committee Propaganda Division Head, the Nagorno-Karabakh Regional Committee Communist Organizations' Unit Instructor, and finally became assistant to Genrikh Poghosyan , the First Secretary of the Nagorno-Karabakh Regional Committee. In November 1989, Sargsyan was a delegate from Nagorno-Karabakh to the first congress of the Pan-Armenian National Movement . He was elected to
5900-656: The United States by supporters of Trotsky, to establish the truth about the trials. The commission was headed by the noted American philosopher and educator John Dewey . Although the hearings were obviously conducted with a view to proving Trotsky's innocence, they brought to light evidence which established that some of the specific charges made at the trials could not be true. For example, Georgy Pyatakov testified that he had flown to Oslo in December 1935 to "receive terrorist instructions" from Trotsky. The Dewey Commission established that no such flight had taken place. Another defendant, Ivan Smirnov , confessed to taking part in
6018-410: The accounts of former OGPU officer Alexander Orlov and others, the methods used to extract the confessions are known: such tortures as repeated beatings, simulated drownings, making prisoners stand or go without sleep for days on end, and threats to arrest and execute the prisoners' families. For example, Kamenev's teenage son was arrested and charged with terrorism. After months of such interrogation,
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#17328581906756136-485: The accused is not essential. The confession of the accused is a medieval principle of jurisprudence" in a trial that was based solely on confessions. He finished his last plea with the words: [T]he monstrousness of my crime is immeasurable especially in the new stage of struggle of the U.S.S.R. May this trial be the last severe lesson, and may the great might of the U.S.S.R. become clear to all. Romain Rolland and others wrote to Stalin seeking clemency for Bukharin, but all
6254-471: The accused showed the speed at which the purges were consuming their own. It was now alleged that Bukharin and others sought to assassinate Lenin and Stalin from 1918, murder Maxim Gorky by poison, partition the USSR and hand its territories to Germany, Japan, and Great Britain, and other charges. Even previously sympathetic observers who had accepted the earlier trials found it more difficult to accept these new allegations as they became ever more absurd, and
6372-425: The age of 58. Sargsyan has two younger brothers: Alexander (Sashik), a businessman and former member of Armenia's parliament, and Levon, a diplomat and professor at Yerevan State University . Other transcriptions of his given name are Serge and Serj , of the surname Sarkissian, Sarkisyan, Sargsyan, Sarkissyan , the transliteration is Serž Azati Sargsyan (see Romanization of Armenian ). His name during
6490-407: The agreement were completed and Armenia was set to sign the agreement at an upcoming EU Summit. However, President Sargsyan made a drastic policy reversal when in September 2013, after a meeting with President Vladimir Putin in Moscow, he opted to join the Russian-led Eurasian Economic Union . It was widely believed that Russian pressure and threats killed Armenia's deal with the EU. Even though such
6608-428: The assassination of Sergei Kirov in December 1934, at a time when he had already been in prison for a year. The Dewey Commission later published its findings in a 422-page book titled Not Guilty . Its conclusions asserted the innocence of all those condemned in the Moscow Trials. In its summary, the commission wrote Independent of extrinsic evidence, the Commission finds: The commission concluded: "We therefore find
6726-524: The basis of denunciations or because they were related to, were friends with or knew people already arrested. Engineers, peasants, railwaymen, and other types of workers were arrested during the "Kulak Operation" based on the fact that they worked for or near important strategic sites and factories where work accidents had occurred due to "frantic rhythms and plans". During this period the NKVD reopened these cases and relabeled them as "sabotage" or "wrecking." The Orthodox clergy , including active parishioners,
6844-465: The championship took place in the large lobby of the hotel with an artistic performance attended by the president of Armenia Serzh Sargsyan (who is also the president of the Armenian Chess Federation), the FIDE president Kirsan Ilyumzhinov , and the delegates of the 10 participant countries. The event coincided with the 100th anniversary of the Armenian genocide which had its reflection in the opening ceremony. The Chinese national team had eventually won
6962-433: The conflict. He added that he was "ready to bear the label of traitor, but resolve the [Nagorno-Karabakh] question." Having been elected as a president for his first term in 2008, Sargsyan pledged to continue Armenia's policy towards Turkey, to normalize relations without any preconditions while continuing to strive for international recognition of the 1915 Armenian genocide . Coming to power, Sargsyan took steps towards
