Theater and Kino Institute Professor Aleksandre Kocharyan, while expressing his displeasure at the state of the theater in Armenia at a news conference today, took particular aim at RoA Minister of Culture Hasmik Poghosyan and declared, "I’ve never seen such a  Minister of Culture." Mr. Poghosyan complained that two large theaters, Sundukyan and the Spendiaryan Ballet Theater both lacked directors at the same time. "The policies of the Minister of Culture amaze me," he stated. The other speaker at today’s press conference, actor Razmik Khosroev, commenting on the state of T.V. programming in Armenia noted that people needed to watch soap operas since the characters portrayed solve daily life issues that common folk cannot in real life. "Thus, we have a T.V. audience that wants to jump into the screen and work out their problems with the help of those same characters in the serials," he argued. Mr. Khosroev, an actor with the Sundukyan Theater troupe, went so far as to say that serials actually played a positive role in the education of the new generation. "The rich, by portraying themselves as kebab eaters, are offering a valuable lesson to their kids – that they shouldn’t necessarily measure up to their parents." When asked to explain the current marginalized state of the theater and the fact that so many actors have taken parts in T.V. serials, Mr. Khosroev said the lower and middle classes demand such programming. "Nothing has happened to the theater. If there is a demand for serials then that is what dominates," he said. Mr. Kocharyan begged to differ and stated that soap operas are geared to the rift-raft of society and that such programs use snippets from their everyday lives. "Whose parents actually belong to the mafiosi? None of ours do. Those guys who spew out slang and use the expression ‘Ara this and Ara that’ every five words…who do they appeal to? T.V. today resembles a brothel house. Everything is up for sale."