IS AN "ARMENIAN" NEW YEAR MANDATORY?

A1+
[06:13 pm] 16 December, 2008

Prices go down during the holidays in almost all countries, except
Armenia. Prices in the market are going up day after day.

Citizens will not see a drop in prices for clothes, at least that’s
what we saw during our tour of the stores.

"We are not going to have discounts because demand is low. We might
set a 5-50% discount at the end of January on old items," said store
clerks at one of the stores we visited.

The store clerks at one of the home appliance stores informed that
although they are not paying too much attention to the global economic
crisis, they haven’t decided whether there will be discounts or not.

We conducted a survey among citizens of Armenia on whether they were
planning on celebrating the New Year with the same "Armenian" splendor.

"To be honest, I am not that interested in what’s going on in the
world. Why should the crisis impact us? Prices always go up before the
holidays in Armenia. I have already bought the pig for the table and I
will start buying the rest little by little," told "A1+" citizen Armen
Harutyunyan. We always see inflation in Armenia before the holidays.

"I don’t think that the crisis will hit Armenia because our country
is small and we don’t cut, so-called "deals" abroad," says programmer
Anush Minasyan.

Meanwhile, engineer Sargis Chepelyan is sure that people will feel
the effects of the crisis for a couple of more years.

Housewife Gayane Arakelyan is not planning on paying a lot of money for
food and presents. "I have decided to buy small amounts of necessary
items," said Arakelyan.

Surveys showed that the least amount of money that citizens will
spend is 80,000 drams.