Day 2: What We Have Wrought

It is morning. Before I get up and go, I have to see an important man.

He is Ter Mesrop. I had met him also 4 years ago in Yerevan. And this year in Montreal.

I had been initially introduced to him by one of the "Fellowship of ideas", the most amazing David Y. He had made a remarkable impression on me at the opening of the physics lab of the Phys-Math School for Gifted Children in Yerevan.


Ter Mesrob is a man of the cloth. He is also a physicist who studied with David in Moscow.


He is also a filmmaker and media personality. And deeply spiritual. Every time I see him, I want to see him again.


I had worked with him in Montreal to introduce his amazing film, From Ararat to Zion, into the PBS network in the US. It was an overwhelming success and we broke all records of fundraising pledges.

I had been missing him for months.


Ter Mesrob is always busy. He has been working on an important project which will be no less than a revolution in education for the whole of Armenia and the Diaspora. He simply wants to build a network of schools that will be the best in the world. The content will be unmatched with an unmatched level of teaching staff.


Kind of like Tumo. Except that the focus is to create top quality in all fields of education, not just in creative technologies. Ter Mesrob wants to do it by building a prototype school. To achieve it he created the Ayb Foundation. You can go here to understand his vision.


-Hello Mr. Attarian; parev Der Hayr.

We look up from our coffee table. It is our friend, Prof. Zaven (Andrew) Demirdjian from California. All three of us participated in a Symposium about Unity in the Diaspora in March of 2011 that was held in Montreal. It "united" diverse speakers and diverse approaches. You can learn about that event here.

Andrew is an enthusiastic and passionate speaker with whom I have had interesting debates both on and off line. He is highly energetic and an eternal optimist about the potential of the Armenian people to be something more. I like Andrew. He is very direct.

He tells us that he has come to Armenia to rest a little. He is leaving Yerevan in a few hours and invites me to join him in his house in Garni. It is very tempting but I have not a second to spare, I am here only for four days. He definitely wants to meet up again. I give him my room number and he promises to call.

The sidewalk café in front of the Yerevan Marriott is like Stargate. Everyone in the universe will show up there at some time. It is the convergence place of Armenian space-time. If you happen to be there at the right moment, you will meet people you had not seen for years or even decades. Right there at that moment. I would not be surprised if one day I met even Mesrob Mashtots there.

But then again, I meet Mesrob Mashtots every time I visit the Madenataran. Every time I pick up a book in my library. Every time I pick up a pen or go to my keyboard to write in Armenian.

The power of ideas.

I have less than an hour to spend with Ter Mesrob. He tells me that he is overwhelmed with the work that needs to be done to open the Ayb School. It needs to open in less than a month. Ter Mesrob and Sam have so much in common. They can move mountains. I have to make them connect. Excellence only thrives upon excellence. Now I know why I miss both constantly. It is once again a question of inspiration.

Speaking of mountains, Armenians have always worshipped theirs. The great modern Armenian writer and our most recent potential hope for a Nobel literary prize, the recently deceased Hrant Matevossian has written a whole novel called Մենք ենք մեր սարերը (Menk enk mer sarereh - We are our Mountains). The book was made into an equally wonderful film by the poetic filmmaker Henrik Malian.


Armenian mythology contains a character called Tork of the house of Angegh. He was the great grandson of the founding father of the Armenian nation, Հայկ Նահապետ Hayk Nahabed. He had superhuman strength. His legend tells us that when enemy ships approached the shores of the Armenian lands, he would literally rip pieces of the adjacent mountains and would hurl them on the ships and sink them. Tork would move mountains. There is a monument to Tork in Yerevan.

Here he is

They are all gone now. But the mountains remain.

The greatest modern Armenian novel ever written is called Նաւը Լերան Վրայ (Naveh Leran Vra - The Ship on the Mountain). It is written by the internationally renowned author, scholar, traveler, teacher, lecturer, poet and unmatched intellectual Gostan Zarian. It is a direct metaphor referring to Noah's Ark that landed on Mount Ararat and eventually repopulated the earth from the land of my people. It is also about the relentless perseverance of Armenians to make an impossible dream a reality.