7080-399: The constitution in 2015 that would allow it, Sargsyan was again elected prime minister in April 2018, in what opposition figures described as a "power grab". Six days after taking office, Sargsyan resigned after large-scale protests . Sargsyan is currently the leader of the Republican Party, which was the ruling party of Armenia from 1999 to 2018 and is currently represented in parliament as
7198-421: The contrary) that this would jeopardize the international recognition of the Armenian genocide as well as the prospects of legitimate territorial claims of Armenians from Turkey. The process of reconciliation, however, was suspended after a year. In Armenia, before sending the protocols to the parliament, it was sent to the Constitutional Court to have their approval. The Constitutional Court made references to
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#17328581906757316-449: The country ( Siberia , the Urals , Kazakhstan, and the Far North ), former tsarist civil servants, former officers of the White Army , participants in peasant rebellions, members of the clergy, persons deprived of voting rights, former members of non-Bolshevik parties, ordinary criminals, like thieves, known to the police and various other "socially harmful elements". However, a large number of people were arrested at random in sweeps, on
7434-442: The country as threatened from within by fascist spies. From the October Revolution onward, Lenin had used repression against perceived and legitimate enemies of the Bolsheviks as a systematic method of instilling fear and facilitating control over the population in a campaign called the Red Terror . As the Russian Civil War drew to a close, this campaign was relaxed although the secret police did remain active. From 1924 to 1928,
7552-405: The current phase of normalization exhausted." Sargsyan however has also stated that unlike Ankara , Yerevan remains committed to its initiative to normalizing relations with Turkey. President Sargsyan supported Armenia's efforts to ink an Association Agreement with the EU, which contains a Deep and Comprehensive Free Trade Area , for several years. Under his presidency, the negotiations for
7670-407: The defendants were driven to despair and exhaustion. Zinoviev and Kamenev demanded, as a condition for "confessing", a direct guarantee from the Politburo that their lives and that of their families and followers would be spared. This offer was accepted, but when they were taken to the alleged Politburo meeting, only Stalin, Kliment Voroshilov , and Yezhov were present. Stalin claimed that they were
7788-448: The elections Sargsyan also authorized opposition rallies to take place in Yerevan and pledged to comply with the Council of Europe 's demands for an end to the government's crackdown on the opposition. Civil society also grew considerably during Sargsyan's presidency, with the number of non-governmental organizations growing at a higher rate and with civic activists succeeding in raising public awareness and holding important campaigns in
7906-472: The estimated number of "kulaks" and "criminals" in their districts. These individuals were to be arrested and executed, or sent to the gulag camps. The party chiefs complied and produced these lists within days, with figures which roughly corresponded to the individuals who were already under secret police surveillance. On 30 July 1937, the NKVD Order No. 00447 was issued, directed against "ex-kulaks" and other "anti-Soviet elements" (such as former officials of
8024-412: The first three into fervent anti-communists eventually. To them, Bukharin's confession symbolized the depredations of communism, which not only destroyed its sons but also conscripted them in self-destruction and individual abnegation. On the first day of trial, Krestinsky caused a sensation when he repudiated his written confession and pleaded not guilty to all the charges. However, he changed his plea
8142-482: The foreign ministers of Armenia and Turkey signed protocols on establishing diplomatic relations between the two countries without any preconditions. The accord also presupposed the opening of the border between Armenia and Turkey which had been closed by Turkey in 1993. The protocols were signed in Geneva, Switzerland under the international mediation, chiefly that of the United States. Sargsyan's policy of rapprochement with Turkey received controversial reaction among
8260-478: The hotel is the largest in Armenia. Tsaghkadzor is one of the four towns of Armenia that are allowed to accommodate gambling houses and activities in urban settlements. The Golden Palace Hotel is home to the "Senator Casino". It has three game halls. The Senator Golden Palace casino is among the largest entertainment centers in Armenia. Golden Palace Tsaghkadzor hosted the 2015 FIDE World Team Chess Championship between 18 and 29 April 2015. The opening ceremony of
8378-483: The human cost of the first five-year plan and the collectivization of agriculture . From 1930 onwards, the Party and police officials feared the "social disorder" caused by the upheavals of forced collectivization of peasants and the resulting famine of 1932–1933 , as well as the massive and uncontrolled migration of millions of peasants into cities. The threat of war heightened Stalin's and generally Soviet perception of marginal and politically suspect populations as
