Even last year, on November 27, Nikol Pashinyan published a video on his Facebook page, stating that he had met with a group of bishops of the Apostolic Church, and there was only one issue on the agenda of the meeting: the removal of His Holiness the Patriarch from the Catholicosic throne. Among the bishops who met with Nikol Pashinyan, the leader of the Artsakh Diocese Vrtanes shocked people the most. The Armenians of Artsakh were first shocked by the action of the leader of the Diocese, then they were angry and decided to go to him personally and find out why he joined Nikol Pashinyan’s anti-Church and anti-Catholic campaign and came out against the Patriarch.

Of course, none of the Artsakh Armenians received the answer to this question from Bishop Vrtanes personally, but the bishops who met with Nikol Pashinyan received the name “tiradav”.

It seemed that, taking into account the anger of the Artsakh Armenians, the leader of the Diocese of Artsakh would understand all the shame and consequences of his action and return to his original functions, that is, dealing with the spiritual and cultural problems of the Artsakh Armenians and keeping them united, but it did not happen, because weeks after meeting with Nikol Pashinyan, on December 18, 10 “tyrants” went to the Mother See, joining against the Church of St. Etchmiadzin “attacked” several dozen people and former priests who were disorganized.

This step of Bishop Vrtanes upset and surprised the members of the Diocesan Council of Artsakh, although after the meeting with Nikol Pashinyan, he issued a statement stating that “he participated in the meeting with Pashinyan as a member of the episcopal committee of the Mother See, and it has nothing to do with the Artsakh issue and the issues that concern our compatriots.” This statement, of course, angered the Artsakh Armenians even more.

During these months, Reverend Vrtanes did not have any contact with media representatives, he left all phone calls unanswered.

Today, we learned that the members of the Artsakh diocesan council last met with Bishop Vrtanes on December 8, after that several members of the diocese, including the chairman, have nothing to do with him.

Today, there is no connection between the members of the diocesan council and Bishop Vrtanes, the members of the diocesan council mainly work with the Mother See without the mediation of Bishop Vrtanes.

According to our source, Reverend Vrtanes probably realized the serious consequences of his actions while remaining in isolation, and he has to publicly admit that he made a big mistake by joining the false agenda put forward by Nikol Pashinyan.

Let’s remind that last year, on May 26, Karekin II, the Supreme Patriarch and Catholicos of All Armenians, went to Bern, Switzerland, and participated in the “Religious Freedom” organized by the World Council of Churches (WCC) and the Swiss Protestant Church. at the international forum entitled “Preservation of the Armenian spiritual, cultural and historical heritage in Artsakh/Nagar Karabakh”. During the conference, His Holiness addressed not only the issues of preservation of the spiritual and cultural heritage in Artsakh, but also the return of prisoners and Armenians of Artsakh held illegally in Baku. After that, the attacks on His Holiness and the church began, first, the spiritual leader of Azerbaijan accused the Apostolic Church of “inciting war”, then the RA government, led by Nikol Pashinyan, started the attacks, demanding the removal of the Catholicos.

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Tomorrow is April 24. the 111th anniversary of the Great Genocide is coming to an end, and, naturally, these days, a number of questions are becoming more relevant, what will be the fate of the recognition, condemnation and overcoming the consequences of the Armenian Genocide, if, of course, the problem can be formulated in this way, what is its significance not only for our past, but also for our present and future, for our security, our existence and identity, and what is the state of the process of international recognition and condemnation of the Armenian Genocide by the representatives of the current government of Armenia, In the conditions of pushing the issue of the Armenian Genocide into the background and apparently engaging in the speeches of Turkish denial.

On topic 168 TVs «Revue:” is the guest of the program Hayk Demoyan, former director of the Armenian Genocide Museum-Institute, Doctor of Historical Sciences.