Gostan Zarian is also gone. But the mountains remain.

Ter Mesrob has to run. He wants to meet Sam and I promise to arrange a meeting. He says he'll leave a mobile phone for me at the front desk, to contact me when he has some time. He will rearrange his schedule to make the connection with Sam. Now the ball is in my court.

It is really hot in Yerevan in August. It is 37 degrees Celsius. I am sweating and I have to run upstairs to change before going to Tumo. I need one more cup of coffee to keep my energy up. I have only slept for a couple of hours.

After changing, I run down to the lounge to get my caffeine fix. A beautiful, tall, dark-haired and dark-eyed Armenian woman greets me and hugs me. She is Katherine S. of California. Another one of the original "fellowship" who helped create Tumo. Katherine came from Pixar (now part of Disney), and has produced some of the best known digital animation classics in the world. I had not seen her for about four years since we last met in Yerevan. She introduces me to her husband M. She tells him that I am the smart Canadian she always mentioned. Coming from someone of her brain power, I am more than flattered. M speaks Armenian in my favourite accent, Iranian Armenian.

Iranian Armenian is my favourite because they speak Eastern Armenian, which means that they have kept the original phonetic pronounciations of our language.

Western Armenian, my mother tongue, has evolved to a point that it no longer distinguishes between the three vocalizations of consonants that make Armenian distinct and wonderful.

The Eastern Armenian used in the territories of the former USSR, i.e. in Armenia, Georgia and Artsakh has a major fault though. It uses a Soviet spelling which is a horrendous crime against the genius of Mesrob Mashtots, the inventor of the Armenian alphabet.

Mashtots was the greatest linguist in the world in the 5th century AD. He created an almost perfect foundation for our linguistic and cultural evolution. By butchering his orthographic rules, the Soviets cut off the natural evolution of our language and its connection to our millennial literal tradition.

Western Armenian has kept the Mashtotsian spelling.

The Armenian of Iranian Armenians has the best of both worlds. The correct pronunciation and the correct spelling. That is why it is my preferred. Plus their Armenian has the added musicality of Farsi.

"You know I gave up on you", says Katherine. "I kept reading it but you never completed your blog". She is absolutely right and dead serious. She sounds upset and has waited over four years to tell me this.

I promise her that not only will I write a new complete one for this trip, but that I'll also complete the previous one. I shall not let her down.

I cannot repay Katherine enough. One of the most moving experiences in my life was when we were at Geghard Monastery in 2007. We went into the miraculous rock-hewn church, and then climbed to the second floor upper chamber. And there, right there, in the perfectly acoustic surrounding of the place of ancient ritual, Katherine sang the most beautiful Hayr Mer (The Lord's Prayer in ancient Armenian Grapar language) that I have ever heard in my life. It is the only experience that gives me goose bumps every time that I recall it. It is there that I decided that if God exists, He must have been present at Geghard and at that moment. Of course, an omnipresent God is everywhere all the time, but His presence could be felt then through Katherine's angelic vocalization.

I tell M that he must make a point of experiencing such a moment with Katherine. He promises me that he'll do that.

Sam and Silva walk in. I hug him. He beams at me. “I am so glad you are here” he says. He is hugely excited. He asks me to join him in the car to Tumo. Tonight is the first of a three-day opening celebration.

When I heard about the opening, I decided to give a special gift to the Center. It is a poem for group recitation. I wrote it in Eastern Armenian, because I wanted the youth at Tumo to perform it in their mother tongue.

I have never written anything in Eastern Armenian. This was a first. I dedicated it to the dream of Tumo. It took me a few days, but I did it. I wrote it in the original Mashtotsian orthography. The way it should be.

Here it is .

Sam and Silva tell me they loved the poem and would love to see it performed.

I also translated into English.

It is here.

In the car, Sam gets a phone call. He gets upset in the conversation.

-Tell these pieces of s*%t that I've had enough of their extortions and lame excuses. I have been fighting this battle for over a decade. I want those items cleared from customs now, as they promised, and we are not going to pay them bribes. It has to be done immediately. Otherwise, I'll get the highest authority in the country on their back.

Sam is outwardly a very calm person. But clearly someone had touched a wrong nerve. There is no need for further comment.

