Today, at “Armenia’s socio-economic development challenges” seminar, the expert Artak Manukyan, representing comparative analyzes of public procurement systems of the EU and Customs Union member countries, and presenting very interesting information, expressed a sarcastic thoughts that Armenia will significantly benefit by entering into the Customs Union in one issue that we are carriers of same household-economic culture. He noticed in a bitter irony that the public culture of Armenia and CU states: high risk of corruption, prosperous condition of relative-acquaintance-friend system and so on, are fully comparable. And, if our goal to this respect is finding a compatible and sincere environment, hence, joining the Customs Union was the right decision. Regarding this issue, “Aravot” talked to ethnographer Aghassi Tadevosyan. To what extent he agrees that Armenia and CU countries are comparable in terms of household and economic culture, and whether we should stay in that comparable, but bad environment, or to strive for another, more civilized culture. According to Aghassi Tadevosyan, “The cultural commonality between Armenia and CU countries is a Soviet legacy, which we must try to overcome and not try to be integrated into the environment of this negative legacy. Of course, Russia is a country with great traditions of corruption, still since the Tsarist era, and we, as a colony of Russia, including in the Soviet period, have absorbed this “culture” quite a lot, having also the legacy of Asia for it. But, today, we have the task to overcome this colonial culture.” Watch the complete interview with Mr. Tadevosyan in the video.
Melania BARSEGHYAN
