And so the President of Georgia Mikhail Saakashvili paid an official visit to Armenia. It was clear that this fact wouldn’t make the Russians too happy. But the Armenian President Serzh Sargsyan went further. Saakashvili received the Medal of Honor from President Serzh Sargsyan at the start of his two-day official visit to Yerevan on Wednesday. Sargsyan’s office cited his contribution to “strengthening the centuries-old Georgian-Armenian friendship.” This fact really depressed the Russian mass media. The Russian print media already writes that the visit of the Georgian President to Armenia creates certain questions about the attitude of Armenia, which had previously considered itself the best friend of Russia among the post-soviet states. And now these issues are even more exacerbated because the Armenian president awards a man, who the Russian government considers an evident criminal after his decision to attack the South Ossetia. Russia categorically refuses to communicate with Georgia. The move did not go down well with Armenian nationalist activists who accuse the Saakashvili government of deliberately neglecting the socioeconomic woes of Georgia’s Javakheti region and violating the rights of its predominantly Armenian population. Several dozen of them tried to stage a protest on Thursday outside a Yerevan hotel where the Georgian leader stayed during the trip. Police used to force to disperse the protesters, many of them young activists of the Armenian Revolutionary Federation that stands for granting Javakheti the status of an autonomous region. The Russian “REGIONS.RU/news of the federation” applied to the Russian MPs by asking for their comments in this regard. We think that the comments of the Russian politicians will interest our readers. Especially the comments of the ones, who consider us an independent state and are sure that Russia is the friend of independent Armenia, will interest you. Senator Vladimir Gusyev elected from Ivanovo region considered the fact of handing in an honorary medal to Saakashvili no less no more than an insult addressed to Russia. “The real friends don’t act that way.” Gusyev also added that for him the award to Saakashvili was unclear and unexpected. He also expressed an opinion that this kind of behavior may create a difficult environment in the Armenian-Russian relations. Another Senator Vadim Gustov, who is also the deputy-head of the Russian committee on CIS issues, considered the award an “unfriendly step.” “This is also a contemptuous behavior to all those, who died during the South Ossetian conflict. Under these circumstances I have a few words to say,” Gustov said and added, “I think he (means Serzh Sargsyan – B.T.) made a major political mistake, which is very hard to explain. Everybody has the right to make mistakes. But if this mistake was made on purpose than it can critically affect the Russian-Armenian relations. Life will put everything in its place.” An MP of the Russian Duma, member of the Yedinaya Rosia faction Valeri Bogomov also expressed the same opinion about the Russian-Armenian relations. Bogomolov called it a “very controversial event.” “Every country is free to award anything to anyone,” the Regnum news agency quoted Bogomolov as saying. “However, it is important to understand that you can’t spit into a water well from which you will need to drink on more than occasion.” Bogomolov went even further and said, “Russia is a great country which thinks that it should prove its so-called tolerance everywhere and understands the sometimes inexplicable actions of our partners.” “The demonstrative granting of a high Armenian state award to the Georgian president was an untactful and unfriendly step towards Russia,” agreed Viktor Ilyukhin, another senior Duma member representing the opposition Communist Party. Reminder: speaking at Yerevan State University on Thursday, Saakashvili slammed Russian policy on both Georgia and Armenia. He claimed in particular that Moscow showed an utter disregard of “the interests of the Armenian side” during its August 2008 war with Georgia. Ilyukhin afterwards mentioned that this step cannot negatively affect the trade and business relations of the two countries because Armenia considers itself the strategic partner of Russia and Russia has troops and military bases in the territory of Armenia. “We have mutual interests and the deterioration of relations may cause the removal of Russian troops and increase in the price of renting. But indeed this fact will leave an obnoxious residue,” mentioned Ilyukhin. Ilyukhin’s colleague, deputy chairman of the committee on CIS issues of the State Duma, member of the Spravedlivaya Rosia faction Tatyana Moskalovka was harsher in her formulations by considering the award to Saakashvili as a “slap to Russia on part of its closest ally.” A Liberal-Democrat MP Sergey Abeltsev found parallels by reminding that only a month after the attack of Georgia on South Ossetia Saakashvili awarded an honorary medal to Serzh Sargsyan and the latter accepted the medal. He even scorned by saying all this resembles the habits of the Caucasian nations to propose toasts. It means that Sargsyan came up with a “responsive toast” in the form of an honorary medal. Thus, the Russian MPs didn’t like this step of the Armenian President at all. Maybe, they in their opinion, are right based on the interests of Russia but they are not honest. For example, when Senator Gusyev says that friends don’t act that way he forgets they “friendly” took away factories from us because of our debts. They have friendly closed the Upper Lars corridor by keeping their partner in a virtual blockade or that they were turning off the gas of Georgia by keeping us without gas as well. We’d also like to speak about Gusov’s touchy words about the memory of the Ossetians. Perhaps Ilham Aliyev, who the Russians received with glory, is no less criminal for us than Saakashvili for them. If based on the Senator’s logic, does it mean that any compliment that Medvedev paid to Aliyev is an insult for us as thousands of Armenians were killed by Azerbaijanis during the NKR war? We just don’t speak about that. And none of the Armenian MPs will oppose Abeltsev, who considers himself an expert of Caucasian customs, will oppose the steps or behavior of Russia. That’s because we respect our partners, brothers and especially elder brothers very much. It’s hard to say who’s guiltier – the Russians, who allow themselves to make such comments or us to allow them interfere in our internal policies. Perhaps our fault is bigger. The Russians openly say that in foreign policy that are no friends, there are interests. We instead lie to ourselves by clinging to the big ideology of friendship. On the other hand, maybe the attempt of getting rid of emotions will bring no use any more. While we were in the field of emotions the Russians have already reached their goals at the expense of the impendent Republic of Armenia.
