Jet Crashes in Zvartnots, All Survived

Not the kind of news you expect to see on a day as innocent as Valentine's Day.

A plane carrying 21 people has crashed on takeoff from Armenia's capital, but there were no deaths reported...

The plane, a Canadair CRJ-100, was heading for Minsk, Belarus, when it flipped over on the runway at Zvartnots Airport and burst into flames...

What a miracle that no one was injured, but it seems suspicious that they have not yet identified the airline to which the plane belonged. Armavia was at the tip of my tongue, to be honest.

Update: Thanks to reader AB, it seems that the airline was Belavia, the national airline of Belarus. It is also revealed that the airplane's wing clipped the runway on takeoff, causing it to crash. On board were 4 citizens of Belarus, 1 of Russia, 1 of Ukraine, 5 of Georgia, and the rest of Armenia.

Source: AP

Former Communists Want A Red Reunion!

First a claim of record membeship, and now this.

Russian Communists urged Saturday the Communist parties of ex-Soviet states to join their efforts to restore the former Soviet Union.

Communist leaders from Russia, Belarus, Ukraine, Armenia and other ex-Soviet republics gathered Saturday in the Russian capital to discuss the strengthening of future cooperation and the development of a common strategy to re-unite the former members of the now-defunct Soviet Union.

The participants of the meeting issued a statement calling upon all parties on the territory of the former Soviet Union that adhere to Communist ideology to join the fight for the "socialist development of brotherly nations and their unification into a Union State."

"Without a union between Russia, Ukraine, Belarus and other brotherly republics that used to be members of the Soviet Union, we do not have a future," Zyuganov said.

Communism is always made out to be a bad, evil force, but the way I remember it is much different. Do I want it back? It's hard to answer, but most likely not. There are problems that cannot be solved even today with the tools of a quasi-democracy: how can we expect a failed system to ever do the job?

Source: RIAN

Armenia Plans Building Purchase in Minsk for Embassy

And now from the, "Spreading Armenian Love from Milan to Minsk" department.

Armenia intends to buy a building in Minsk for its embassy in Belarus, Armenian government's press office reports.
For that purpose, Armenian government has decided to enlarge the state revenue and expenditure by AMD 6.3mln/$17,300

$17,000? That's about enough to buy a used RAV4 in Armenia. Is this a building or a booth?

Source: Arka