Zhirinovsky at “Tashir” Armenian Music Awards – OMG!

The 4th Armenian music awards ceremony “Tashir 2009” was held on 4 April at the State Kremlin Palace in Moscow. It’s one of the headlining dates in Armenian pop music calendar.

I am not going to discuss the show itself, except for in P.S. below. You may find many video clips on a YouTube channel. What I am disturbed with was the ‘performance’ of Zhirinovsky there.

Why on earth such an odious Russian nationalist Vladimir Zhirinovsky (Wikipedia ) was invited and had a speech devoted to the Armenian cause there? Was this a music show or what? Can’t we just have a nice Armenian music entertainment show, celebrating in this case a pop music, without involving politics, especially coming from Russian nationalists? Did the organisers actually think that just because Zhirinovsky delivered a ‘devoted’ to the “Armenian Question” speech full of hate to other nations and chauvinism would do any good to publicising our issues? He sounded more nationalistic but extremely fake (!) than those coming from some Armenian circles. I felt nauseous after watching his speech (video). Can’t some people understand that Zhirinovsky & co do not give a shit about Armenian problems, instead promoting their very own specific agenda. The PR-ed affiliation of such people with the Armenian issues could do only harm to their international perception.

P.S. Inga and Anush Arshakyan presented their Eurovision entry Jan Jan (Nor Par) at Tashir ceremony too. That was one hell of a messy choreography (video). Urgent attention needed.

Armenia: Stars of the past, or ‘lost stars’

I suppose you had to live in Armenia in 80s-90s to really appreciate this particular issue of Special Report programme produced by Banadzev. For me, watching this programme brought back so many great memories: Zara Tonikyan, Elvina Makaryan, Nona Zotova, Erik an Iza from Rubicon… These were very different kind of stars, at very different levels, but they were all part of my life, and I felt very nostalgic watching this programme, and learning some (albeit brief and incomplete) updates of their present life, and few unknown details of their past.

For example, I was always wondering what happened to Zara Tonikyan who was among my favourite Armenian singers back then. Unfortunately, not much is known of her, it’s still pretty much of a mystery. But I learned from the programme that she is in Belgium now performing in an unnamed club. I wish I could know which club is this so that will visit it during my upcoming trip to Brussels.

I knew that Eric (of Eric & Iza) - from popular music/entertainment interactive programme Rubicon on Public TV - is engaged and currently involved in an entertainment magazine publishing business in Yerevan. But I had no idea what happened to Iza. Now I know that Iza got married and lives in Thailand, and she sounded OK. There were brief updates and archive/current footage from some other Armenian ‘lost stars’ too, as the programme put it. (Btw, it was interesting to see a footage of very early Inga and Anush Arshakyan (in part 1), who will represent Armenia in Eurovision 2009)

Thanks to Banadzev production company for this pleasurable experience. Hope they will be consistent in keeping us updated on our past/present, and will continue providing a good quality programming touching alternative subject matters which are not touched by the mainstream.

Part1


Part2


Part3