Saturday, October 30 & Sunday, October 31

Before we chronicle the events of the two days, we would like to say that all your e-mail messages have been a comfort. We appreciate all your wishes and kind thoughts for two travelers in a strange land. We are becoming "addicted" to our terminals at the school.

We arrived at school about 9:00 a.m. to check out mail. Since it was still Friday at home we wanted to get the latest information about the events here and at home. Our hosts were able to find Armenia's news in English for us. The address is www.armenpress.am. The information was helpful to know before we walked over to the Opera/Concert Hall where the public was viewing the bodies of all those killed. Our host Armineh Hovhanissyan is very patriotic and most interested in the affairs of the nation. She would be our Armenian eyes and ears, interpreting for us when necessary. By the time we arrived, there was all ready quite a crowd. Because this was the first tragedy of such magnitude, the Armenian officials were not prepared to handle such large crowds. The viewing was only scheduled to last until six o'clock. While we there, there were no organized lines and some pushing and shoving occurred because many people were afraid they would not be able to pay their respects to their national martyrs. 

We waited three hours to enter, but the press of the crowd became threatening and we decided it would be wiser to leave.

We returned to our host Ruben Gregoryan's home for dinner and saw a little of the funeral on television. After dinner we took a walk with Ruben and his children to the Hotel Armenia to visit some of the American delegates who were staying there for the church election. It was most interesting to hear the impressions the Armenian-Americans had of the events of the day. They were at the election of the Church leader when the shootings occurred. They knew something had happened because cell phones began to ring! The new Church leader was giving his first public statement as the "Catholicos", and was handed the tragic news. The delegates saw his expression change, and knew something was wrong. He then announced the news from Parliament. Rumors started to fly about the situation in Yerevan. At one on point they thought they would be unable to return to the city because it was under siege.

When they finally did return, they had the same impressions we did that first evening, something had happened but the information was sketchy.

On our way back to Ruben's home, we walked past the Opera/Concert Hall, to see if the situation had changed from this afternoon. We were pleasantly surprised to see that crowd control measures had been implemented and an orderly line had been formed. The visitation hours had also been extended, to accommodate the crowds. We made plans to attend the public ceremony the next day.

It was surprising to us that last night the clocks were also turned back here in Armenia. We are all on standard time now!

We (Ms. Merilos, Ms. Redell and Ms. Hovhanissyan) set off for the funeral at 11 o'clock. Our information at this point was that the bodies would lie in state at the Opera/Concert Hall until one o'clock and then be brought to Republic Square for the public ceremony. When we arrived at the Hall we found out that the plans had been changed, and the official ceremony was going to take place here. We found a good location to view the official embassy delegations and Armenian officials walk in to pay their respects. Ambassador and Mrs. Michael Lemmon represented the American delegation.

We also saw the Russian delegation arrive.

A steady stream of diplomats walked past for the next two hours. The crowd waited with sorrow and anticipation for the ceremony to begin.

We knew the ceremony was about to begin when the new Catholicos arrived. 

The ceremony consisted of music and two speeches, one by the President and the other by the Catholicos.

While the speeches continued the honor guard made their preparations.

The final phase of the ceremony consisted of the procession to the cemetery. As this procession went by the crowd they became somber and many people cried. 

At this point many of the people boarded buses to go to the cemetery. We decided not to make the trip because we had al ready been there for four hours. We felt that we were truly witnesses to history.

The rest of the afternoon was spent with our host Armineh at her home. In the evening we were invited to the home of one of the vice-principals at the school to have dinner. She extended the same kind of Armenian hospitality we have experienced with everyone we have met here. The Armenians are truly warm and hospitable.

Monday we go back to school and we continue our reports.