The declension of the Armenian name according to the cases of Russian life The earth is spreading in breadth, scientists assure, it has a belly, and now the globe should not be spherical at all, but somewhat flattened, closer in shape to a pumpkin. As for the pumpkin...

Declension of the Armenian name according to the cases of Russian life

WITH

The earth is spreading in breadth, scientists assure, it has a belly, and now the globe should not be spherical at all, but somewhat flattened, closer in shape to a pumpkin. As for the pumpkin, I won’t say, but as for the sixth part of the land, for people of a certain nationality it began to take on the shape of solid corners. Not a circle, not a pumpkin, but a polygon - a figure with many sharp and offensive angles. Undesirable people and inconvenient peoples are put there facing the wall. Such fun, consecrated by tradition ...

Nominative: who? What? — HACHIK

In direct translation from Armenian Khachik means "cross". Not children's tic-tac-toe, but a symbol of faith hanging around the neck. In expanded form, it sounds like Khachatur - giving, bestowing a cross. The name of the great composer is based on this semantics, so Aram Ilyich Khachaturian, in whose masquerade waltz, perhaps, a grandmother or a skinhead mother was spinning - from those who give the cross, from those who overshadow with the Christian cross.

It is appropriate to recall that in Joyce's famous book "Finnegans Wake", written as if in several languages, two words are taken from Armenian, one of which is "khachkar" - "cross-stone". In a free translation into skinhead - a tombstone for Khachik. Ugh.

Genitive: who? what? — HACHIK

European capitals are overpopulated with immigrants from former colonies. Politicians, sociologists, and economists give explanations for this. Somewhere I read about the syndrome of childhood - when an adult is already offended, he often goes to his parents, unconsciously seeking protection from them. I remember that about ten years ago, a familiar biologist who was educated at a Moscow university and worked for quite a long time in Russian research institutes, wasted his time in Yerevan, waved his hand: “I’ll go to Moscow, my friends are there, they will understand me.” The biologist was an Armenian, though Russian-speaking. He felt white stone Moscow closer than pink tuff Yerevan. Isn't it the same syndrome - to seek protection where you used to find it? In the capital of the once homeland, little by little, span by span, overgrown with grass of oblivion of family relations.

Of course, now to speak monologues about indestructibility and light the torches of friendship is like firing blanks into the air. And to pronounce the thesis about jointly shed blood on the fronts is almost vulgarity. There, the shaven-headed lads spoke in the spirit that, they say, the Germans were not allowed into Siberia in vain - there would be no Jews left.

In general, the Great Patriotic War for non-Russians, but ex-Soviet, has long acquired the status of the Second World War. What can be Patriotic without Fatherland? This year's Victory Day celebrations reflected the change, with speeches and television pictures portraying history as if fascism had been dealt with by Russians alone. It turns out that the Armenians, Georgians, Uzbeks, Kazakhs, Azerbaijanis - in short, all the rest were mercenaries. Now it is unlikely that anyone will console the same old Armenian soldiers - the grandfathers of these same khachiks.

And what is there to be offended by? Reading under someone's obituary the signature "Group of comrades", I immediately fall into a depression. How so? A man lived and shook hundreds of thousands of hands in his life, smiled heartily a million times, walked kilometers in funeral processions, did good and, as they say in our country, threw them into the water, not expecting retribution, treated other people's children, considering them his own, helped others build, rebuild, rebuild, finish building, settle down, raised toasts to health - and comrades nothing at all, group. The rest, it turns out, are enemies? Comrades - a group, enemies - a legion? So?

Named numbers carry a certain philosophy. In the Russian Federation, they say, there are about two million Armenians, of which eight hundred thousand live in the capital and about the same number in the Kuban. Indeed, relatives settled on Russian lands a long time ago, already from the time of Peter the Great and Catherine II. These autocrats in every way encouraged the resettlement of Armenians to the south, not for beautiful eyes, of course: firstly, they are hardworking, and secondly, they are a human shield against the eternal enemy - the Ottoman Empire. Sandwich filling Russia-Türkiye.

