The fact that Russia closed its border passing point with Georgia was accepted in Armenia as a personal insult. There is no reason to be insulted; Russians had probably forgotten about Armenia. In Russia Georgia is considered to be an enemy for them and they are taking certain steps now for some political purposes; as for Armenia, it is not considered either a partner or enemy country generally. This is the reason why they forgot to inform us beforehand that they were going to close the border.
Generally, the Russian authorities look at Armenia without any formalities because they think that there is no need for that. We may explain the Russian policy with Armenia in one sentence: “Where the hell are they going to escape?” This is not just an interpretation of the current situation, but a result of their long-term policy. Russia has always done its best not to let Armenia go too far from it, and now it is implementing the same policy. As for us, the only thing we can do is to watch how Gyumri-Kars railway currently doesn’t operate, how Russians are deciding the length of the Iran-Armenia gas pipe line and how Armenian apricots are being spoilt on roads waiting in the line of the border because Russia didn’t consider it important to inform us about its intention to close its border with Georgia.
In fact, for over two centuries the Armenian political figures have been manipulated by Russia and in fact now Armenian politicians think that the sun rises from the North. As for the West, it does its best to influence Armenia morally and spoil it. This campaign is going on now too; as a matter of fact, it is going along well. For instance, currently when people say “Euro Union” they associate that understanding with gays and religious groups. This was the first phase of creating emotional impression of the West here. The next phase was thought better. It is the following: “The West wants us both to return the Azeri territories and to develop democracy in our state. Azeri territories can’t be returned, accordingly democracy can’t be developed here either. Now look, those who are advocating democracy and trying to develop democracy are the ones that are forcing us to return the occupied territories to Azerbaijan”. This campaigning method is very effective. It is so effective that the pro-government mass media representatives reject everything and everyone speaking about organizing fair and democratic elections in Armenia.
What do the international organizations want us to do? They don’t want us to go against our own national traditions… The only thing they want us to do is to follow everything that is written in our Constitution (which was not obliged by them). They want us to elect our government through public vote, stop ballot stuffing and electoral fraud. Do they want us to do something wrong? Don’t people understand that they cheat us when they say that to develop democracy in our state means to do all that the West is telling us to do and return the occupied territories?
There is another effective campaigning method as well. It looks almost like the following: “Why do we need democracy? We are in fact in war and we need an authoritarian regime”. This is a good lie too. For instance, Turkmenistan is not in war but doesn’t have a democratic regime, besides that, Israel has been in war for the past 60 years but it has a democratic regime. Furthermore, it was able to win due to its democracy. In other words, they say that due to the fact that we are in war we don’t need to develop democracy in our state. On the one hand we don’t know how that democracy may be developed in Armenia. On the other hand, until democracy is not developed in Armenia, Russians will have a right to say “Where the hell are they going to escape?”