What the Moscow-based Armenian businessman Ruben Vardanyan has said in Tbilisi is 100% true. If you are a businessman, then you need to learn something new every day about your business, be in the center of events, do not be afraid to leave your comfort zone, do not be afraid to fall down and to stand up again. This is the formula for success not only for the businessman. Given this “winning” psychology, “Aravot” is looking for people in Armenia among other entrepreneurs who will reveal the formula for their success to the readers. Oligarchs, of course, are not in the scope of our interest because their successes are directly dependent on the goodwill of government officials.
We are interested in the one who are engaged in minor business, let’s say, the owner of a bakery who will say, “I have achieved this success for which I owe solely to me, I have these problems that arose because of my shortcomings, and I do these steps in order to solve my problems.” Finding such people in Armenia, as you understand, is more difficult than meeting those who complain and protest who will blame everyone but not themselves for their hardships.
Indeed, in addition to “wailing over the national tradition,” there are objective reasons here. Firstly, these types of businesses should be left alone, giving up the psychology of “filling in the budget”. The insignificant losses of the budget are incomparable to the damage that the small business bears being choked by the tax “predators”. And the business with no employees should generally be exempted from taxes. Leave these people to themselves.
Secondly, Armenia and Russian oligarchs should quit with their mania of “mall construction”, or the state should ban it. It, in my opinion, has become a unique race. Earlier, people were competing over who is the first to drive a “Maybach” in Yerevan, or who is going to have the more and thicker-neck bodyguard, now they are competing over who is going to build the more and bigger “mall”. Because of every “mall”, dozens of kiosks or small shops are closing.
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You would say that the “mall” also opens several dozens of new jobs. This is true. But there is one subtlety here. When you are working in a “mall” or even in a fair, you are dependent from the owner, you care for your workplace and are unable to be a normal citizen. When you are free, even though a small owner, you set the goals for yourself, you display creativity alone and can manifest yourself as a citizen. This is the foundation of any democracy.
Generally, every man (in fact, also a nation) faces a choice: to fulfil your own goals or serve for someone else’s goal.
Aram ABRAHAMYAN
