Following independence, Tjeknavorian served on the committee to reinstate the pre-communist Armenian flag and the national coat-of-arms. He was especially influential in the adoption of the national anthem, "Mer Hayrenik" (Our Fatherland), for which he rewrote the words for the first stanza. Tjeknavorian also renamed the two major avenues of Yerevan during last year of the Soviet period, from Lenin and Red Army to Mesrop Mashtots (creator of the Armenian alphabet in 451) and Gregory the Illuminator (founder of the Armenian church in 301 AD) respectively. The renaming reflected his philosophy of "Faith and Culture" as the twin foundations upon which the Armenian nation must be re-built. During the crippling energy blockade between 1992 and 1995 - a result of the Karabakh war - the capital was gripped by shortages of food, water, heat and electricity. Faithful to his vow that "the doors of culture must never be closed", Tjeknavorian maintained weekly concerts at this time, including a regular series of spiritual music concerts every Saturday in anticipation of the 1700th anniversary of Christianity in Armenia. Organizing transportation for the musicians and securing their daily needs, installing power generators and electric heaters and ensuring constant power supply in the building, Tjeknavorian turned the Aram Khachaturian Hall into a sanctuary of culture and faith, and was instrumental in lifting the spirits of the thousands who packed the hall each week. This phenomenon was memorialized by numerous eyewitnesses of the time, including former Russian Ambassador Vladimir Stupishin, who wrote at length about Tjeknavorian's activities in his memoirs.