Recently, people are of the opinion that the president of Armenia is worried about his image based on how his bodyguards treat him. Rumor has it that the bodyguards are doing this because they are not satisfied with their salaries. Well, we can understand this if we consider the fact that whereas the bodyguard’s minimum salary is no less than 500 dollars, the Armenian president’s bodyguards receive 150. Armenian bodyguards often discuss the fact that, in contrast to the president, the Prime Minister is not losing his image based on the fact that he pays his bodyguards “well”.
During an interview, an experienced bodyguard told me that a bodyguard doesn’t have the right to endanger the life of the person he is protecting no matter how dangerous the situation may be. According to him, the bodyguard should always protect the person from danger.
“If you see that things are getting out of hand, you must flee from the scene and protect the person’s life. You shouldn’t care about anything else.”
Bodyguards must know how to react fast, make a decision and get to work. The people who have bodyguards with thick necks, shaved heads and phenomenal stupidity often try to threaten society.
“Those thick necks and shaved heads are simply trying to show themselves off and may not know anything about holding a gun or when to use it.”
The bodyguard whom I was interviewing also stated that the bodyguard must be honest and have good behavior.
“The only way you can check to see if a bodyguard is honest and knows what he’s doing is when he gets to work,” he says.
The bodyguard has no personal life because “he is obligated to always be next to the person whom he is protecting.”
Their job is easy if the person is organized and balanced. “It is very hard to work with people who don’t have any plans for the day and don’t have a normal lifestyle-they go to
Casinos, clubs and spend the nights with lovers,” says the bodyguard.
“Having a bodyguard turned into a fashion show in Armenia back in 1996. From that point on, a lot of people accumulated huge sums of money and since they haven’t actually worked for that money, they got scared and started to surround themselves with bodyguards. We all know that someone who has not committed a crime is never scared,” said another bodyguard.
The bodyguards whom I interviewed don’t really care about the fact that the National Assembly is currently discussing the issue concerning bodyguards. But they wouldn’t mind making some reforms in the law. However, the National Assembly did not pass the bill on bodyguards most probably because the “owners” are still scared…