He then asks me what I think of TED Talks. Apparently, they have expressed interest in holding a TED Talk at Tumo.

If you don't know about TED Talks, then you can learn about them here. I watch their lectures at least once a week.

I tell him that TED Talks is ultimately about ideas that would change the world. It fits perfectly with the mission of Tumo. If that event is held there and then it becomes a regular event, this would expose Tumo, and by extension the ideas of Tumo, to the whole world. It would create interest about Tumo at a global scale among millions who believe in the power of the human mind.

I just gave Sam an immense task. The Sam I know will do his homework. I am hoping that he'll include me in such an initiative. I tell him that I am ready to assist in any way. Our eyes meet, and he smiles. I know Sam understood me.

It is a wonderful feeling to be able to connect with someone at a deep level without talking. Saying the minimum and getting across much much more. To be able to do that with a visionary like Sam is truly precious. I look across the seat, Silva is smiling too. I feel more than special.

As we pull into the parking lot of the center, old memories get rekindled. There is an army of workers still doing last minute work. There is scaffolding, a crane on wheels, painters and floor pane layers, people working on ladnscaping and an even bigger army of media technicians preparing the stage and audio visual equipment. No one of course is wearing hard hats. Many workers are wearing stylish, leather-soled sharp-tipped shoes. I am not kidding. Dusty, but stylish.

-No one wears hard hats here, says Sam in a resigned way. A worker in one of those fancy shoes climbs up the scaffolding quickly and starts putting on the paint primer of the back entrance hallway.

Armenians always amaze me. In more ways than one. Their preoccupation with self-image is often grotesquely funny. Sometimes it is surreally tragic. We are a people of extremes.

I ask Sam permission to photograph and videotape the place. He tells me that no one is more entitled than me, since I was there from the beginning. I am flattered. I want to capture the dynamism of the place in unedited emotion. I know there is history in the making here. Definitely for Armenians, but also likely for the world. It is important to capture the raw emotions, the excitement and yes, even the frustrations. It would be part of the "Making of ....".

Sam walks the corridors and gestures left and right about the use of the rooms. The last time I saw this place it was just a concrete structural shell. But the spaces are familiar. We had discussed and imagined them as they are today and they are now real. More real and much better than what we had in our minds.

Dreams that do not get realized turn into recurring nightmares.

Dreams that get realized become miracles.

I am witnessing the last stages of a miracle being born. It is awesome.

Sam walks into a room in the back hall. He introduces me to Maral A. She springs up and shakes my hand. She is a teacher of Armenian from Texas, who, for the past 3 months, has been organizing the youth coaches and setting things up for the opening events.

She tells me that the poem I wrote is "outstanding!". She then proceeds to analyze it, she mentions influences of Kevork Emin, Barouyr Sevag, Hovhannes Toumanian, Gibran Khalil Gbran. She herself is outstanding. I am more than impressed. I am deeply moved. I tell her that she has missed one subtle detail, the poem is structurally paralleling one of the greatest inspirational pieces in Western Armenian, The Ode to the Sossyats Woods by the great Vahan Tekeyan (Գեղօն Սօսեաց Անտառին - Keghon Sossyats Andarin).

"Aaah", she says, "it's obvious now, how could I have missed it".

She then starts reciting that Ode immediately out of memory. I get shivery every time I hear that poem.

Maral is definitely a guardian. I suddenly realize that there still is a whole army of them in the world. That the real miracle of this dream is that they have now come together to defend the only thing humanity has left going for it.

Hope.

Maral says that she will definitely be staging the performance of my piece. Whether here in Armenia or back in the US or both.

She walks me around the center. She introduces to many young men and women. From the creative personnel to the technical staff to the administration folks to all the coaches and specialty area leaders. I can't remember all their names but capture them on video. They are all young, cheerful, excited and both from Armenia and the Diasporas. What a wonderful place this is.

Tumo proves to me that Armenians can be united. Around a purpose, around a vision, around an idea.

So much for conventional "wisdom". It looks more like conventional stupidity to me now.

