Still last year, when attending the spiritual music festival organized on the monastery complex in the village of Harich, Shirak marz, we noticed that there is a Street here named after Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev. And since the village streets according to the regulations are numbered there is no right to give names, so we asked village mayor Roland Nazaretyan for what good attitude demonstrated to Armenians by Nazarbayev was this Street named after him. The village mayor frankly said that it was driven by the self-interest, they have named the street so that the village would benefit from Kazakhs. He even joked, “Let it be beneficial for the village, something good for my village, if we see that nothing works out, we will rename the street from Nazarbayev to Nazaretyan. What’s wrong here?”
At the same time, he explained that they have started cooperating with Kazakhs thanks to the former MP of Artik region, Mkhitar Varagyan, whose brother living in Kazakhstan had close ties with Nazarbayev. Harich according to the village mayor was called Ghpchagh in 1400-1947 and Kazakhs considering Ghpchagh people their kinsmen became good friends with them, renovated the village kindergarten, opened a library and so the cooperation started. Incidentally, this street was asphalted by Serzh Sargsyan’s initiative. Note that our publications on this subject were taken seriously enough by the former ambassador of Kazakhstan to Armenia Aiymdos Bozzhigitov. The latter, visiting Gyumri, first expressed his dissatisfaction with us and then hurried to complain of Aravot.am to the former governor General Felix Tsolakyan who in his turn made it clear to the Ambassador that the media in Armenia is independent and the official has no right to give instructions on what to write. And in these days when Erdoğan and Nazarbayev are hugging in Turkey, walking with holding hands to each other in front of the world, the Harich people that gave Komitas and Avetik Isahakyan to the world detach signboard carrying Nazarbayev’s name, thus expressing their frustration. Of course, the signboards are preserved in 3 places of the village but we believe that the Shirak’s Dashnak power will remove it in its turn citing to the law that the rural streets are numbered.
Ultimately, Harich is a tourist center, people from different corners of the world are coming here to see this historic site and it is the right time to name the streets after nowadays heroes that have given their life for our homeland. Incidentally, on April 10, 2015, Kazakh people renamed the central avenue of Astana carrying Levon Mirzoyan’s name who was the former head of Kazakhstan and who prospered their country after the first Chairman of Kazakhstan’s National Academy of Sciences, Kanysh Satpayev. Political analyst Gagik Hambaryan believes that Nazarbayev made this name change by the order received from Baku. Prior to assuming the post of the First Secretary of the Central Committee of Kazakhstan, Levon Mirzoyan was the First Secretary of the Central Committee of Azerbaijan (1926-1929), and ruling Azerbaijan by an Armenian for 3 years was very hard on Ilham Aliyev who had decided to posthumously fight against Levon Mirzoyan.
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Nune AREVSHATYAN
The photo is table by journalist Armenuhi Mkhoyan
