Today social anthropologist Artashes Boyajyan said during a conversation with www.aravot.am that he didn’t agree with the opinions often expressed recently that Gyumri is a criminal town. “Those crimes are committed everywhere, there are criminals everywhere, but we don’t label that settlement as a town of criminals. I don’t accept that they label our whole town, admittedly, there are criminals, perhaps, crimes may be a little more or a little less in our town, there are figures, the names of which are mentioned all the time, but it is not characteristic of the resident of Gyumri. It is a poor town, it is an abandoned town, well, what should a hungry man do – he should either emigrate or steal something from somewhere. There is a popular phrase ‘fly in the ointment,’ so some moron, some bad guy commits a crime and the whole town is blamed for that. One shouldn’t use the phrase that Gyumri is a criminal town, it is offensive for me personally, because I am also a resident of Gyumri. It is the Russian mentality that second largest town should necessarily be a criminal one, for example, Chicago is a criminal city for the US, St. Petersburg is a criminal city for Russia, there is a town near the border in Mexico, it is the criminal one, it is like a specifically designed plan, which circulates, but we are not like that,” our interlocutor assures.
Nune AREVSHATYAN
