Right from the beginning and through his whole conscious life man accumulates knowledge and skills, we learn to read, write, swim, ride the bike, play chess and team games. And we all want to be happy. And this also can and should be learnt and then given to your children, our new columnist, President of Stin-Kom Group, co-owner of the company Stena Ltd. David Stepanyan considers.
Оur family was born in Nagorno-Karabakh and this fact was reflected in my early childhood memories, left a special trace. The more astonishing for an adult me is the fact that my parents made an impossible thing: I remember my childhood as a very happy time of my life. The attitude towards me was full of love and understanding, I didn’t feel anything missing in my life, even in hardest times I was a happy child. We adored playing football with my dad and brothers: every adult was working but my father always found time for us. He was unbelievably strong and wise, deep per-son, my ideal.
We wouldn’t become what we are if not for my mother, a person I owe understanding of basic human values, such as friendship, love, kindness and the spirit power. We came to her with our worries and failures, and there wasn’t a single time when she didn’t respond with support, warmth and wise advice. While dad was at the front she was our supporting base giving us the ability to move on.
Life in Armenia was full of nice stories. We moved from Nagorno-Karabakh to Erevan and lived in the Alana district. My younger brother woke up in the morning, went out of the house and was wandering somewhere until the evening. Life was calm, no one was worried but once dad came home earlier, didn’t find him and was wondering where was his youngest son. It occurred that he became friends with an old man, driver of minibus, and spent whole days in his bus driving around the city. ‘Dad, let me introduce you to my best friend’ he said that evening. ‘Your son is six, I am sixty-six, — commented our new acquaintance, — So we drive together talking about everything in the world”.
Father liked to make us happy, was very attentive to our dreams. Later on, in Moscow we were dreaming of Nintendo with my brother, same as many boys of our age did. It is hard to forget the feeling of dazzling happiness, when after our dad coming back for dinner came Ded Moroz with the game consol. Feeling of the miracle was the best our dad gave us in our childhood. We still wait for the New Year as for one of the best holidays with the taste of magic. When we were ten we lived on Gorodskaya street close to Shabologskaya metro station. We played soccer in winter and summer on the playground. We adored to go play a couple of hours before the New Year.
Moscow childhood — to play in the yard at ten on the New Year’s Eve until our mother shouts from the balcony that it’s time to come back. Then running home ten minutes before the President’s speech, jumping fast into shower and then — to the table. Memories don’t erase, they are still bright.
So now I keep the tradition and try to give my children as big supply of happy memories as I can because they will need it — later. It is very important for them to learn to be happy, this skill will be so valuable in future. Together we are supporting my favourite football team “Spartak-Moskva”, trying not to miss their matches. We play chess, read books. We make fireworks on the New Year’s Eve, it is bright literally every year. We can make a real New Year salute outdoors, space in dacha allows us to do it. New Year is a family story in big company for us.
I remember well one of the most important events of my life that affected it. I decided to marry my beloved one. I was just twenty three but I knew for sure that my choice was right. The family with my children’s mother is like a painting of Sevada Grigoryan enlightened by the happenings of our everyday life. Years of existence of our family confirm that I wasn’t wrong, I feel myself being happily married. I guess, the way of the man today is im-possible in its wholeness and effectiveness if there’s no dedicated and loyal person you can trust without limit. When you have someone like this in your life, you have a will to grow and develop. In our days family is exactly the place you come back home to and can rest after the hard day.
You don’t choose existing in the field of family business, we couldn’t imagine some other way. This doesn’t mean that we somehow consciously refused to choose. May be one day I’ll change my activity and start something else, but at the moment I am happy with everything and there’s no need to change something. My two brothers are my best friends, I’m lucky. We trust each other and our partnership is the best possible. Their existence makes me stronger and more sure of myself. Their advices are valuable and sincere.
In any business capital is a part of the general picture but taken as it is doesn’t have a big meaning. A lot more meaningful is another side of the work — creative one. Construction business is a gratifying job because you see in a real time, here and now the changes in your city, where you live and your children grow up. It transforms front of your proper eyes becoming a beautiful megapolis with a good architecture. The process of creating this beauty itself is also precious — the way from the project to a building, not an easy one but resulting in a strong feeling of satisfaction coming from realiz-ing that something you built will exist for long years. This is what will be left after me, my trace on Earth, that part of mine which will touch the far future and feel the breath of the city one hundred years later.
I see the practical and aesthetic sides of my business. On one hand, people need jobs and earning money very much today and they have working places. On another, one of my prior goals is to create architecturally elaborated, beautiful, modern buildings, bringing pleasure when you look at them.
My special project was Orion. It was not easy at all from the point of view of construction: we had to take unique constructive, engineering and facade decisions. Small building has no analogs form the point of view of functionality and high level of technical characteristics; it was complicated and very interesting for me at the same time. My business partner helped me and did his bit. It was a special experience you can’t compare much to and its result makes me proud. But of course you always want better, I suppose my best project will be done in future: I got time, desire and strength.
There’s an old proverb: you should grow roots before wings. We changed places a lot and yes, I can call myself a man of the world. But from the other point of view, the base is important, it is a base for traditions, heritage, there are houses I built, my children’s home they will come back to. And considering this I grew my roots in the place this base is built in. My five wonderful children were born in Russia, so this question is solved. My heart is divided between Moscow, Karabakh and Erevan — in this sequence. Armenia — motherland I love and this love gives me power, bigger by the fact that there’s another power point the half of my heart belongs to — Russia. To find your self in two worlds is like filling the life wineglass twice. There’s no need for another, let the time be enough to drink this one to the bottom.
