Now I will touch on a topic that will not please many: Lapshin's post

Now I will touch on a topic that will not please many. The issue is that on May 9, we celebrated the birthday of martial arts professional coach, athlete, and public figure Arthur Nzhdeh. This was noted by blogger Alexander Lapshin on his Facebook page.

“Two years have passed since Arthur arrived in Armenia, and he has spent all his savings to help the families of the injured and fallen, training Armenian athletes completely free of charge, and for about a year also trained the special forces of the Ministry of Defense for free,” he wrote. “We celebrated the birthday in a very narrow circle of close friends at a modest but pleasant café on the shores of Lake Sevan. As I was told, the restaurant where we celebrated our birthday, and the family recreation complex on the shores of Lake Sevan next door, belongs to the well-known political figure from the Armenian Revolutionary Federation, Ishkhan Saghatelyan. Arthur was unaware of this; it was merely coincidental. However, the owners of the complex knew very well who had come to them. They could have at least offered the guy a discount, or even, out of respect, invited him for free.”

“Ironically, Arthur’s last name is Nzhdeh, which is indeed his real surname according to his passport. As you know, Garegin Nzhdeh was one of the leaders of the ARF movement. This perfectly illustrates the state of the ARF today, no matter how sad it may sound. In addition to everything else, they were not allowed to take pictures there, which I spoke about earlier. It turned out that Arthur now lives in Hrazdan. Every day, he takes a minibus for 500 drams to the capital. After a long working day and sending home Armenia’s future champions, he walks to the minibus stop heading towards Hrazdan and returns to Hrazdan. He hurries home because there will be no taxi after ten in the evening, and he must take a regular taxi that costs him a steep 3000 drams. For the same reason, he moved to Hrazdan; he cannot afford to rent an apartment in Yerevan. Previously, before the massive influx of Russians, he somehow managed, but now the rental prices have increased so much that he had to leave the city.

Why am I saying this? I have immense respect for Arthur for his activities and patriotism towards Armenia and Armenians. In Russia, he had everything—a luxurious house, a serious business, numerous athletes who were ready to pay large sums to turn them into champions. But he left it all and moved to Armenia. He also used all his savings to help those in need. Here in Armenia, the majority believe that if a person does good deeds, then he is a wealthy fool with nothing to do with his money. This is not just true for Arthur; it is a general trend. Nobody thinks about where humanitarian aid is coming from to their home; on the contrary, some might say, ‘You’ve brought little.’ They do not understand that the person is ripping away their last item and giving it to them. Many Armenian athletes do not realize who this powerful man is, who works with them every day in the gym. He doesn’t take money from them, never complains, and asks for nothing. He probably has nothing else to do in life, so let him travel and train us.

Personally, as a cynical Jew who has long lost faith in human decency, I constantly tell Armenian Arthur: don’t take it to heart, don’t trust anyone, don’t expect anything. I tell him that they won’t even thank you for your good deeds, and when you find yourself in trouble, you will feel bitter disappointment in the fact that those you helped and supported couldn’t care less. At first, Arthur argued with me, disagreed, saying one cannot be so cynical and untrusting. But time passed, and I became very saddened to hear Arthur say, ‘Sasha, you were right in many ways.’