"Hello God! The mayor of Gyumri speaking here…"

Գյումրու քաղաքապետ՝ Վարդան ՂուկասյանSad and hilarious – the interview of the mayor of Gyumri on Shant TV on May 23rd was undoubtedly the single most sensational event of this week – even now, 3 days later it is one of main topics for discussion in the streets and blogosphere likewise. Uzogh, Narjan and Kornelij Glas seem to have enjoyed it most. The mayor, Vardan Ghukasyan spoke for about half an hour, making a complete fool of himself. It is hard to explain what exactly was so bad about the interview, but trust me, it was really really bad. As a true Gyumretsi I have no words – I am embarrassed 🙁 Uzogh had tried to make the copy of the interview video available online, luckily it was deleted from Google videos… although I have to admit it was funny enough to be enjoyable once you were able to forget about the fact, that the guy was actually quite fairly elected to his post, which means he really represents the second largest city of Armenia.
So, anyway, Mr. Idiot had decided, that he needs to speak and give clarifications about the recent shootings in Gyumri, which were reported by David_Sand and myself at E-channel blogs. For those of you with good internet connection, here’s the Yerkir-Media video about the shootings:
[youtube=”http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LtN_aFpJZCA”]
For those without read the E-channel report here :

On May 20, 2007, at about 19:30, an exchange of gunfire has taken place at the crossroads of Teryan and Ghukasyan streets in Gyumri. As a result Hamaspyur Mnatsakanyan, 74, a resident of Gyumri, has been wounded on her left arm.

Interestingly, Martuni or Bust has taken Vardan Ghukasyan’s interview very seriously, although I find it hard to believe, that anybody could take that paranoiac-criminal seriously:

In his interview with the Armenian “Shant” TV company, Vardan Ghukassyan, Mayor of Gyumri and a member of the Republican Party’s Board, said that he knows who made the assassination attempt on him on April 2.
“I’m sure that they wanted to kill me because I’ve always told the truth and never concealed the fact that there are 4000 homeless children in Gyumri and not 1500 as some power representatives used to say,” V.Ghukassyan said. He emphasized that he doesn’t hope for disclosing of this crime as there is little concern about it. According to him, if the crime is disclosed, it will turn out to have a political character, otherwise it was evidently a political order. At the same time he stressed that the assassination attempt scarcely had a personal character, as he has no enemies, “he is an honest Christian, a loving family man, who constantly extends a helping hand to the poor, and after all, he has never hurt anyone in his life”. He added that he’d like to die like Vardan Mamikonyan who served his nation.

As for the recent skirmish in Gyumri where the Mayor’s son Spartak Ghukassyan also was involved, V.Ghukassyan said: “My son is as honest as I am. He has never hurt anyone and always helped the poor. And if I learn that someone in my family behaves indecently, I myself will kill them and give them up for lost”.

Honest? His son is honest he said? Give me a BREAK!!! More reactions at my Oragir.

Artur Papyan

Journalist, blogger, digital security and media consultant

2 Comments

  1. Oh my… I wish I could see the video. I watched his phone interview on TV. Well… you can tell that the guy has probably never read a book in Armenian (but somehow heard about Vardan Mamikonyan:-) He speaks with lots of grammatical mistakes and with street jargon (I am not talking about the Gyurmi dialect). He says his son was not involved in the shooting (i.e. he didn’t pull the trigger), his friends did. This is so ridiculous. Things are so bad that he thinks it is perfectly fine for his son to hang around with gangsters and criminals as long as he doesn’t kill anybody. Poor Gyumri people. When are they going to realize that they have had it enough with this degenerate? I can’t imagine he got elected:-( Are there legal ways to get rid of him from his post (after all these things that he has been involved)? The other “non-civil” option would be to wait it out until those criminals kill each other. This reminds of Vanadzor case when notorious Chacho and his son got killed after terrorizing the city for many years.

  2. Why are you so surprised that Gyumri mayor makes grammar mistakes and uses jargons? I thought two grammatical mistakes and 5 spelling in a sentence is mandatory in Armenia to be elected as a high rank official. How naive I am:(

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