Ashot Melkonyan, the director of the Institute of History, National Academy of Sciences (NAS) of the Republic of Armenia, asserted during a plenary meeting at the NAS today that the average wage of the scientists in their field was sixty thousand drams, and no substantial change would be made, if it was doubled. He also said that despite poor financing, they will still work. After Mr. Melkonyan, Kima Kostandyan, a senior research fellow of the Institute of History, mounted the platform and complained that being a senior research fellow, she made only 80 000 drams a month, which was not sufficient to take care of basic needs, whereas maids in different institutions made more. “It should not be so, Mr. President, care about scientists!” the scientist who is an author of a series of monographs ended her speech angrily, and her speech received enthusiastic applause of the audience. At the recess of the NAS plenary meeting, some scientists joked about the passionate speech of the woman. “After all this, I am thinking about that woman’s fate,” one of them said. Another one smilingly recalled a joke, in which Gevorik who had asked Serzh Sargsyan visiting a school a “bad” question disappeared.
Gohar HAKOBYAN
