Istanbul-based Liana Chakir, 18, participated in the 2^nd stage of the 2017 “Ari Tun” Program and shared her impressions in an interview with Hayern Aysor.

Liana Chakir: I got very emotional when all this ended. I would like for everything the stay the way it is. We spent wonderful days. I learned a lot of things. When I was coming to participate in the Program, I was afraid that I would have trouble communicating in Eastern Armenian, but I even learned some words in Russian in order to interact with my friends here. I was afraid that I would not be able to dance Armenian dances, but it turned out that they were not so difficult to learn and are more beautiful when you perform them.

This is my first visit to Armenia, but I feel at home. It seems as though I was born right here. I graduated from the Central Armenian School in Turkey a couple of days before my visit to Armenia. I heard about the Program at school and decided to participate this year so that I could enjoy being in my homeland after taking university admissions exams.

The most spectacular moment during the visit was the visit to Tsitsernakaberd Armenian Genocide Memorial Complex. In Turkey, we Armenians can’t speak out about the Armenian Genocide. There are marches in central Istanbul from time to time, but they are very short marches. This is why being at the memorial complex left a great impression on me.

I will never forget my friends. We only spent ten days together, but it was as if we had known each other for ten years.

Julieta Sahakyan

4^th year student of the Faculty of Romance-Germanic Philology at Yerevan State University