«We have a completely different situation on the eve of the 111th anniversary. We started 2015 with events dedicated to the 100th anniversary of the Armenian Genocide, and a pan-Armenian declaration was also adopted. Of course, we must understand that we have no right to be emotional, we must carefully consider the situation that exists today in international relations, in international law and in general around us. This was not what Nikol Pashinyan and Ararat Mirzoyan are repeating, who want to reorganize themselves in the conditions of new realities, by honoring the memory of the victims and the victims, disrespecting the memory of the victims and the survivors, they first want to establish themselves and formulate messages to Ankara and Baku. The hybrid peace, not the “hybrid war” that they constantly emphasize, the hybrid peace that today they want to wrap around the neck of the Armenian people, has its open and hidden sides, it is another useless and fruitless effort to achieve that Turkey will at least open a little under some pretext, so to speak, the door through which they can sneak in. It won’t happen because Turkey has its own prerequisite language, Azerbaijan has its own prerequisite language, and worst case scenario for the velvet group, the two together have synchronized prerequisites that will be updated regularly.“, the Genocide expert commented in particular.

Hayk Demoyan declares that the efforts to renounce Western Armenia, Ararat, the marginalization of the memory of the Great Genocide, the making of negative statements and this “KVN” of the memory of the Armenian Genocide are purposeful, have a specific purpose and a client.

«Today, we are dealing with a government that is a follower of orders, including the issue of commemorating and forgetting the memory of the Armenian Genocide.– says the Genocide expert.

Hayk Demoyan describes Nikol Pashinyan’s famous statements about the Armenian Genocide as complete ignorance, stating:

«In such cases, in our school they say: bring your diary, TWO. Moreover, they write two of them with red ink.”

Commenting on illiteracy, of course, does not bring honor to any person, let alone science, let alone Genocide studies. Pashinyan is trying to open windows, open Overton’s window and sneak in there, start discussing the topic. If he had read a small book, instead of writing a shameful book, he should have understood that it is not necessary to approach the topic of genocide when you have not read, first, a survivor’s memoir, any scientific work,” Hayk Demoyan added.

Talking about the forced depopulation and ethnic cleansing of Artsakh in the context of the topic, the genocide expert emphasizes that it was a genocidal act, and “Nikol Pashinyan and his team were personally involved in the genocide.”

Hayk Demoyan considers the targeting of the memory of the genocide and history by the current authorities to be the most dangerous phenomenon. Drawing historical parallels with the example of the “denazification” of Germany after the defeat of Nazi Germany during the Second World War, the historian says:

“It should be prohibited by law to be a member of the Communist Party, the Communist Party, because what happened in 2018 and who organized and prepared the handing over of power to Nikol is fascism.”

Hayk Demoyan also spoke about the situation in the museum-institute after the dismissal of the director of the HCTI, Edita Gzoyan, and the situation related to the renovation of the Tsitsernakaberd memorial complex.

Speaking about the Torchlight Procession, which is traditionally held today, April 23, Hayk Demoyan mentioned that he would like this year’s Torchlight Procession to be a process of rejecting people and phenomena.

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Inflation in Armenia has intensified since the beginning of the year. Wage growth has slowed down and inflation has accelerated. This means that this year the ordinary citizen, who only relies on salary and has no other income, will not live well. On the contrary, many people will live worse because their incomes will not increase due to price increases.

Of course, this does not apply to the ruling political team, the members of the CP who hold public positions and are richly fed by state funds, who receive not only high salaries, but also bonuses and other incomes in excess of the salary. The incomes of these people are so high now that inflation, even activated inflation, does not change much in their life and lifestyle. Now they receive so much income that they can not only not notice the inflation, but also afford to buy expensive houses, apartments, cars and continue to live a luxurious life.

The impact of inflation is felt first of all by those citizens whose incomes, anyway, barely met the minimum needs, if, of course, they did. If they didn’t satisfy, now they won’t satisfy more, and these people will have to be satisfied with less now. Acceleration of inflation is a problem especially for the socially disadvantaged groups of the society, which are quite a large number in Armenia today.

