{"id":248632,"date":"2014-02-11T16:27:45","date_gmt":"2014-02-11T12:27:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.epress.am\/?p=248632"},"modified":"2014-02-11T16:27:45","modified_gmt":"2014-02-11T12:27:45","slug":"armenian-presidents-brothers-foundation-awarded-5-million-to-organize-music-festival","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/epress.am\/en\/2014\/02\/11\/armenian-presidents-brothers-foundation-awarded-5-million-to-organize-music-festival.html","title":{"rendered":"Armenian President&#8217;s Brother&#8217;s Foundation Awarded 5 Million to Organize Music Festival"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>\n\t<span style=\"line-height: 1.6em;\">The Gyumri Municipal Council today voted to allocate 5 million AMD (about $12,164 USD) from the municipal budget to the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.gyumrirenaissanse.am\/festival.html\"><span style=\"color:#0000CD;\"><strong>Renaissance International Contest-Festival<\/strong><\/span><\/a>. Only one Council member, Asparez Journalists&#39; Club President Levon Barseghyan (pictured), voted against the decision.&nbsp;<\/span>\n<\/p>\n<p>\n\tNote, the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.gyumrirenaissanse.am\/founders.html\"><span style=\"color:#0000CD;\"><strong>founder and president<\/strong><\/span><\/a> of the Renaissance International Contest is Armenian President Serzh Sargsyan&#39;s brother, Levon Sargsyan, who is also the president of the <a href=\"http:\/\/himnadram.am\/en\/\"><span style=\"color:#0000CD;\"><strong>Pyunik Human Resources Development Foundation<\/strong><\/span><\/a>, which asked the municipality for the funds for the festival. &nbsp;\n<\/p>\n<p>\n\tBarseghyan suggested sending the request for financial assistance back and asking the foundation to show how it will spend the 197 million AMD ($479,249) of the budget allocated for the organization of the festival, as well as the 5 million AMD requested from Gyumri City Hall.&nbsp;\n<\/p>\n<p>\n\tDuring the discussion, Barseghyan pointed out that the municipality has neither an application nor information about the NGO for which funding is being requested. &nbsp;A representative of the municipality, however, argued: &quot;I find that the municipality must help, as our city needs [this festival]. The cultural festival has been organized since 2005 and it&#8217;s become international &mdash; [people] from 30 countries come to Gyumri; it regulates our trade turnover. The festival&#8217;s expenses are many, but we find that we can provide only 5 million dram. The [need for an] estimate you&#39;re talking about doesn&#39;t interest us. We can only ask what will be done with the amount we give. Then they&#39;ll give us a report.&quot;\n<\/p>\n<p>\n\tBarseghyan provided a few details about the Renaissance International Festival: festival participants from abroad must pay 80&ndash;100 EUR ($109&ndash;$136), while those from Armenia or Karabakh pay 3000 AMD ($7.30). Except for participants of the gala concert, the other participants cover their own hotel and transportation expenses. The festival only covers the gala concert participants&#39; stay in a hotel for two nights.&nbsp;\n<\/p>\n<p>\n\tBarseghyan added that the Pyunik Foundation last year had an income equivalent to Gyumri City Hall&#39;s budget, 2.9 billion AMD ($7,054,930); thus, it&#39;s incomprehensible why the foundation is requesting financial assistance from one of Armenia&#39;s poorest cities. Despite Barseghyan&#39;s arguments, the decision was adopted.\n<\/p>\n<p>\n\tNote, the Pyunik Human Resources Development Foundation received a donation of 742.5 million AMD ($1,806,310) in 2011, and 2.893 billion AMD ($7,037,900) in 2012.<\/p>\n<!-- AddThis Advanced Settings generic via filter on the_content --><!-- AddThis Share Buttons generic via filter on the_content -->","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Gyumri Municipal Council today voted to allocate 5 million AMD (about $12,164 USD) from the municipal budget to the Renaissance International Contest-Festival.<!-- AddThis Advanced Settings generic via filter on get_the_excerpt --><!-- AddThis Share Buttons generic via filter on get_the_excerpt --><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":248598,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"tstyn_error":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[14237,18396,21389,53227,53226],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/epress.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/248632"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/epress.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/epress.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/epress.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/epress.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=248632"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/epress.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/248632\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/epress.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/248598"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/epress.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=248632"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/epress.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=248632"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/epress.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=248632"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}