OBSTINATE VASSAL

According to historians, the era of the conquest of the Wild West lasted fifty years maximum. But it still remains the "gold mine" of cinematography, adventure literature and even fashion design. The memorable 1990s lasted even less than that. Crimson jackets are out of fashion, while "new Russian mobs" remained only in jokes. But the events of those years became the basis of numerous books, films and series, including Roman Kanushkin's book "The Night Stiletto" by which a popular TV series was filmed. In the series, one of the characters tells the main character: "Spanish blood flows in my veins, although I was born, grew up and have long served your country, which I once considered my own. And in Spain the word of the foe is sometimes dearer than the word of the friend. And I give you my word."

It is up to specialists to judge how accurately the crime series reflected the subtleties of the Spanish "code of honour". But there is no doubt that a man for whom the phrase "code of honour" is not an empty word will remain true to his word, be it friend or foe. But if there is no "inner code of honour", which is almost always based on respect for oneself - no agreements are possible with such a person. More precisely, they just do not make sense.

Experience shows that these arrangements apply to not only individual persons, but also to the political elite of entire nations. Armenia, let's say, is a very graphic example here.

The story of Armenia's participation in the Rose-Roth seminar of the NATO Parliamentary Assembly in Baku gives hefty food for thought about the true level of political culture in this country. At this event, Armenia was represented by the head of the Armenian delegation to NATO PA, Koryun Nahapetyan, the secretary of the parliamentary faction of the opposition Heritage party, Tevan Poghosyan, and the director of the Centre for Regional Studies, analyst Richard Kirakosyan. Initially, the media, not only Azerbaijani, reported in detail that the Armenian representatives simply tried to derail the discussion, repeatedly making provocative and outrageous statements. Of course, they were sharply rebuked - by participants from Azerbaijan and European countries belonging to NATO.

The apotheosis, however, came on the last day of the seminar. Armenian media circulated a tweet by Richard Kirakosyan that the Armenian delegates in Baku "raised a toast to the independence of Karabakh" at an official dinner in the Azerbaijani parliament.

However, the deputy of the Milli Maclis, Zahid Oruc, exposed the lies of the Armenian parliamentary delegation. According to the deputy, all three deputies are now at the NATO PA seminar in the Four Seasons Hotel, and the dinner was given in the hotel, not in the Milli Maclis of Azerbaijan.

In addition, according to Oruc, there were no alcoholic drinks at dinner.

"All this is Armenian ravings. A few minutes ago, Kirakosyan went to the hotel toilet - apparently it is there that he writes his dirty insinuations on Twitter," he said.

Of course, one could dismiss it: it is not a very clever trick by individual persons. However, these persons occupy very influential positions in Armenia. But the problem is that Yerevan demonstrates such an "original" level of political culture in quite official diplomacy. And in such an important field as relations with Russia.

Today, according to many indicators, these relationships are going through a serious test of strength. It all started with very persistent attempts of Armenian journalists to ask Russian Ambassador to Armenia Ivan Volynkin whether Moscow will defend its ally if Azerbaijanis attack Armenia from Naxcivan. However, the Russian diplomat said that he was "not aware of this issue and therefore cannot answer it". It is worth recalling that Armenia constantly attempts to "convert" its membership of the CSTO and accession to the Customs Union and the Eurasian Economic Union into no more, no less drawing Russia into the Karabakh conflict on the Armenian side. It is clear that this option does not satisfy primarily Russia: the latest visit to Baku by Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, the humanitarian forum in Qabala and so on showed how rapidly cooperation between Russia and Azerbaijan is developing. Russia clearly does not want to risk these relations, especially for the sake of Armenian interests.

The pro-Western opposition in Armenia considers it to be a "retreat from the defence of Armenia and a betrayal of Armenian interests by Russia". That is to say in fact, Armenia itself is unable to ensure its protection and needs "to be patronized by a suzerain".

But in this case, another fact looks quite remarkable. For example, during a meeting with Armenian MPs and representatives of the media and public organizations in Yerevan, the director general of the Russian news agency Russia Today, Dmitriy Kiselev, seriously disappointed the Yerevan political elite, saying that Russia is not going to recognize the independence of Nagornyy Karabakh. "Yerevan should not rush to recognize the independence of Nagornyy Karabakh, as it will automatically lead to war. You did not like the fact that they killed two people, but in time of war they would have killed not two people, but hundreds, and every day. So speaking about the recognition of Nagornyy Karabakh by Armenia now is irrelevant," Kiselev said. He also recalled that "narrowing our discussion to Nagornyy Karabakh is unnatural. While we are talking about Karabakh here, the world might see such developments that there will be no time to deal with Nagornyy Karabakh. Armenia has threats that are related not only to Nagornyy Karabakh." But the interesting thing happened later. Kiselev noted that Armenian statehood "can only be guaranteed by one country in the world - Russia. Within the framework of the CSTO - Russia has undertaken to guarantee the security of Armenia. Nevertheless, we see that no Russian schools have remained in Yerevan and the Russian language is a leaving nature in Armenia. This means that Russian culture and the link with Russia are leaving... This trend is very dangerous." And in general, according to Kiselev, "one cannot be culturally integrated in one direction and seek security in another. Unfortunately, it is connected." The Russian journalist was deeply shocked by the fact that a taxi driver in Yerevan could not even count in Russian.

The reaction of Armenian society was very stormy. Some began to argue that the situation with the Russian language in Armenia was just perfect. Others turned on Kiselev: it is impossible to make far-reaching conclusions based on a conversation with a taxi driver. But there were far harsher assessments.

"An unacceptable incident happened at the National Assembly of Armenia recently: At the meeting of the Armenian-Russian club, Russian journalist Dmitriy Kiselev made a statement in a disrespectful tone with overtones to the Republic of Armenia, the Armenian language, the Armenian people and its goals," the deputy from the Armenian National Congress (ANC) faction, Nikol Pashinyan, said. "I believe that the Ministry of Foreign Affairs should discuss the issue of declaring Kiselev an undesirable person - persona non grata in Armenia," he said. Pashinyan is an opposition politician, of course, but the deputy chairman of the ruling Republican Party of Armenia, Minister of Education and Science Armen Ashotyan, said while commenting on Kivelev's words: Don't be an elephant in a china shop. You have to speak to Armenian society, Ashotyan said, in a plain language that is acceptable to it. "Talking about the language, I do not mean vocabulary and grammar, but the content and form of speech," he added.

At the same time, one cannot but notice that the scope of the Russian language in Armenia is really systematically narrowing. And Russian schools in this country really disappeared under Robert Kocharyan. They remain only in Russian military compounds. When someone rather timidly suggested reviving these schools, a serious storm was raised in the country.

This means that Armenia is ready to get all imaginable and unimaginable dividends from the alliance with Russia. They do not mind forcing Russian soldiers to fight for Armenian interests. But they are clearly not going to take into account the fact that any partnership is a "two-way street". It is not quite clear: on the one hand, Armenia criticizes Russia for not protecting Armenia "properly" although it is not clear how and why Russia should do it. On the other hand, when a representative of Russian society says that the cultural heritage of Russia is being destroyed and the Russian language is being suppressed in Armenia, Armenians express outrage, describing that as an infringement of national interests. Where is the logic? The logic is in the particularity of the Yerevan "code of honour". And that makes it absolutely clear that it is unlikely to be the last "surprise" that Armenia is giving its EAEU allies.