The Armenian academic and cultural centre Amshen of the Krasnodar region held its constituent meeting in the village of Novomikhaylovsky in the Krasnodar region's Tuapsinsky District on July 15. Its founders are the leaders of the Armenian communities of the Apsheronsky and Tuapsinsky Districts of Krasnodar, who mostly belong to the Amshen ethnic subgroup (the Armenians today living along the Russian and Abkhazian Black Sea coast hail from the Amshen region in Western Armenia).

The center has been established in order to provide timely information to the region's Armenian organizations about Armenia, Nagorno-Karabagh and the Armenian diaspora, as well as to disseminate information about local Armenians via the Russian, Armenian and diaspora press. The editor-in-chief of the "Yerkramas" newspaper, Tigran Tavadyan, has been elected director of the center.

The constituent meeting also sent an appeal to Russian President Vladimir Putin, which, among other things, says: "Some of us know well what interethnic and interreligious conflict means, and today we, the leaders of the Armenian communities of the Tuapsinsky and Apsheronsky Districts of Krasnodar, appeal to you as president of Russia and guarantor of its Constitution.

As it is located between such flashpoints as Chechnya, the Crimea and Abkhazia, Krasnodar can become an arena for such conflicts. Unfortunately, many regional leaders in Russia, including the leaders of Krasnodar, are not paying the necessary attention to the geopolitical situation in the region and by means of statements in the press and on television are setting one nation against another in Krasnodar. We are profoundly concerned about this.

We completely support your actions to establish constitutional order in Chechnya, as well as your efforts to strengthen the federal government, which is important for Russia's territorial integrity.

We are convinced that as president of a great power you will pursue a balanced ethnic policy in the Russian Federation, strengthen and develop the centuries-old links of friendship and fraternity between the Russian and the Armenian peoples, as well as between all peoples of Russia irrespective of their ethnic origins."

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