LETTER TO THE KING OF RUSSIANS
Hakob Badalyan
Lragir.am
14 June 06
The Armenian society is writing a letter to Putin, the president of
Russia. Our intelligentsia announced this June 13 during a meeting at
the Writers Union. The list of participants allows judging about the
content of the letter, which is connected with the killings of Armenian
citizens in Russia. So, we may suppose that the letter is going to be
a little categorical, expressing a little concern, a little hard. In
other words, a little like a letter that intelligentsia may write to
the president of an inhospitable country.
The list of people who wrote the letter is prominent: Levon Ananyan,
the president of the Writers Union, Academician Vladimir Barkhudaryan,
Vladimir Aghayan, the Union of Armenians of Russia, Astghik Gevorgyan,
the president of the Union of Journalists, Garnik Ananyan, the dean
of the Department of Journalism of Yerevan State University.
After having read this list it is not difficult to imagine the content
of the letter. Putin cannot have received a tougher letter all through
his conscious life or scrutinized through the period of his life in
KGB. It is possible that the Armenian intelligentsia has announced
about the letter but has not published it to hide its toughness. Either
the letter is not ready yet or they want Putin to receive the letter
without knowing its content. The letter can be so hard and bold that
some trouble may befell to the mailman, preventing him from frightening
Putin. In the meantime, the mail carrier is going to be Seyran Avagyan
himself. Perhaps the cherished dream of the adviser to president
has come true, and he is already promoting small and medium-sized
businesses by his personal example, opening his own mail delivery
service. And judging by the choice of the mailman, we may reject the
thought that the Armenian intelligentsia is going to be hard on Putin.
The point is that Seyran Avagyan is the adviser to the president of
Armenia, and the representatives of the intelligentsia enumerated
above would not dare to risk the life of the adviser to the president
by placing in his hands a chilling letter addressed to Putin even
if a dozen of Armenians were killed at once. As for Seyran Avagyan,
he would not dare to deliver this letter, for it would be the first
and the last order of the mail delivery office, and the office would
“die” long before its registration.
On the other hand, the Armenian intelligentsia need not shock Putin
by a letter. The president of Russia will be shocked on hearing the
news that the Armenian intelligentsia decided to write him a letter.
It will be enough for Putin to call Armenia and find out if there had
been a change of power. Naturally, he will be immediately reassured.
They would not even allow Putin to call first. The top-level
Armenia-Russia phone calls are usually initiated by the Armenian
party. Only Robert Kocharyan must learn about the letter sooner
than Putin will receive it. Although in this sense too everything
is under control because the letter will be delivered by the adviser
to president. It is also possible that in Moscow they will deliver a
blank sheet of paper with the signatures of Armenian intelligentsia
to Putin. Let Vladimir Vladimirovich try to guess during the rest of
his office what the Armenian intelligentsia had meant to tell him.