Armenia's come up with what could be described as their own way of encouraging Zionism for their country:
Thousands of Armenians from all over the world gathered on Saturday for the opening of an Olympics-style tournament aimed at encouraging people of Armenian origin to return to their homeland.I hope this does bear fruit, because it could help their economy too.
More than 3,200 athletes -- representatives of the huge Armenian diaspora as well as native residents -- will compete in Yerevan at the Pan-Armenian Games, a showpiece nine-day event including sports like football, tennis, swimming and volleyball.
Teams of diaspora Armenians from countries including the United States, Iran, Iraq, Russia, Turkey and France joined a parade at the opening ceremony, where an Olympics-style torch was brought from the disputed region of Nagorny Karabakh, which Armenian forces seized from neighbour Azerbaijan in a war in the 1990s.
"We talk a lot about migration, about the fact that many young people leave the country, but these games are the opposite of that -- they attract them back," the chairman of the Pan-Armenian Games World Committee Ishkhan Zakarian told AFP.
Armenia's population is believed to have fallen by about one million since it became independent from the Soviet Union in 1991, and the number of ethnic Armenians living outside the country is much larger than the 3.2 million who now live in the small Caucasus state.
Amid growing concerns about depopulation, the government has also been running a scheme entitled "Come Home" in an attempt to reverse the trend by bringing hundreds of ethnic Armenians to the country each year for holidays, with the ultimate aim of convincing them to resettle there.
Labels: Armenia
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