Previous Next Gayane Chichakyan

Gayane is an RT news correspondent. She specializes in politics, social problems, culture…pretty much everything.

She graduated from Russian film school (VGIK) in 2008. When she joined the university's film studies department, she says she was absolutely sure she was going to become a filmmaker.

Gayane joined RT in 2006. She says the channel opened a door for her to places where she would "never think of going," and introduced her to people whom she would "never meet otherwise."

By her own account, "Before joining RT, I'd lived in Moscow, once or twice I had been to St Petersburg…to put it bluntly, I had seen very little of Russia. Within just one year working as an RT correspondent, I had traveled all across this gigantic country – from its Far East, to Siberia, to the Urals, to the very beautiful southern regions in the west. The channel's Russia Close-up program was a blessing. I interviewed people who had gone through Stalin’s labor camps in the Far East, I've seen the long-abandoned ruins of the GULAG there, I was panning for gold and fishing for salmon in Magadan when looking into how people live in that part of Russia, I've been watching bears and seals while lurking in ambush surrounded by wilderness of breathtaking beauty… Of course the whole experience went through my cameraman's lens too and the goal was to show what Russia really stands for – with its riches, traditions, history, good or bad. I always keep in mind the advice that we got from our screenplay writing classes at the film school – stick to people and their emotions. The audience speaks the language of emotion, other kinds of information leaves nothing in their memory. That tip came in line with what I was willing to do in journalism."

"As far as emotion goes, Russia has no lack of it. Unfortunately, our job often has to do with tragic emotions. I reported on the nightclub fire in the city of Perm, which took the lives of more than 150 people; I covered the trial over a former head of a Moscow police department who walked into a supermarket and started a massacre against innocent people… and many other stories. Each of them was very intense in itself, and left no one indifferent in our country. There's little to enjoy when bad news happens, but you come to think of it as a doctor of his job: it's only natural that they call you when something terrible happens. But the big difference between the jobs is we, reporters, get called in when good things happen too".

"My job for RT has been a rollercoaster so far. That's exactly why I love it. One day I'm standing in an opulent gilded hall in the Kremlin, covering the president's address to government big shots, the next day – I'm crawling in mud in Moscow's underground tunnels, exploring the city's hidden bunkers, then again, I'm comfortably flying with the country's foreign minister, on the same plane. Another day begins, and I find myself peeking into garbage containers, doing a story on the homeless. Yes, the job sometimes stinks, but it definitely has its moments".

"And I collect those moments, because I believe that's a life experience that will make me a more fulfilled and better person".

You can find Gayane's reports here