I have another shot when the tanks pass through Tumanyan street. It was a curfew, another strike, I was standing and filming. A strike was announced, the square was packed to the brim, and suddenly a tank column rushed through Tumanyan from Prospect [ed. Mashtots avenue]. The whole square reverberated as the tanks rumbled by. I turned around to film the tanks, but the tanks were not well visible because to silence those tanks, people raised their hands and shouted, “Artsakh,” “Fight, fight to the end” (the slogan of the 1988 movement, which was chanted again in 2008 at the rallies of the first president, then presidential candidate Levon Ter-Petrosyan).
Tanks roll through Sayat-Nova and come to the area of the Opera house. Mishik - Vozhd (one of the protesters, about whom Zaruhi Muradyan writes in her memoirs) was with me. Levon said, “Go, film them, they’re already near the square.” Mishik said, “I will come with you, don't be afraid, I will protect you.” Now it seems unbelievable. We ran together through the crowd to the corner of Prospekt-Tumanyan, Mishik closely behind. Later on, Mishik died in the Tavush region, he blew himself up.
Levon also joined rather late. On the stage were Igor Muradyan, Sarukhanyan, who later disappeared without a trace, no idea where, Samson Ghazaryan, who, unfortunately, passed away recently. An honest, dedicated person who did not want anything, did not achieve anything. Then I think Ashot Manucharyan appeared. Rafael Ghazaryan spoke at the first large demonstration of 1988. There was no Karabakh committee yet, but it was formed later little by little. However, the gatherings were first at our house. Rafael Ghazaryan met Vazgen, Levon and others in our house.
There was a phone booth on Tumanyan street, I ran there and called home to my father, who had not come out yet, and I said, “You have no idea what is happening, you should come and see.” He said, “Eh, nothing will come out, they called us extremists or something like that on “Vremya” news, they will come and disperse [the protesters], everything will be over.” At that time, he did not believe that it would gain momentum. Now, when I look back at our entire journey and try to analyze it, I understand that it was something that was given permission to.
It was the movie “Cold Summer of 53.” It was Papanov's last role, very tragic. I don't know who invited us to Cinema house. My sister's children were small, my child was small, my mother babysat them, and we went to the Cinema House. On the way back from the Cinema, we heard voices. It was about ten o'clock at night. At that time, there weren’t so many cars in the city. I calmly stopped the car near the Choreographic Studio on Byron Street. We crossed the street, left and still didn't know what was happening.
Perhaps in the sixth or seventh grade, I began to listen to “hostile voices,” that is, Radio Liberty, in Russian, of course, and the Voice of America. We had an old Spidola (radio receiver), well, it was not old at that time. I used to come home from class, search for those channels and listen to them. I remember that I heard Sakharov's and Elena Bonner's names on that radio. I was still a school student. I was also a very liberal person, an avid fan of hippieness, I tried to dress like that. Then I was admitted to the Academy of Fine Arts. I would not say that in 1988 I was a strong independentist. No.
“Levon Ter-Petrosyan worked in Matenadaran, as did my sister. They had known each other since Leningrad, where my sister studied at the university and Levon was a graduate student. At that time, they were slightly acquainted. Then my sister got a job in Matenadaran, and her husband was an orientalist. So even before 1988, a collective of orientalists and historians gathered at every birthday. And since my sister lived in our house with her husband, I remember those tables quite well, I was mature. Levon came with his wife and never spoke. I always said, “Why is this man sitting in a corner so grumpy?”Among the guests were Shahen Karamanukyan, Vahan Papazyan - a very talkative man, teller of jokes, while Levon always sat in the right corner and didn't make a sound.”
I am not saying that he (Levon Ter-Petrosyan) has been an agent for a long time. I cannot confirm this, but I am sure that everyone was afraid of the strong hand of Moscow and that some work was done with the arrested members of the Karabakh Committee in prison. Rafael Ghazaryan was older and a very fearless person, because he had gone through the war and had made a name, he was an academician, they could not pressure him and make him do this or that. He got out of it very quickly. Nor did he get a position. At one point, he got very distanced from them. And the fact that the government began to fulfill the Russian instructions, the installation of the military base...
Zaruhi Muradyan was born in 1959 in Yerevan. Her father, politician Sargis Muradyan, was also an artist and the president of the Union of Artists. Zaruhi has studied at the Yerevan State Academy of Fine Arts. She has documented the popular movement of 1988. The house where she lived was a gathering place for political discussions. Dissidents of the 1960s, Voice of America, Radio Liberty - she knew about all this from her father. The connection with the Western world was ensured not only by her father, who went on business trips, but also by her maternal grandfather, Konstantin Kechek, who left for the United States to avoid exile in Siberia after being captured. Zaruhi joined the movement from the beginning։ with a camera that she received as a gift from the USA, she recorded one of the breakthrough periods in the history of Armenia with all its ups and downs and kitchen conversations.
