The danger of the “Blessed moment” has always been a common topic in the Armenian new history. However, even if the Armenian leaders did not oppose to that process towards Russia, they did not support with an evident sympathy to that process. From this prospective the newly appointed mayor of Yerevan, Karen Karapetyan, has a unique role, who initiated organizing lessons of Russian language for the staffers of the city hall following the commencement of his office in the mayor’s position. It was done with a special celebration in participation of the adviser of the Russian Embassy in Armenia Viktor Krivopuskov. This opportunity is also a source of income for him because he is also the head of the “Rossotrudnichestvo” agency, which organizes those trainings. Certainly the goal is not helping the level of the knowledge of the city hall employees but with these small steps Karen Karapetyan is sending a message of “loyalty” to the Russian authorities. Following the demonstrations against the foreign language schools in Armenia (which was mainly against the Russian language schools) the Armenian authorities need to justify themselves and show to the Russians that they care, which was done with the above mentioned action. The appointment of Karen Karapetyan in the mayor’s position was also introduced as an opportunity of the Russian money inflow into Armenia. Thus, the Gazprom company promises to invest a lot of money in Armenia, which can be interpreted as a “compensation against rusification”. One week ago the head of the Gazprom CJSC board of directors Alexei Miller promised to invest 2 billion dollars in the development of Yerevan. By the way, this promise was given on the same days when Miller announced about the possibility of revising the prices of gas supplied to Armenia. This means that the life standard will change and everything will be more expensive in the hard condition of crisis, and the Gazprom which has promised 2 billions to Yerevan will have a key role in that process by supporting a social riot before the upcoming parliamentary elections in 2012. It is very strange that the RPA and the authorities are not able to (or do not want) to prevent such developments. By the way, definitely it was not a coincidence that together with the mentioned campaign among the staffers of the city hall the street trade was prohibited in Yerevan as in the history of Armenia always the Russian “campaign” has resulted in bread problems for the ordinary people of Armenia.
