Cultural expert Hrach Bayadyan wrote on his Facebook page:
"A few days ago, I was passing by Radio's house. The radio monument on the sidewalk is also a working radio. Lusik Koshyan used to sing: "Kolkhoznik boy, come to our garden" or something like that. I remembered that three years ago, when I went to Public Radio, Soviet-Armenian pop music was playing in the corridor, in the elevator. The "Soviet-Armenian Paradise" will probably remain the peak of "our achievements" for a long time, the unique and coveted place of our existence. Yes, today, there are more reasons to look back than around or ahead. And this retrospective life is seeded consistently, producing inexhaustible energy that feeds collective narcissism.
Look at for at least a few minutes the "Song of Songs, new Voices" contest on Public TV 1; folk music remains in the same model that emerged during the Stalin years (an ensemble of folk instruments and other related things). There was no attempt at critical review or conscious effort to break free from Soviet stereotypes.
Public radio-television has learned to criticize the current authorities. Still, it is utterly helpless in front of a much more critical problem: to eliminate and free the audience from the barbaric practice of total glorification (and thus self-glorification) of the "national achievements" of the Soviet-Armenian past.
