Albert Arustamyan, a 71-year-old resident of Rubinyants 2, Zeytun administrative district of Yerevan, who threw an apple at the prime minister’s direction from the 9th floor window last week, has lived in Stepanakert for 70 years. Today, Albert’s family of 8 is in Yerevan, in a rented house. Albert Arustamyan says that he does not communicate with anyone.
After throwing an apple at the Prime Minister, when all of Yerevan was discussing him on social networks, no one approached Albert, nobody asked questions, because he has almost no acquaintances here in Yerevan; he lives a secluded life.
He has second degree disability. After losing homeland, his and his son’s homes, he is in a depressed, declining mood typical of the forcibly displaced people of Artsakh. He lives in a “turned off” state, just passes the days. Like the majority of displaced people from Artsakh, he does not work and has many financial problems.
In a conversation with Forrights.am, Albert Arustamyan said that he threw the apple in the direction of the Prime Minister as a sign of protest. That was his protest action.
“While watching TV, I saw that Pashinyan is eating khashlama. I told the child to change the channel. I got angry, you see: the country is in this state, he eating kashlama. I went out to the balcony to smoke a cigarette, and saw he was standing there. Well, I took an apple and threw it in his direction. I don’t respect him, I don’t like him; he has put us in this situation, the main fault is his, but he eats kashlama, or rides a bicycle. I don’t understand him,” Albert Arustamyan recalls the “historical” moment.
He says that he did not notice whether the apple touched the Prime Minister or not, but he saw that the latter laid down on the ground, thinking that a grenade was thrown in his direction. “I dropped the apple, but I don’t know if it hit his head or not, I didn’t see it. I saw that they fell into turmoil out of fear, but, well, I calmed down a little,” says Arustamyan.
Contact with the police surprised him. “They started to talk loudly at me, calling me ‘yo’, and, in the mean time, telling me to call them ‘sir’. I told them: My name is Albert, what is your name? Address me by name. The police are uneducated people.”
He says that he left the house after throwing an apple, then he learned that the family members were detained. “When I heard it, I went to the police department,” says Albert Arustamyan. He does not know what they were looking for in his house during the search. “Perhaps, they were looking for apples,” he says.
Albert Arustamyan remembers that he has seen Pashinyan in Stepanakert in 2019, but he did not like him. “Even then, I didn’t like it. He was eating, drinking, dancing, doing things… the leader should be modest.
He realizes the consequences of his action. We told him that they can imprison him for two years. “I got angry, I threw it, it’s my fault, I’m not afraid. Let them judge and dp whatever they want to do; I’m not afraid. I don’t even want to get angry. Let them do whatever they want to do”, says Albert Arustamyan.
He could, let’s say, throw an egg, expressing his protest against the official policy of yielding Artsakh to and befriending the enemy. He could pour paint from above on of the Prime Minister, as two days ago was poured on a German party leader Sahra Wagenknecht. Mayonnaise with French fries could also be poured, as activists threw at Belgian Prime Minister Charles Michel, protesting against his austerity policy.
By the way, Prime Minister Pashinyan’s wife, Anna Hakobyan, mentioned this incident in 2018. At that time, she was fascinated by the behavior of Charles Michel, whose security guards, unlike our policemen, pretended not to notice the actions of the girls. Anna Hakobyan noticed on her Facebook page that no one pulled the girls’ hair, nobody hit their heads, touched their breasts and other body parts: “The girls who pour mayonnaise on the Prime Minister were not payed attention to at all and they just removed the Prime Minister from the hall: well, they were coward Europeans…”
Anna Hakobyan’s post about Belgian mayonnaise was recalled by the mass media and discussed on public platforms after the action of the old man from Artsakh.
The old man from Artsakh just threw an apple, a simple “Newtonian” apple, which, by throwing, might have forced the Prime Minister to change his attitude towards the people of Artsakh, to become more tolerant towards the citizen, who has only an apple in his hand, just like the Europeans are tolerant. He could have smiled like Charles Michel, or exclaimed “Eureka” like Isaac Newton, and silently leave the area, forgiving the old man. But no. Nothing happened in the head of the Prime Minister but happens what usually happens in such cases in Armenia. The police did “their job”. The Investigative Committee initiated criminal proceedings under part 1 of Article 297 of the RA Criminal Code, that is, hooliganism. We should be grateful to the Investigative Committee for not calling the old man’s act an assassination attempt.
Albert Arustamyan’s lawyer, Roman Yeritsyan, said through his FB page that Arustamyan admitted that he was the one who threw the apple, but he does not agree with labeling it as an act of hooliganism.
Syuzan Simonyan