April 3^rd action designed to promote book reading

The idea to stage a “flashmob” action in the Artsakh capital of Stepanakert on April 3 was a chance idea according to organizers.

Some young people had been discussing the fact that such staged actions were quite the rage in Europe and even Yerevan and decided to stage one in Stepanakert’s Renaissance Square.

A flash mob is a term coined in 2003 to denote a group of people who assemble suddenly in a public place, perform an unusual and sometimes seemingly pointless act for a brief time, then disperse, often for the purposes of entertainment and/or satire.

Hayk Khanoumyan, one of the organizers, says the action was focused on book reading since the number of readers has dropped precipitously.

“Many now do their reading on-line. In addition, Yerevan has been selected as the book capital of the world for 2012. These two incongruities gave birth to the idea of staging a flashmob.”

Due to the inclement weather on the scheduled day, only 15 of the 40 or so people who had expressed a willingness to participate showed up at the Square.

Each one began to read one page from a favorite book.

This scene soon drew the attention of the local police who quickly approached, ordering participants to move to some nearby benches.

“The police told us we were disturbing the peace but couldn’t tell us how we were obstructing others. It just shows that the police need training when it comes to relating with non-violent actions like flashmobs. Such preparations can avert problems in the future,” says Hayk Khanoumyan

The young activist says that this will not be the last flashmob despite the poor showing on April 3.

Hayk says an agreement has been reached with a group calling itself the “Armenian Flashmob Division” to stage events in Yerevan and Stepanakert on June 11 to promote book reading.

Harout Haroutyunyan, another participant at the April 3^rd flashmob, confesses that he was immediately attracted to such events and that he signed on without a second thought.

Harout told me that such actions were needed in Artsakh, especially since youngsters there prefer computers over the fascinating world of books.

“I’d rather not talk about the incident that occurred at the flashmob. Suffice it to say that the response of law enforcement left something to be desired,” Harout noted.

Flashmob participant Knar Avetisyan says that the April 3^rd event went without a hitch.

“Sure, the behavior of the police was distasteful. At the same time, it was sort of fun to see how confused they were about what we were actually doing. They thought it was some protest action or something.”

The April 3^rd flashmob action engendered some heated discussion in the pages of Facebook.

News circulated that at the last minute Artsakh Public TV pulled a segment about the flashmob from an upcoming program devoted to youth affairs and replaced it with something that had already aired.

Roxanna Kapyan, an anchor at the program in question called Start-Up, says that the flashmob segment will eventually be aired, but at a later date.

She confirmed that the segment had indeed been pulled but couldn’t explain why.

All she could add, by way of consolation, was that it would take time for the authorities to change their attitudes regarding such events.

She said that a year from now such restrictions would be near impossible to implement.

Photos by artsakhnews.am