This is where the many-part symphony began about a single faith, spiritual closeness, and a traditionally pro-Russian orientation. Something serious and general, of course, is available, but the sunflower turns to the sun in good weather, and in bad weather, in bad weather, it turns its gaze in the other direction, not necessarily the opposite, maybe even inward.

Dative: to whom? what? — hachiku

Khachikov, figuratively speaking, is crucified from Moscow to the outskirts - in Krasnoarmeysk, Novosibirsk, Krasnodar. Beating your strategic allies (and we have Russian bases and a military treaty, and not the first day the path to the heart of the republic passes through the Ministry of Defense) from the Ararat Valley has now become xenophobic pop music. “In Moscow, being an Armenian is like a sign of danger,” says Smbat Karakhanyan, chairman of the board of the Moscow National Armenian Club. “One and a half hundred Armenians call us every day, asking for help, saying that they are being beaten and persecuted. In a few months, there have been six murders, and the police are deaf to calls for help and react cynically.”

Is it really a group of comrades? And this is in Russia?

Accusative: who? What? — HACHIK

They are really impudent, impudent creatures, and here we got ourselves. Khachik for Hitchcock.

I do not think that any people can extol their trash. In addition, this shameless tribe is successful, sometimes, perhaps, precisely because of their shamelessness and promiscuity in the means of achieving financial goals. Add to this portrait the screeching brakes of jeepmen, and blatant lack of culture, and all that behavioral spectrum that occurs when a lumpen-loser suddenly metamorphoses into a wealthy unit with money. There is no cross on such Khachik.

Are you crazy, considering this a purely Armenian phenomenon? Do you have few examples from the country of birch chintz? “Any trade,” the Goncourt brothers shared their observations, “turns a person into a swindler—legitimate, if you like—but still a swindler.”

Conventional truth: the criminal has no nationality. Fool too, believe me. And Khlestakov is non-national, and Chichikov, and the degenerate Chikatilo, and Unter Prishibeev, and skinheads, by the way. Yes, they do not have a nationality, but they have, albeit a different geographical residence, but a specific historical homeland: in one case - a prison, in another - a cruel and evil heart, in the third - a shaved and bad head, where young worms of a promising scoundrel. Whose Hachio? If they are touring in Russian cities, let them find their punishment there. A decent person is completely indifferent to the one who took over in the gangster showdown: the Russians squeezed out the Chechens, the Armenians shot down their opponents - but at least it's the other way around!

They'll go to waste. But when with iron bars, bats... But when according to pre-compiled lists according to ethnicity... But when in an underground passage a young man's eye is gouged out just because his father is an Armenian... And if he had also inherited his mother's Jewish burr? Without two would remain.

In general, in normal states, strangers are not allowed, but those who are admitted are imprisoned if they are guilty. Officials, both in Russia and in Armenia, value watermarks of attention most of all.

Judging by the stories, the police are at the forefront of this initiative. (Although what an initiative this is! Re-read Herzen's "Past and Thoughts" - they did not spare their noble Russians). It is easy to guess that the skin youth movement is raising the rate of watermarks of special attention to people of Caucasian nationality. And the bulls, shaven-headed Ivans, who do not remember their relationship, are now smashing gravestones indiscriminately, beating Azerbaijanis in the markets, using clubs in the houses of Armenian families near Moscow. And the older ones, invested with power, declare war, threatening Georgia.

A sure sign of a serious nervous breakdown of the state organism is intolerance towards strangers, regardless of whether they are visiting or at home.

Creative: by whom? how? — HACHICOM

In short: declare a crusade to criminal khachiks and then khachikism will end? Even if skinheads are considered the young guard of Russian society, I doubt a little that the Kremlin authorities have given stormtroopers the authority to carry out group strikes against outsiders. What a pleasure it is to be like the terrorist Agca, who wrote anti-Armenian poems that even the Turkish police did not like?

