The Union’s leaders did not, in any event, attach great importance to Aslanian’s report, the more so as Yesayi Garigian, another Union member, returned from a short stay in Yerevan at the same time Aslanian did. Garigian had participated, in October 1923, in the Congress of the Committee for Armenian Assistance (the Hay Oknutyan Gomide, or HOG), in the course of which Soviet Armenian leaders confirmed that they had put their stamp of approval on the idea of resettling the orphans in Armenia.15 Reporting on his eminently positive impressions before the central board, Garigian would appear to have convinced the AGBU leadership to work with the Soviets in resolving the problem of the orphans. His report was the more persuasive in that he had, after discussions with the Soviet leaders, prevailed on them to grant the AGBU ten thousand dessiatins (a dessiatin is the equivalent of about 2.5 acres)16 of land in Yeghvart and Dalma, on the following conditions:
1) the AGBU would irrigate the ten thousand-dessiatin tract using newly dug irrigation canals;
2) after irrigating the land, the AGBU would give back half of it, that is, 5000 dessiatins, to the Armenian government;
3) the AGBU would build homes on the land ceded to it and spend all the proceeds from sales of the crop raised on it in Armenia;
4) the concession would expire in ten years, after which any land that had not been transferred to the Armenian orphans would ... Read all
Levon Pashalian (1863-1943), writer. Pashalian was a member of the AGBU's 1924 mission to Yerevan. He was later named chairman of the Committee for Armenian Refugees and served as the AGBU representative at the League of Nations in Geneva (Coll. Bibl. Nubar/Paris).
The AGBU and Soviet Armenia