Today, headed by Don Ju, the mayor of the city of Xi’an, China, Gyumri hosted several high-ranking officials and businessmen of this city. The delegation group consisted of Director General of Xi’an “Textile Group” LLC, the manager of “Danik Ltd” ceramics and lacquer production, vice president of Xi’an “Switch gear Electronics” LLC and others. Today, a Memorandum of Understanding will be signed between the cities of Gyumri and Xi’an, which will officially ratify these cities to be called sister cities. Note that Xi’an was founded more than 3100 years ago, and was the capital of China, currently, it has a population of more than 8 million, with 1 million in the number of students. After the meeting with the Gyumri Mayor Samvel Balasanyan, the delegation met with the Governor of Shirak Felix Tsolakyan. The Governor gave detailed presentation of the history of Gyumri up to the visit of Tsar Nicholas to this city, and naming it after Alexandropol, jokingly suggesting that Gyumri is a town of unemployed and the Chinese would be right to making investments here.
The conversation became more forthright and straightforward to the point that the Governor of Shirak told two anecdotes about Armenians and Chinese. Of course, General Governor with his anecdotes made the guests understand that it is necessary to start doing business programs with Armenians. When the mayor of Xi’an announced that the number of students in their city amount to 1 million, for a moment, it seemed to Felix Tsolakyan that he is talking about the total number of students in China. Once again, specifying that the matter is about the students only in Xi’an, he said, “There is a joke and I want to tell it: an Armenian says, we and the Chinese are the greatest nation in the world. This is the first, secondly, our humorists are saying, if the Chinese do not have breakfast for one day, the Armenians will live one year with it.”
The Governor’s first joke was accepted pretty serious by Don Ju, who nodded as if saying that it is very good that the number of Armenian equals to the Chinese. The Governor’s joke just made the Armenians present in the room laugh. While the second anecdote made the Chinese to laugh loudly. The mayor of Xi’an invited the Shirak Governor to Xi’an, saying, unless of course he has the time, Felix Tsolakyan again joked, “I would come with a great pleasure if the Gyumri mayor brings me with him.” In the end, they exchanged gifts. The Governor of Shirak marz presented the mayor of Xi’an a hand-made work prepared by the children of Shirak marz. It was a picture made by the wine stoppers, and the mayor of Xi’an presented the Governor a white horse, the blue color of the same horse was presented to Samvel Balasanyan. Note that the Chinese officials, as soon as finding seats in the governor’s office, periodically by their phones and all of them at the same time were taking photos of Felix Tsolakyan.
Nune AREVSHATYAN
