A Tata Concert on the Anniversary of the War
Thousands went to Yerablur. State TV aired a pop concert.
September 27 marked six years since Azerbaijan launched the 44-Day War against Artsakh (Nagorno Karabakh) in 2020, a conflict that ran from September 27 to November 10 and set in motion the complete ethnic cleansing of Artsakh in September 2023, when more than 150,000 Armenians were forced from their homes. In this clip Asbed describes a solemn day of commemoration for the roughly 5,000 fallen and the tens of thousands wounded, as thousands streamed to Yerablur cemetery to lay flowers, while Armenian Public Television aired a Tata Simonyan concert instead.
Hovik responds with disgust and makes the segment’s sharpest point: no Civil Contract official was seen at Yerablur that day, and not one wrote even a simple post acknowledging it. Asbed and Hovik settle on a single word for what they are describing, cancer, a foreign body inside the national organism. The emotional register is high, the imagery is concrete, and the contrast between grieving families and a televised pop concert is the kind of jarring detail that travels.
The moment connects to a larger argument the hosts return to throughout the episode about memory and identity. They see a deliberate effort to blackhole the public memory of the war and its heroes, part of a broader pattern they trace to the erasure of Armenian heritage and the absence of senior officials from commemorations. For viewers following Armenian news and the aftermath of the loss of Artsakh, this clip crystallizes a painful charge in under ninety seconds: that the state is treating a day of national mourning as something to be ignored or papered over.
Transcript
Asbed Bedrossian: Well, actually, it's not mum. solemn day of commemoration of the thousands of our fallen heroes and we say 5,000 people died in that war and tens of thousands were wounded soldiers families and and as thousands streamed to Yerablur cemetery to lay down flowers the government's propaganda tv armenian public tv aired a tata concert what were your thoughts about this
Hovik Manucharyan: What else could there be besides disgust? The fact that we have a foreign body inside our country and inside our organism that we cannot remove, apparently.
Asbed Bedrossian: You know
Hovik Manucharyan: It
Asbed Bedrossian: what they call that?
Hovik Manucharyan: is just a dream.
Asbed Bedrossian: They call that a cancer.
Hovik Manucharyan: Exactly. it's a Turkish and Azeri dream come true, essentially. I think, and it wasn't just a concert, of course. Unlike last years, previous years, no Civil Contract official was seen at Yerablur that day. No one even wrote a simple Facebook post acknowledging the day or memorializing it, All of them are basically faceless nobodies, All of them are basically faceless nobodies, all there to push buttons on Pashinyan's behalf.