I am neither a young girl, nor a fan of rock music. I am a grown-up person and I have been to many countries and seen many singers and other people. It is almost impossible to surprise me.
But Serj Tankian astonished me many times. First, he astonished me as a singer.

He was said to perform one or two songs at the opening of TUMO Center for Creative Technologies in Yerevan, while he held a real concert there in terrible conditions.

No singer would ever agree to torture their vocal cords in such dust. Even the audience could hardly breathe but Serj Tankian went on singing out of his love for his compatriots and himself.

But he astonished everyone even more at the press conference organized by Civilitas Foundation. He did not dwell on music, only the genocide and the situation in Armenia.

He was speaking about his music as something unimportant (he spoke of Eurovision with sarcasm) while he was speaking about the economic situation in Armenia with pain, seriously and long, and most importantly intelligently.

Tankian astonished me with his statement that the business and the authorities in Armenia are merged, which is impermissible. All those medals and awards he got from the authorities did not stop him from making such statements.

Serj astonished me with how much information he had. 70% of the Armenian population knows nothing about the issue of Teghut, 20% know something but they do not know what’s all it about.
He astonished everyone with this sincerity. He was not trying to convince us that all Armenians of the world dream of living in Armenia, like the rest of the Diaspora does. He noted that if in Armenia the rule of law is established, many would like to work and live in Armenia, but admitted that even in this case many others would not.

We surprised Serj too. When I told him that the scientific ranking of Armenia (the number of publications divided by the number population) is one of the highest in the world. He was surprised also by the fact that the press does not report it.

This world-famous man astonished us with his sociability and closeness. Being tired and feeling bad, he nevertheless found time to talk to everyone who wanted to tell him something.
You have to agree that all this was unexpected.

We were going to attend a press conference of a famous singer but we left the press conference of a serious political figure.

Bravo Serj Tankian the amazing Armenian!

Narine Ghazaryan

Story from Lragir.am News:
http://www.lragir.am/engsrc/society22982.html

Published: 11:22:33 - 18/08/2011