Pegor P. appears around the corner. He also has not changed. He is dressed in an impeccably ironed white shirt. I wonder how he maintains that in this hectic environment. Pegor is one half of the duo who have made the vision of the "fellowship of ideas" a reality. A visionary himself, yet highly detail-oriented. We hug. It is great to see him again.

He has too many details to take care of. He sits down at a computer and starts working. Sam joins us and walks me to other areas. He shows the ultra flat and thin display panels hanging from the ceiling, designed to display the best of the work of the youth who will work here.

He then tells me that he has personally designed the lighting system of the center where each of the lighting units can be individually controlled by computers. He tells me that the whole center as a building with all its subsystems can become one gigantic work of artistic creation if the right project came along and that he is relying on the creativity of Armenia's children to demonstrate the impossible.

Sam is an engineer by training. I wish all engineering schools taught creativity and faith in the human spirit. Sam could run such a department. It would be called Creative Engineering for Humanity or Engineering for Creativity or something like that.

Sam tells me that only the best and latest technology has gone into Tumo. He tells me that Armenia does not deserve anything second rate. He says that if we want to produce something that is the best in the world, then we cannot compromise on the ingredients.

He is of course right on. The same should apply to the people and their ideas I add. He agrees.

Pegor walks by, Sam questions him about a patent application. Pegor says that he doubts whether they'll make it. It has something to do with a gigantic outdoor game that will be played using light inputs and a giant display showing a game developed at the center. The concern is that the provisional patent for this technology will not be filed before the game is played and the use becomes available in the public domain. The patent lawyer is in Chicago.

Sam turns to me and asks if I could write the patent application. While I have worked on patent documents before, I never did it under such a tight (i.e. impossible) deadline, and never on a topic I was unfamiliar with.

Sam believes in miracles. I cannot let him down.

Pegor gives me a preliminary paragraph he had authored, as well as a template. I go to work.

I work on it for over an hour. I expand the concepts in the application. I create further application examples. In the end, I realize that what I am trying to write the patent for is another version of the Star Trek Holodeck.

I call Sam in and show him my work. He tells me he is amazed how far I have taken the concept. I tell him that I was inspired by Tumo. However, I still need a technical design diagram on how the innovation will work. Otherwise, I cannot send the application.

Sam sits down, and in a real tour de force, sketches in my handbook the engineering high-level block diagram. He explains to me the functional processes involved. From one engineer to another, this is probably the fastest design ever conceived. He has not lost the amazingly sharp mind of his youth. If anything, it is enhanced manifold. I can barely keep up with him.

In the meantime, one of Pegor's sons who was closely involved with the project, has come up with a logical flowchart. I incorporate that too in the patent document. We have all the components. I send it off to Chicago about 30 minutes ahead of schedule.

I realize that we just achieved something remarkable. Probably in world record time. If it ever gets issued, I would have actually authored the patent of the Holodeck. Sam created its technical drawing and we as a team at Tumo, actually created the first intellectual property item that belongs to Tumo. We did it on the frst opening night of the center. And we did it in about 90 minutes.

Now that's history in the making. That is inspiration!

How many people can have the Holodeck patent on their CVs? Now that is some bragging right!

I am sweating even more. Surely it is the excitement too. I need to go back to the hotel to change. I share a taxi with Silva's brother Raffi and his wife. They are equally gracious. He has been working on the mechanical systems, she has been landscaping the whole park. Every member of the family has contributed to this great labour of love. And it shows.

We arrive and I have about an hour to freshen up and grab a quick bite. I run to my room for a shower and a change of clothing. I am not very hungry and decide to grab a quick snack from the lounge and continue writing. There is a message on my phone from Andrew.

I call him. He is in Garni. He tells me that there are a couple of young TV journalists who have interviewed him about the Unity Symposium in which we participated and that they would like to interview me as well. He tells me that they'll be calling. I am here on a very tight schedule and have no clue how I can accomodate them. But I cannot refuse Andrew, he is my friend. I consent.

It is now about 8 p.m. I run down to catch the shuttle to the Center.

-Yeghpayr Viken, I hear coming from my back. It is a very familiar voice from my past which I haven't heard for perhaps 4 decades.

I swivel back and I stare at a man with a thick moustache. He has no hair. He is smiling.

