Where There Is Thirty-Two, There Is Also Thirty-Three: How Pashinyan Joined Teacher Mardanyan's Class

The newspaper "Hayastani Hanrapetutyun" reports: Students from one of the classes at Ijevan No. 1 Secondary School once prepared a poster, on which each indicated their future profession with a rough forecast. In one corner of the poster, it says "journalist Nikol."

"They wrote with such precision that it's astonishing. He became a journalist, but at that time, we couldn't have guessed he would become the Prime Minister," said Aida Mardanyan, a teacher and Nikol Pashinyan's French language instructor, in an interview with the newspaper.

Ms. Mardanyan was Pashinyan's homeroom teacher. She recalls Pashinyan's entry into her class vividly: "I started my career at No. 1 school. I was 20 years old. Nikol was in the 5th grade when I met him. It was a difficult time for him; his mother had passed away. His father decided to change schools. In the year Nikol was to enroll in our school, there were three parallel classes, and because my class had a large number of students, the director was not inclined to register him in my class. However, I worked with Nikol's father, who wanted his son to study in my class. I asked the director to accommodate this request. Where there are 32, there can also be 33. That's how I took him into my class."

For more details, read today's issue of the newspaper.