Two Deaths

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ARMENIAN AMBASSADOR TO CHINA PASSED AWAY

 

Armenian Foreign Ministry said on June 10 Ambassador to China, Vahagn Movsisian, 47, died suddenly in Beijing, Armenpress agency reported.

 

Vahagn Movsisian was born in 1961. He graduated from Armenian Agricultural University in 1983. In 1986 he defended his Ph. D thesis on agricultural mechanization.

 

In 1989-90 he studied at former USSR Higher Commercial School and in 1991-93 at Russian Economy Academy. He worked for HayGazArd and then for Prometevs gas companies. In 1993-2000 he worked at Armenian banking system.

 

From 2000 to 2007 he was executive director of the Armenian Development Agency (ADA), secretary of Business Support Council, affiliated with prime minister and secretary of a prime minister affiliated Council for Information Technology Development.

 

He served as Ambassador to China since 2007. His contribution to Armenia’s economic development and raising its international image was big.

 

KAREN ASRYAN

 

Karen Asryan, one of Armenia’s leading chess players, reigning champion and winner of the 2006 World Chess Olympiad, died Monday after a reported sudden loss of consciousness in his car.

 

According to a report by the Armenian Chess Federation, apparently feeling ill, Asryan pulled his car into a court yard in Yerevan early Monday and lost consciousness. An ambulance crew pronounced him dead at the scene, possibly of a heart attack, Armenian chess officials said.

 

A moment of silence was held in Asryan’s memory before the opening of the Chess Giants rapid-chess tournament in Yerevan on Monday after his death was announced by Armenia’s veteran chess player Smbat Lputyan.

 

The tournament organizers also said the rounds of June 10 and June 11 of the Chess Giants tournament are postponed because of the sudden death of Asryan. The tournament will continue on June 12. And the rapid open scheduled to have been played in parallel to the main tournament from June 12-15 had been canceled due to the tragic news of Asryan’s passing away.

 

Asryan, 28, was ranked 92nd by the World Chess Federation FIDE and 4th among Armenia’s chessmen (currently rated 2630). Asryan won Armenian championship titles three times (in 1999, 2007 and 2008) and pulled off the Olympic gold with Team Armenia in Turin, Italy, in 2006.

 

After the triumphant return from Turin, Asryan gave an interview to ArmeniaNow staff reporter Arpi Harutyunyan, in which he shared his special feeling of having won an Olympic gold.

 

“We were proud: no individual victory can be compared to winning an Olympic champion’s title,” he said then.

 

The champion then said he did not consider himself a chess fanatic. He added there were things more important than that, mainly family: “I don’t think I have sacrificed some things for the sake of chess. This is my profession, that should take from me not my whole life, but as much time as is allotted to the profession.”

 

[Arpa]

Edited June 12, 2008 by Arpa