Georgi Vanyan © Onnik James Krikorian 2012
Yesterday marked the fourth anniversary of the untimely passing of Armenian theatrical director turned peace activist Georgi Vanyan. He was 58.
I last spoke to Georgi at the end of September 2021 in an unexpected call when he visited Tbilisi during the pandemic. He planned to return to the ethnic Azerbaijani village of Tekali in Georgia situated on the intersection of the country with Armenia and Azerbaijan. The plan was to travel to Tekali together again. In the early 2010s, it had been the location for perhaps the most genuine grassroots effort to bring together citizens – analysts, journalists, and everyday folk alike – from all three countries to discuss issues of mutual interest.
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The topic was Georgia’s potential role in helping resolve the Armenia-Azerbaijan conflict. Participants came from Baku, Tbilisi, and Yerevan as well as the regions of all three countries, including those from Tavush and Qazakh. It was only 14 years later in 2024 that this part of this border between Armenia and Azerbaijan was demarcated. Even so, with the demise of Tekali in the mid-2010s, and Georgi more recently, there remains no interaction between both sides even on neutral ground.
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“Now, at this stage of the Armenian-Azerbaijani reconciliation process, the peacebuilding community needed him more than ever,” Ahmad Alili, an Azerbaijani analyst, also wrote publicly soon after his death. “Sincere Person. Genuine Peacebuilder. Great Loss. Rest in Peace, Georgi.”
The full piece is available here.