8496-459: The kulaks (i.e., wealthy peasants that owned farmland) in a policy called dekulakization . The kulaks responded by destroying crop yields and other acts of sabotage against the Soviet government. The food shortage led to a mass famine across the USSR and slowed the Five Year Plan. A distinctive feature of the Great Purge was that, for the first time, members of the ruling party were included on
8614-607: The late stages of the Purge rather than deliberate discrimination in sentencing). The wives and children of those arrested and executed were dealt with by the NKVD Order No. 00486 . The women were sentenced to forced labour for 5 or 10 years. Their minor children were put in orphanages. All possessions were confiscated. Extended families were purposely left with nothing to live on, which usually sealed their fate as well, affecting up to 200,000–250,000 people of Polish background depending on
8732-427: The leadership of Nikolai Yezhov , hence the name Yezhovshchina . The campaigns were carried out according to the general line of the party , often by direct orders of the politburo headed by Stalin. Hundreds of thousands of people were accused of various political crimes (espionage, wrecking , sabotage , anti-Soviet agitation , conspiracies to prepare uprisings and coups). They were executed by shooting or sent to
8850-472: The leading defendants were executed except Rakovsky and two others (who were killed in NKVD prisoner massacres in 1941). Despite the promise to spare his family, Bukharin's wife, Anna Larina , was sent to a labor camp, but she survived to see her husband posthumously rehabilitated a half-century later by the Soviet state under Mikhail Gorbachev in 1988. On 2 July 1937, in a top secret order to regional Party and NKVD chiefs Stalin instructed them to produce
8968-423: The loss of approximately 800 hectares of land. Sargsyan described the outcome of the four-day clashes as a victory for Armenia, although he faced criticism for shortcomings during the clashes as well as accusations that he had agreed to cede territory to Azerbaijan in the wake of the fighting. In order to stop this purported cession of territory, a group of armed men calling themselves "Daredevils of Sasun" seized
9086-474: The mass repression – including incarceration in the Gulag system – dropped significantly. By 1929, Stalin had defeated his political opponents and gained full control over the party. He organized a committee to begin the process of industrialization of the Soviet Union. Backlash against industrialization and the collectivization of agriculture escalated, which prompted Stalin to increase police presence in rural areas. Soviet authorities increased repression against
9204-422: The moderates. The 1934 Party Congress elected Kirov to the central committee with only three votes against, the fewest of any candidate, while Stalin received 292 votes against. After Kirov's assassination, the NKVD charged the ever-growing group of former oppositionists with Kirov's murder as well as a growing list of other offenses, including treason, terrorism, sabotage, and espionage. Another justification for
9322-550: The necessary efforts to ensure that Karabakh becomes a negotiating side in the peace talks as well as to foster the ties between Karabakh and the international community. As for the position of Armenia concerning the independence of Kosovo , Sargsyan stated that "Armenia's possible recognition of Kosovo 's independence will not strain the Armenian-Russian relations" but also noted that the "Kosovo recognition issue needs serious discussion... Armenia has always been an adherent to
9440-520: The new form of Party organization, the Politburo, and Stalin in particular, were the sole dispensers of ideology. This required the elimination of all Marxists with different views, especially those among the prestigious "old guard" of revolutionaries. As the purges began, the government (through the NKVD) shot Bolshevik heroes, including Mikhail Tukhachevsky and Béla Kun , as well as the majority of Lenin's Politburo, for disagreements in policy. The NKVD attacked
9558-660: The next day after "special measures", which dislocated his left shoulder among other things. Anastas Mikoyan and Vyacheslav Molotov later claimed that Bukharin was never tortured, but it is now known that his interrogators were given the order "beating permitted", and were under great pressure to extract confession out of the "star" defendant. Bukharin initially held out for three months, but threats to his young wife and infant son, combined with "methods of physical influence" wore him down. But when he read his confession amended and corrected personally by Stalin, he withdrew his whole confession. The examination started all over again, with
9676-404: The normalization of ties with Turkey, a policy termed as "football diplomacy". In 2008, Sargsyan took a historical initiative to invite Turkish President Abdullah Gül to Armenia to watch a 2010 FIFA World Cup qualifier match between Armenia and Turkey. Abdullah Gül attended the game in Armenia while Serzh Sargsyan made a reciprocal visit to Turkey to watch the second match. On 10 October 2009
