FEAR OF "BEING A TURK"

Hovann Simonian is Armenian. Born in Beirut, he now lives in Switzerland, often travels to Europe and America and implements interesting projects. His latest work is the study of DNA tests related to people's belonging to certain nations...

The DNA tests conducted with scientific and laboratory methods aim to establish the genetic origin of man. Such genetic laboratories exist in many countries.

Without going into details about the importance of this work, it can be concluded that Hovann Simonian is a very clever Armenian. He seeks to realize the project in countries where people look at least a little bit Armenian. If the tests reveal that these Armenian-looking Italians, Frenchmen, Spaniards and other nations have at least a drop of Armenian blood, the goal is achieved. Just imagine that due to Hovann Simonian's project, the president or prime minister of Spain turns out to be Armenian! In the evening he goes to bed as a Spaniard and wakes up as an Armenian. Owing to this project, the number of Armenians in the world also grows... How else can you serve the Armenians?

Armenians will not miss such a chance because they know that in the modern era it is not too difficult to establish the national and ethnic affiliation of any person. Incidentally, it is interesting that most of the organizations conducting such tests belong to Armenians. Almost all managers and employees of organizations like National Geographic Society and Family Tree DNA conducting DNA tests around the world are Armenians.

The first to come up with the "initiative" to establish affiliation to Armenians at the genetic level was Mark Arslan. In 2002, he began working in this field in the Gegi region in Armenia. But the project was soon shelved. The reason is the "uncertainty" of the genetic affiliation of Armenians living there. According to DNA tests, the local population did not belong to the Armenian nation. The fear of being non-Armenian could alienate them from the Armenian people. To avoid being completely taken in, they quickly suspended the project...

At the time, Mark Arslan tested himself as well. It turned out that he was Armenian only by a quarter, although during the events of 1915 Arslan's grandfathers moved from Erzurum first to Aleppo and then to America. But Mark's family, which previously bore the name Arslanyan, was supposed to be a full-blooded Armenian family. How can you then blame the poor people of Gegi?

Although the 2002 Gegi - DNA Test project was frozen, the Armenians, who do not experience problems in financing, changed the project. The group working on this project conducted more than 70 DNA tests in 2005-2008 and submitted their results to donor organizations that allocated to the organization led by Hovann Simonian, National Geographic Society, funding for tests in different parts of the world, including in Armenia and Turkey.

Now the Armenians continue their business, concluding agreements with companies conducting DNA tests. Mark Arslan says that "in the implementation of the project, the most difficult thing is to convince people. Most of all, Armenians are afraid to turn out Turks according to the test results. An Armenian, whose test revealed his belonging to Turks, even offers us a bribe so we keep it a secret. He is not satisfied even with our promise to do it. In Armenia, our business is moving forward with great difficulty."

But the project continues, even though those who implement it do not see eye to eye on the definition of the main research goals.

It is believed that the main objective is to establish the origin of Armenian families and their ethnicity.

The project is being implemented in two ways. First through the establishment of the genetic past of the Armenian people in order to prove that they belong to a higher race. At the same time, along with the research into migrations, conquests and enslavement of the Armenians by other nations, it is necessary to draw the "conclusion" that the genes of Armenians have traces of Armens, Hattians, Hayks, Hittites, Hurrians, Mitanni, Urartians, Phrygians and other nations. Another "conclusion" should be that in ancient times as a result of the occupation of the "Armenian lands", an important role in the formation of the Armenian people was played by the Assyrians, Cimmerians, Celts, Greeks, Romans, Scythians, Macedonians, Medes and Parsis.

As for the second direction, in countries where the Armenian diaspora is developed, these genealogy "experts" study historical documents - family lists, census records and records of civil status in search of their fellow tribesmen. For example, having tested some people who are British by the name, the last name and by all other parameters, they will announce them "Armenians". According to those who implement the project, throughout history the number of such "Armenian" families may even exceed the number of all living Armenians. If some "important" statesmen come to know that they are Armenians, they will surely change and always help their homeland - Armenia.

Another voluntary participant in the project - Peter Hrechdakian says that by means of these tests Armenians scattered all over the world during World War I and in the following years will be reunited with their relatives. Testing of paternal and maternal relatives will be carried out in different ways.

One of the main figures of the project Hovann Simonian believes that these tests and the clarification of some issues will become an effective tool for Armenian history. It is considered appropriate to test aristocratic families that played an important role in the history of the Armenians. There are strong arguments that some of the families presented as Armenian are not at all Armenian. For example, families with the last name Malik from Nagornyy Karabakh, Orbelyans, Argutyans, Bagratyans, etc. This project is designed to permanently make them Armenian.

With the help of the DNA testing project, they also seek to refute the argument that famous people are not Armenians. Representatives of the aforesaid families have already been tested. Strange, but the results have not yet been made public. This means that something is wrong here. In other words, they are not Armenians. Otherwise the Armenians would have long trumpeted about it to the whole world.

Despite the fact that as part of the project more than 500 people have been tested since 2009, most of the results are still kept secret. Why? We do not claim that the majority of those tested turned out to be Turks. However, the fact is that this is what those who implement the project are afraid of.

The disappointing results gave the Simonian-Arslan-Hrechdakian troika, who convinced international organizations to allocate huge funds for the research, a new idea: to test the Armenians through the maternal line. After all, the aforementioned Armenian DNA tree still has many unexplored "branches"!

In 2011, 1,000 such tests were conducted. An interesting picture emerged. It turns out that women are greater carriers of Armenian blood than men. This feature revealed in DNA studies by experts Levon Yepiskopyan, Alain Hovhanian, Pierre Zalloua and Richard Villems attracted much attention from the Armenians, further strengthening "faith" in the project.

Many Armenian families turned to the authors of the project to find relatives through a test. The authors said that they will think how to implement it and made no secret of their intention to expand the number of Armenians.

In Turkey, the authors also plan to "embark on a quest" among the Kurdish, Alawi and crypto-Armenian families that changed their religion. To do this, they repeatedly visited Turkey in search of volunteers for the study. They target, for example, Hemshins, the Ashirat of Dersim, Hayrums, Catholics of Izmir and "Turkified" residents of Syria and Lebanon. To this end, Hovann Simonian even publishes a magazine called "Hemshins".

What about Azerbaijan? Is it isolated from the project? Due to the fact that it is possible to come to Azerbaijan, the authors try to involve "Azerbaijanis" living outside the country in the project.

Hovann Simonian continues his trips around the world in connection with this project, trying to prove that the Armenians belong to the oldest - Aryan, i.e. superior race in the world...

But the families or people he wants to attribute to the "Aryan race" with his tests often turn out to be Turks ... Therefore Hovann and his friends are not welcomed in Armenia. After all, since this project was launched, the Armenians cannot help feeling "afraid to turn out to be Turks"!