Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan, along with his wife Anna Hakobyan, attended the “Hero of Our Times” award ceremony at the Karen Demirchyan Sports and Concert Complex in Yerevan.
President Vahagn Khachaturyan, President of the National Assembly Alen Simonyan, Constitutional Court President Arman Dilanyan, representatives of legislative, executive, judicial, local self-government bodies, and other officials also attended the event.
The awards were presented to 12 participants of the “Hero of Our Times” program, prepared by the Public Relations and Information Center of the Prime Minister’s Office.
The awards were presented by the President of the Republic of Armenia Vahagn Khachaturyan, the President of the National Assembly Alen Simonyan, the Chief of Staff of the Prime Minister Arayik Harutyunyan, the Head of the National Assembly "Civil Contract" faction Hayk Konjoryan, the Minister of Labor and Social Affairs Narek Mkrtchyan, the Minister of High-Tech Industry Mkhitar Hayrapetyan, the Minister of Health Anahit Avanesyan, the Minister of Education, Science, Culture and Sports Zhanna Andreasyan, the Artistic Director of the Hovhannes Tumanyan National Puppet Theater Ruben Babayan, the "Hero of Our Times 2023" award winner Sirvard Berberyan, the "Hero of Our Times 2023" award winner Khachatur Nikoghosyan, the founder and general director of "Vega" company Yuri Afrikyan.
Before awarding the main prize, Nikol Pashinyan made a speech, congratulating everyone on the occasion of the award ceremony. The Prime Minister spoke about the main leitmotif of the award ceremony - the theme of the hero and heroism, and emphasized: "The key goal of today's award ceremony is to talk about heroism, the everydayness of heroism, and the heroism of everyday life. What do I mean? Generally, when we talk about heroes with formulas known to us, we essentially imagine them as a different type of people who were born in a special place, grew up in special conditions, who have special perceptions of the state and homeland. Somewhere it may seem that we glorify them by doing so, but somewhere we also isolate and cut them off from us." According to the Prime Minister, the most important expression of heroism should not be that heroism is performed by those few people who were simply able to do it, but the perception of heroism and heroism should be that tens of thousands of others would have done the same heroism, it's just that at that moment the person who manifested that heroism found himself there due to circumstances, that's why it was he who did that heroism.
"When talking about heroism, we, of course, first of all mention our martyrs. We cut off our martyrs from us if we do not admit that each of us, not ten more people, not twenty more people, not fifty and a hundred more people, but tens of thousands of people in the Republic of Armenia, who, being in the same place in the same situation under the same conditions, would have done the same thing," said Nikol Pashinyan. The Prime Minister noted that the reason for the lack of this approach is that there is no heroization in everyday life and emphasized: “Our everyday life is not heroic in the sense that heroism is so far from us, so different, connected to entirely other people, to entirely other families, that it seems to us heroism is something to be done by someone else.
But with this award ceremony, we want to emphasize first of all that heroism belongs to each of us, heroism is every day, heroism is everywhere, and if that is the case, it is in these conditions that we will perceive our heroes as people living next to us, who were not sacrificed by us, but simply were in the same place, in the same position and did the same thing that each of us, thousands of us, tens of thousands of us would do.
And therefore, what to do with this logic every day? There is something to do every day: work, create, pay the taxes prescribed by law, so that the hero whom we push forward to die also has a chance not to die, has a chance not to die by having modern means of defense, having modern education, having a state developing in modern conditions and with modern concepts, etc. It should not seem that we are in any way belittling the heroism of our fallen brothers today.
On the contrary, I have said and I will say again: they fell so that the Republic of Armenia could live and the Republic of Armenia could develop, and today we report to our fallen brothers that the Republic of Armenia lives and the Republic of Armenia is developing, including thanks to your heroism. And we should not associate our heroism with dying, falling in all cases, not at all times and not in all places. We should rather associate heroism with living, working, creating, strengthening the state, so that the process of sacrificing and being sacrificed does not become usual, but it should rather be special, exceptional, rare, while everyday heroism should be creating, getting rich, enriching, flourishing and making flourish, becoming happy, making happy, becoming strong and making strong.”
Nikol Pashinyan thanked all the award winners and emphasized once again that their heroism lies in the fact that they do not expect to receive answers to questions from others, but try to find the answers to those questions themselves, they are their own reliance and they create themselves. “And by doing this, they provide, among other things, the answers to those questions that people perhaps expect from the Government, and today we thank you for taking it upon yourself to formulate answers to some questions, including by easing the work of the Government, Parliament, state and local self-government bodies,” the Prime Minister said.
Presenting the main prize to Armen Martirosyan, founder of the Health Fund for Children of Armenia, Nikol Pashinyan noted: "In recent years, we have significantly increased funding in the healthcare sector, implemented very serious and profound changes, but on the other hand, we understand that not in all cases and not everywhere are we able to meet expectations, reach all those people who need support, who need salvation, who need treatment, and I want to present the main prize to a person who, through his public activities, is able to consolidate other people, find those people who need urgent help and find those people who are ready to participate in providing that urgent help to save lives."