9794-479: The organization of the embezzlement of half a billion AMD within the scope of the state program on assisting farmers to obtain diesel fuel on affordable price in 2013. In January 2020, based on sufficient evidence collected, the Special Investigative Service has indicted Sargsyan for embezzlement on especially large scale (AMD ֏489,160,310) and the criminal case with the indictment has been handed to
9912-403: The party's General Secretary, had triumphed over his opponents and gained control of the party. Initially, Stalin's leadership was widely accepted; his main political adversary, Trotsky, was forced into exile in 1929, and Stalin's doctrine of " socialism in one country " became enshrined party policy. However, in the early 1930s, party officials began to lose faith in his leadership, largely due to
10030-516: The party. In this atmosphere of doubt and suspicion, the popular high-ranking official Sergei Kirov was assassinated . The assassination, in December 1934, led to an investigation that revealed a network of party members supposedly working against Stalin, including several of Stalin's rivals. Many of those arrested after Kirov's murder, high-ranking party officials among them, also confessed plans to kill Stalin himself. The validity of these confessions
10148-565: The passport regime", etc. were also dealt with in a summary way. In Moscow, for example, nearly one third of the 20,765 persons executed on the Butovo firing range were charged with a non-political criminal offence. To carry out the mass arrests, the 25,000 officers of the State Security personnel of NKVD were complemented with units of ordinary police, and Komsomol ( Young Communist League ) and civilian Communist Party members. Seeking to fulfill
10266-469: The population. Overall, national minorities targeted in these campaigns composed 36% of the victims of the Great Purge, despite being only 1.6% of the Soviet Union's population. 74% of ethnic minorities arrested during the Great Purge were executed while those sentenced during the Kulak Operation had only a 50% chance of being executed, (though this may have been due to the Gulag camp's lack of space in
10384-404: The potential source of an uprising in case of invasion. Stalin began to plan for the preventive elimination of such potential recruits for a mythical "fifth column of wreckers, terrorists and spies." The term " purge " in Soviet political slang was an abbreviation of the expression purge of the Party ranks . In 1933, for example, the Party expelled some 400,000 people. But from 1936 until 1953,
10502-583: The preamble of the protocols underlying three main issues. One of them stated that the implementation of the protocols did not imply Armenia's official recognition of the existing Turkish-Armenian border established by the Treaty of Kars . By doing so, the Constitutional Court rejected one of the main premises of the protocols, i.e. "the mutual recognition of the existing border between the two countries as defined by relevant treaties of international law". This
10620-455: The president's 2008 rival Levon Ter-Petrosyan at their helm. In a concession to protesters, Sargsyan said on 20 April 2011 that the government would recommit to a thorough investigation of the post-election violence of three years prior. In July 2016, thousands of Armenians protested in the capital Yerevan in support of the "Daredevils of Sasun," an armed group that stormed police headquarters in Yerevan and took hostages while calling for
10738-528: The prosecutor supervising the case for approval and sending it to court. Serzh Sargsyan has thus far been conferred the following honors: In 1983, he married his wife, Rita Sargsyan née Dadayan, with whom he has two daughters, Anush and Satenik. They have two granddaughters, Mariam and Rita, and two grandsons, Ara and Serzh. Sargsyan is also the chairman of the Armenian Chess Federation . His wife Rita died on 20 November 2020, from COVID-19 at
10856-558: The purge expanded to include almost every living Old Bolshevik leader except Stalin and Kalinin . No other crime of the Stalin years so captivated Western intellectuals as the trial and execution of Bukharin, who was a Marxist theorist of international standing. For some prominent communists such as Bertram Wolfe , Jay Lovestone , Arthur Koestler , and Heinrich Brandler , the Bukharin trial marked their final break with communism, and even turned
10974-399: The purge was to remove any possible "fifth column" in case of a war. Vyacheslav Molotov and Lazar Kaganovich , participants in the repression as members of the Politburo, maintained this justification throughout the purge; they each signed many death lists. Stalin believed war was imminent, threatened both by an explicitly hostile Germany and an expansionist Japan. The Soviet press portrayed
11092-508: The purges, criticized the NKVD for carrying out mass executions, and oversaw the execution of Genrikh Yagoda and Nikolai Yezhov , who headed the NKVD during the purge years. Scholars estimate the death toll for the Great Purge (1936–1938) to be roughly 700,000-1.2 million. Despite the end of the Great Purge, the widespread surveillance and atmosphere of mistrust continued for decades. Similar purges took place in Mongolia and Xinjiang . While
