VILLAGES IN SOME REGIONS OF ARTSAKH VACATED

Noyan Tapan
Armenians Today
Jun 20 2006

STEPANAKERT, JUNE 20, NOYAN TAPAN – ARMENIANS TODAY. Villages in the
Berdadzor subregion of Shoushi, in some parts of Martakert and in
other places of Artsakh are being vacated. As Aramayis Hovhannisian,
Headmaster of the secondary school of the village of Karintak of
Artsakh, mentioned in his interview to Noyan Tapan correspondent,
currently the capitals of Armenia and Karabakh, Yerevan and
Stepanakert, have become "huge heads" and their "bodies," regions,
have remained "dwarf." As the Headmaster of Karintak school commented,
if we speak about it in the respect of the number of population,
we can say that the half of the population of Armenia and Karabakh
lives in Yerevan and Stepanakert and "indirectly we are turning
into city-states."

According to Aramayis Hovhannisian, such weak regions can hardly
finance education in the future. "State dotations are needed for
maintaining education, I do not see any other variant for providing
a full-value education," the Headmaster emphasized. In addition,
many village schools of Artsakh have few pupils, the total number of
pupils in them is 7, 8, 9 or 10. "A village exists with the young
generation. If there is no school, there is no village, either,"
Aramayis Hovhannisian is convinced.

"Most of villagers are unemployed: one should have a job in order
to keep his family, the state should support villagers. No family,
no village can be kept with the miserable social benefits. So, many
people have to leave our land conquerred at the price of our blood,
they go to where there is bread and job," A.Hovhannisian said.

According to the Headmaster of Karintak village school, today this
problem partly concerns their village. Today the village of Karintak
has 600 inhabitants and 95 pupils attend the village school. The
inhabitants of this village having no sowing areas earn for their
living with money received from growing melons and gourds. "We are
able to live here by cultivating one inch of land realizing that to
leave the village will mean to surrender it," Aramayis Hovhannisian
is convinced.