During the past 3-4 days all the TV channels of Armenia have been preparing long-lasting outlets from the World Expo – 2010 held in Shanghai. Prior to that we were assuming that the World Expo implies an event, during which Armenia would show whatever it got to the outside world and were thinking that the world would show whatever it got to the Armenian people. And the showing is mostly done via television. And what do the Armenian TV channels show us? They bring up a few words about the Expo and Shanghai. And the rest of the material is dedicated to the Armenian pavilion. So if we assume that the TV channels of 192 counties represented at the Expo act the same way like us by focusing only on their country it turns out that the exhibition is something meaningless. The attentive TV viewers might have noticed that the same text is heard on all channels describing the World Expo 2010. “The pavilion of Armenia is located in the area of the united European pavilions. Armenia represents its investment in the national urban development idea to the world in the area of 500 square meters in Expo-2010. The title of the pavilion is Idea and Time. Armenia is offering an idea to build a Geopolis (world city) on slope of Mount Ararat, on which time cannot affect.” The rest of the sentences on life tree, module complex, virtual spaces are repeated letter by letter. This has a simple explanation. The journalists have not made too many efforts to understand what Armenia is representing and just duplicated the official press release. But in this case it would be wrong to blame the journalists. And the reason is not that most part of them didn’t leave for Shanghai. Perhaps the main reason is that it’s really hard to understand the idea. Armenia is offering to develop a city of world – geopolis. Then? Then there is also information posted on a certain website. It portrays the virtual, triangular map of the geopolis. You use the computer and click on certain icons. Then a separate link is opened, which directs to Marocco, Benin and with other inscriptions. These are inscriptions are complexes in different countries. “The visitors of the exhibition may visit the central website and leave their posts and wishes in the comments section of the website, in the register book of the virtual world,” reads the release. Well, then what? Who is going to build this city, when and how much money is going to be needed? The organizers wouldn’t even wish to hear questions about these important points. They are only presenting an IDEA. This is an enormous, galactic, virtual idea, a philosophy, which is not available to the mental horizon of the average citizens of RA. However, on the other hand, if we analyze the developments of Armenia’s economic policy during the past years it becomes clear that we couldn’t possibly present anything better. What’s all this – Gyimri harbor, Dilijan – a financial center? These are virtual projects that our government seriously speaks about. Most probably now the geographical borders of the Republic of Armenia (realistic and virtual) seemed narrow to the officials of certain sectors and they have decided to enter the international arena. In other words, Armenia has left for the Expo-2010 with great fantasies of certain people. Perhaps these ideas are interesting, humane, kind and spatial… But is it right to spend that much money on the presentation of some project, which is mildly said virtual. Perhaps the reason is the lack of information that we view this issue from this angle. Perhaps other countries as well have gone to the world expo with similarly superficial themes. We don’t know because are TV channels are being silent about other countries. Our cameras are only directed to the pavilion of the Armenian geopolis. Just justice let us mention that it would be wrong to blame the authors of the idea. What else could Armenia exhibit to surprise the world? The expo that is organized once every five years is mostly used to exhibit the economic, industrial innovations of various countries. It means that there should be more realistic and tangible things to show other than virtual projects. And what do we have? As recently the RA Prime Minister mentioned in the National Academy of Sciences we don’t have much. We don’t have a “packed” scientific innovation, which would be possible to represent to the world. But instead we have wisdom and mental potential. Thus if we have not introduced ourselves with our scientific innovations this is nothing to worry about as we can prove that we have prerequisites for that. In the framework of the exhibition the so-called “Day of Technologies” will be held. It’s no problem that the technologies are developing in our country only on paper and by verbal speeches. During the “Day of Technologies” an exhibition of the mental capacity of Armenia will be exhibited – from chess to higher technologies and scientific products. This is no joke but a part from the official press release. There is also no need to worry that the Armenian resorts are so expensive that the Armenians are spending their vacations in Antalia in cheaper and more convenient conditions. The ones, who visit the Armenian pavilion in Shanghai, indeed don’t know about this. For that we may say the Health Country will represent Armenia via the Armenian SPA charter (Ararat Religion SPA). It will play a brand of a new health country with a great health potential. This is also taken from the release. In other words, we didn’t understand anything from the virtual Armenian world; neither did we understand anything from the world map. Let’s hope that the foreigners understand something. By the way the virtual world map has something common with the Armenian world. It relates to construction. It means that the reality didn’t go too far from the elite construction.
