Elena Akopyan
Doctor, Editor-in-Chief of the Heritage and Progress Foundation
Happy Birthday,
Armais Albertovich Kamalov!
Happy Anniversary, K.A.A.!
The Eternal City is in his name. And he himself is like a dismounted Roman centurion with classic armor under a white robe. His acronym is musical and ambiguous. K.A.A ... Kipling's boa constrictor, a symbol of wisdom and strength, sweeping away Bandar-logs' dullness and sluggishness everywhere it goes. A long echo in childhood, answering him, the chosen boy from the velvet gaps of Kakheti. It can be heard in the burning streams of icy spring water that the villagers carefully used to pour over his hands before the operation in the forgotten mountainous KArabakh hospital. It is in an excitable exclamation with the last turn of the skewer with the flowing juice pierced right through, with burnt places, KAr kebab. "KAAk!"[HOW] - Echoes enthusiastically following his brilliant surgery demonstrations around the world. "KAAk!"[HOW] - asks someone with envy and admiration. From hospital physician to director, from laboratory assistant to academician. KAAk?! [HOW]
On June 3, 1961, a June day filled with sunlight in the very center of Tbilisi in the ancient region of Rustavelli, a boy was born. And on the carpet in the mother's bedroom his childhood laid out in front of him, the collection of his talents, being as native ores with the special rarely met on the earth veins. The boy is a figure skater, selected by Zhukov himself for the national team, the producer of school drama club with irreproachable hearing sense and voice, the thunderstorm of a yard boys, the love interest of school girls. Not a team player since his childhood. Even his failures were more fruitful than successes or mediocrity. After graduating from 2nd MOLSMI named after N.I. Pirogov in 1984, he started out as a simple laboratory assistant in the department of organ transplantation. The Clinical Residency in Urology, the Institute of Surgery named after Vishnevsky, Research Institute of Urology will happen later. From laboratory assistant to professor, from duty assistant to Head of the urology course, academician, Director of the Medical Scientific and Educational Center "University Clinic" of Lomonosov Moscow State University. The author of monographs and textbooks, books and invention patents. The exquisite endoscopist, highly precise, using minimally invasive techniques and nanotechnologies, he prolongs the reproductive health of the male half of the human race, and hence the life of the country. "Health protection of the male population" – is his program's motto, and new clinics and centers in the regions across Russia are getting opened as we speak, where his students provide master- classes in the operating rooms.
He lives in the rhythm of jazz improvisation, within the everyday musical "framework" of native Moscow window with "unquenchable light" of the operating room with the speckles of Tbilisi hubbub, and following the pervasive eternal keynote of ancient Armenian duduk. Now and for all eternity, musically impeccable, as if having chosen a single pure key-note in the cacophony of destinies, he never slips into the subtone in the chorus. He only plays solo. Only leads. In today's world struggling to create an artificial intelligence, his nature is rare and valuable. His operation is always a performance, shining and bright. But behind it lie the years of hard labor and dressing gowns wet from perspiration after having to deal with "difficult ambulance patients", when behind the walls of the operating room relatives pray breathlessly, and someone's life gleams on the table. You can learn to operate on an everyday basis; but you cannot learn to heal. It is like stripping the wire, trying to receive an instruction from above, without being a conductor. The main thing is personal involvement. As well as Cartesian style of thought, Rablezianskaya love for the life, Savonarolovskoe prerational rebelliousness of scientist and the careful, clearly counted adjusted pedantry of the operating surgeon. He can hold the pause for a long time, almost like in the Moscow Academic Art Theater, and then outrageously explode the ordinariness with a new paradoxical medical word (like Colchicine used in his clinic for the very first time that turned into an almost panacea during this pandemic). A devoted believer, a true Christian. And even his attitude towards his mission can be compared to that towards the tonsure. The eternal godfather (you can collect a small faculty from among his godchildren). The Armenian who, in the difficult times full of pain for his ancient native land, established the foundation for humanitarian, particularly humanitarian initiatives, to help retain the Heritage and Progress of the cultural connections between the two countries, exactly like on the tablets, embossed in his heart, Russia - Armenia. And the classical concerts of Armenian composers began to sound in the great musical halls of Moscow. And loaded with the first batches of the vaccine the aircraft rose into the sky, heading to the Karabakh villages that survived and were rescued by Russia. A truly Russian member of the intellectual class with his support for a fellow human, with a readiness for direct, not loose-tongued help. The motto is to offer a hand ahead of the request. A realist dreamer, who believes that the vest reward after a long day's work is the start of something new rather than the end of something finished. There is no place for evil memories in his world, he does not cherish resentment, he lives under a melodious sky of goodness and shares his thoughts broadly and generously, a laid-out table, a liberal song, a wide heart. During the May peak of the pandemic, but after winning the battles with the virus one after another, the entire "red zone" of his center celebrated the great Day of Victory, gaily shoveling down the kebab sent by the boss. B-G lives in his house. One can glimpse the female faces in the mirrors, beauties worthy of the most dazzling museum galleries; in the bedrooms the Dream-God floats above the grandsons and twists the Colored umbrella of happy sleeps the same way it did once above the cradles of the daughters; and even a dry mulberry branch inserted in his yard into the Moscow earth, after being warmed by the heat, bloomed this spring. He is from that vertical generation which explodes our horizontal life with rare, alas, but still grateful memory… He was the only one who invited his great and already elderly Teacher Lopatkin to his house – to his center, the building before the most imposing central office with the massive oak door with his name engraved in gold (there was a small modest door, his door, near it). Needless to say, how touched the great old man was seeing that he held no illusions about the people. Out of all the rewards, each of which can fill up the biography of one person, out of all the titles, honors and prizes, there is an Order of Honor which is so dear to him. There is also the Order of Alexander Nevsky (for combating the pandemic) entrusted to him in Georgievskiy hall of the Kremlin; and there is one small merit button badge – a bowl entwined with a snake with blue enamel and delicate diamonds. This is the highest honor in the world of urologists. It is passed down from the best to the best. Like an Olympic cup, which contains the fire of eternal service rather than a game. From Asclepius, whose temples became hospitals, to Armais, whose hospitals and men's health centers cover the map of the country today. The time will come when he will pin this badge on the chest of his student whom he will choose as the worthy one. As Lopatkin once chose him. Time will come and the flocks of young boys and girls, always in a hurry with their youthful matters, will run along the street, or will set a date on the square named in his honor, or they will probably simply meet each other at the institute that bears his name. The time will come…
In the meantime, let everything be as before. Let the Moscow sun run like your colleagues every morning, barely keeping up with you during the morning round, clinging to the window sills, hanging in the line of the corridor windows. After each operation that one and only cherished tired sacred minute of happy silence sets in after each operation, and then the symposia and congresses explode with ovation, constantly alternating each other in our minds, the countries flicker past us, the Foundation becomes stronger and stronger. And so celebrating great new achievements, let the tastefully heavy juice flow from incandescent skewers and a song be sung in the house. Let the mulberry tree bloom in the garden each spring, and spring water spill into our hands. And let the greatest earth hymn - the laughter of children - always sound in your house, and let us hope that on the threshold you will always be met by the One, chosen as fate; unique as life….
Happy Birthday, Armais Albertovich Kamalov! Happy Anniversary, K.A.A.!
3 Dnepropetrovskaya Str., Moscow, Russia, 117525
Heritage and Progress Foundation for the Development and Support of Russian-Armenian Humanitarian Initiatives
info@russia-armenia.org