11210-419: The quotas, the police rounded up people in markets and train stations, with the purpose of arresting "social outcasts". Local units of the NKVD, in order to meet their "casework minimums" and force confessions out of arrestees worked long uninterrupted shifts during which they interrogated, tortured and beat the prisoners. In many cases those arrested were forced to sign blank pages which were later filled in with
11328-477: The recognition of the existing Turkish-Armenian border and the setting up of a joint commission of historians researching the Armenian Genocide, as envisioned by the protocols. They considered these steps as a sellout and staged mass protests against the signing of the protocols. The Armenian Diaspora was also largely opposed to this type of reconciliation with Turkey, arguing (despite Sargsyan's assurances to
11446-489: The region if the two sides did not reach an agreeable settlement. Sargsyan blames the Azerbaijani side for hampering the peace process and for pursuing an openly anti-Armenian stance. According to him, the anti-Armenian policies of Azerbaijan , such as "state-supported falsifications of history", "hostile propaganda against Armenia and Armenians" and "military build-up" prove that Azerbaijan does not want peace. The most vivid expression of anti-Armenian policies of Azerbaijan
11564-445: The release of all political prisoners and the resignation of president Serzh Sargsyan. The National Security Service of Armenia called the takeover (which resulted in the deaths of three policemen) a terrorist attack, but a growing number of Armenians disagreed with that assessment. Shortly after the end of his presidency on 9 April 2018, Sargsyan was elected Prime Minister of Armenia on 17 April. Opposition figures described this as
11682-572: The return of most of the Armenian-occupied territories surrounding Nagorno-Karabakh to Azerbaijan in exchange for security guarantees, but left the final resolution of the status of Nagorno-Karabakh for future negotiations. From 1999 to 2000 he served as the Chief of Staff for President Robert Kocharyan , and then served once again as the Defense Minister of Armenia from 2000 to 2007. He was also
11800-561: The right of nations to self-determination and in this aspect we welcome Kosovo's independence." In April 2016, Sargsyan led Armenia through the 2016 Nagorno-Karabakh conflict (also known as the Four-Day War or the April War), the most significant outbreak of violence on the Nagorno-Karabakh line of contact after the 1994 ceasefire and before the 2020 Nagorno-Karabakh war . The four days of fighting resulted in at least dozens of deaths and
11918-446: The size of their families. National operations of the NKVD were conducted on a quota system using album procedure . The officials were mandated to arrest and execute a specific number of so-called "counter-revolutionaries", compiled by administration using various statistics but also telephone books with names sounding non-Russian. The Polish Operation of the NKVD served as a model for a series of similar NKVD secret decrees targeting
12036-606: The sphere of human rights, environmental protection and social justice. However, according to Freedom House, public advocacy still had limited impact on public policy. The start of Sargsyan's presidency coincided with the Great Recession . In 2009, Armenia's GDP contracted over 14%, which according to the World Bank was the fifth worst in the world that year after the three Baltic states and Ukraine. GDP growth subsequently stabilized at around 3% by 2013. As of 2014, Armenia's GDP
12154-418: The state offered to its high-paid elite. The Ryutin affair seemed to vindicate Stalin's suspicions. Ryutin was working with the even larger secret Opposition Bloc in which Leon Trotsky and Grigory Zinoviev participated, and which later led to both of their deaths. Stalin enforced a ban on party factions and banned those party members who had opposed him, effectively ending democratic centralism . In
12272-569: The supporters, friends, and family of these "heretical" Marxists, whether they lived in Russia or not. The NKVD nearly annihilated Trotsky's family before killing him in Mexico; the NKVD agent Ramón Mercader was part of an assassination task force put together by Special Agent Pavel Sudoplatov , under the personal orders of Stalin. By 1934, several of Stalin's rivals, such as Trotsky, began calling for Stalin's removal and attempted to break his control over
12390-435: The suspension of the reconciliation process by the Armenian side in the following way: For a whole year, Turkey's senior officials have not spared public statements in the language of preconditions. For a whole year, Turkey has done everything to protract time and fail the process... We consider unacceptable the pointless efforts of making the dialogue between Armenia and Turkey an end in itself; from this moment on, we consider
12508-454: The term changed its meaning, because being expelled from the Party came to mean almost certain arrest, imprisonment, and often execution. The political purge was primarily an effort by Stalin to eliminate challenge from past and potential opposition groups, including the left and right wings led by Leon Trotsky and Nikolai Bukharin , respectively. Following the Civil War and reconstruction of