In the end, you don’t like Armenians - don’t watch color television, it was invented by Hovhannes Adamyan, turn away from the canvases of Aivazovsky, finally cover mother Suvorov with obscenities - she had the misfortune to be born an Armenian; Azerbaijanis annoy you - well, turn off Muslim Magomayev! And don't be especially ceremonious with the Georgians - like the importance of Vakhtang Kikabidze or Nani Bregvadze! And in general, the whole Caucasus, black-black, swarthy-dark, impudently impudent, not wanting to humble pride in any way, pronouncing long toasts instead of immediately clapping, splashing into hailo, as if into a heater, abruptly throwing up his legs and arms in a dance - assa !

Clever Russians were exiled there - poets, officers, unusually conscientious people. And they took root in their hearts to these mighty mountains, their strong and hard-working inhabitants. Just think about it!

Say, we exaggerate and pedal the wrong notes? I will not object. But the reduction to absurdity is due to the fact that on the Kremlin Olympus they are deaf to politically correct judgments, but they are sensitive to newspeak - the explosive language of the poster (and to taste - pork shish kebab, these facts fried on someone purposely poured oil).

It is a pleasure to quote the chieftain of the Kuban Cossack army Vladimir Gromov: “Armenians are distinguished by liveliness, enterprise and activity in business, unlike Russians, and against the backdrop of general poverty, the abundance of Armenians in trade and business is perceived negatively by the local population.” And the Russian industrialist Shustov stood at the origins of Armenian cognac - it's fine. And the Armenian merchants helped Chaliapin - it's normal, well, it's clear, it's normal ... No, I'll hide my rocket launcher from Soviet props deeper.

In the long, long history of the relationship between the two peoples, a lot of good things have been created. The instrumental case, perhaps, worked at full speed.

Prepositional: about whom? about what? — about HACHIK

Few people take Khachik's moans seriously. In Krasnoarmeysk near Moscow, people in uniform were late for a couple of hours: accuracy is the courtesy of the police. The Armenian embassy was silent for a whole day. They believe they were confused, but in my opinion, they carried out the installation of the official Yerevan. Why are there Foreign Ministry servicemen - the presidents keep their mouths shut, as if they are on guard of honor. And how do you manage to bury your head in the sand in all stone Armenia?!

It is not my foreign business to reproach the Russian president: he kept a pause on the day of the Armenian genocide - April 24, when George W. Bush expressed regret; he is silent, tenderly looking at the screen, where the children of different nations are crying - oh, the great silk Putin, his silence is far audible ...

Yerevan analysts are figuring this way and that - either they point to Turkish fascism, then they hint dully at some who want to turn the arrows from themselves to the Armenians, or they see in this the tricks of enemies, alarmed by the addition of the Tehran-Yerevan-Moscow axis. And someone expressed aloud the idea that, they say, the Kremlin, through the hands of the “Red Army”, wants to teach Yerevan a lesson for flirting with the West, which has grown into a romance. These opinions are expressed, mind you, with great embarrassment, because their authors are Russian-speaking Armenians, who faithfully, constantly, never once and not for one iota deviated from the orientation to the north. As for the radical opposition, it rubs its hands: "Bluff - your military alliance!"

* * *

Our national conscience, the great classic Hovhannes Tumanyan, answered the poet Avetik Isahakyan in Venice: “I received your letter. You say, if the times are right, tell me, I'll come.

I don't know what times you call good, but I tell you:

- Come!

- Come, Avo jan!

There were no such suitable times for us and, perhaps, there will not be, but you come.

When you arrive, you will see that our land has been destroyed, our people have been killed, the survivors have been broken, the ranks of friends and relatives have thinned out. You will see how much we have inherited from this worldly ocean of grief, but come.

I know that there is nothing suitable for you there either - no place, no time, no environment, no means.

Finally, you must have missed our land and water, your family and friends.

... Well, come, dear Avo.

Sad, honestly.