2006
2006 (MMVI) is a common year starting on Sunday of the Gregorian calendar. It is also the current year. Armenian calendar year ԹՎ ՌՆԾԶ (1456).
It has been designated:
2006 at a glance
By Armen Dulian RFE/RL[1]
The year 2006 was quite eventful for Armenia, even if it saw no elections and political upheavals. Below are the top ten developments which the RFE/RL Armenian Service believes have dominated the public agenda in the past twelve months.
1. The crash on May 3 of an Armenian airliner off the Russian Black Sea coast. All 113 people on board the Airbus A-320 were killed in what was the worst air disaster in Armenia’s history.
2. The ouster on May 12 of then parliament speaker Artur Baghdasarian’s Orinats Yerkir party from the governing coalition.
3. The official disclosure in June of the international mediators’ most recent plan to resolve the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict.
4. The announcement on July 18 of Defense Minister Serzh Sarkisian’s affiliation with the governing Republican Party of Armenia (HHK). The move was widely construed as a confirmation of Sarkisian’s intention to contest the next presidential election due in 2008.
5. The emergence and rapid expansion throughout the year of a new political party led by Gagik Tsarukian, the most influential of Armenia’s government-connected tycoons. The Prosperous Armenia party is now tipped to make a strong showing in the forthcoming parliamentary elections.
6. The year saw more street protests by residents of Yerevan that were forcibly evicted from their homes as a result of the ongoing massive redevelopment in the city center. The evictions were declared unconstitutional by Armenia’s Constitutional Court.
7. A further strengthening of the national currency, the dram, that triggered fresh opposition allegations about exchange rate manipulation. One U.S. dollar is now worth roughly 360 drams. It traded at about 460 drams at the beginning of 2006.
8. An apparent rise in anti-Russian sentiment fuelled by continued racially motivated killings of Armenians in Russia.
9. The year saw a number of high-profile cultural events such as Armenia’s first-ever participation in the Eurovision song contest, an open-air concert given by Charles Aznavour and other famous French singers, and the annual Golden Apricot film festival in Yerevan.
10. The Armenian team’s victory in the 2006 world Chess Olympiad.
Events
January
- January 4 - Drunken Armenian Minister of Culture Hovik Hoveyan goes to electricity station and pistol-whips employees because his electricity had been cut off.
- January 5 - Armenian Minister of Culture Hovik Hoveyan steps down from his post.
- January 5 - European Court of Human Rights accepts its first ever case of an Armenian citizen. Armen Mkrtchian sued for imprisonment after the 2003 presidential elections.
- January 6 - Armenians celebrate Christmas. Glendale schools give the day off.
- January 9 - Armenia imposed strict measures to prevent bird flu entering from Turkey. Flights to Istanbul also temporarily stopped until the 13th.
- January 9 - Cascade Bank purchased Emporiki Bank Georgia, which will be renamed Cascade Bank (Georgia).
- January 23 - Apraham Niziblian runs for Canadian Parliament.
- Unknown Day - Michigan state parole board recommends denying the application
for a commuted sentence or a pardon for Dr. Jack Kevorkian
February
March
- March 2 -
April
- April 5 -
May
- May 3 - Armavia Flight 967 crashes into the Black Sea, six kilometers west of Adler-Sochi International Airport, while attempting to land in poor weather; all 113 people aboard are killed.
June
- June 1 -
July
- July 1 -
August
September
October
November
December
Deaths
January
February
March
- March 2 -
April
- April 2 -
May
- May 2 -
August
- August 25 - Silva Kaputikyan, poetess, orator and academician, dies of a stroke at 87.