Yuri Bakhshyan’s wife, Anahit Bakhshyan, was telling during one of Raffi Hovannisian’s rallies about the opposition in the family and her husband’s advice to enter politics. Aravot.am inquired from Karen Demirchyan’s wife, Ms. Rima Demirchyan, whether she was also an opposition at home. She answered, “I was not an opposition, but in some cases I was an opponent. Karen Demirchyan was delighted with his success only in the first moments. Then, he was becoming watchful not to be gone with these positive influences, and to avoid having dizziness. He was very alert person to these matters. I knew it. When after the next success, he was listening to many-many praising words, I was expressing my opinion, sometimes it turned out that he had to say ‘I do not understand, everyone is praising, you are still finding something to say’. It was my sincere opinion, and I was confident in doing it, because I knew that he liked it. He was said that everyone is pleased but you, but I could read his satisfaction in his eyes that there was a man beside him that could stop him. He was very wary of getting such dizziness. I talked about him quite differently after his death, of course, based on the facts. But, when still alive, I was never doing such things, so did my sons. At the best, I would say something at home in humor. Humor was dominating at home. But, telling to his face that you had done an extraordinary job, there was never such a thing, especially by me. But, when he left, I had to do it, that is, to write the truth, to write what people did not know and would not know if I did not write. He was an extremely modesty man, he did not like to boast, he would just say something at home jokingly. he would never talk about his work beforehand until it was completed. In addition, the conditions at that time were dictating to prevent the leakage of information to prevent the solution of the issue to fail.
He already had an independent stance, he was proud, dignified, and if he had said a few words about how he has fought, resisted at the Political Bureau etc., he would be killed. That is the reason why the society did not know much. It did not know due to what efforts he achieved success, with what diplomatic approaches, which blows ha had taken over him, what risks he had taken.” Nowadays, offspring of many officials conduct dissipated and dissolute life. Mrs. Demirchyan told as to how restrained they have educated their children. “The descendants of that time were a little different. The worst have also had reins. My whole experience leads to a conclusion that everything depends on the indoor atmosphere, from parents’ personal example. Not always, of course, there happen also deviations, but this is not standard, they are individual cases. As a rule, they learn what they see. The offspring of our officials learn what they see. Karen and I have never told our guys that you must have a sense of responsibility, that you have not right to do this or that. They understood it by seeing. Now, when I see how free the life and the youth are, I feel somewhere guilty for our children that they are grown up very poorly, that they did not have the freedom. We need to learn to take advantage of this freedom. My children would never reach extremes in any society. They would go to restaurants, they would be freer, but they would never got the limit. It comes from the home. Now, the standards are different, now the main criterion is money and wealth. Rich kids do not care about the hard work, they say in Russian ‘родились в рубашке’ (translator’s note – we are born with a silver spoon in our mouths), they are born rich, owner, what else they need to think about, only the entertainment. It is the money that spoils the youth, especially in cafés, the abundance of casinos. Everything is free, accessible, they can buy everything. You should not bring up such a youth.”
Hripsime JEBEJYAN
