CENSUS TO BE CONDUCTED

Azat Artsakh – Nagorno Karabakh Republic (NKR)
26 Jan 05

Taking into account the important political, economic and social role
of census for every country the NKR government decided on conducting a
census in the republic in the current year. The census will be held on
October 18-27. But first in spring an experimental census will be
conducted in the capital, inthe village of Noragyugh in Askeran region
and the village of Nerkin Horatagh in Martakert region. At the
National Statistics Service of NKR we were told that the aim of this
is to prevent the possible mistakes on time. In fact, afterthe
independence this will be the first census in the Republic of Nagorni
Karabakh, and for Nagorni Karabakh it will be the seventh. The first
censusin Karabakh was taken in 1926, three years after the formation
of the Autonomous Region of Nagorni Karabakh. According to its
results, 125.3 thousand people inhabited Karabakh, of them 111.7
thousand were Armenians and 12.6 thousandwere Azerbaijanis. The
representatives of other nationalities totaled about a thousand. The
next census was conducted in 1939. The number of the population was
150 thousand: 132.8 thousand Armenians, 14.1 thousand Azerbaijanis and
3900 of different nationalities. According to the census taken in 1959
the number of Armenians decreased by 22.7 thousand and Azerbaijanis
increased by 4 thousand. In 1970 the number of the Karabakh population
increased up to 150.3 thousand: 121.1 thousand Armenians and 27.2
thousand Azerbaijanis. According to the results of the 1979 census
Karabakh had 162.2 inhabitants, of them 123.1 thousand Armenians, 37.3
thousand Azerbaijanis and 1.8 thousand of other nationalities. The
sixth census in Karabakh was carried out during the Karabakh movement
in 1989. At that time Karabakh had a population of 189.1 thousand:
145.5 thousand Armenians and 40.7 thousand Azerbaijanis. The number of
people of other nationalities totaled 2.9 thousand. The next census
was to be carried out in 1999, at the time when the country was going
through the post-war crisis. `It was impossible to conduct a census in
such conditions,’ said the head of the National Statistics Service
Benik Babayan. `Now the situation is quite stable, there are no major
moves, the government implements reforms in the social and economic
sphere, the time for a census has come. It is impossible to work out
exact programs and carry out reforms without necessary information on
the population.’ Preparation works already started. Republic, town
and regional committees were set up. The program of the census was
adopted. According to Benik Babayan, about 700 people are involved in
the works. `This is an undertakingof a state level and the executive
is interested most of all. The statistics service only deals with its
organization,’ he said. The main aim of the census is to gather
information on working out directions for social and economic
development, demographic and social surveys, surveys of distribution
and use of labour resources, the number and structure of the
population. The NKR law `On Census’ was adopted in 2001. It involves
persons who are in the republic permanently or temporarily at the
moment of the census, as well as the persons who permanently reside in
NKR but who are absent from the republic temporarily. `The financial
means for the recent census in Armenia were mainly provided by
international donor organizations. But as the fact of not being
recognized hinders direct cooperation with them, the sums for the
census will be provided from the state budget,’ said the head of the
National Statistics Service. It is planned to provide 106.7 million
drams from the state budget 2005 and 13.3 million drams from the state
budget 2003 (in total 120 million drams will be needed) for the census
to be conducted in NKR this year. Benik Babayan mentioned that during
the census 800 drams per person will be needed.

SRBUHI VANIAN.
26-01-2005