In recent months, Armenian citizens have witnessed how the government is spending millions of AMD on security and personal comfort when officials have to get from Point A to Point B.

Take Prime Minister Tigran Sargsyan’s trip to Sochi to attend the Winter Olympics. Instead of taking a commercial flight for the short trip, an Air Armenia plane was hired for US$20,000.

So why couldn’t Sargsyan fly with the rest of us mortals? Couldn’t the government find a better place to spend all that money?

Armored limousines, police escorts, closed streets…All this to provide security for our beloved government representatives.

Let’s get real. No one is going to attempt to assassinate the police chief or another official if they’re riding around in a one car convoy as opposed to a phalanx of three or four.

The prime minister would have reached Sochi safe and sound had he “stooped” to flying in a regularly scheduled airline.

Readers will remember seeing the gold urinals of former Ukraine President Viktor   Yanukovych. Those who believe that our officials have more modest tastes are mistaken.

One merely has to visit the Armenian government’s website (in Armenian), to see purchases of $2,000 beverages, curtains costing $50,000, hundred thousand dollar automobiles, $500 tires, and other luxury purchases that hardly conform to the limited resources of Armenia.

These and other items are purchased with our tax dollars.

In the West

While our MPs, prime minister and president ride around in armored limos, their counterparts in a number of European countries get around by bicycle, without an entire security detachment.

For example, most of the ministers and prime ministers of Sweden, Denmark, Norway and Great Britain get to work on the humble bicycle. Here in Armenia, officials would feel naked without their black tinted Mercedes and a ten car police escort.

Furthermore, with the exception of the British prime minister, the leader of a nuclear power, other officials don’t even have a security retinue to get to the office.

It is said that even Adolph Hitler, who conquered practically all of Europe, only had an escort of three cars. Today, Germany’s Chancellor Angela Merkel official escort is comprised of three cars and four motorcycles.

So why is it that Armenia’s president, prime minister, police chief and parliament president feel the need to have security measures enacted in their own country than the leaders of most European nations?

The official security escorts of the leaders of Great Britain and a number of other nuclear powers are much more modest than those for certain oligarchs, MPs and minister here in Armenia.

Ukraine

Let’s look at what’s happened in Ukraine. Before being toppled, that country’s prime minister and president rode around in a security escort of at least ten cars. Streets were closed in Kiev to the constant dismay of local residents.

Today, officials of the interim Ukraine government have a totally different take on commuting.

Arseniy Yatsenyuk, the interim Prime Minister of Ukraine (a country with twenty times the budget of Armenia) takes commercial flights for his busy schedule of international diplomatic meetings.

Is it that those in power in Armenia, unlike their counterparts in Ukraine and elsewhere, just don’t feel safe milling about with the average man and woman on the street?

On second thought, such concerns might not be baseless after all.