Kamo Areyan: Our citizens will like the monument to Garegin Nzhdeh over time (video)
Deputy Mayor of Yerevan City, Kamo Areyan, hardly is able to hide the fact that the Statue of Marshal Hamazasp Babajanyan is their revenge against Hungarians who set free Azeri soldier Ramil Safarov who murdered a fellow Armenian course participant in his sleep during a NATO-sponsored training session held in Budapest in 2004. “I am proud and I advise you to be look at Babajanyan with equal pride,” Mr Areyan advised journalists on Friday. Asked what advice he would give to the Hungarians, the deputy mayor said, “I would advise them to call Safarov back. I would give as a gift another Ramil Safarov to the Hungarians. But let us not connect the sacred name of our marshal with that name.” Kamo Areyan knows that the tanks led by the Chief Marshal of the USSR armored troops, who was nicknamed “Iron Black General,” suppressed the Hungarian Revolution of 1956 against the Communist regime. “Babajanyan is the pride of our nation. I am proud that our nation had a marshal like him,” Aryan said. Speaking about the sharp criticism of the Statue of prominent statesman Garegin Nzhdeh, the deputy mayor said, “As soon as a statue is erected, people begin to criticize it, they like it over time as it happened in case of Arno Babajanyan.” “It has become customary for sculptors to be criticized by their contemporaries,” the official said adding that sometimes sculptors can use their fantasy and imagination at work. Mr Areyan does not agree that both monuments would look better in cemeteries. “Never confuse art with craft,” he said.