According to official data, the rate of inflation in Armenia has accelerated by almost 40 percent since the beginning of the year. Average inflation reached 4.5 percent. But it still does not say much to an ordinary citizen living on a salary, because he feels the impact of price increases on him to a much greater extent than the 4.5 percent inflation. It is expressed first of all through price increases coming from the markets of food and basic necessities. Food products, according to the latest data, managed to increase in price by 7.8 percent. That’s after last year’s 5.4 percent inflation.

Cumulative food inflation in Armenia was 13.2 percent in two years.

Now imagine what kind of heavy burden of price increases is borne by the citizen whose incomes have hardly increased during 2 years or have increased less than the cumulative inflation. But let’s leave cumulative inflation aside and talk about this year’s inflationary manifestations.

In March, compared to March of the previous year, food prices in Armenia increased by 7.8 percent. Meanwhile, the average salary increased by 5.3 percent. We also know whose account it was. There are 2-3 areas where salary increases occur, which leads to an increase in the average salary, although many working citizens usually do not feel this increase. For example, minimum wage workers, whose salary was AMD 75,000 3 years ago, and it is now. And those people, in the same way as bureaucrats who receive millions, are affected by inflation.

Wage increases elude many, instead they face inflation at every turn. According to the latest data, compared to last year, the average salary in Armenia increased by 14.9 thousand drams. We are talking about the so-called dirty salary increase. If we remove the taxes, the increase will be barely 10-11 thousand drams. But it was mainly at the expense of high salary earners. In organizations with up to 50 employees, where people receive a maximum of 238 thousand drams on average, according to official data, the average salary, which is not yet taxed, has increased by only 3.5-4 thousand drams in the last 1 year. It is about 340,000 workers, who make up almost 42 percent of working citizens.

The average salaries of these people increased by only 1.7-2.5 percent in 1 year. During that same period, the rate of inflation was twice as high.

In the case of food products, the rate of inflation has more than tripled the rate of increase in wages received by those 340 thousand working citizens.

Do you think these people started to live better or worse?

It is clear that it is worse than they lived at least one, maybe several years ago.

Taking into account the fact that there is no hope of raising the minimum wage this year, and as we can see, the wages of low-wage citizens are growing much slower than the accelerating inflation, which means that they will not live well in the near future, they will live even worse than today.

According to official data, the highest inflation in the food market this year was recorded in the case of eggs. Compared to the previous year, the price of eggs has increased by more than 30 percent. There are other products whose inflation is close to it, but let’s assume that these products are not very vitally important for citizens. However, we cannot say the same, for example, about meat products, which recorded double-digit inflation. The price of beef has increased the most, by more than 15 percent in the last 1 year. The inflation of lamb meat is close to 14 percent, and the price of pork meat has increased by 12 percent.

The inflation of fish products was relatively low. Trout has increased in price by 3 percent this year, but after the sharp price increase of the previous year. The price of that same trout increased by 21.5% last year, and this year the prices have increased by 3% on top of 21.5%.

Let’s move to the dairy market, where twelve-month inflation in March was 12.8 percent.

After last year’s almost 14 percent inflation, vegetable oil is expensive by another 9.5 percent. In the last 1 year, the inflation of butter was 8.2 percent, cheese – 8.1 percent.

Bread products, fruits and vegetables have become more expensive. Vegetables, especially after last year’s sharp price increase.

We are not talking about the price increases of non-food products, let alone services. And hundreds and thousands of citizens, including working citizens, whose wages hardly increase or increase much less than inflation, are affected by all of these.

Nikol Pashinyan and the CP members, who from time to time claim that they have improved people’s lives, now let them say whether these 340,000 working citizens, or 42 percent of employees, whose wage growth rate was at least twice lower than the average inflation, three times lower than food inflation, are they living better or worse.

HAKOB KOCHARYAN

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