“When Ruben became the state minister of Artsakh (Nagorno-Karabakh), many people asked me, out of habit, why he did it.

I understood that he could not have acted differently so that he could tell himself in the future that he had done his best.

So I also cannot help but write a few lines to attract attention.

In politics, alas, there are no friends, there are only interests, and I see that nobody is interested in Ruben now, and that makes me very sad and hurt. If you type ‘Ruben Vardanyan hunger strike’ into Google in English, it will be Russian or Armenian sources, nothing in the world press, only on page three there is Reuters, and it is news about last year’s hunger strike.

There is media coverage — there is a person. No media coverage — no person.

We met Ruben during my enrollment at Skolkovo in the spring of 2010, we saw each other regularly in 2010–2011, and after Skolkovo I was on Ruben’s team in 2012–2013. I thought that after graduation I would go into strategy consulting (I had interviews at McKinsey, BCG, Bain etc.), but I finally decided that I wanted to work with Ruben. It is impossible to do one thing with Ruben. In addition to the integration of Troika and Sberbank, I was involved in the Skolkovo endowment, evaluated Ruben’s personal investment projects with my team, was at times an alternate director in Ruben’s place, Ruben and I regularly went to fundraising meetings on Skolkovo and the school under construction in Dilijan, and much more.

I remember some cases that I would like to share.

We were driving across India from Mysore to Bangalore. On the highway, Ruben offered to have lunch, and we went to a regular café on the highway, Ruben invited the cab driver to join us at the table.

In May 2013, we flew to Armenia, a school was under construction in Dilijan. I was also present at Ruben’s meeting with the Armenian project team. I watched and thought that Ruben is a man of world scale. Ruben said that we as Armenians have been preserved through language and faith, and now not only Armenia, but the world in general needs the human and moral qualities and vision for the development of the country/region/world for decades to come that Ruben has.

Ruben has helped so many people/organizations around the world, I wish someone would help Ruben in return now.”