12626-591: The time comes again, this time our blow will be final and deadly." In this regard, Sargsyan declared that in the case of military aggression from Azerbaijan "Armenia will have no other choice but to recognize the Nagorno-Karabakh Republic de jure and to employ all its capabilities to ensure the security of the people of Artsakh ." Sargsyan met with Ilham Aliyev again in Russian-mediated talks in Kazan in June 2011, where
12744-406: The title. [REDACTED] Hotels portal Serzh Sargsyan Serzh Azati Sargsyan ( Armenian : Սերժ Ազատի Սարգսյան , pronounced [sɛɾʒ sɑɾkʰəsˈjɑn] ; born 30 June 1954) is an Armenian politician who served as the third President of Armenia from 2008 to 2018, and twice as the Prime Minister of Armenia from 2007 to 2008 and again from 17 to 23 April 2018, when he
12862-424: The two sides reportedly came close to an agreement. The basic principles discussed at Kazan envisioned the return of five of the seven districts of Azerbaijan occupied by Armenia in exchange for "interim status" for Nagorno-Karabakh and the deployment of international peacekeepers, with the final status of the region to be decided by a legally-binding referendum. The proposals made at Kazan were ultimately rejected by
12980-529: The vote, a first round majority, well ahead of second place candidate Levon Ter-Petrosyan . The 2008 Presidential election was hailed as largely democratic by OSCE , the European Union (EU) and Western monitors. Ter-Petrosyan's supporters, disputing the official results, held large protests in Yerevan for over a week following the election, until they were violently broken up on 1 March; ten people (eight protestors and two police officers) were killed, and
13098-469: Was a political purge in the Soviet Union that took place from 1936 to 1938. It sought to consolidate Joseph Stalin 's power over the Communist Party of the Soviet Union and aimed at removing the remaining influence of Leon Trotsky within the Soviet Union. The term great purge was popularized by the historian Robert Conquest in his 1968 book The Great Terror , whose title was an allusion to
13216-467: Was forced to resign in the 2018 Armenian revolution . He won the February 2008 presidential election with the backing of the ruling Republican Party of Armenia , a party in which he serves as chairman, and took office in April 2008. On 18 February 2013, he was re-elected as president and served the entire term. Despite pledging in 2014 not to become prime minister again while supporting an amendment of
13334-435: Was in written confession and refuse to go any further. The result was a curious mix of fulsome confessions (of being a "degenerate fascist" working for "restoration of capitalism") and subtle criticisms of the trial. One observer noted that after disproving several charges against him, Bukharin "proceeded to demolish or rather showed he could very easily demolish the whole case." He continued by saying that "the confession of
13452-414: Was nearly annihilated: 85% of the 35,000 members of the clergy were arrested. Particularly vulnerable to repression were also the so-called "special settlers" ( spetzpereselentsy ) who were under permanent police surveillance and constituted a huge pool of potential "enemies" to draw on. At least 100,000 of them were arrested in the course of the Great Terror. Common criminals such as thieves, "violators of
13570-547: Was regarded by the Turkish Government as effectively revising the protocols and thus the reason to back down from the process. As a consequence, the Turkish Parliament did not ratify the protocols. The Armenian side accused Turkey to tie the reconciliation process with the resolution of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict , expecting concessions on the Armenian side, which was unacceptable for the latter. Sargsyan explained
13688-527: Was released from detention and Sargsyan announced his resignation. Former Prime Minister Karen Karapetyan succeeded Sargsyan as acting Prime Minister. Armenia's National Assembly , still controlled by Sargsyan's Republican Party, elected Nikol Pashinyan Prime Minister on 8 May 2018. Sargsyan has been under criminal prosecution within the scope of a criminal case on embezzlement . The Special Investigative Service of Armenia on 4 December 2019, has brought embezzlement charges against Sargsyan, particularly for
13806-503: Was the hero's welcome given to the convicted ax murderer Ramil Safarov who had brutally killed Armenian officer Gurgen Margaryan during the NATO 's Partnership for Peace program in Budapest in 2004. The fact that after his extradition to Azerbaijan in 2012 Safarov was pardoned by president Aliyev , promoted to the rank of major, given an apartment with over eight years of back pay and was made
13924-516: Was the same. But we are close friends, and intellectual friendship is stronger than other friendships. I knew that Bukharin was in the same state of upheaval as myself. That is why I did not want to deliver him bound hand and foot to the People's Commissariat of Home Affairs. Just as in relation to our other cadres, I wanted Bukharin himself to lay down his arms. The third and final trial, in March 1938, known as
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