Counselor Tigran Ter-Yesayan, the director of Forum, a human rights center, is concerned about the Leonid Yengibarov Statue – the circus building is blown up, the statue is removed due to construction. “A decision was made in dark and cold years that the Yengibarov Statue should be erected outside the circus, Vano Siradeghyan took the initiative, there was a great desire, but little means. However, the statue that had a different spirit and subtext was erected. I was the chairman of the district executive committee of Spandaryan in those years, and Mesrop Movsesyan managed A1+, an independent TV channel, and he wanted that statue to be erected very much too. One of our best architects, Levon Tokmajyan, undertook the responsible obligation to erect it…
“It was meaningful at the time, regardless of hard times, man was not neglected, whether he was from the theater, music or any other field. The state didn’t forget its sons. And every one of us contributed – I contributed a little as the chairman of a district executive committee – Siradeghyan took the initiative, Movsesyan covered the story, the master made the sculpture…. 20 years have passed, where is that sculpture, perhaps, it is no big thing to erect a statue today, in 2012, but in the 1990s, it required titanic work, there was no technology, the war had just ended….
“Many among the leadership represented by the President of the Republic of Armenia will remember what an important thing that small event was, and now the statue is in some corner, whereas it should be in a more secure place as a gesture of respect not toward me, Movsesyan or Siradeghyan, but toward Yengibarov and Tokmajyan,” Mr. Ter-Yesayan said during a conversation with www.aravot.am.
He also asserts that no such thing can be done today, “I saw Lusine Zakaryan’s and her husband’s house on TV, let them do something for Armenia’s nightingale, let them remember, let clergymen come to the part of Koghbatsi Street where Lusine lived and drive around it in their Bentleys and put a memorial plaque in front of the house.” www.aravot.am inquired of Levon Tokmajyan as the sculptor of the Yengibarov Statue whether he had any idea where it was. The sculptor assured that he had checked himself, “Since the construction is under way, the statue is in the watchman’s booth, it is in a safe place. It is covered properly, wrapped in cellophane and asbestos. When the building is ready, it will be installed outside the circus again and in a more visible place than before.”
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Gohar HAKOBYAN
