Arevik Ashkharoyan
At book fairs, the whole business starts with introductions. In my case there are usually two scenarios:
Scenario One:
Armenia. No, not Albania, Armenia. No, no, it is not Romania. Armenia –
it is a country in the Caucasus. What is the Caucasus? Well, we are
next to…Turkey. The last thing I want to say is – we are a post-Soviet
country. Because if we come to this point in the conversation, my next
answers are: No, we don’t only speak Russian, we have our own language
of Indo-European roots, dating back around 3000 years, alphabet created
in the 4th century, development stages just like in English - old,
middle and modern.
Scenario Two: “Oh, I have a friend who is Armenian.
And he is a famous artist… or a musician…or a journalist….or a
filmmaker…” And here we start talking about THE friend and how talented
he/she is. And, of course, I write down the name to search for later, as
obviously, I don’t know all the artists, musicians, journalists,
filmmakers or other Armenian talent from all over the world.