I look into his eyes and I say:

-Hovig!

And then we hug. Hovig O. was one of the younger scouts in my troop at the AGBU in Beirut. The last time I had seen him was literally 40 years ago. I had nothing but the memory of his voice to guide me.

I then look up at the smiling face of a tall beautiful woman..

- How is your darling family? She asks. She is Hermineh D. The global director of the AGBU youth programs. She is from France. She is also my wife's first cousin. I hug her and we plant kisses on each other's cheeks.

Swoosh. Swoosh. I just witnessed the Yerevan Marriott Stargate in action.

I tell them I have to run because I have to catch the shuttle to the Tumo first opening party. I run and drop into my seat. Katherine and her husband M. are already there.

I disembark from the shuttle at the center. I run in to get my VIP badge. The stage is already in full operation. There is an Armenian reggae band playing called Reincarnatsia. Yes, an Armenian reggae band. They are very good.

There are thousands of youth in the park, in front of the stage and preregisering with the staff. Then the DJ is introduced. DJ Baxtar from Texas. Techno music starts to blurt from the loudspeakers.

You could send a message through the Tumo website as well as from SMS and Twitter. It is directly transcribed into the large scrolling display on the stage. That is really cool.

Messages start coming in literally from all over the world. Most of them are local but I can see many from Europe and the US as well. The event is broadcast live on the Internet. Later, Sam tells me that they had over 4500 watchers on the Internet for the first day.

I go out to be closer to the action. I see the outline of a familiar figure. It is my old friend Alex S., one of the "fellowship" of the initial eight. I approach him and hug him.

Alex introduces me to two men who are his brothers, David and Stewart. We chat. I tell Alex that I called him a leading intellectual in a lecture I gave at Columbia University. David asks why. I tell him it is because Alex changed the computer gaming industry forever, and with it, the perception of Hollywood about that industry.

We reminisce a lot. Alex is here with his wife and children, but they are back at the hotel. The music continues. The messages coming in from Armenia and the world resonate with a strange vitality. There are a couple of messengers who are using the stage as a gigantic cross-continental chat relay. I have no idea where they are but they keep answering each other, back and forth.

Within an hour, Armenians have created a new communications tool out of stage production technology. The whole world being witness to their conversation. How cool is that?

Katherine and M. join us. We decide to climb to the upper terrace on the top of the building to see the show from the highest point. We climb the staircase to the top, literally, about 10 storeys high.

The place looks different from this vantage point. Also the light show is spectacular. After about 30 minutes we go back down to witness the 3-D building projection show and the crowd virtual game which I have been working on the patent for.

The 3-D show is inspired from a "Drop of Honey", the wonderful fairy tale by Hovhannes Toumanian. The whole building façade becomes a projection screen. It is impossible to describe the effect. You have to see it to appreciate it. Luckily, there is a version of it on YouTube.

Here it is.

The game is a lot of fun and is equally successful. By now it is about midnight. The party is still going on but we walk back to the shuttle for the hotel. It will be a long day tomorrow.

Alex and his brothers were in Garni and Geghard today. Apparently they have a very good guide called Svetlana. They want me to meet her. They invite me to join them tomorrow as we shall be going to the Madenataran. The great scriptorium of the Armenian people. I agree. How can I say no? I could literally live in the Madenataran and not have enough of it. David and I keep talking as we board the shuttle. At the hotel, we decide to stay a while at the lounge to grab a couple of cold bottles of water.

We sit down and talk. Our conversation lasts well into the early morning hours. We talk about everything. David is very erudite. We talk about friendship, literature, creativity, Japanese culture, Armenian culture, history, the meaning of life and death, identity, our ancestors, the discovery of our roots, our parents, and we talk about the Madenataran which we shall visit tomorrow.

By the time I enter my room, I am more than exhausted. I cannot sleep. I sit down and write a few notes for myself and then I blog a little.

I switch on the TV. A strange thing is happening on one of the Armenian channels. They are showing a Chinese martial-arts war movie, it is dubbed in Armenian.

Even the grunts and the screams are done with Eastern Armenian voices. It is the funniest thing I have ever seen.

This is the place where anything can happen.