Yesterday news was spread in Gyumri that Vardan Ghukasyan’s bodyguards had taught workers of the cultural institutions under the supervision of the town hall that had gone to a meeting with Samvel Balasanyan the day before a good lesson. According to those speculations, the bodyguards beat up some museum directors.
Since Ara Papanyan, the director of Hovhannes Shiraz House Museum, was on the list of those who had been beaten up, we asked him to comment on that news. “Those are just rumors and you are the first person who tells me that, but after a meeting with Samvel Balasanyan, I really had a meeting with Mayor Vardan Ghukasyan and he really said a right thing, he said that one could have informed before going to the meeting, because we worked at the same institution. I was thinking, since Vardan Ghukasyan had not announced his candidacy, we could do whatever we wished. There has been nothing offensive between the mayor and me. I entered the mayor’s office, I entered as normally as I left, talked to people, easily passed by, there really was just a matter of ethics – this was the contradiction. No one would have liked, if one had gone to a meeting with Samvel Balasanyan, if you were him you wouldn’t like it either. That is it, there is no problematic issue, at least, concerning me,” the museum director assured.
By the way, he has already handed in his resignation, which he explains not by the fact that the mayor has taken offense at him, but by the change of power in Gyumri and by his wish to start his own business – beekeeping. “I have been in the mayor’s team for many years, I have worked for the benefit of the town in both the department of culture and the library system for many years,” he said. In response to our question whether he would agree, if Samvel Balasanyan offered him to continue his work at Hovhannes Shiraz House Museum, he said, “I will think about it.”
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Nune AREVSHATYAN
