"Search" helped many people"

We all remember those hard times, when it seemed, everything was mixed: the earthquake, the ruins, the instability, homeless people, that were constantly looking for their relatives,"- Grigor Vahanyan, the Director of "Search" center tells.

- Right then, our center was founded to help the people who lost their relatives or friends. We have created a huge database of information on people who have suffered from the earthquake and its consequences, and by using computers located in different areas of the world we could search for the people who lost each other, that is why the center was named "Search". This was possible due to a very solid technology that we had for that time, which was bought for us by the Armenian Diaspora at the end of 1988. In the beginning, we were connected to the computer network of the Armenian Automated Data Exchange system center, which, in turn, was connected to the ADE Moscow center, however, this was very expensive.

Later, there was also another way of connecting to the computer network - the radio connection, which allowed to bypass the control from Moscow and to directly connect with scientists of many countries of the world. Of course, our activities were interesting for the "special authorities", but they could not do anything, as our center played an important role in the post-earthquake processes.

The center continued to function and to develop after Armenia became independent, when we started to exchange information for Kharabagh war. At that point, we were already using digital connection equipment, which allowed easier and faster connection to the network. In 1996 the center ceased its operations.

Armenian TV 1, December 1988