“Privet, Rob” and other musings

On the evening of September 25, 2001, Poghos Poghosyan, a native of Javakhk, was sitting at the famous Poplavok cafe in central Yerevan when he saw his former classmate, then-President Robert Kocharyan walk out, accompanied by the late world-renowned singer Charles Aznavour. “Privet, Rob,” he said in his casual Russian from his table. Ten minutes later, he was declared dead by paramedics who found him in the restaurant’s washroom, where Kocharyan’s bodyguards had just brought him for “