A few days ago RA presidential candidate Levon Ter-Petrosyan visited Talin, nearby villages and Armavir marz. This marz tour was outstanding with the abundance of people, freelance stops in different areas and one incident.
The first stop was in Agarak village. Here the first president was met with Zurna and Dhol. On the way to Talin the residents of nearby villages were blocking the road thus making the first president to meet them personally as well. Ter-Petrosyan was honored by the slaughter of three sheep. Despite the fact that the rally in Talin took place with a little delay because of the unplanned stops on the way, the supporters of Ter-Petrosyan met with salt and bread and were exclaiming , “Le-von, Le-von”. Before the rally, a person appeared and cried out “Levon, go away, we won’t vote for you” and tried to come near the stage. “Calm down Sako, shame on you,” complained the residents of Talin. Afterward, a scuffle started between Sako and the resident of Talin. In a few minutes everything became calm and the rally started. Ter-Petrosyan mentioned that he had noticed that Serzh Sargsyan has only one vote in Talin. The instigator of this incident as we found out later was a quite famous resident of Talin Sargis Karapetyan. We were not able to find this man, however we were told that he was a “fidayin (a military group fighter during the war) and chief of the hired soldiers of Talin” and now he is occupied with military issues. People told us that Sako is a famous provoker and it was quite expected that he would do that. “He just didn’t expect that the residents of Talin would beat him in Talin,” mentioned one of our interviewees, who didn’t wish to introduce himself. The Investigation department of Police of Talin has brought charges. Investigation is underway. Nevertheless, after the rally in Talin the first president had meetings in about 10 villages. In some of those the local governments were trying to create certain obstacles, intimidate the voters, etc. In particular, in Karakert village someone was grumbling in the corner, “Oh, is this Zhorik here too with his family? Didn’t I tell them not to come out the house?” When one of the journalists tried to find out who that man was he disappeared. As it later turned out that person was the head of the village Harut. The residents couldn’t remember his name. They were calling him with his nick name, “Roughy”. As opposed to the rough obstacles of “Roughy” Ter-Petrosyan’s rally gathered 500 residents, who met him with bread and salt and even slaughtered a sheep. In the evening a major rally took place in the marz center of Armavir, which hosted 7-8 thousand people. As this time last time as well Ter-Petrosyan’s strictly criticized the incumbent government, the level of education or more accurately its absence, necessity of investigating the case of October 27. The first president also spoke about the fact that the government was trying to bribe Stepan Demirchyan, Aram Sargsyan, Hrant Bagratyan and his son and other of his teammates. He stated that there are a number of fake candidates and requested the people to be careful and not to disperse their votes. In Armavir Hrant Bagratyan also made a speech, who concretely presented what percentage of the economy each government official owns nowadays, etc.